Slow Moving Saturday

Although I love my husband, I really enjoy when he is working days on Saturday because I always get so much done. I don't really sleep in anymore, but on the weekends I always take my time getting out of bed. Then when I finally do, I take my time having my morning coffee and prepare a proper breakfast (today was scrambled eggs and cheese on a bagel).

Saturday is also my grocery shopping day. This is probably a contraction to something I've said before but I hardly pay attention to flyers anymore. We only have one option in my small town so I tend to shop what we are caving and want to eat for the week - if it's on sale it's just an added bonus. Does anyone else shop this way?

$21.98 worth of groceries for the week

This week our plan is:

• Macaroni and tuna salad with fresh bread
• Penne alla vodka
• Rib meat wraps
• Salami sandwiches
• Pumpkin spiced cupcakes (not for dinner obviously lol)
• Mini pizzas!

The macaroni salad we've been craving for a while. We have ½ a homemade loaf of bread in the freezer that I had made a few weeks ago so that will clear some space. The penne is going to be a new recipe for me to try. When my parents were visiting my mom had purchased a small bottle of vodka for mix and I had no idea what to do with the left overs - pasta it is! Rib wraps is from left over ribs we had made. G removed all the meat from the bones so we could do something different; this will most likely get eaten first. The salami, well that's again just some meat we had in the fridge. We have some mozzarella too so maybe we can make mini pizzas one night (pizza sauce is in the freezer). Adding this to my meal plan now - I guess I'm planning on the fly! The pumpkin spiced cupcakes will be a bit of a treat for G and myself, plus I will bring some to work. I have a spiced cake mix, and homemade pumpkin puree in the freezer from last year (someone at work was giving away free pumpkins so I roasted the two I took and turned them into puree for later use).

I think that should be good for a week if not a little bit more. I always bring left overs for lunch or I've been eating a lot of hummus and veggies recently. G is working days next week and will be gone most of Tuesday as he picked up an overtime shift on his day off. Hopefully he will be home for dinner.

My slow but productive Saturday continues now. I just heard the laundry finish. Lucky for me, my earl grey tea has just kicked in and I'm ready for another round of cleaning! 

- M

Help!

Hi everyone! I survived the move and will write a more detailed post in the coming week but I need some advice.

We didn't have 20% down to purchase this house so we had to pay CMHC insurance - this was rolled into our mortgage. Now the Crown pays for CMHC insurance - but it is a taxable benefit. We received a cheque from the lawyers office yesterday for $3250.00 to cover our CMHC fees. This money doesn't have to be used to pay CMHC, it's ours to do whatever we feel right - I've checked and rechecked, the only thing that we were constantly reminded of is it will be taxed at the end of the year. So my question is: do we put it on our mortgage - which we are on track to pay off in 18years and have a 5yr fixed rate of 2.89%? Or should we roll it into my spousal RRSP so G gets the tax benefit this year? Or should we go on a vacation (lol jk).

We are leaning towards the RRSP since it'll have more time to compound and we are comfortable with our mortgage amount.

Any opinions?

- M

Mortgage Chat

We decided with this new mortgage to change things up a bit.

When we first bought our house 3.5 years ago, we went with a 25 year mortgage. It was a manageable payment, that's all we really cared about at the time. I remember the first anniversary of our mortgage we got an information sheet from our bank explaining how much we paid, the interest rate, etc etc. Pretty neat overview of our largest debt - until I got to the principle and interest breakdown from our payments. How depressing to see more money going to interest than principle. But alas, we had much bigger and more expensive fish to fry.

Now we are in a position where the mortgage is our only debt. If we kept things the same and ported our mortgage, we would have been on track to pay it off in 21.5 years (that half is important to me for some reason). But what fun is that? So instead we opted to pay the fee to break our current mortgage and secure a much better interest rate plus change the amortization to 20 years. The biggest difference, however, was when we changed our payment frequencies. Right now we pay monthly, we could have changed this any time but never really thought about it. With the new mortgage we changed our payments to accelerated bi-weekly. Doing that alone shaved off an entire two years of payments! So now we are set to be mortgage free in 18 years - or when I'm 43. How sick is that? And that's not if we pay any extra - which our mortgage allows without any penalties.

