Out:
milk 2.29
hummus 2.49
popcorn 1.99
crackers 1.49

I went to move my change tin and the bottom fell out. I didn't realise it has a lid, I thought it was sealed like the last one. I didn't want to pay for a new one, so repurposed a 2 liter juice bottle. I wrote the word Britain on it to save for my next trip.

I think being able to see the money in it will be better than the closed container. With the others I was constantly consumed with curiosity about how full it was and wound up opening it before the end of the year (I did put most of the money in the bank). This time my intention is to see how long it takes me to fill it. Atm there is exactly nzd30.00 in it. I also have nzd40.00 in my Christmas Club. I think the year is progressing nicely so far.

One of my favorite foods is avocado on toast. I have been eating a lot of it lately but I shall have to stop. I'm putting on weight again.

If I put nzd100.00 a month into my EF, it will take me 4 years to get to $10,000. I want it fully funded earlier than that, so I transferred $200 from my House account. The new stove can wait till next year. I like to see quick results and get frustrated if it takes a long time to reach my goal, as happens when I am saving for several goals at once. Something I learned from Dave Ramsey is the power of focus. One thing at a time. Prioritize and work on the most important thing.

I have to put money aside for a retreat at Easter, and also to pay for yardwork. I want to get my Travel fund back up to nzd5000 in case I am unexpectedly called to visit family overseas, and I want to replace the stove. I waill still be working on my EF but more slowly, maybe $100 a month.

I'm back. India was wonderful, beautiful, maddening and challenging as always. Full of contrasts, ancient temples by modern highways, incredible riches next door to appalling squalor. I'm torn btween weeping over so much suffering, and rejoicing at the resilience of the human spirit. The children in the villages were very happy to see us and they loved the hats.

I had nzd400 left over which I put in my EF; halfway to my goal. For groceries I bought
bread 2.38
red peppers 2.81
bananas 3.29
tomatoes 1.76
carrots 1.45
broccoli 1.49
avocado 1.69
bread rolls 1.38

New Year's Eve and I have one resolution, which is to not drink caffeine (on my 5th day) and one financial goal, which is to reach nzd10,000 in my EF. But we'll see about plans for 2019 after I get back. India has a wonderful way of putting things into perspective.

Another payday, another nzd289.15, split up in the usual way:
Kiwisaver 20.00
bill paying account 110.00
food 20.00 - spent 11.80
misc 20.00
home maintenance account 20.00

seems to working all right. I think I will keep going until I have fully funded the EF. I thibk I can get it up to $10,000 by the end of next year, barring no unforeseen big expenses.

Halfway through my $20 Challenge. Donig pretty well so far I think. In my envelopes I have:
food nzd16.00
medical/dental 360.00
necessities 9.40
education 16.80
financial freedom 17.40
play 2.40
gifts 1.40
Trans Siberian 128.50
change dish 9.60
mta vouchers 20.00
bus card 6.59

I also have nzd40.00 on my New World Christmas Club card. I dithered over whether I should use this money extra to my 20.00 a week food budget, but I will have to save up for next year out of the twenty so it evens out. I will also use my Trans Siberian money for othe holiday spending as I squirreled it out of my various twentysies a weeksies. I will start saving for Russia again in my travel account after I get back from India and have fully funded my Ef - which hopefully will be done in the next 12 months. Focused intensity, that's the ticket.

The Pet Rescue charity shop had wool for sale at $1 a ball. I restrained myself and only bought 6 balls.

With putting in little bits of money here and there, I now have $103.40 in my Trans Siberian fund. I keep thinking I should put it toward my EF, but I also want to save to reward myself for meeting my goals.

Payday. Today is the last payment of the electricity supplement, so a total of $286.69. I am capping my house maintenace account at $2,800 and my travel fund at $5,000, so was able to transfer $100 from each account to my EF.

I had $405 left in checking so transferred $300 to the EF. Over a third of the way to my goal.

So far my $20 challenge has been going well. If things keep going well I can see myself continuing this until my EF reaches the goal. I'm still planning to go to India in December, so will be taking a 4 week break, but the money for it will come from my travel fund.

I have calculated that I am currently spending a total of $210 a week. Multiply by 13 and that is $2,730. So I already have 3 months of stringent living expenses in my EF. I want it up to $10,000 to cover any major house repair expenses or having to fly overseas to sick family members.

I decided to cap my House maintenance fund at $2,800 so was able to transfer $100 to my EF.

Bought a loaf of bread $1.

