What a confusing day for my wallet...

Well, today is the day that we get some electrical work done to the house - I'm so so excited! We saved some of our tax return (an amount we BOTH know is a lot in total but is also a bit of a bargain because my partner knows the sparky), and we have him coming today. In 20 minutes no less.

So it is a funny day for our wallet. On the one hand, we have only the bare minimum to survive on at the moment, because we are still instigating our simple savings plan of pretending to just get by and survive at our means, and not above it. But on the other hand, by the end of the day, we will have spent nearly one thousand dollars and have a few of the things done to the house that we've wanted to do for about 2 years. So it's happy, happy, joy, joy on both fronts I think, because that one thousand has been hiding in our wardrobe for quite sometime, and we've been pretending, quite successfully, that it doesn't exist!

We've tried very hard to do this, a couple of times, but never had the skills to follow it through. Very much folks that want to stay out of credit card debt, we try as hard as possible to keep away from that nasty bit of plastic, and truly only use it when there is either no other way to purchase something (and the money is transferred immediately back on it), or quite literally when things happen like our dog "C" got the big C and we had to spend a lot of money at the vet's that we didn't have.

In my personal life, a lot of people ask 'yeah, but how do you Reward yourself for all the hard work budgeting?'. It's a toughy, to be honest. The answer doesn't make a whole lot of sense to some, and seems even more difficult than the budget is to others. So I try to explain that it comes on a case-by-case basis! That makes the Spenders' head's spin!

It's hard to explain that the reward for us IS the budget working, so I often skip that part and go straight in to what we get out of it. Like a few weeks ago, I did a deal with my friend on an Enjo-for-Clothes swap party. It was brilliant! I got $475 worth of clothes for only $77. That $77 was my reward to spend on some things for myself that I would NEVER have paid $475 for. The rest of my 'out of pocket' wasn't 'out of pocket', but my commission that I'd earnt by doing the Enjo demo for my friend. I hope that makes sense? I recently tucked away some money from selling a car seat, and some other children's items that were outgrown, unloved, and not used, and that helped me treat my partner and I to some very nice, high quality liquers that are going to last us from xmas through the new year. It did cost me well over $100, but in actual fact it only cost us the loss of some stuff that was laying around the house and getting in the way. So there is reward, even if there is more effort involved to create the income for that reward.

So today is a great day to be in our house! By the end of it we'll have exhaust fans in the toilet (so that as our boy grows and thinks his poo doesn't stink, we never have to find out if it does!), and one in the laundry (stopping mould growing on the occassion I need to use the dryer), dimmer lights in the kids' rooms' (hush little baby, no more feeling like you're undergoing a surgical procedure with those spotlights above your bed!), and a gallery of lights along my kitchen bench (so that some food surgery can be undertaken!) along with some other little bits and pieces. We've waited a long time for this, and we can't wait.

So I must go get dressed, because the last thing we want is the price to go up because the back end has fallen out of my pj's and the sparky has to work with sore eyes!

Have a great day!