I'm really proud since not only did we get rid of 3.5 years off our mortgage by just changing a few things, but we also did this all while doubling the amount of our mortgage. Not that the mortgage amount is something to be proud of but it's a huge motivator to get it paid off even sooner!

We are also taking this opportunity to change our insurances (both auto and house) around a bit, but once I get the final numbers I'll share with you what we saved. :)

10 days until the move!

- M

A Home Sold & A House Bought: The Final Chapter

If you haven’t read Part One or Part Two click for the links

Okay, so ND Chic totally got it right. We went with house #2!

Not only was it the house I had the best feeling about; it was also in the best shape, in our price range, and was the ‘youngest’.

Okay, so there we were in the basement of House #3. G and I discussing, our realtor adding some input and then G and I discussing even more. We opened up the offers $40,000 below asking price - we knew no matter how much we offered, the seller would counter and we weren’t going to offer the asking price. So we were able to sign the documents right then and there and went along our day.

The next morning our realtor calls up and says we have a counter. The seller only dropped by $10,000. We aren’t impressed. So we add $10,000 to our offer and the seller counters back within a few hours, dropping only $5000 more stating they were firm. At this point we are only $10,000 shy of agreeing and we were getting at the top of what we wanted to pay. There was lots of back and forth that day, all within a short amount of time too. So we backed off, or at least that’s what the seller and their realtor thought. We talked it over with our realtor and she suggested playing a bit of head games since so much had happened that day. Wait and counter in the morning - give the seller one sleepless night with our pause. Let them think about if it was really worth loosing the sale of the house by a few thousand dollars. We agreed we would counter $5000 more - meeting half way but not doing that until the morning. 

It’s totally worked.

First thing that morning (before the offer went in) the sellers realtor was contacting our realtor asking if we were going to consider the offer. “Well they aren’t sure, there are a few other houses they were looking at and they are getting new the top of what they want to spend on this house.” Late morning, our offer went in and we had a signed acceptance within the hour! Yay! 

The only conditions we had: Make sure it was cleaned up, aka all the garbage and crap was gone from the renters, Financing and Home Inspection.

Financing is approved. We were actually approved within two days, lol. I remember when G was trying to get approval for the mortgage on our current house and had such a rough time. No assets, LOC and Credit Cards all with balances, car loan and a shitty income. How much can change in a short amount of time. 

Home Inspection was done today and was extremely positive. The guy was really impressed with everything and confirmed the fix ups we already were figuring. G drove down to do a walk thru with the inspector after he was done and said that the renters had been all moved out and things looked a lot better then when we first seen the house.

Conditions should be removed this week. I’m so excited!

This month is going to go so fast. Now to get everything else organized, at least this move isn't from Ontario to Saskatchewan. Two provinces (then) vs. two hours (now). Much much better.

- M  

A Home Sold & A House Bought: Part Two

If you didn’t read Part One of this post here is the link.

I’m so glad we went on our own that day, I really needed the time to mental regroup. We looked at every single house that seemed promising - over 15 houses. Two that we really wanted to look at - we couldn’t get appointments for that day.

 

• I’m just going to add a little side bar here: I know that doesn’t seem like a lot of houses but it was ALL of the houses in our price range. We are transferring to another small town so that was pretty much the majority of the housing market.

Out of all those houses: only one was left on our list (plus the two houses we couldn’t get into). I have never been so defeated in my life. When we go home to our little sweet old home that night I started crying. We weren’t going to find a home within our price range that was livable. Time was running out, I was exhausted, still sick and stressed. Thank god for G because he calmed me right down and promised me we wouldn’t be homeless (lol).

So the week goes by, we get pre-approved for a $250,000 mortgage (out of our price range/comfort zone). We also finally get approved for the House Hunting Trip. So beginnings lots of conference calls, reading of policy, asking questions, referring back to the policy when answers are slightly confusing. I shouldn’t complain because there are a lot of perks that come with a transfer - which I will get too - but oh my gosh is there a lot to take in.

So fast forward to this last Monday, three houses left.

