A year long money challenge

 I love a good challenge, it seems to keep me focused. One that I entered into twelve months ago was to put aside one dollar each week and two dollars the following and so on. I think some bright spark said that it would add up to almost $1200 if it was kept up.

Me, being me thought I would do it twice, one adding up and the other going down. $1 to $52 and $52 down to $1. I drew up boxes in my diary so that I could cross them off as I put the money into the money box. I bought quite a large one that didnt have a stopper so that I was not tempted to help myself tt it at times.

Having the actual cash in hand became difficult so I arranged for $106 to go directly into my saving account from my pay, as I couldn't keep it up. That was good and I did not take anything from there all year.

This morning I decided to see how much money was in the money box as I had continued to put coins in it when I had some and thought about it. The only way in was to cut it, a tin opener didnt work but a sharp knife and a block to knock it in did.

Look at all that lovely money, even some notes, I must have been flush that day.

I counted it all and there was $322 altogether. 

Warren came in and saw what I was doing and remarked that it was from the shell, he was gifted an expended artillery shell years ago as a leaving present and we have always used just thrown loose change in there, sometimes it would be used to get some coin. 

We decided that we might as well count and cash in the shell money as well. Only once had it ever been full although we had cashed it in usually when we moved houses as we didnt want to carry such a heavy thing with us.

Inside we found a piece of paper which stated $397.85 when full it was dated 13 Dec, the last time it was emptied. The shell was about half full and had $122.85, lots of five cent pieces and no notes.

Warren had to go out this afternoon so he offered to take it to the bank although we are keeping out some two and one dollar coins for our trip, often they are needed for different machines and they can be hard to come by.

My new challenge for the new year will be to try to travel for $800 or less a week and keep the food bill under $100 for the week. Both I think will be a challenge but I will see how many weeks I can achieve it. 

Kokoda Challenge

No, I am not going to take this challenge on although I do like a good challenge, this is one that I would not even have considered.

It is connected to me in a way and I have deliberated about posting about it on my blog.

Our oldest grandson who is fifteen and in year ten at high school accepted this challenge, actually he grasped it in two hands and run with it (not literally!)

So proud of him.

The challenge was over 48 kms in the Hinterlands of the Gold Coast and there were several massive hills/mountains involved.

He and his team mates, three other boys and a teacher left at 11 am on Saturday (with lots of other teams) they finished at 2.12 am on Sunday morning, fifteen hours later. A massive achievement!

Jordan has CF and has only 60% lung capacity. One determined and gritty kid!

Big week for him as he is having a nose operation later this week and then he will be addressing a 700+ audience regarding Cystic Fibrous.

My holiday challenge

I set myself a challenge for the holidays and as my work week starts to tomorrow, I guess it is the finish of the challenge.

I wanted to make one item per day out of my stash of materials, I did go and buy some patterns, I wanted one but as they were on sale for $5 I bought several.

There are three pop over jumper, two had been made/knitted but not sewn up and there was a pair of pants waiting for hems, I have included those.

Tally is seven pairs of long pants, three silk pjs, four pairs of shorts, five dresses and one jacket (this was an UFO) and the three knitted pop overs, one I knitted at night and it not in the picture so I think that is 23 items. Another dress is half done but will not be finishing it until the weekend. 

A good challenge and one that I enjoyed and I have emptied one of my boxes of fabric, only six more to go.

Electricity Bills

We have solar panels and had had for about three and a half years. At first our bills were around $60 then $80 gradually getting higher. Last year when we got home from holidays the panel in the garage was displaying a funny code. Ended up having to have it removed and repaired, thankfully it was still under warranty, just! It took three months and for that three months our bill was $362. Our solar provider offered to pay us compensation for not having the panels operating for that time, woohoo (we didn't even ask!) I received a cheque for $197, the bill is in my name.

Last bill came and I was interested to see how much it had gone down only to find it had increased to $384!!!Yikes!

I have set myself a challenge to see how much I can shave off the bill in the next three months, my goal is to reduce it by 25%, a big ask.

I look around the house now and the only thing on is computer and fridge, mircowave has been turned off at the wall, so has the washing machine and dryer, I only use the washing machine twice a week and the dryer rarely. Our A/C has an hour button on it and I'm sure that has saved us as we only set it going for the hour and then again if it feels hot.

I am trying to do any cooking or washing out of the peak times. As the weather gets cooler we wont need to use the A/C and while ours is supposed to be heating and cooling, the heating side of it went a few years back so now we use blankets if it gets that cold.