Anyway, my parents came up to Sydney over the long weekend to visit me, for the first time since I moved up here seven months ago. They possibly would have left the visit till much later in the year (if ever) if I hadn’t bought them the plane tickets last month as a birthday present for my mother. My parents are not the adventurous travel-the-world types – they are creatures of habit. This was the first time they’d been to Sydney, and all the trips they’ve taken in the past twenty years is back to China and Hong Kong to visit family.

In any case, I think they had a reasonable time. We explored the usual Sydney tourist traps (Sydney Harbour, Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, Darling Harbour, Chinatown, Ferry to Manly), ate out quite often (I got my parents to try Japanese and Malaysian cuisine – a first for them!), and also visited a Chinese Buddhist landmark at the Nan Tien Temple.

It’s the strangest temple I’ve ever visited (and I’ve visited my fair share in my travels). While they still cater to tourists and ask for donations wherever they can, the actual location is just confusing. It’s located randomly in an industrial area outside of the regional city of Wollongong. It’s totally incongruous with its surrounding landscape, but beautiful all the same.

Importantly when it comes to their visit though, is that they met Kieran for the first time as a boyfriend, rather than just a friend. My mother also left my fridge well stocked with home cooking before she left. I don’t actually know which is more important.

Now because I’m ultra competitive and a little bit childish, I’ve decided to take it one step further as well. I need to experiment with makeup for a Geisha look (I have a fancy dress party to go to soon, and the theme is “G”), and after receiving some advice from makeup experts on Tumblr, am ready to do my own “Geisha makeup on the cheap” video tutorial.

Kieran creates CAD tutorials on Youtube as part of his job. His highest rated video is currently at 8400 views. I want to beat that. My aim is to get my geisha makeup tutorial video to at least 10,000 views. If I succeed, and beat his highest viewed count, then I get orgasms on demand for a weekend. If I fail, and he wins, then I stay naked with not a stitch of clothing for a weekend.

I can’t help but feel that I win both ways.

• chosen a free theme
• uploaded an avatar
• followed 44 people (majority are cat-related and book-quotes Tumblrs)
• not posted.

Help me understand. How should I use Tumblr? Who should I follow? What should I post?

I’m an Ikea fan, and would have furnished my entire apartment with Ikea furniture had it not been for the fact that I was on quite a tight budget so all my furniture was purchased second hand. In my previous apartment however, I had a number of Ikea pieces.

I think it takes a certain type of quirky interior design mind to be able to reappropriate pieces for other uses. I’m sadly very traditional in my decorating tastes! The most unique thing I’ve ever done was to turn a bookcase into a shoe-case so that I could display my shoe collection better. Not exactly revolutionary!

I particularly like the fact that not only are the funders supporting creatives financially, but that there is also a scale of recognition. My level of support of Ashley means that my contribution is publicly acknowledged, and that I receive two signed 4×6 prints, and one 8×10 print from her project. She’s an amazing creative, and I can’t wait to receive her artwork to display in my apartment.

There’s also some other projects that I’ve seen on Kickstarter that I’m interested in supporting and receiving products from. Some will be fantastic as unique gifts for friends, others are so ingenious that I simply want one because I can! Here’s a small selection:

1. Zombie Kitchen for myself. I baked some scones the other day, and they were fantastic! Zombie kitchen paraphernalia is guaranteed to encourage me to spend more time in the kitchen.
2. Moustache mug for a friend who actually has a moustache.
3. Urban vertical garden for so many of my friends who live in apartments and don’t have gardens.
4. The Shape of Design for Kieran, as an industrial designer.
5. Biochemies DNA Molecule Plush Dolls for a colleague who’s a scientist and researcher
6. Booze Books for those days at work when nothing’s going right.

…I can see my Kickstarter addiction becoming more dangerous than my eBay addiction!

Some of you may remember I had a regular weekly babysitting gig back in 2008, looking after a three year old every Sunday. These two particular entries may jog your memory. The owners of the GASP chain were the parents of that child. They were the nouveau riche – spent their time out gambling at Crown Casino rather than with their children, and were dismissive of everyone and everything. On the rare occasions that I met the people who worked at GASP, I wanted to punch them all in the face – they were hired on how ‘hot’ they were, rather than on their actual character.