House Number 1: Slightly out of our comfort zone but if we got it for the right price it would work. A few issues with it that we would need to fix but awesome for resale (remember we aren’t only trying to find a home for us but G will get transferred sometime in the next 5 years so we need to think about resale too). Any changes we do to the property won’t add anymore value, since it’s pretty much all done. Hmmm, something to think about. We get a text from the realtor who is selling the property: very motivated sellers. Hmmm.

House Number 2: This is the only property that made the cut during the first house hunting trip. The realtor (different from House Number 1) texted our realtor and let us know that the seller was flexible with the price. Hmmmmmmmmmm. 

• Side bar (again) - You might be thinking “Wow. Desperate much?” Yup! We are buying not only a buyer market but a depressed buyers market. In the last 7 months: only two houses have sold and they sold for way under the asking price. So many of the houses we looked during our first trip were vacant, because people up and left due to the downturn in the economy there. It sounds evil but during negotiate we used this to our advantage. 

House Number 2 (cont): Okay, price thing shoved to the back of my mind I needed to focus on the property. It currently is a rental but the people were starting to move out and it would be vacant for March (so might be available for a quick closing). Kitchen is beautifully upgraded, new furnace, brand new fascia, soffits and eaves, new washer and dryer, attached garage with huge workspace for G, very family friendly. The bad: the bathrooms need a complete gut job, the roof is old (no leaking yet) but will most likely need to be replaced soon, the renters completely destroyed the place… It was so dirty, they had a puppy who chewed on the stair railings. I guess the owner didn’t even know about all this and when we texted the realtor to let her know it was disgusting she was shocked. The renters had only been there for two months… Oi. 

House Number 3: This house is a foreclosure, title already had gone thru the court systems and is now owned by a local bank. It has been on the market for over a year, just sitting there empty. G was so excited about this one, it has so much potential! Amazing price, 150k below what the other houses around it were trying to sell for. But once we got inside I understood why. So much work, it wouldn’t even be livable right away. I tried to open some of the kitchen drawers and they wouldn’t open because the tile on the kitchen counters was blocking the drawer from opening… LOL I was just laughing at this point and saying nope nope nope nope nope. Surprise: this isn’t the house we chose. That tile mistake wasn’t just in the kitchen, same thing in the bathroom! The bedrooms were so small, only a twin would be able to fit in two and maybe in a double for the master. And the real kicker: some of the siding was already falling off. Like one piece was crumpled on the ground. Really? 

So while we were in House Number 3’s unfinished basement we discussed our options and made an offer one of the houses. (HGTV's House Hunters Theme Song): Did we choose:

House Number 1: The finished, slightly-out-of-comfort-zone-priced property with the motivated sellers but no room to make money?

House Number 2: The dirty formal rental that needs some work with the good bones but also potentially expensive fixes for the future? 

House Number 3: No, just no.

Stay tuned to find out ;)

A Home Sold & A House Bought: Part One

Let me just start with: I don’t know how we pulled this off but we had too and we did it. 

WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!! :D

Okay, enough celebrating (yay!), let me go back to beginning:

In the last post, I let you all know that the buyer had accepted a counter offer and our home was under contract. There were three conditions: financing, home inspection, furnace inspection. 

Step One: The financing. The Credit Union wasn’t an issue - the guy that bought our house has been a long time member and helps run the very successful family business here in town. Not a major risk. CMHC however stepped in. They wanted an appraisal of our property. Normally I would think this is routine but the following text from our realtor scared the shit out of me:

“Now you can start praying too. If this appraisal is too low (Buyer’s name) either has to come up with cash difference or you will have to negotiate a lower price for it to go through. (Buyer’s name) argument could be that no bank will finance it at that price. Just giving you the worst case scenario."

I didn’t sleep at all that night, lol. 

So the appraisal came and went. A few days later, we were told the financing conditions were removed. Huugggeeee sigh of relief. We actually just found out that the appraisal did come in under the purchase price (although we will never know what the amount was) but the buyer just put down more money. I guess that’s one plus about living in a small town with not a lot of good housing options: people over pay. We got $4000 more than we were expecting on this house (aka our bottom line) so it was a nice plus for us. 

