Cupcake Memories: Life in Sydney, Australia

Are you the kind of person who would bother to take advantage of discount coupons? My other half is not but I am. I do not mind spending time surfing for online coupons that could save me 20-30% or a buy 1 get 1 free burgers, chips, free upgrade, etc.

The best savings I had was a buy one free one entry to a wildlife park, we saved more than $50 using the printed coupons! I don’t know why some people like my DH does not really bother to take advantage of discounts readily available but instead, choose to pay full price. Hmmph!

Alright, I have finally submitted my tax return vie e-tax for the first time last week. In previous years, I had used the services of an accountant. But I thought I’d do it myself this year onwards.

Thanks to DH, he helped guide me through the exercise and now I’m just waiting for ATO to mail me confirmation of my tax lodgement.

Do you ponder about what you and your spouse will do after retirement and when the kid(s) live away from home? I do! Call me crazy but I so wish that my hubby is the adventurous type who would drive cross country and better still travel all over the world.

I have often watched documentaries about how couples purchased an rv to actually live in and travel at the same time. How nice! Maybe we should start browsing www.rvt.com and see if we could work out something to invest in a rv for our retirement age.

I don’t think I am thinking too far ahead. If anything, I am lagging behind my peers. Life just took off a little late for me.

Do you have anything particular to buy? That’s what DH and me asked each other today. The fridge is stocked up, we’ve to eat our home grown vegies up this week and there is nothing else that we need to buy except a 3ltr fresh milk which we plan to buy tomorrow. We’ve waited for such days for so long ie days when we have nothing to buy. It simply means we already have all the needs and anything else would be just wants.

So DH is outside doing the front garden bed which after 4 years, nothing was able to grow in it, I’d say we wasted at least $100 worth of plants on that garden bed. It’s a drainage problem, the way our frontyard slopes down – I hate it but we’re stuck for good.

I noticed that this year we managed to reduce our shopping expenses (clothes, shoes, beddings, eletrical items, kitchen appliances, furniture, etc) tremendously. Each time we go shopping it feels so good not to have a “NEED TO BUY” item on our shopping list. In fact, we no longer need a shopping list except for when I do grocery shopping.

Took us 4 long years to settle in our home which we started off with barely any furniture and appliances. Looking back, I think we have come a long way. Our garden is also doing good, now we only shop at plant nurseries at leisure without the pressure of having to buy plants to fill our once bare garden.

Utility bills seems to be costing more as the electricity rate has been increased, *sigh*. It’s rather difficult to cut down on our water, gas and electricity usage as we don’t even use that much. As for water, it is the compulsory charges that make up the huge bill.

The only other area we could cut cost is to look at cheaper insurance; perhaps getting some home insurance quotes to compare how much savings we will make might be a good start to lowering our expenses.

We should really look into getting only the necessary covered and get away with contents insurance. It would be cheaper this way and I know many people don’t insure their home contents too.

Not being a car owner myself, I never gave much thought about the running cost of keeping a vehicle. All that was on my mind was the servicing and petrol.

It isn’t always until DH has to scout around for the cheapest car insurance every year end, that I realized how much more it costs to maintain a car. Now I fully understand why some households prefer to have one family car only and avoid having a second car if possible.

Will it be feasible for us to keep only one car in the long run? Honestly, I think not, considering the fact that we couldn’t just ring any family members (non lives here) for an emergency ride. Yeah sure, we could ring up friends but friends could only do so much and not as obliged as family members to drop all things to come to our rescue especially when they have kids of their own and need to be at work too.

That seems to be the question we asked ourselves during 2009 year end sale. We thought there’d be lots of great bargains especially on Christmas items. Either we didn’t look hard enough of it wasn’t as good as year 2008 and older. Gee I wonder how is it that the statistics claim that the economy has picked up and we’re at risk of inflation again. Yeah right! Anything to justify the rate rises!

I am glad that we do not really have anything important or urgent to purchase. Thanks to the previous 3 years of shopping hard work *LOL* We’re happy with all the basics we’ve got.

Now it’s time to save and think about holidays if possible.

Woohoo, four more days to the new year 2010. Have you any last minute task to complete before the new year kicks in? Like for example scout around for more competitive rates at websites like www.wholesaleinsurance.net to save some much needed money?

It’s a scary thought that each year’s resolution is to reduce outgoing expenses but it is rarely achieved. Well as long as one is not in the red.

We are happy that this year we do not need to spend on big items such as furniture and household related goods like how we did in the previous two years as we moved in with almost nil furniture and goods.

When I first learned about how much DH pays for roadside assistance, I almost fell off my seat. A few hundred dollars for every two or three year period, not sure.

We have only ever used the roadside assistance when the car battery died. So I don’t know, is it really necessary to sign up for that? I know it is wise to do so if you travel long distance frequently or if your car tends to break down often (touch wood).

As far as I could remember, my friends back home told me they paid very little for similar membership back home.