ePost

I am one happy camper right now! Friday the government finally partnered with ePost (part of Canada Post) and we can now view G’s paystubs four weeks in advance (2 pay periods)! This makes budgeting so much easier for me. There’s no more guessing if there will be overtime or not, it’s all right there on the internet! J Ahh, modern conveniences.

So as soon as we were made aware we could do this, we signed up and of course I got right to budgeting for the month. Good news: G is getting overtime on both his cheques. Bad news: still no raise payout from way back in October. I checked last year to see when the adjustment came thru for his last raise and it wasn’t until February so I’m guessing that’s when we will see if this year aswell. Oh well, we know it is coming eventually and when it does it’s just bonus. My 10-cent raise took into effect starting January 1^st but it’s not going to be a noticeable jump, obviously lol. More money is more money though!

Speaking of money, I was able to sell my old iPhone 4s to a friend for $80 on Friday. She really needed a new phone and my old phone was just sitting in a drawer collecting dust. So that was a good way to start the New Year! We are also looking at selling our generator but that money will go to purchasing a more powerful one, as we had to learn the hard way that when it’s -20C and the power goes out for 10 hours, the house cools off extremely fast. Our poor little generator and space heater were working so hard but just couldn’t really keep up. We want to be prepared if something like this happens again especially since we live in the middle of nowhere and the power company here in Saskatchewan has admitted it’s dealing with an aging infrastructure. Oh joy! ;P

This weekend has been pretty quiet. Friday at work I started to get a sore throat and yesterday I woke up with a full-blown cold. Today it got even worse. I didn’t get out of bed until 11:30 and even then I moved to the couch downstairs in the livingroom and have been here ever since. Good thing Friends is on Netflixs though; perfect sick days series. J

Monica gets it

- M

2015 Goals

1.  Fully fund our Emergency Fund - We are on track to complete this by April 1^st
2. Pay off Line of Credit - See goal 3
3. Stay out of debt! - I’m sad I even have to put it here but if this is checked off by the end of the year I know for sure we will have formed good habits. I’m actually really nervous about this one
4. Have $5000 left on the car loan - I know I originally said it would be great to have this loan paid off by the end of 2015 but I’m going to give ourselves a little wiggle room so we aren’t stretching ourselves too thin.
5. Plan and pay for Yukon vacation - This vacation wouldn’t be until 2016 but we are still currently saving for it and will need to start putting down deposits and such
6. TFSA balance $10,000 - TFSA balance is currently $3617.11, I have bi-weekly payments of $200 going into it automatically: so that would leave me at around $8,800. I must snowflake $1200ish to achieve this goal
7.  Sell $500 worth of items - To help fund one of my other goals 
8. Try 40 new recipes - I'm a horrible chef. Cooking is not something that comes naturally to me but I really want to get better/more confident. This goal is to really make me step out of my comfort zone and try new things
9. Stick to $500/month budget for food - Plan, plan, plan. I can do this! 
10.      Fully maximize work benefits - Go for massages, get new glasses, etc: I'm covered 100% since I am under G's plan and my own at work so I want to use all that I have use for.

2014 Budget Overview

Happy New Year everyone! 2014 was the year G and I finally opened our eyes and paid attention to our money. This is the first year I tracked every single penny and it's habit to do so now. With the proper tools and a hubby that knows his way around an Excel spreadsheet it's was so easy for me to do. I'm for sure keeping up the habit next year. 

G & I also have regular money discussions now, which has cut down on the stress levels I was feeling at beginning of the year. We each know what the other is thinking and feeling regarding our finances and it's nice just to be on the same page. Now on to the numbers: 

Home (16%)

The biggest expense this year for us hands down was a new roof on our house. All I have to say is thank goodness for the emergency fund. We weren’t really thinking we would need the roof so soon and weren’t completely prepared when the leaks started happening. It was definitely a stressful time but would have been even more stressful if we didn’t have that money set aside. It was extremely difficult to hand over that cheque though, lol.

The only thing I would see us having to purchase soon-ish is a new furnace and we need to have our ducts cleaned sometime in the fall. However, the misfortune with the roof definitely opened our eyes to the importance of saving up for this stuff, because shit will happen and we don’t want to drain our EF if we don’t have too. We opened a ‘Home’ savings account this year (see Savings category) to help with any future major replacements or reno’s.