So one condition down, two conditions left. 

Step Two: Furnace Inspection. Tuesday (two days before the conditions are to be removed) I get a text from our realtor asking if the furnace inspector could stop in a few hours to do the inspection. I'm not going to say no, we are running out of time to do all of this.

Wait - I need to you to also know during this hectic/stressful week was also the week my body decided to get the flu. I haven’t had the flu since I was a kid! I was off work for 4 entire days and technically should have stayed home an additional day because I had no voice from coughing and throwing up. I had an infection PLUS Influenza 1 - I lost a scary amount of weight in a short amount of time, I couldn’t stand up for more than a few minutes before needing to sit because my heart rate was so fast, and couldn't keep anything down. Not fun.

Anyways, so I was home (throwing up and on my death bed) and was able to let the furnace man do what he needed to do. That went well and passed - the furnace in this current house is old but still does it’s job. 

Step Three: Wednesday (one day before conditions need to be removed) we get another text from our Realtor asking if the home inspection can be done Friday morning. Sure…. but conditions are supposed to be removed Thursday with this contract. “Oh shit.” We said the extra day doesn’t matter to us, but we would like to negotiate our closing date. The original closing we supposed to be March 11th, this wasn’t going to happen realistically for us.

Wait! I need to explain a bit with how these RCMP transfers work. There are a lot of people you need approval from to go look for a house. We have our Brookfield rep, who has been awesome and answered every single question we had so far. Then there’s our … hmmm I forgot what she’s called, lets ask G:

Me: “(Name removed), what is her title technically?"

G: “Relocation something or other. The technical term for her job is useless"

We had a good chuckle. 

That woman, works for the RCMP and gives us approval dates for the House Hunting Trip. Then there G’s sergeant. Then there’s also our realtor, although she is very flexible with dates and my manger too. A lot of working parts here... Okay so we were looking at getting our House Hunting Trip approval the week after our conditions removed (oh I guess I should let you all know that Brookfield and the RCMP don’t see your house as ‘Sold’ until all conditions are removed thus leaving not a lot of time if you need a short closing), G’s sergeant stopped that request right away: not enough officers to cover. The soonest they could all make it work was this week (Feb 22-26). So we asked our buyer if we could push the closing date to April 1st to give us more time and we would approve a one day extension on the condition removal date. 1 days for 3 weeks: seems fair right?? Thank a higher power he is flexible with dates because he agreed no problem. Other huge sigh of relief.

And guess what? We went on Family Day to go look at houses anyways. G and I both had the day off and didn't feel like waiting around. I'm glad we did because THAT was a rough day and a huge reality check.

(To Be Continued...)

Moving?

The decluttering has continued this weekend: over 250 items gone. I know in my last post I said my closet was 100% but I went thru my accessories and got rid of a ton of necklaces and rings I haven’t worn or just aren’t my style anymore. I was able to sell many of them on the local buy and sell group so that’s a small win. I also got rid of a giant wicker basket that held flats and scarves. I didn’t get rid of any of that stuff since it’s all good, by just rearranging I was able to condense.

So, why the sudden declutter bug? Well, it’s been one of my goals all year but this past little while was because my parents were coming to visit so I wanted everything to look nice. But my parents have come and gone and I’m even more ramped up! That’s because my best friend is moving from an entire house to a one-bedroom apartment this week. She’s been really getting rid of anything that doesn’t add value. Seeing her progress (okay not seeing it but hearing about it) and being able to talk to someone about this kind of stuff has really made me excited to push myself a bit further.

But guess where her and her husband are moving too?