If you weren’t already turned off by GASP’s attitude as shown in the email correspondence, I would like to encourage you to boycott the store. Not only do the staff have disgusting attitudes, but the whole philosophy of the store and its owners is one of nouveau riche flamboyance and moral decrepitude.

We are playing a game. It was proposed that us girls do something special in Facebook to help gain awareness of Breast Cancer. It’s so easy that I’d like you to join us to make it spread! Last year it was about writing the color of the bra you were wearing in your FB status…and it left men wondering for days why did the girls have colors (apparently random) in our status. This year it has to do with our love relationships, in …other words, for the status of your current relationship put the following drink:

• Tequila: I’m a single woman
• Rum: I’m a touch and go woman
• Champagne: I’m an engaged woman
• Redbull: I’m a woman in a relationship
• Beer: I’m a married woman
• Vodka: I’m the “other one”
• Sprite: I’m a woman that can’t find the right man
• Whiskey: I’m a single woman but with friends that won’t stop partying
• Liquor: I’m a woman that wishes she was single sometimes.
• Gin: I’m a woman that wants to get married

Now all you need to do is write down the answer for your situation in your FB status (don’t put this email, just put the drink in your status-go to your FB Wall and post it). Also, cut and paste this message and send it to all your girl-friends as a message. The Bra game reached the news. Lets make this one make it too and see how powerful women are :) . .

First of all, I’m not going to do this because it’s a perfect example of slacktivism which I find irritating. One in nine women are diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of 80. Chances are, you know someone who has, or has had breast cancer, ergo, you are aware of breast cancer.

My main question though, is around the vodka and the liquor women. Who is going to openly admit on Facebook that they are the ‘other woman’ and playing a part in the wrecking of another couple’s relationship? Similarly, who is going to admit on Facebook to family, friends and partner that even though they’re in a relationship, they wish they were single? Why rub it in your partner’s face? I have instances of wanting to be liquor. Would I put it as my Facebook status? Absolutely not. Those thoughts and desires are best kept my own.

Question of the Week: What type of drink are you?

Note: all the suggestions made in this entry are based on what I did for my own account, for my own financial situation. Your situation will be unique, and will require different treatment. Take the following suggestions, but don’t treat them as gospel.

Setting Up Your Accounts

At first glance, you would assume that “accounts” would simply refer to ones held at traditional banking institutions. However, in order to provide myself with a fuller picture, I’ve also included other accounts. As such, my accounts are set up with:

1. 3x traditional banking accounts – two standard, one high-interest
2. Paypal account
3. Cash/Gift Cards
4. Credit Card account

Paypal is fairly obvious – it’s really just like a bank account, only online. I always have about $50-$100 in there, so it makes sense to have that listed as an account, as that’s money I have after all! Cash/Gift Cards refers to the small amount of cash I keep in my wallet (generally around $50-$100 as well), and also includes the value of any gift cards I may also have in my wallet. At the moment, that includes a Coles Myer gift card, a cinema gift card, and a $10 scratch and win card my friend gave me.

My basic theory behind accounts is that they should be set up for forms of money where you have regular transactions. So I have regular transactions in/out of my bank accounts, and the same with my Paypal and the amount of cash I have in my wallet. Each transaction, no matter how petty, should be reflected in your net worth statement so that it’s as accurate as possible. So if I spend a dollar of that cash in my wallet in order to buy a snack? I put that in as a transaction so that amount is taken out of my cash account balance in Budget Pulse.

Figuring Out Your Assets and Liabilities

Liabilities are fairly straightforward – they are debts that you owe to another party. Whether they be home loans, car loans, student loans, $1000 you owe to your parents, anything that you have in your possession that isn’t fully paid for with your own money can be counted as a liability.

Assets are a bit harder to determine, and depending on the nature and amount of the item, could be considered an account. Using cash as an example: if the amount of cash you have in your possession changes regularly, it would make sense to list your cash as an account, as you can add transactions and account for any fluctuations in account balance. However, if you have a stash of $5000 under your mattress for a rainy day, and that amount never changes, that amount of money is better treated as an asset. This is the type of distinction that is best left to one’s own personal decision – only you know what your situation is like.

