November Budget Overview

Home (12%)

Regular mortgage payments and insurance. Abnormally, this month we purchased some new pots and pans from Canadian Tire that were on awesome clearance. We have a cheaper set that was given to us as a wedding present that definitely were still useable but I always kept my eyes peeled if a nice set ever came on sale. The set we found was an older style that wasn't being made anymore and the box was a little beat up but the lids and pans themselves were beautiful! I've forgotten how nice it is to have water come to a boil so quickly.

Utilities (5%)

Normal range for us but I expect our energy bill will be going up next month. Today was -40C with the windchill, our poor little furnace: its not even officially December yet!

Transportation (9%)

We had a few trips this month for various reasons, including our dog getting sick and having to drive to the vet a few times. I'm hoping next month will be better in this category.

Debt Repayment (16%)

Line of credit payment, down to an even $4000 owing.

Long Term Savings (20%)

All our automatic transfers to different investments. We will find out wither we get a bonus this month or not at my work and if I do any money will go into my TFSA. I'm hoping to add another $500 or so this month to give it one final boost before the end of the year, so hopefully this percentage will be higher next month to reflex that.

Food (10%)

I really need to find a way to cut this back.

Shopping (5%)

A friend of mine had a Scentsy party so I purchased some new winter scents and other little things during the month we picked up, like a star for our Christmas tree!

Savings (9%)

Money into our house and vacation fund. Currently on track for our Yukon trip :)

Personal (14%)

I don't think I've seen this number that high before. A large portion of this number is vet visits, but we always have a bit of Christmas gifts, cards, etc thrown in there as well.

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I'm glad this month is done. Not the best in my opinion and I'm kind of getting bummed out. G didn't get any overtime at all even though the payout keeps creeping up - it's extremely annoying. But I'm hoping next month the debt repayment percentage will be a lot larger. I just want to LOC gone (again)...

- M

Side Hustling

So G has been hustling and I didn't even know it! Well, technically he didn't know either until this week, but that's no way to start a post ;)

Okay so let me explain. G was given the opportunity to complete the required training to become a field coach. There will be a new cadet graduating sometime in February and G will be his trainer. This was all fine and dandy but then we learned the awesome news that each time he will be asked to train someone he gets a bonus as compensation for all the extra paper work, now that is a nice extra :)  Any money earned from this will go directly into the vacation fund.

It's cute because while having the conversation about were the money would go G first suggested to pay off the LOC (how responsible, I was very proud :P ), but I let him know that we are on track to having it paid off by January. He seemed slightly confused how that was possible but knows I crunch numbers obsessively and have it under control, lol. He is happy nonetheless.

Also today, I did some pre-planning for next year and it seems as though our emergency fund will be fully funded as of April 1st 2015. If we can hit that goal sooner the more power too us but I know we will be booking our vacation around that time and want to make sure we have that money available in our vacation account.

We are having our first snow storm here tonight, expecting about 10-15 cm. Definitely makes me glad I don't have an hour commute to and from work anymore. Instead it's now a 5 minute walk or a 40 second drive (yeah that's right, I actually counted one day when it was storming).

Hope everyone is having a good weekend & staying warm!

- M

Rest of the Month

G got his pay stub already even though he doesn't get paid until next Wednesday, so I took this opportunity to plan out the rest of the month. Things are looking pretty good and we will have $4000 left on the LOC by the end of this month. We will also have a $500 buffer in our chequing account to get us thru the early bills at the beginning of next month. I feel this puts us in a pretty good position financially coming up. With the regular $1000 payment on the LOC in December plus if G gets paid out the overtime we are on track to have the debt paid off for January.

I know it sounds really corny and extremely cliche but I'm really looking forward to the New Year. I've started jotting down my goals which I will share closer to January. It's nice to be accountable and have a blog to actually track the progress. This year has kind of been a roller coaster for our bank account: paying off our crazy debt, getting into debt again, working on paying it off again, starting to save for our retirement and future purchases. I don't want to sound naive but I'm ready for a new start. This doesn't mean I'm going to give up for the rest of the year and let our finances go to hell in a designer hand basket; if there is a way we can pay off the LOC before the end of the year I'm going to do it! The countdown is on.

Anyone else thinking about the New Year? Please tell me I'm not the only crazy planner!