Today was my day to volunteer at the thrift store. They had some nice bags so I bought a black and white striped one for $2 as my old black one is pretty worn. I also put $1 from my misc envelope into my Trans Siberian money tin. Now I have $12.70. It's such a tiny amount to be saving compared to what I need, but I want to get started now rather than wait until all my other goals are met.

Payday. One seventh through my year challenge. Also DS's birthday. I offered to take him out to lunch but he spent most of the day snoozng. Hard to believe 35 years ago I pushed out a 9 pound pumpkin. The memory of the pain fades; the joy remains.

My goal for this week is to have 7 NSDs. That's right, a complete no spend week. I passed a couple of op shops today: one was advertising a dollar of everything, the other offered 2 tops for $2. I didn't go in. I already have 65 tops - ok, some of them don't fit but I'll lose weight I promise.


I still have lots of oats, rice, canned beans, cabbage and potatoes. Looks like I'll be eating the same thing everyday but that's ok.

Payday. A whole $289.61 into my account. The electrician's bill finally arrived so I paid it right away, $222.63. Still left with well over $2,000 in the House maintenance a/c.
I had almost $500 in my check a/c so transferred $400 to my FFEF. I now have $2.082 in there.
I went to Knit Squad this afternoon and made a gold coin donation. I also put a dollar from my misc money into my Trans Siberian trip money tin. If I put a dollar in there every week I'll get there in a hundred years! But if I don't start saving something I'll never get there.
And I bought another cabbage and 4 cans of beans at a dollar each. It's a good job I like cabbage, and it can be cooked in so many ways.

For the months of July, August and September I am recieving an extra $20.45 a week to cover increased heating costs. I have the heat pump on pretty much permanently in winter, it is bad for me to be cold.

I went to the Caltex gas station today and bought bread and pasta for $8.60. I paid with one of my vouchers and got $1.40 in change. I will buy carrots with some of my cash on Sat, apart from that I don't need anything.

And I found 50 cents on the way home. I now have $5.20 towards travelling the Trans Siberian.

For lunch I made a batter with peaflour and curry powder and added the struggling bean sprouts to make vege pancakes.

Today I found 30 cents. At one stage I was saving all my found money for a trip on the Trans Siberian. I think I'll do that again.

I made some sprout scones from the recipe by Jack Monroe except I used kale. They were good; I'll definitely make more of her recipes.

Tena koutou katoa. I hadn't realised how much time has passed since I last blogged. Some changes: I am now on disability and my 60th birthday is coming up, so it doesn't look as if I'll ever work again. It depresses me, but at least I am getting more money now: $269.15 a week. Ds is currently living with me and gives me some money for his share of the power and internet. So things are manageable, but I still Iike to save money tho reallistically I'm not going to get to FI. In fact I'm looking forward to turning 65 when I will get more money from the govt!
With one thing and another my FFEF has taken a hammering and is now down to $1382.86. I want to work on getting it up to $10,000. And both the kitchen and bathroom need work so have to save more into the House a/c, currently at $2,345. I do have $5,000 in the Travel a/c and was hoping to make another trip to India this year, but we shall see.
To facilitate my savings efforts I have set myself the challenge of spending just $20 a week on food and $20 a week on misc spending for a year. I don't know if it's possible to get that low, but I'm giving it my best shot. Today is my third completed week on this challenge and at the moment I have in my envelopes:
food $11
misc $33
change dish $3.50
I also have $6.53 on my bus card and I started with a fairly full pantry so have plenty of food left. I also hope the lesser amount spent on food will result in weight loss. I've become vegan since last writing so that should help.

I found .20 cents today. Where to put it?

I have several things I am saving for. I am building up my EF. I have automatic payments going into my Travel a/c and House repairs/renovations a/c, as well as Retirement. I want to let a surplus build up in my bill paying a/c, and I am doing the 52 week challenge to save up cash. Anytime I get a bit of extra money I randomly throw it into one place or another. The problem is my efforts are scattered, so it takes me longer to see progress in one place. I have been focusing my efforts lately on the EF, and it is almost done. I think I need to concentrate on one goal at a time, then I will see faster progress. I will leave the automatic payments as they are, get the EF completed, then concentrate on building up cash. Just think, a jar filled with notes and coins!

1. save $5000 in my EF. (already have 2,449)
2. increase savings into Kiwisaver by $10 a week.

modest I know but my income is only $210 per week atm. Hoping my health will improve so i can take on pt work.

