I collected DWs mobile phone today - I'm glad the repair report showed that a short-circuit in the speaker had been found and the speaker replaced. There's nothing worse than dropping in electrical equipment that has an intermittent fault, only to get it returned a few days later with the dreaded "no fault found" message. The warranty doesn't run out 'til next monday, so it didn't cost anything to have it repaired. Hopefully both our phones will last for several years.

The dentist didn't have a vacancy until next Tuesday, so it's lucky that my molar with a large chunk of tooth missing isn't hurting. Upon reflection maybe this shouldn't be a surprise, as this is the tooth that previously had root canal -- so there won't be any live nerve left in that tooth? Dental costs aren't covered by medicare, so, unless you have a comprehensive private health insurance plan (we just have basic hospital cover to avoid the extra medicare levy) it is normally an out of pocket expense. It does count towards our total non-reimbursed medical expenses for the year - anything over the threshold (around $1500 I think) gets a tax rebate (of around 30%). If you can't afford to pay, and don't have private insurance, there is free public dental care available from the State government. But it's got a limited budget, so there are very long waiting lists for anything except emergency dental work.

The bathroom plumbing has been playing up - taking a long time for the bath and toilet to drain sometimes, and making strange "blup, blup" sounds. DW arranged for the plumber to drop by and clear out the waste water pipes with an 'electric eel'. Unfortunately this is a different pipe to the one he cleared out last year, and he couldn't find the access point. The drainage diagram that was attached to the documentation we got when we bought the house doesn't show much detail - and I think it shows the original plans, without some additions that were added to the house later on. The plumber had to leave to locate some more detailed plans - hopefully he'll be back tomorrow and the total bill won't be too high. I have a new flush valve assembly to install in the toilet - I'll have a go at doing that myself, but I draw the line at clearing out blocked sewer lines. I'm quite happy to spend my money for someone else to do THAT job!

While I was collecting the wife's mobile phone at lunchtime I dropped into the Aldi store closest to my workplace. They had a USB high-definition DVB-T received on sale this week for $79. Hopefully I can just plug it in to my laptop and watch TV - I'm not 100% sure it will work as the specs say it requires a 64MB Video card, so it may not work on the laptop. I'm also not sure if we have any reception of terrestial digital TV signals where we live (it's in a bit of a valley). Sigh -- another $79 that would probably have been better spent going into my retirement fund, or one of my kids retirement accounts ;0

The market was up 39 points today, which approximates to about $3,500 profit "on paper". I ignore such ups and downs in my daily net worth figure (although I like to plot the chart) - if I let how my investments were going affect my day-to-day outlook on spending I'd alternate between days of buying big-screen TVs and days of eating leaves and water. I find it relatively easy to stick to my "budget" for spending, and just treat by investment performance as an intellectual curiosity. I find that doing this also helps me to stick to my long-term asset allocation when, for example, the market crashes or is in a prolonged slump.

Enough Wealth