Utilities (6%)

I never know what to say about this category. It’ll just be interesting to see the break down year to year as a beginning to track everything.

Transportation (8%)

This category I’m hoping to increase next year! Gas consumption will be down though as I started a job in town about half way thru the year and I now walk to work instead of driving 1 hour 5 days a week. But we are hoping to pay off our car loan in 2015. We were also very lucky that we had no real issues with the car that were not covered by warranty.

Debt Repayment (26%)

Sigh… I’m not sure if I should to be proud or annoyed with this category. Extremely proud because we paid off our LOC this year or extremely annoyed because we racked it up again by going on our honeymoon and getting side tracked in September. We have plans in place so we don’t commit the same stupid mistakes again (and again) such has a home savings fund as well as a vacation fund. We should have the rest of our consumer debt paid off by February of next year. It’s just too bad we couldn’t get it together and pay it off by the New Year so we could start 2015 fresh. We only have ourselves to blame though. Looking forward to having this paid off in early 2015 and then be done with this category!

Long Term Savings (15%)

This year G & I took steps in the right direction, both opened TFSA’s and I opened a RRSP. We started out with $100 bi-weekly contributions in each investment but I ramped up my TFSA contributions mid way thru the year to $200 bi-weekly. I passed the $5000 threshold for my own personal retirement account just a few weeks ago. I'm very excited for this category next year as it'll be our first full year of contributions! 

Food (10%)

We spent just nearly 10k just for two people. Ugh. This is one area I really hope to improve on in the New Year. I didn’t really watch groceries as closely as I should have at the beginning of the year and often went for convenient foods (i.e. costing us a lot more). Starting a new job in my town and getting home a lot sooner has allowed me time to plan out proper meals and execute them. I’m getting more comfortable with cooking and enjoying it a lot more. Also I plan on breaking down my receipts, putting cleaning supplies and paper goods in the home category and dog food in the pet line on our budget spreadsheet. This will give us a better break down on how much food we are actually going thru because I know that 10k isn’t a realistic number. I really hope to improve on this category in 2015.

Shopping (8%)

We spent nearly $1500 in cash this year. This would mostly be G taking money out here and there. A few months ago I got frustrated in not having this being tracked and we compromised with a monthly withdrawal of $125 for him to spend on snack/food at work. He’s happy because he has money available if he wants to purchase something in the lunchroom and I’m happy because I know where it goes in our budget. 

Savings (6%)

This technically should be called Planned Spending. This is where the money put into our spending accounts, home and vacation fund is found. We only added this category half way thru the year so I expect an increase next year as we plan for our vacations: one back home to Ontario and another to the Yukon. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing our vacation fund grow as well as get used up for awesome experiences J

Personal (5%)

This category includes gifts, vet bills, medical, entertainment & personal care. Gifts and vet bills are the highest expenses. For some reason we have purchase gifts every single month this year and I can’t really explain why. I’m hoping next year to have a better-organized system for gifts. Our dog will need a surgery in the New Year costing us around $1000 so this category might not change much.

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Overall, a pretty solid first year for us. I really have nothing to compare it too but we are pretty proud of ourselves. Yeah, we made some mistakes and old habits die hard, but we are improving because we are aware. 

I am really looking forward to next year. Thank you all who read this silly little blog of mine, I really appreciate the support! J

- M

Meal Plan

I'm trying something a bit new that goes partly with one of my 2015 goals (which I will share in a later post). I know a few other blogs I follow do a similar thing and I always look forward to those posts. Extra bonuses when the include links! Nice way to get new ideas for recipes :) 

Monday: Appointment with the vet in a neighboring town, potluck kind of night

Tuesday: Oven ribs & Broccoli Salad

Wednesday: Left overs

Thursday: Creamy Potato, Bacon and Leek Soup

Friday: Left overs

Saturday: Chili & Garlic Toast

Sunday: Left overs

A bread loaf is currently being made as I type this and it should last us the week. We also have all the basics for salads and veggie wraps for lunches so we should be good on the food front. We will be going grocery shopping tomorrow while our dog is at the vet getting her blood work done. We made the list of things we need tonight while we were meal planning together. G is taking charge this week as he is on vacation. He really enjoys cooking and I can’t tell who’s more excited: him to cook or me to eat delicious food! 

