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

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 

Of Course I'm Sick

I'm officially on Christmas holiday until Wednesday aaaaaand I'm sick.

Yesterday was a nice day at work, everyone was in a good mood. We had 'formal' day at the branch and stayed after we closed to enjoy some of the goodies members had been dropping off throughout the week. Lots of wine, chocolates, cheese, crackers, etc. Some of the staff that weren't working that day even stopped in for our little feast - it was nice to catch up before the holidays and to wrap up a difficult week. Difficult week with staffing because everyone, and I mean everyone, was sick. And now it's my turn.

Started Wednesday with a cough, Thursday with an even nastier cough with coughing fits, yesterday more crackling cough, and today with everything moving to my sinus'. My head feels like a stone and my lungs/chest ache. Today and tomorrow I'm taking it easy in hopes that at least my cough will be gone for Christmas. G is working evenings so the couch and Netflix's are calling my name. 

I've started entering some information into our tax software. I recieved my T4 yesterday with my last paycheque for the year. Donation receipts I had printed and kept during the year, and our Graduate Retention program number I pull from last years notice of assessments. All my 'big' information is entered and it looks like a refund. G's we will have to wait as we don't get his T4 until the very last day in February. As other information comes in I can enter it so it's ready to go in March. < /nerd rant>

- M

RRSP Contribution

As I said in the last post, even though I wasn’t feeling to good last month that mood didn’t affect our finances. In fact, our net worth was able to jump by $9876 in May. The biggest bulk of that jump was from our transfer getting finalized and our personalized envelope payout. This ‘envelope’ has one month of G’s salary and can be used incase we need something paid for during our move that isn’t normally covered. Luckily for us nothing extra came up so we had the full amount ($7092.33) available to us. We had two choices with that money:

     1. Have a cash pay out.

• This would have only netted us $3700.06 after taxes, CPP and EI were deducted.

2. Roll it into an RRSP (spousal or individual)

• CPP and EI are still going to be deducted but taxes would be waived for the contribution. 

Important thing to note is this payout is 100% taxable for G, just like our CMHC reimbursement we had last month. Although that is a good amount of money to have in cash we didn't need it. We were able to do the bathroom renovation with cash we had already saved up and currently saving enough to cash flow a new patio door plus our yearly property taxes. So really it was a no brainer for us to roll it into my spousal RRSP - G has the tax benefit and we get the long term growth for extra money we weren’t counting on. 

After CPP and EI were taken out there was a $6607.92 contribution done. G will get the CPP and EI back next year when we do our taxes as he is only a few paycheques away from maxing both his out for the year. This entire move has netted us just a little under $10,000 in extra income G will have to pay taxes on, but I’m confident we made the right decisions to help prevent taxes (in the short term) and will net us much more during the decades it’ll be invested!

- M

Income Tax Refund & Car Payment Plan

We were able to cover a lot of ground this week because of income tax refunds. We were lucky enough to get all our required T4’s and other forms super early this year – so when we finally had my T4 (the last one we were waiting for) in our hands we went for it. This was our first year doing our own taxes and honestly I don’t know why we haven’t done this ourselves before. We don’t have complicated tax returns so we ended up using Simpletax.ca because it seemed the most user-friendly program. We just plugged in the numbers – had to reference the CRA website a few times but all the information was there and easy to understand.

Thursday we had $5448.26 directly deposited in our account and this is how it went:

-       $2000 deposited into my TFSA 

-       $2700 paid off the LOC

-       The rest to our MC to pay for a Costco trip G took a few weeks ago (paid off completely)

So it was definitely good timing to get that refund. It’s nice to finally have the vacation spending  on LOC paid off completely & it gave a nice bump to my retirement portfolio (I’m $1000 away from $10,000).

            Friday when I got home from work G was asking about what the plan was now that we have absolutely no consumer debt, full emergency fund, more income coming in and regular savings to both our long-term and short-term savings. He already knew the answer was paying off our car but I think he just wanted to say all those things that we have accomplished ;) lol.

We called Scotia Bank and talked to one of the loan specialists to make sure there were no penalties, how to set up pre-payments, etc. After getting off the phone with them, G & I talked for a bit and agreed to pay off the loan completely with our LOC, that way we can easily pay it from our online banking and also have a constant reminder that it is there. There is a 1% difference for the car loan which I needed some convincing about but to see G so motivated to pay this off really made me feel better. So we called Scotia back and set up the payment! Yes, I know now that this debt is 'callable' but even if that did happen we can withdraw from my TFSA & the EF and have it covered - that makes me feel a lot better just incase.

            Now that we don’t have to contribute to our EF or make car payments that money that we have gotten used to not using will be going straight to our ‘new’ car payment that is the LOC: that’s about $830 a month. So to have the car paid off in a year we only have to snowflake $621 a month. That’s doable and we are both confident we can pay of the car within a year. I’m making it a personal goal to try to have it paid off by the end of 2015. That would be an awesome accomplishment that's for sure!

