Organizing

Finished all my organizing goals that I had for today!

I spent the morning clearing out our bedroom side tables. A few months ago G and I switched the side of the bed we sleep on and hadn't switched the stuff in our tables. His stuff is pretty straight forward but it let me sort thru and get rid of so much clutter. We honestly had 10+ small bottles of body lotion. I ended up just throwing them out, it wasn't worth keeping them around and remembering to use them up.

I also added a few more items to my donate pile while sorting my closet. Mostly fall/winter items I never grabbed for this season, or items I put on and immediately took off. I'll have another edit later today now that everything is organized. There's a few things I can think of that I'm on the fence about.

It's been a quiet Monday. G is at work and I've working on our photo book. Hopefully we can get that done by next week so it's printed by April. We seem to work much more effectively when we have a deadline looming, lol.

- M

Long Weekend

It's a long weekend here in Saskatchewan - Monday being Family Day. G has to work the holiday but had the rest of the weekend off with me.

Yesterday we spent the morning meal planning. On the menu this week: pork schnitzel, Greek pasta salad, cabbage rolls and cajun chicken pasta (using this BudgetBytes recipe). After we organized, we packed up our SUV with a load of recycling to drop off and went grocery shopping. It was a pretty normal Saturday but it felt nice to get some of the garage cleared out - recycling is neglected during the cold winter months.

We haven't left the house all day today. Instead opting to watch the Olympics and I've finally convinced G to watch Mr Robot with me! The never ending laundry pile continues to keep us busy today. I cleaned out our linen closet upstairs. Downsizing what we had by nearly half. I have a good amount to donate, next time the CD is in our area. I made so much room I was able to move our bulk cleaning supplies in that closet so everything is in the same spot. I've nearly gotten a storage shelf downstairs cleaned off, which was a goal this winter.

Next cleaning goal will be our bedside tables and my workout/lounge drawer. I also would like to go thru my closet to reorganize and toss what doesn't fit for spring & summer. We will see how I feel tomorrow and if I'll be bored with G at work.

- M

Money Talks

February and March will be a good money month for us.

Yesterday was G's pay day, a regular pay day without any big overtime payouts but G also received an expense claim deposited into our account. $2200, helped pay for hotels, meals and incidentals for a few trips G had. We had already paid for all those expenses, so this was just 'extra' money (or really to replace what we had to spend). So once that was deposited I promptly spent on a vacation we booked a few weeks ago. $2700 was sent to pay off G's credit card (the $500 difference is just taken from our regular budget). This completely paid for our trip to Iceland in October! Flights, hotels, and rental car is all booked and paid. So excited!! We have about $1100 in our vacation account right now that I was contemplating transferring out to help pay but with this refund I figured I would just leave the savings account as is. 

I will get my paid tomorrow, so I can transfer $800 to our annual spending account, brining that balance up to $3600. It seems like slow going to bring this balance up - but it's going. The next few windfalls should help, nearly max us out at our $7000 goal.

The first is an unexpected bonus at my work. I'm not exactly sure how much will get deposited after deductions, but according to my best calculations - we should end up with about $1700 next Friday. It'll go straight too our savings since I honestly was not expecting this at all. It was just announced this week and I had to read the email twice to make sure I read it right - lol. I guess we had a pretty good year!

The biggest windfall isn't really a windfall at all: income tax refund. We have all our T4's and other documentation in and I have entered in all our numbers. We should be getting a refund of $3400 between the two of us. I will file as soon as possible so we can get the refund in our hot little hands. If we haven't maxed out our $7000 savings account by the time we get the refund deposited, I will max it out and if there is any left I will start to pay off our remodel loan. 

Some other snowballs include: $40 for dog sitting, $130 for wellness expenses, G has another $200 of expenses that is pending. With all these big amounts and little amounts, hopefully by the time March is done our annual account should be maxed out. Once we hit our 'comfortable' level we will still continue our $200 bi-weekly transfer which will help keep the account replenished when we have to withdrawal for property taxes, car/house insurance, etc. That's the plan, now lets see how it actually all plays out! 

- M 

Last Weekend

Last weekend was amazing. G had spent the previous two weeks in Manitoba for work, and although I am pretty much used to him being gone, those two weeks felt like forever. So I planned a little date weekend in Saskatoon for us.

We had dinner and drinks at the Cactus Club, went see Jumanji, stayed at a nice hotel, and spent the evening swimming in the pool all by ourselves. Sunday we spent the morning at the Remai Modern, then did our grocery shopping (for those that live outside a big city, going to the grocery store is a huge treat and really exciting, lol). We were home early in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day meal prepping an awesome dinner and we polished off a bottle of wine.

It was such a treat to spend that quality time together. Even gearing up for this week where we were working opposite shifts. Definitely money well spent in my mind.

Always curious 

- M