- M

Vacation

No, I'm not going on vacation again don't worry. It's more like a stay-cation. I had two days of vacation left that needed to used by the end of the year so I decided to tac them on with our day off yesterday (Remembrance Day). Yesterday I went over to a friends house for the evening, and today G and I hung out at home. We made Swedish meatballs for dinner; had the meat already mixed from a batch we had made & froze a few months back and then had mashed potatoes that a good friend had given us for free out of her garden! It was an awesome dinner and a nice way to use up stuff we already had. Now G is at work so I took a nice long warm bath (it's freezing outside!) and am curled up on the couch watching Gilmore Girls -- thank you Netflixs!

Money wise: G got paid today, just his regular amount - no overtime nor raise. We calculated it yesterday and he is owed just a little under $3000 extra in overtime. It's honestly like an RCMP savings fund. I'm just glad he has an Excel spreadsheet keeping track of everything and can mark it off when it's been paid correctly - I think the personal finance community is rubbing off on him as well, haha ;) I haven't moved money around yet as I'm expecting most of our bills to arrive soon. Our mortgage has been paid for the month though and that's the only one I really worry about.

Sorry for such a rambling post. I have nothing left to report, just I'm going to make myself a peppermint tea -- did I mention it's freezing? My poor furnace.

- M

Extra Savings & Planning

This week has been pretty significant savings wise.

A few weeks ago G and I called Sasktel (our cell phone provider) to inquire about getting upgrades for our phones. The woman we spoke with was super nice and although the price to upgrade early was insane (we decided to wait) she did save us $30/month while looking over our account! They had added a better/updated version of my long distance that was A LOT cheaper, and because it was an add-on option I had with my plan we didn't need to sign a new contract. So a single phone called saved us $360 a year! I need to really get into the habit of doing a review of our services yearly, even if they can't lower or change anything at least I know I inquired.

Also at work I'll be changing my insurance benefits so that will save some money every pay cheque -- but I just started that process so I don't have all the details yet. Once I have more exact numbers I'll do an update post.

G and I sat down and thought about our plans for his salary increase. It's a $5600 increase and we agreed to bump up his personal spending from $100 biweekly to $150 biweekly (he works way too hard and does a ton of overtime so I think that is fair) and add more to our vacation fund (we need to save $300 a month in order to meet our goal for our Yukon trip). That's just a rough idea at least. The paper work has been submitted but we normally don't see the raise for at least a few months when a giant lump sum of backpay adjustment gets deposited into our account - nothing quite like that to wake a girl up in the morning haha. Speaking of G's work: he's been working waaaaay to much.  :( They are insanely understaffed and he had a really bad week last month. I've never shared this on here before as I like to remain pretty anonymous but G is an RCMP officer, so understaffed = extremely scary for me. We don't live in a bad area but still they are kept pretty busy. He has a pretty clear career goal in mind, but I would still love the day when he could feel free to retire. That's honestly what motivates me the most. Small steps, long term goals.

- M

I'm back! October Budget Overview

Why hello everyone! I'm extremely sorry for disappearing so suddenly but it was a busy summer and fall as well. I believe things should be returning back to normal, hopefully. Winter has arrived here (hence the slow down in activities). Yesterday afterwork I walked around town with a friend from work as her son was trick or treating. In -6*C weather, we were all freezing after 2 hours. I've never walked home so fast in my life! Jumped straight into bed and tried to warm up haha

Soooooo, I'm really hoping that you would be wowed by our Long Term Savings pie slice but you may be wondering why we have a slightly larger pie slice that has returned. Debt Repayment. Yup :(  I'm kind of embarrassed but not at the same time. End of September G & I finally went on our honey moon. After nearly 2 ½ years of marriage! We took a road trip to Alberta (Jasper & Banff area) and we had an amazing time. That is a trip I'm going to remember for the rest of my life. I've never seen the mountains before and we soaked up every single second we could, went on so many hikes and a lot of activities. I don't regret a thing. Well that's a lie, because I wish we would have planned better but I'm learning! I have our next trip (Whitehorse, Yukon) planned out, priced out & a savings plan in place. So our Line of Credit is sitting at an even $5000 at the moment and the plan is to have that gone by January, while still keeping our Long Term Savings as it is (since all of that is automatic).

Good news money wise is that I have increased my TFSA contributions. So we are now putting in $200 bi-weekly. G celebrated his 2 year anniversary in his career which comes with a bit of a pay bump. I also got a pay increase at the end of summer. And the company I work for just finished their fiscal year so this means bonuses and another wage increase (hopefully) -- although I don't find out until next month. Oh! And I finished all my Christmas shopping.  :)

I'm sorry this post is so all over the place! But it feels good to be back and I promise less chaotic posts next time.

- M