2014 ... The Year That Was

As we all prepare for another New Year's Eve of celebrating with family and love ones, I like to reflect on this past year and what key milestones shaped it.

Things that stand out to me this year include:

• Starting CrossFit and really taking my fitness seriously. 
• Celebrating Kai's dedication and his 1st birthday.
• This blog getting some love from an My Child Magazine.
• Celebrating key yearly milestones like, Ian and I's wedding anniversary, our birthday's and Eli's 3rd birthday.
• Finally selling the investment property we previously struggled to sell. 
• Weddings!! So many weddings this year! But I love weddings. I love celebrating two best friends commit to being exclusive to each other forever.

A few key parenting milestones included: 

• Toilet training Eli.
• Getting Kai to finally fall asleep unassisted. 
• Watching my boys grow and develop right under my nose. It's amazing how much they change in such a short period of time. One day I get the new phase they're in, then a few days later it all changes again. It's confusing, tiring, challenging but I'm grateful to be there for it all. 

We all tend to look back on the year and think about what could have been, instead of appreciating it for what it was. At this time we also tend to start recommitting to ourselves (starting tomorrow) to become better than this past year. Usually setting big goals with no real thought process on how to achieve it, ending in failure and disappointment sooner than we started. 

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As this year ends I encourage you to reflect and celebrate what was great about your year. If you think 'there wasn't anything great about 2014 for me' then be grateful. Be content you've had a steady year with no dramas or major set backs. Be thankful for your family, your amazing friends, your job, a roof over your head or even the fact that you've been consistently healthy this year. 

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Enjoy your new year's eve. I hope it's cheerful, you're spending it with the people that mean the most to you and you get to enjoy the fireworks. I just hope I can stay up past midnight ...

Happy New Year!!

Budget P1 - How to start

It's a brand new year. I personally tend to look at new years as a fresh new outlook, a new beginning, a starting point, an opportunity, make resolutions ... you get my drift.

The new year is also the time of year I update our home budget .... *yawn*. I know doing a budget, let along reading about one is as interesting as watching paint dry. But I challenge you to stay with me, continue reading and maybe you might find the motivation to do one properly or gain some tips to improve how you currently do your budgeting.

What is a budget? 
It's a document used to project future income and expenses.

Why put one together? 
So you can see where your money is coming from and know where it' all going.

How do you put a budget together?
Before you get overwhelmed by numbers, spreadsheets, document formats or the amount of detail it needs to have ... stop, take a step back and breath. The challenge of putting a detailed budget can be very daunting, depressing and hard but before you start here are my tips on how to ease the initial process:

• Get everyone who works and contributes to the cost of running the home together in a room and explain to them you want to put a detail budget together. Understanding the family budget is everyone's business, not just mum or dad. My parents had a friend whose husband died at a young age of fifty. He was healthy, full of life but unfortunately suffered a heart attack whist running on a treadmill. One of the biggest challenges she faced after his death was understanding who they owed money to and why. Her husband always looked after the finances, she never participated or tried to understand how he ran the family budget. Getting everyone involved is good money practice, makes everyone in the home accountable and by having everyone present whilst putting your budget together allows you to identify everything that needs to be included.
• Pre planning: before you start writing down figures, identify groups of spend and income. What I mean by this us start brain storming categories for your expenses. Some suggestions are: loans, credit cards, utilities, home expenses, car expenses, insurance, transport, entertainment, technology costs, memberships, education etc.  

Creating a Budget 

1) Identify all incomes. Obviously this would be salaries, wages, rental income from investment properties (or kids), repayments from personal loans to family members etc. Write these amounts down and the frequency you receive these amounts.

 

Tip: For salaries only consider your post tax money this will assist in ensuring budget figures are correct. Your pay slip should indicate this amount, if you're not sure how to determine that from your pay slip it's the amount your employer deposits into your bank account at every pay day.

2) Once you've completed the identifying categories, its time to list items for each of the categories you've identified. Again, don't worry about the figures just yet, just brain storm all costs associated to each categories. Example:

Some categories may not have sub-items and that's okay too.

Tip: Really think hard about all the costs associated to each category before moving on to next category. The amount of expenses you identify will assist in ensuring the accuracy of your budget.

