Second Winter

Saskatchewan was hit with a pretty messy storm Friday. I ended up leaving work a bit early to make it home before I was storm-stayed. My usual 50 minute drive took 1 ½ hours. I got home safely and G had a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge for me, lol.

I'm grateful we didn't have any plans this weekend that required us leaving home. We completed all the house work and spent most of the afternoon yesterday baking macaroons (see pictures below).

Green tea (matcha), Rose, Lavender-Vanilla & Earl Grey!
This was the second batch we've tried making, first batch was a huge fail

Money situation has been smooth sailing. I have a $2000.00 cheque written and it will be applied to our loan this week. I also made an extra payment of $500.00 that we had left over from one of my paydays. Ideal situation has us paying off the renovation loan by August. Honestly, as long as it's gone by this year I'll be happy.

Next weekend we booked a trip to Calgary for Easter, which I ended up just taking out of the regular budget. We also booked our camping trip for end of summer! Sleeping in a tent for 5 days in Jasper, followed by two nights in Edmonton where I booked us a nicer hotel (I figured we deserved it, lol). Those bookings I took from our vacation fund to pay off our credit card as soon as the charges hit.

I also had my final fitting for my bridesmaid dress. A lady G works with does sewing work on the side and agreed to do the alterations. Best park: it was free! G had sharpened their kitchen knives a while back and she told him if we ever needed something sewed to let her know. I'm going to bake her something though - just as an extra thank you. I also got my shoes. The bride said she wanted us comfortable in flats but asked that they are silver. I found the perfect pair at Ardene's and ordered them right away. Best part: they were only $7.50! I'm glad because it's not my everyday style but it looks amazing with the navy blue dress. I won't feel bad if they get wrecked from dancing that evening. :)

- M

2017 Income Tax

$4230 total refund we received this year. Sadly, next year will be my last time I am able to claim the Saskatchewan Graduate Retention Program benefit - which makes up the majority of my return. G's is mostly from spousal RRSP contributions and his overtime payouts being taxed at higher withholding.

When the money was deposited into our account this week the first thing I did was top up our annual payments account. We added $2300.00 to max this account out at $7000.00. Since we are technically a year ahead now to save for upcoming known expenses I made a preauthorized transfer to go into this account for $250 biweekly. That way the account is always being refilled, and our annual payments are on autopilot!

Now there is an extra $1930 that we do not have allocated yet. I haven't spoken to G about it yet but I'm thinking about making an extra $2000 payment onto our renovation loan and start that snowball. Our current balance right now is $12,932. Our interest rate is not small on that loan and it makes me sick thinking about how much we are paying someone else.

It's the next 2018 goal we had set for ourselves so it would be nice to get it crossed off the list as soon as possible.

- M