- M

I'm back!

Nearly two months since my last post & do I have a lot to update.

These long Saskatchewan winters have definitely gotten the better of me and I kind of went into hibernation mode for these last fews weeks. But I am off work today and it's raining so I want to do nothing more then curl up with my laptop with a cup of tea and write down what's been going on with my life and more importantly: my finances!

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These last few months have actually been really good for us here considering all that's happened.

Mocha, my big fat adorable chocolate lab, was having a few issues with her lungs that we were nervous about so we had a full check up done on her. Although they actually didn't find any serious issues (other then pointing out the fact she needs to lose weight) the $600 bill was maybe the best money I could have spent. We've only had Mocha for a bit over one year, although it seems like she's been apart of our lives forever and both me and my husband love that dog more then I thought was humanly possible, and her previous owners didn't care for her as much as they should have. When we first adopted her she had a horrible limp and when ever she should lie down for a long time her hips would become so stiff it was difficult for her to walk. Of course we had her checked out at the local vet in town and he said to try giving her Glucosamine pills. Within a month of taking them she had improved 100%. Why the owners before her didn't do this? I have no idea. But what matters is she is getting the love and attention she deserve now. So hubby and I didn't mind spending the extra money because we had pretty much a complete check up done on her: X-ray's, heart worm, checked her thyroid, etc; and we know the only issues she has is the arthritis in her back legs, which we are doing everything to prolong the development of!

We got our taxes done! Oh boy was the CRA good to us this year ;o) First of all, I need to thank our accountant who did our taxes last year. She let us know that here in Saskatchewan they have a program called the Graduate Retention Program. You can read about it here: http://ae.gov.sk.ca/grp but basically it's a program where if you live and file a Saskatchewan tax return and have post secondary schooling the government will give you a tax credit! So after our talk and a little research on the internet both my husband and I filled out our forms and sent them off to get processed. Not too long after (we did this last summer so I can remember exactly how long it took to get back) we got our approval package in the mail. Now fast forward to beginning of this March, we go to do our taxes but they can't find our rebate associated with our SIN's. Turns out we needed to sent the paper work we got from the Saskatchewan government to the Canadian government so they can do the paperwork on their end. ANYWAYS: after a lot of confusion and some very patient phone calls with CRA everything ended up being attached and we just had to wait for a Notice of Reassessment to be processed. Fast forward again to about a week and a half later there was a mystery direct deposit from the government into our account for $800. First thing we agreed on was "Don't touch that money until we figure out what it is" because we were convinced it was a mistake lol. A few days later we got two letters from the Government, one was explaining that the $800 was part of hubby's reassessment from last years tax season! The other was a cheque for me (the same reassessment from last) but for $1800!! Whaaaaa! I guess because we had filed a Saskatchewan tax return last year we were able to get that Retention program refund for those years as well -- which we were not expecting at all. Thanks government!

So with those unexpected windfalls and overtime payment on one of hubby's cheque we were able to put $3043.55 towards our line of credit. Which puts us at *drum roll please* exactly $10,000 left! We have paid off $10,000 in 7 months :o) Half way mark!!

And guess what, I haven't discussed our 2013 taxes yet. We got the paper work from our accountant yesterday which breaks down our returns and I cried: hubby is getting back $1,047.34 and I'm getting a refund of $3,970.77. Someone pinch me because there must be a mistake. I read and re-read the paperwork that breaks down the numbers. I knew I was going to get some back because my parents always taught me to have extra income tax taken off my pay check so I never have to pay taxes and it's money I don't miss (they knew I was bad with money even at a young age lol), but it's the graduate program that sent my return waaaay high. I swear I could kiss my accountant. So we should be getting back a little over $5,000.00 before the end of the month. Can anyone take a wild guess where that money will be going? LINE OF CREDIT BABY. That means only $5000.00 left if everything goes well! And I have a feeling that with us being so close we can kick paying it down into overdrive. I've even noticed hubby was really excited, talking about how we can allocate the money we've been putting towards this debt after we have it paid off. Surprisingly he's first plan was to kick up our savings even more! I think my positive attitude is rubbing off on him, yay! It's so much easier when we work as a team.

Now, I know you may be thinking: wow things are looking really good for her right now. Well I need to confess we had a bit of a slip up last month. Hubby purchased a XboxOne and a game and I had a bit of fun online shopping at Sephora, ASOS and Ruche. This little shopping binge cost us a little under $1000. That's a big opps on our part.... Kind of embarrassing really, it's all paid for though and none of it went on credit. But this long winter kind of put hubby and I in a funk and it got the better of us. That's no excuse really but I'm not going to lie it made us feel really good, lol and the skirt I got were perfect! But it would have felt a whole lot better putting that money towards our LOC. Ahhhh, the balance of paying off debt and indulging :(

Anyways, I'm really sorry about skipping most of last month. I hope I didn't ramble too much during this post and it's somewhat easy to read lol.

Hope everyone is well!

- M