4) Once you've listed all known or obvious items associated to your categories start thinking about you and your family's life style and what you spend your time doing. Identify those day to day activities and start thinking about whether there are any costs involved. List all associated expenses involved in that activity onto your budget. Do you eat out a lot? Do you buy coffee or lunch everyday? Do your kids have extra curriculum activities? Do you have a hobby you regularly buy supplies for? An example would be gifts purchased for birthday events, its an expense we all fork out for but not a lot of people include it in their budget.

5) Once you have identified all items associated for each category, its time to start writing down the actual cost for each item. This process might take you a while, don't just guess the amount really source out the actual costs for these items. Find receipts, locate last year's budget or go to your online banking and find the transaction, given you used an electronic form of payment ie credit card, bpay or transfer. Again allocate the frequency of these expenses. For items that have a different amount each time and unknown frequency ignore for now and come back to it later on.

6) After you have written down the cost for the items you definitely know the cost of, go back to the items you are unsure of and make a calculated guess. What I mean by calculated is go back to previous transactions and review how much item usually cost you and frequency. For example putting a full tank of petrol for our car usually costs us $70 and we fill up an average of once a month so petrol I would allocate $70/monthly for this expense.

7) Include (if you haven't already) a "savings" item in your budget. You should treat your savings as an item in your budget, don't forget to pay your self! You work hard for your money you should invest in yourself. The amount you specify under this item is the amount of money you would like to save or currently saving every month.

Tip: You might want to make this a category in itself so you can have multiple saving items. For example you may want an item for holidays, children's education fund, emergencies, deposit for a home etc.


Next post I will provide info on how to collate all the information to allow you to see how much you're spending versus how much money coming in.

Home

We're back from our Christmas / New Year family holiday.

I can't speak for everyone else who was there but overall I had a relaxing time doing pretty nothing but enjoying the beach and spending time with my family.

Christmas Day our family spent it feasting, reminiscing, laughing and more feasting. Eli fell asleep early so we all waited for him to wake up so we can all finally open presents. Once again he was very spoilt not just by family but by friends who generously also gave him gifts.

New Year's eve we had dinner at home then walked to the local beach as they were throwing a free concert and fireworks.    

the little raver man and his glow sticks

We really didn't do anything exciting or ventured far from where we were based. We didn't take the little one to any of the theme parks, he would be too young to enjoy it plus the crowds at that time of the year would make the experience painfully not worth it.

The first 5 nights we stayed in a service apartment cause my uncle's investment property is very old and lacked certain creature comforts and feared Eli might not adjust easily.

View from our balcony

My favorite shot ... Ian looks more scared than Eli

The following 5 nights we stayed in my uncle's property. Both were walking distance from a beach, which I loved ... cause I love the beach.

The daily literary involved wake up around 6ish, going for a run, breakfast, off to the beach, return home around mid afternoon, unwind, prepare for dinner, dinner, tv or conversation, sleep, repeat.

Ian Dipple Lagoon, prefect swimming spot for families. Area also had many tables and children play areas.

I really liked Paradise Point, where my uncle's investment property is located. The area is quiet, mostly retirees (so I noticed), beaches are flat and family friendly, public areas are well maintained and lots of small independent grocers and coffee shops. There isn't a lot of mansions (yet) so it feel like you're in the suburbs but you take a right at the end of the street and you're at the beach or you drive 10 minutes down the main road and you're in the heart of Surfers Paradise. It's so relaxing when you're there in that area ... I can now see why my parents are considering living there. 

I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. 

2013 New Year's Resolutions

I don't know about you but I like to write down New Year's Resolutions. I like to make them for a number of reasons:

• I like giving myself new challenges or goals to achieve. 
• Making them at the beginning of the year sets the boundaries or time frame of when I will aim to achieve my resolutions.  
• Physically writing down my goals is a reminder to myself. By putting it out there for me to visually see regularly, I'm making myself accountable. Subconsciously motivating me to achieve these goals. 

So what were my resolutions 12 months ago and if I did a PIR (post implementation review .. project terminology and process conducted after IT projects have been completed) on these goals what would be my assessment?

