On Vacation!

It's officially started - Jordan and I are on vacation.  For the next two weeks, Jordan and I will be hanging out in beautiful british columbia.  Our roommates are taking care of the house - and I think it will be a great break for both of us as we get used to living together.  It's been a good start to the living arrangements - a few hiccups, but thats all settled now and I think we're in a good place moving forward.

It's 8am (ish), and I'm sitting on the couch enjoying my first cup of coffee - Aries (one of my dogs) is at my feet,  my mom is gearing up to make home made buns and all in all - it feels like a pretty awesome way to start the week.

As a follow up to my last post - my overtime pay came through and I was also pleasantly surprised by a $600 bonus.  I usually get around $1,000 but wasn't expecting anything at all this year - so wahoo!  Sure, after taxes it was closer to $380 - but still pretty awesome!  This Thursday we should see Jordan's final pay and vacation pay - his employer basically told us if they weren't organized that he wouldn't get his vacation pay until two weeks following - but we've done everything we can to hand-hold them through this process....so we'll see.

End of The Year Income

As the days left in December tick away Jordan and I have started to solidify our income transition plans from his bi-weekly pay schedule to his new twice/monthly pay schedule.  He has approximately $4,500 worth of vacation owing to him that will be paid out, and I have 30 hours of overtime that I have requested be paid out.  As Jordan has hit his CPP/EI maximum's, I expect that after taxes the vacation will  net about $3,000 and my OT will net about $650.  We also just received the second portion of December's rent ($300) so it looks like we're in fairly good shape to ride out whatever changes come our way.  

My mouse trigger finger just wants to sweep that $$ onto our debt, but the plan is to hold strong until mid-January to feel out our 2014 cash flow strategy first.

December Networth

Well, here it is - our final net-worth post for 2013.  We started this year at $16,938 and wound up at $74,198!  An incredible increase of $57,260!

The biggest factor you'll recall, is that we built our garage, deck and fence - all which significantly increased our homes market value.

We also made big gains in RRSP/Pension savings and purchased 100 shares through my work - which have already increased in value.

I am so proud of our accomplishments and look forward to the coming year where hopefully we can break through the 100K barrier!

Here's a breakdown of where the assets and debt are currently sitting.

While we still owe more on both vehicles than their trade in value - I'm comfortable with this because of the 'off the lot' phenomena.  We like new vehicles - with new vehicle smell...and (knock on wood) - these two will last us a long time.

RRSPs, Pension, and Shares have all grown significantly where planned spending has had it's ups and downs.

Our checking account has a healthy buffer which serves as our own overdraft protection - something that has been nice to have and as we move forward with Jordan's new career - a must have.

Since buying our house a little less than two years ago - we have paid down 4.43% of it - a mere $15,457.  We've sure paid a lot more than that in interest - but it is going down bit by bit.  We've toyed with increasing our weekly payments and while I'm not ready to do that just yet - it's something that is certainly on the horizon.

We have only paid down 2.73% of the Kia - as a very recent purchase we've only had a few payments so far.  The Escape on the other hand is down 40.40% of what we financed and I'm confident we're going to make a lot of progress with that loan in 2014.

Finally - our line of credit.  What we once thought would be a $10,000 limit to help coverage overages on our backyard project, turned into a $40,000 limit for several of life's incidentals.  Sitting on the LOC now is:

• $900 in online courses (crossing my fingers for reimbursement)
• $2,6179.50 for the first phase of Jordan's dental work (to be reimbursed)
• $5,406.43 for our recent share purchase at my work (interest is tax deductible)
• $977.60 for winter tires

The remaining $14,836.47 - is a combination of the remaining back yard debt as well as some credit card purchases (consumer spending).  We were expecting to carry forward around $15K in 2014 before I decided to go back to school, Jordan got dental work, we decided to invest in shares, and we bought winter tires.

So, technically (?) we're on track (ha!).

Okay, so we're not on track for the LOC - we had some expenses that we decided to incur that's that - our LOC balance has gone up.  As we knock it back in $5K increments, I intend on also reducing the amount of credit we have access  to in the same - until it's down to a 10K limit - - the original plan.

There it is - 2013's ups and downs of our networth, thanks for reading along as we navigated all these changes, I'm looking forward to another fantastic year with you.