Monday 22 June 2015

Mortgage Milestone

The other day I logged into our mortgage account to add the balance on our networth statement and the amount was missing a digit. We have official moved into a five-digit mortgage balance!! How cool :D With all the shit that has been happening lately, it's nice to have a win.

Although our mortgage balance wasn’t that large to beginning with, it’s still a nice number to hit. Being under $100k makes it seem more possible to pay it off more quickly. Little extra payment here, tax refund there, bonus at work or overtime payout… I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

Yes, we are still extremely focus on paying off our car loan and we tend to be one-big-goal-at-a-time kind of people (besides our retirement which is completely on autopilot) but we are currently on track to pay off the car by September soooooo I think I’m going to make it a mini goal to pay at least $1000 extra on the mortgage by the end of this year. That’s 4 months of payment (amount actually going to principle) we would be eliminating. It’s a small amount but it’s a start, and more importantly, our mortgage allows extra principle only payments – so no money would be harmed in this paying of this bill ;)


- M

Saturday 20 June 2015

Bad Luck

I don’t think I’ve talked about my dog’s health problems in detail since this is a financial blog but this is going to be a more personal post so I apologize in advance if this gets sappy.

I have discussed in the past how our dog has been diagnoses with diabetes. We have her on insulin, which she gets twice a day and we believed we were going to get it under control. One morning over a month ago, I went to take her downstairs with me to start our morning routine and I noticed her eyes were really wide and she was really cautious going down the stairs. I didn’t really understand what was going on at first until she started bumping into walls. I woke up G right away and we got her into see our vet that afternoon. Mocha (her name) had gone blind literally over night because cataracts forming due to her diabetes. Although this was difficult to deal with we knew that if we got her diabetes under control, cataract surgery was always an option. She does extremely well getting around the house, since she is familiar with the layout although she has knocked over her water bowl on a few occasion, lol.

So we kept doing the check ups. We bought a glucometer for at home insulin curves which we would call into our vet and they would recommend a bump in her insulin. She seems to be doing better although her levels aren’t where they needed to be. She wasn’t loosing anymore weight, instead, was gaining some back. She wasn’t drinking as much water nor having to go to the bathroom every two hours. We were positive.

Then one night we noticed her eyes were all red and she wasn’t really opening them. It was too late to call the vet so we were going to call in the morning if it hadn’t cleared up overnight. The next morning her eyes had gotten even worse. The only way I can describe how she was acting was drunk. Wobbling around everywhere, her third eyelid was so swollen and red, she was batting at her eyes and her head was tilting really badly to the side, she wouldn’t eat. I called the vet right away and got her an appointment that afternoon. They had never seen anything like it themselves and were calling the vet hospital in Saskatoon trying to get ahold of the ophthalmologist for advice. We went home that night with three different eye drops and a referral for the hospital in Saskatoon. The next morning her eyes were 100% better, she was back to her almost normal self and didn’t seem to be in pain. The diagnosis: complications for her diabetes, fluid retention buildup around her eyes. Since the drops worked, we were positive.

At this point, as you can imagine, G and I are both emotional exhausted. Every time Mocha has a complication and it's scary for us, she fights and pulls thru. I know she is just a dog so not everyone would understand, but she is our family and I am so proud of her and her strength.

On Thursday, G took Mocha to her appointment in Saskatoon. She seen the ophthalmologist and had a medical consult aswell as a full check up. The ophthalmologist was extremely positive about cataract surgery and was very detail in explaining everything to G, even sending home pamphlets for me to read. That afternoon when I got home from work, G and I were discussing the options and doing more research when he got a call from the vet who had gotten some of Mocha’s blood work and other test results back. The diagnosis: Mocha has cancer.

Two lumps on her body came back positive, and we need to go back to Saskatoon for testing to see how aggressive and if it’s spread anywhere else. I’m trying really hard to stay positive but this last bit of news has hit me hard, mainly because we were not expecting it at all. Right now, the cancer is our main priority. The vet seems to think that could be why the insulin hasn’t been helping regulate her either. We are all hoping that once the cancer is gone the diabetes will be more regulated aswell.

Hoping.


- M

Wednesday 17 June 2015

Quick Grocery Budget Update

It is half way thru the month and I thought I would do an update with my grocery budget. If you remember from this post I am trying to keep our grocery money at $250 this month. As of right now we are at $132.26 which consisted of three different trips. No – we aren’t starving nor eating canned soup – just planning our meals out and being mindful to use what we have in the panty or freezer.

Meal plan for this week?

Tonight we made chicken fajitas yesterday so we will be having left overs today – chicken in the freezer, left over peppers and onions I had cut up last week for salad and a fajitas kit I found in the pantry.
Thursday will be breakfast for dinner – bacon was in the freezer and pancakes will be spiced up with frozen berries
Friday homemade lasagna that I had made a while back and froze, with some garlic toast
Saturday left overs
Sunday baked chicken thighs with vegetable stir-fry (veggies found in the freezer)

Gabe leaves Sunday for another week of training so it’ll just me to feed! I’m really hoping to stay below $200 this month and I seem to be on the right track to do it J


- M

Monday 8 June 2015

Retro Pay Update: The Final Numbers

G’s paycheque was uploaded to ePost this afternoon and I was able to see what he would be taking home after taxes and deductions. A little over $4000 will be deposited into our account Wednesday after taxes and deductions gobbled up about 40% of his gross pay. I’ve been calculating and plugging away the numbers to see how things will pan out this month. We have about $1390 sitting on credit cards from the end of May (namely vet visits and our plane tickets to Vegas) that will get paid off before any interest hits & then Friday when my pay gets deposited I will transfer $2000 to the LOC.

We should still be able to make an additional payment to the LOC this month no problem. And that was calculating that G’s second paycheque for the month is just his regular pay – when infact he is owed a bit over $3600 in overtime from back in April. I was surprised not to see it on this pay but I’m guessing it was less confusing with the retro pay calculations on this one. It would be awesome if it was on next pay because that would definitely have him hitting the EI maximum for the year and be just short for the CPP max. It’s going to be so nice once those deductions are gone!

Although, we are planning on eliminated at least $4000 worth of car debt this month, I also think it’s important that we have a bit of fun aswell. G and I have a few weekends off together this month (which is extremely rare) so it might be a nice treat to head out to the lake about 30 mins north of us and rent a boat for a few hours. It’s something we both enjoy and we always pack a nice picnic. Saskatchewan seems to have completely skipped over spring and gone straight into summer. I’m not complaining, but keep telling G this is perfect boating weather lol. It’ll be nice to spend that time with him too because I don’t actually get to see him much this month.

sigh - After eight months of waiting and waiting I’m so glad this raise thing is finally figured out and we have the numbers. I can’t wait for the LOC to go down to 4 digits! :D


- M