[X] Be Fitter Than I was 14 Months Ago

Somewhat achieved. The first 10 months of 2012 I was pretty dedicated to exercising. I was more religious and disciplined than I thought I could be. I was actually a lot more stronger and felt my reflexes had improved. You hear personal trainers talk about how exercise (and diet) is a life style change .... I got that, as in I understood what that finally meant. I didn't find exercising a chore or something I should do but I felt it was a daily task that was part of my life. I didn't second guess doing it anymore, I just did it. I was doing P90X / P90X2 every morning then either running at lunch or playing ball in the evenings. Then in October we moved and the change in environment impacted my routine. I was tired more resulting in being lazier about exercising and even more lazier about dieting. After a long day I'm too exhausted and hungry to cook something healthy. Most week nights I was up later catching up on home chores making me still tired to get up early in the mornings to work out.

But this year I want to revert back to my work out routine and incorporate a eating plan. The reasons why I failed to achieve better results was due to my diet. I didn't plan what I ate and sugar is my kryptonite.

[X] Be Available to Family More

Having Eli definitely has bought us closer to our families. He brings us all a lot of joy and sharing more experiences together. I love having a growing extended family. 

[X] Find a Home for My Family

Achieved.

[X] Clarity in my Career Path

Achieved. I know when I'm ready to start working again what I want to do next and what I've out grown. Next step would be doing some training to make it happen.

[X] Go on an Overseas Family Holiday

Does my current vaccay to QLD count? I'd still consider this resolution achieved because I did go on my dream European holiday this year although not as a family. I was able to visit London, Paris, Florence, Rome, Crete and Santorini. I'm still to complete the detailed posts for the last few cities we visited. 

[X] Blog as Much as Possible

Achieved. I've even publicly started sharing it with people.

[ ] Learn Something New

How did I miss this one? I don't think I've learnt anything new. Does blindly navigating through motherhood and learning what does or doesn't work count? 

[ ] Pursue My Own Business

Still figuring this out.

[X] Give Back to Australian Charities

I've put my hand up and volunteered for a few charities this year and a registered blood donor. Admittedly I'm not regularly contributing to a charity. I'm yet to find one I'm passionate and completely interested about. If anything I've been reading a lot about the unspoken violence against women in India.

So what are my 2013 New Year's Resolutions? This year I want to challenge the following areas in my life:

• Change my eating habits. Eat healthier and minimise sugar intake. Minimise eating pre-packaged/pre-made foods and learn to cook basic stuff from scratch
• Tone my temple
• Study appropriate course for my next career move
• Take up a new hobby that I will continue to do post learning how to do it
• To not be not afraid to take more chances
• Seriously document and speak to someone about my patent idea
• Really understand Eli's allergies and get him eating more 
• Plan for Baby #2
• Stop over analysing and just be me

I think that's plenty for 2013 and will be a challenge to achieve some of those goals.


Do you make new year's resolutions? Care to share?
Are you good at sticking to them?

New Year's Eve

So in a few hours we will be entering another new year. How quickly the last year flew. I can recall what I did last new year's eve ... which was nothing by the way because I was pregnant therefore could not drink and going through the "always tired" phase of my pregnancy. Oh how I miss that phase ... I would be so tired at the end of the day that I would come home from work, which was about 6.30pm (cause we were living at Crows Nest), change into my pyjamas and crawl into bed.

So I wanted to do something I haven't done for a couple of year's now ... make new year's resolutions. In the past I've usually opt for tangible items or goals you can physically see you have achieved but this time I'm going to add resolutions that don't fall into those categories.

[ ] Be fitter and healthier than I was 14 months ago. Lose the rest of the baby fat, complete my exercise program and make life long changes to my eating habits. Make the time to work out and commit to it while you're don't it!

[ ] Be available to family more whether its through being physically getting together, random words of encouragement and or providing support.

[ ] Find a place my husband, Eli and I can call "our home".

[ ] Go on a family holiday overseas. I want to put Europe, I know its doable, I do want Eli to join us but I think Ian needs convincing at this point.

[ ] Strengthen my relationship with my husband. We were at a cross point just before we conceived Eli at times I wonder what's going on in his head and whether he's head and heart is still at that moment. I want our relationship to be like how we felt when we were 16 - I want us both to be happy.

[ ] Clarity in my career path. Do I made a career move soon or continue to progress in my current field.

[ ] Blog as much as possible. I add this as I fear I will slowly stop due to the limited time I have.

[ ] Learn something new.

[ ] Pursue my business.

[ ] Find a charity I want to support and regularly contribute to which gives back to Australia(ns).

I think that's it ....

Ok now to get ready as there is more celebrating and eating to take place tonight.

Happy New Year everyone