I have the following in my Budget Pulse account:

• Assets: Apartment, car, superannuation account, shares, electricals.
• Liabilities: mortgage, student debts, parental loan

Note that electricals is the only assets I have listed that aren’t considered to be a “large ticket” item. That’s because the electrical equipment in my apartment (TV, washing machine, fridge, kitchen appliances) have a combined value of over $3000, and do keep their resale value relatively well. Other possessions are a different matter – the resale value of clothing is negligible at best, so I’ve not listed the contents of my wardrobe as an asset.

I’m also lucky in that I’m not in irresponsible debt. My only real debt is related to my apartment – the bank mortgage, and an amount loaned to me by my parents. The student debt is only from my Masters degree – I paid for my undergraduate degree as I was studying. I made a conscious decision to let the course fees for my postgraduate degree go to student debt to the government. I figured there were more important things I could spend the money on immediately (i.e. I bought a car last year, and an apartment this year!), and that small regular repayments via tax would be a relatively responsible way to handle the costs of further education.

Inputting Your Monthly Budget

This is the part of setting up an account that requires a bit of work prior to inputting data. You need to work out a (realistic!) monthly budget – preferably one that is within your income! This is my budget, which I drew up in Excel months ago.

There’s a few points I should probably make about this:

1. The figures in red are what I have based the calculations on. e.g. Rather than trying to figure out how much my annual car insurance costs me per week, I worked off the red annual figure (e.g. divided by twelve for the monthly amount, and by 52 for the weekly amount). This is because for some things, you simply can’t work out a weekly budget – some bills come monthly, fortnightly, annually, etc. You just need to take the original amount, and aggregate that over weekly, monthly, and annual installments.
2. I have over budgeted in some areas. For instance, I don’t pay a full $400AUD a week on my mortgage – it’s more like $375AUD. I budget $400AUD just in case – e.g. if the Reserve Bank keeps raising interest rates, I need some room to move in my budget to accommodate these charges. This is the same for my mobile phone and utility bills.
3. “Private Health Insurance” has been highlighted in yellow as I haven’t yet actually spent anything against this. I need to buy private health insurance…I just need to figure out how much exactly for someone of my age and general health – whether I settle for ambulance cover, or get extras (free dental and optical), or get the full package.
4. This budget allows me an extra $1000AUD spare each year after taking into account my income. Including Dylan’s fortnightly contributions, I have $10,000AUD spare each year…which will probably be split up equally between domestic holidays and extra mortgage repayments.
5. This is a comfortable budget. The figures in this budget still allow me to dine out once a week, go out with friends, eat well, drive around shopping on weekends, etc. Could I tighten the belt further and save a bit more each week and pay my mortgage off faster? Absolutely. But just as I recognise the importance of having work-life balance, I also recognise the importance of allowing yourself little treats. I don’t spend the full shopping or entertainment budget each week…but it’s there if I want it.

Now the figures you need to input into your BudgetPulse account are the monthly budget figures. That’s one downside to the system – they operate on a monthly system, so you can’t specify a particular line item as an annual payment, or a weekly amount. It all has to be input as a monthly figure – hence having to spreadsheet your budget first.

Summary

Now that you’ve got your Budget Pulse account set up so that it’s specific to you and your financial situation, it’s time to start inputting your transactions as they occur! You should figure out the best way for you to do it – whether it be at the end of each day, at the end of each week, or when you receive your credit card statement.

Have fun managing your finances – I certainly do!

From the little that I’ve used of Budget Pulse, it seems to have everything that I could need. So far I have:

1. Input all my bank account details (not numbers, just a name and dollar amount)
2. Input the value of all my assets (apartment, car, superannuation, shares) and liabilities (mortgage)
3. Transported my spreadsheeted budget to my account, so I can track my spending against each budget line item.
4. Input a small number of transactions (as it was my birthday last week, I’ve actually spent more than I’ve earnt…a bit of birthday splurging never hurt anyone though!)

With all these details, the program informs me that my current net worth is $75,044.35AUD – not bad at all!

The program also offers pie charts and bar graphs to track your spending against your budget line. Would this be something that people would be interested in seeing – e.g. if at the end of each month I give a graphic summary of my income/expenditure? Are there enough personal finance-related bloggers reading this to make such a regular entry worthwhile?