I didn't go out today, so a no spend day - just as well, I have only $7.40 in my wallet. I listened to Indian music and sorted out cupboards. I found my old recorder and some music, so spent a while tootling. Next year I am going to be making my own music instead of buying CDs. I also found a textbook on New Testament Greek which i started to study years ago. I'll spend time with that as well and read the Bible in the original.

I am giving myself a little pat on the back for reaching all my 2010 goals before the end of the year. Now I get to set new ones before New Year.

As this blog is supposed to be about my journey to Financial Independence, I opened a new account today and am going to place nz$200 a month into it, just for the purpose of investing. It pays 4% pa which is not brilliant after tax on the interest, but there are not that many safe income type investments around in this country. With all the finance company failures, it's no wonder people prefer to buy real estate. I don't want to be a landlord, so while the cash is building up, I shall research investments.

My other goal is to do some renovations on my home, especially the kitchen. I estimate it will cost me about nz$10,000, and can put about nz$150 a month toward that.

I knew I could I knew I could...

save up nz$5,000 in my travel fund

chuff chuff chuff...

I'm spending next July in Britain

wheeeeeeeeee!!!!

So I have nz$3,600 saved in my travel account and 1,800 in the account I use for repairs, new appliances and anything else connected with the house. And I keep wanting to shift some money across to get the travel a/c up to $5,000, which is what I intend to spend on my trip.

I *must not* do this! Sure as eggs, Murphy will puncture the water heater or something. Besides, there is a $1 withdrawal disincentive on that particular a/c. Patience patience. I will get there by the end of the year.

I have been a black belt tightwad this week - only spending money on groceries and busfare. I saw a couple nice tops I wanted to buy, but desisted and put the money into my travel account. Now I have the return plane fare saved up, everything I can save will be for spending money when I go to Britain next July. So instead of buying anything now I will buy it when I get to London.

This blog may become very boring - how many times can you boast of a NSD before people get fed up.

I've been listeneing to Dave Ramsey online and I like what he has to say about getting focused on one goal at a time. At the moment I'm putting a little bit here and a little bit there for half a dozen things, and I feel like I'm not making any progress. Getting one goal acheived before going on to the next strikes me as a good idea.

So today I took the nz$800 I'd saved in my travel account and added it to my EF, bringing the total to $2500. When that is completed I will increase my contribution to Kiwisaver, and after that focus on the trip saving.

I wonder why it seems so much harder to save money than pay off debt. With the money sitting in the bank, there's always something to spend it on and it grows so slooooowly.

I haven't totalled up the exact amount of dollars and cents, but I'm pretty certain I'm better off than I was 12 months ago. So my New Year resolution is to keep going as I am. By December 31st 2010 I should have:

nz$5,000 in fully funded emergancy fund

be saving 8% of gross income into Kiwisaver for retirement

have saved nz$2,000 for airplane tickets to Britain

pretty grown up for the teenage decade.

I used an online calculator to work out how much I would need to save. At current interest rates, to replace the sickness benefit of $nz190 a week, I would need nz200-300 thousand. That seems so much I got depressed wondering how on earth I could possibly reach that amount.

Then I realised, at the moment I earn $139 a week in the hand, so to get up to $190, I only have to have nz51 a week interest coming in. Much more manageable - smiles again.

The traditional route calls for investing in somewhere like the stock market and letting your gains compound. This does not work for me becuase of the abatement regime. I need to have use of the interest to avoid being squeezed.

So what I am going to do is start paying my savings into an interest bearing investment. As the amount of interest paid to me rises, so the amount I am recieving from the govt will go down. And I can carry on paying a percentage from my jobs into Kiwisaver for retirement. Sorted!

There is a big stink going on at the moment caused by a politician's decision to release the welfare detAils of 2 women who criticised the govt.

http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/privacy-issues-stir-bennett-...

I'm not happy at the thought if I decide to go public on an issue my file may wind up on the minister's desk and then splattered all over the media leaving me to be villified by talk back hosts and bloggers. Hey, some people are convinced that everyone who recieves disability is a malingerer.

When someone applies for public assistance to which they are legally entitled, they have to give a great deal of private information - one reason I'd love to get off welfare. Amounts to which people are entitled can easily be worked out if you know their circumstances, but also you have to inform the govt dept about details of child support, p/t jobs, financial assets, etc. Is a welfare recipient entitled to expect those details to be kept confidential? And what about medical conditions of people on disability? Are they to be discussed in the media?

So even though I have a bigger income now, I'm still determined to keep costs down and save as much as possible. Every dollar closer to financial independence makes me less dependent on the govt and the whims of some politicain. It seems a very long way off on what I have now - but I will make it happen, some day.