That’s right! They are moving to Saskatchewan!!!!!!!!!!!! Yayyyyyyyyy

I’m so excited! First thing I said was “We get to spend Christmas together!” which then followed “…. Are you prepared for the winter?” haha Her husband had been looking and applying to EMS jobs all across Ontario without any luck. They were getting really frustrated because he had great grades but no one was biting. They started looking at different provinces and I told them they should seriously think about Saskatchewan. It’s a growing province with a TON of jobs available (especially EMS), great place to raise a family (something really important to them) and I’m here (joking but kinda serious lol). Sure enough a couple of weeks after applying he had 5 call backs from cities and towns interested – this is after an entire summer applying in Ontario. One quick visit up and a few interviews later he choose the place he liked the 'feel of' the best and they will be about an hour and a half away from me!  I’m going to try to visit them either this weekend or next, depending on when they get here and get settled. G & I got them a $50 gift card for a grocery store in their town (figuring they are going to need to restock when they get here) and my parents got them a nice bottle of Saskatchewan wine to help welcome them.

(Back on track) Okay, so like I was saying, they are moving this week and driving all the way from Ontario to Saskatchewan. One trip and one trailer towed – she is in major declutter mode because of this. Her moving not only has gotten me in the mood to clean but also got me thinking about our next move. G has been discussing a transfer to a more specialized unit and I am 100% supportive. He has been talking to different sergeants and updating his HRMIS (our wish list of postings). The next transfer season isn’t until later this fall but it doesn’t hurt preparing for a move even if one isn’t on the table yet. Trying to keep any future stresses at a minimum when the transfer happens.

All this discussion between G and I has also lit the fire to getting a lot of project done around the house. I did the master-bath facelift just before my parents came, we painted the stairs and banister so they look fresh, and did some outdoor stuff (pruned trees, cut down a tree, fixed some of the siding, landscaping), did the living room remodel a while back. All little small project that really only needed our time and energy but we kept putting off. My house is looking really nice if I do say so myself, and more importantly it’s stayed that way for over a month now. Have I mentioned how much easier it is to clean without so much junk in the way? :P

- M

Donating Stuff

The decluttering has continued and this week we had a Canadian Diabetes pick up. 19 boxes full of stuff! I’m so happy to get all those boxes out of my garage and all the stuff out of my house. I’m sure G is happy to have his workspace back aswell lol. I love the fact that everything left has a ‘home’, it makes cleaning and tidying up so much easier and not overwhelming. Although this was a big donation I’m going to continue this trend of questioning if things really are being used or not. I have a box upstairs marked for donation and I already have 4 items in there (all candle holder I’ve never used, why I had so many - I really couldn't tell you). Anytime it gets full I’ll call CD and see if they will be in the area and schedule a pick up. J

The day before the pick up I got rid of 50+ more items and added another box of stuff to my donate pile. It was a lot of items I was on the fence about and when it came time to do my final sweep I just didn’t care anymore. I can honestly say everything in my closet is something I wear – which is a huge accomplishment for me. I got rid of 2/3 of my wardrobe and it really opened my eyes to all the money I have wasted over the years on clothes... many items still with tags on.

One of my ‘rules’ going forward is I am not going to purchase any clothes online. It’s so difficult to get things to fit, even when I take my measurements and compare them with those listed online for the garment. The last time I ordered online it was a dress from ModCloth that was on the more expensive side and even though I triple checked my measurements the dress was still huge on me! And the kicker was I needed to pay about $25 in duty when it arrived on top of paying to get it tailored. That was back in June so I’ve been good all summer not purchasing or even looking online at clothes. I’ve unsubscribed to a lot of emails because I didn’t even find myself looking at them but deleting a ton of unread ones all at once.

Okay, so no online shopping: big deal can’t I just go to the mall? If you are new to my blog you may not know but I live in an extremely rural community Saskatchewan. Okay maybe not extremely – but for this big city girl from Ontario it was a big adjustment (there’s not a single stop light in town & we are finally getting a proper garbage and recycling program later this year, haha). Anyways, the nearest mall is a 6 hour round trip from my house and most times when we go into the city we don’t always have time to stop and browse. But guess what? This is exactly what I needed, no temptation!

I’m not nervous about going to Vegas next month either. We are there long enough that I know I can take my time shopping and be mindful of everything I buy/make sure I actually like the items and they fit well. I have a few pieces on my list such as new jeans, basic tanks from H&M (seriously the best and cheap), pencil skirts for work (grey and black), another pair of work pants (to wear during winter), new bras and a trench coat. I have been savings up all summer plus my birthday money, which I will exchange so it’s actual CASH I’m handing over instead of swiping a credit card. I’m interested to see if I’m a little tighter with my money that way. :P

- M

            PS: Another nice perk of living out in the middle of nowhere: being able to see the Northern Lights from my bedroom window. Here are so shots taking from my husbands cell phone from our backyard the other night.