- M

Car Loan

Last night G & I had a long discussion about our upcoming finances for the New Year. We discussed a lot: extra payments on our mortgage, saving for the new truck, adding more to our investments. But we decided against all those, instead making our 2015 goal to pay off our car loan.

We won’t get the yearly statement until January but looking at the last two years of payment breakdowns (principle vs interest) we should have about $18,000ish left owing. Once the LOC is paid off (February) and our Emergency Fund is topped up (April) we have an extra $1400 to play with, so I definitely believe it’s doable by the end of the year considering we will still be making the regular weekly payments of $90.81. That also doesn’t include any extra money such as G’s overtime, bonuses or snowflakes.

G also agreed that it would be nice to only have to worry about one car payment, when we do purchase the truck, instead of two. And we could easily do a similar personal repayment plan with the new vehicle – just maybe not as aggressive, lol.

It’s pretty exciting to think this loan might be done 3 years earlier than originally planned! I’ve never made extra payments on a loan before so I’m hoping it’s easy to set up. We don’t deal with Scotia Bank at all other than this loan and there isn't a branch anywhere near us so fingers crossed it’s something we can arrange over the phone.

Does anyone have any experience with prepayments? We know it is an open loan so there should be no fees by paying it off early, correct? Thank you in advance for any insight someone may have!

- M

Christmas Celebrations

Merry Christmas everyone!

I handled Christmas pretty good yesterday until I FaceTime'd with my entire family. Seeing and getting to talk to everyone individually as my mom's iPad got passed around the table, made me miss home for the first time since we've moved -- even last year I didn't take it as badly. I think seeing my grandma start crying and then my dad tear up near the end of the conversation is what really tugged at my heart the most. I had a good cry after I hung up with everyone.

But the show must go on! G was going to be working that evening so we offered to have his partners for the night shift over for Christmas dinner before they started. He is currently going thru a separation with his wife and doesn't have any family living here, so we invited him. We ate ham, mashed potatoes and herb bread; watched the first Die Hard movie (hey it's Christmas-y!) and played Rummy for a bit until they had to go. It was actually a pretty fun evening and definitely brightened my mood.

This was our view on Christmas: I live in a winter wonderland ;)

Money wise: things are alright. LOC isn't where I want it to be but G had to purchase some stuff for the detachment so instead of $700 going to the LOC it went to pay the credit card -- we are hoping that expense cheque gets deposited before the end of the month so we can have our consumer debt at an even $3000 for the New Year. I'm still hoping for it to be paid off in full by January but I'm guessing it will be closer to February. January is a three paycheque month for me so there will be a tiny bit of extra money & G has his overtime and catch up pay from his raise that happened at the end of October that still needs to be paid out - but who knows when that will be.

I'm very excited for my year end wrap up & my goals for the upcoming year :o)

I hope everyone had a safe and happy Christmas!!

- M

Using What We Have

Since as long as I’ve been blogging we have been on the quest to clear out and organize our freezer and pantry. These past two weeks we have made great strides in the right direction. Our food reserve was so out of control we did not have to go grocery shopping for two weeks! Tomorrow I finally have to give in and go, as we need vegetables and a few items for dinners this week – all of which happen to be on sale at the local grocery store aswell. Yay!

Although we have been working towards using what we have, I think actually doing an inventory of our deep freezer a few weeks back was actually the biggest motivator. We had a lot of meat in that freezer and still have a good amount left. The pantry items tend to be more side dishes to those are a bit more easy to add once we have the main dish decided on. It’s definitely been nice to use up what we have. I’m hoping to be under budget with groceries this month.

Groceries have been on my mind a lot recently, in regards to our spending spreadsheet. I should have been doing this all along and for some this is going to be a no brainer but I’ve started to break down our grocery trips into categories. See before if we would go to the store I would just put that trip all into the grocery category, but when we go to places like Costco or Walmart I’m mostly stocking up on paper goods, dog food, etc; so my grocery budget looks insane for only two people. This new way of thinking (new for me at least) only dawned on me this month but it’ll be interesting to see in the New Year what we really spend on food as I definitely think, receipt break down or not, that is our biggest room for improvement. Oh well, better late than never.

If anyone else tracks their spending do you do a similar thing with your grocery shops? I’m debating where to put things like paper goods, cleaning products, etc. Home category? Shopping? Any advice?

- M