Photos don't do them justice <3

Frugal and Productive Weekend

Yesterday after work I spent the evening cleaning out and organizing the guest bedroom. My parents are coming in less than two weeks so I want the house to look perfect for them! I was able to get rid of three more boxes of stuff I completely forgot we had. Canadian Diabetes is coming to do a pick up next month so everything is being donated to them. I’ve given up counting how many items I’ve gotten rid of this year; it’s over 800 items that’s for sure.

This morning I meal planned for the week (I’ll add the plan at the end of this post) and then G and I went off to the grocery store. We spent $41. Woohooo! This month our grocery bill has been $238. That is an all time record and way under the $350 I had budgeted. Even though we are debt free we are still pretty determined to cut back our budget when we can or want too. So far this month we were able to add $500 into our emergency fund, pay our annual property taxes (just a little over $1000) and purchase a brand new shot gun (haha, random). Next month is a three-paycheque month for G so there is a lot of savings on the horizon. :D

This afternoon I started doing a mini-reno of our master bathroom: a new coat of paint on the walls and trim, spray-painting the existing towel bar and toilet paper roll holder (both of which were a tacky gold colour). Better yet we had all the materials needed in our basement! The bathroom is small without any windows so I’m just painting the walls white to allow as much light as possible. We had a half used gallon of paint downstairs that was still perfectly good so I’m using that. G has some silver spray paint so that is what he is using for the fixtures. I’m currently waiting on the first coat to dry and will do another coat tonight. Sunday, I can put everything back in its place. I also painted the door in the guest bedroom, plus some trim touch ups that needed to be done. Excited to see what it’ll look like when it’s done!

- M

Meal Plan

Saturday – Lasagna (was in the freezer)

Sunday – Leftovers

Monday – Corn & roasted garlic potatoes (corn was crazy cheap this week and the potatoes we had already in the pantry)

Tuesday – Burgers with leftover garlic potatoes

Wednesday – Burgers and scalloped potatoes

Thursday – Chicken Sloppy Joe's with Greek salad

Friday – Leftovers

Saturday – Going to a wedding – will be eating dinner there

Sunday – Chicken Shawarma

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

796 Items

           That is how much stuff I’ve been able to get rid of so far this year. That’s a lot of stuff and there’s still a lot more…

            One of my personal goals this year is to go thru the items we have and get rid of anything not adding value. I found a little notebook (why do I have so many notebooks?) to start writing down and tallying how much I’ve been able to sell, donate, give to friends and throw away.

            It’s been an on going process, and I believe it always will be an on going process, but each time I felt up to it I would tackle a small area at a time; one bookshelf, one set of drawers, bed side table, etc. And days when G was working nights or I had the weekend by myself I would tackle larger areas like my closet.

            This weekend we got some boxes and I was able to pack up all of the items that were in my donate pile, which was actually more like a room because our entire spare bedroom was filled with Rubbermaids and other boxes waiting to be packed. I’m going to give myself until the end of June and then call for a pick up from the Canadian Diabetes. G is gone for two weeks of training so I know the organizing bug is going to bite me hard to keep the boredom at bay.

            Also a friend of mine just came over and picked up a recliner and two DVD stands. It matches the couch we had given to her late last year when we got our new couch delivered. I didn’t ask anything for these pieces (both the couch and the chair) because they were hand-me-downs from my parents when we first moved out and I didn’t feel right asking for something. I’m just glad she could use them and I didn’t have to haul them to the dump, lol.

            The thing that surprised me the most was how many boxes of items were still packed from when we moved over 2 years ago. That stuff was easy to say goodbye too since we had clearly forgotten about it.

            The only other area I still need to really work on is the basement. Most of the other areas in the house are finished or aren’t as big of a project as the basement is going to be. Slowly but surely it’ll get done.

Anyone else been organizing or Spring cleaning?

            - M