Allowance Adjustment

On the tail end of our engagement and the prospects of buying a house within the same time frame of less than a year.  Jordan and I have decided to make a change to our allowance.  Part of this decision came from the realization that it's a pain in the but to have our allowances and still have to budget for our phone bills, hair care, clothes ect.  We both want a truly 'splurge' account rather than what we're doing now.

So, over the next week or so we'll be calling our cell phone providers to have them bill our joint account.

Our new allowance will be $25/week instead of $100/week.  We'll now have to have to have a few more conversations around clothes, personal care products and pretty much everything else that will be considered 'joint'.

I'm looking forward to this change, I think it will help keep us on track and save our our house/wedding even faster.

Expectations - Who Pays for What?

I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not yet: Jordan and I are planning to pay 100% of our wedding costs. 

While I've never thought it would be any other way, I appreciated when my mom made sure Jordan and I knew right away that she and dad haven't been squirreling away their pennies to pay for our big day.  When my mom did tell me, I was initially surprised - telling her that of course Jordan and I expected to foot the bill. My mom went on to say that my grandma had paid for her and her sister's weddings - and so she just wanted to make sure I knew. 

Last weekend when I met up with my grandma and one of my aunts, on two separate occasions to chat wedding bells - $$ came up, and they both insisted that they were 'sure' mom and dad would help us out.  I told them that no, Jordan and I would be covering it and were happy to do so.

I thought it was interesting that mom wanted to make sure that Jordan and I knew - when now it looks like it's actually other parts/members of the family that may have those expectations around who pays for what.

That scenario got me thinking - do other people have expectations that my family or Jordan's family will pay for different things.  What about our bridesmaids/groomsman - will they expect that we pay for their outfits?  I haven't been to many weddings...the last was probably when I was just 8 or 9, so I'm not really entrenched in the wedding culture of who pays for what.

My best friend Amy bought me a huge wedding planning book, which is stellar!  It has goes into crazy detail about those 'expectations'... which of course are just the traditional ways things are done....but we are far from that sort of traditional families.

So, I ask you (and not just with a wedding reference) - have you ever been in a situation where you expected someone to pay for something, or they expected you to and it was awkward?  I'm looking to build some tools or ways to manage those potential awkward conversations.

August Spend Report

When Jordan and I joined our finances (only a few months ago), I mentioned that my bi-weekly budgets would be dissapearing, but in their place would be end of the month spending re-caps.  Today, I give you our first re-cap.  The first one is a bit unique as we were feeling out how the joint credit card would work in managaing our finances.

This is a most unusual for Jordan and I to spend like this, but here it is, $1,333 (I'm not including the things we'll be reimbursef for) over budget:

Summary Notes:

• We had a vacation and family emergency in August, which is why our gas and eating out are so high and on that vacation we went to a winery.  I couldn't decide if the winery was actually entertainment or booze, but I put it under booze.
• The Reimbursable Expenses include Jordan's texbooks, my contact lenses (and fitting fee), as well as some things we bought for my parents.
• I'm surprised that we only spent $200 on grocerys, but looking at that with the eating out makes more sense.
• All I'm going to say about the wedding expenses, is that was the down payment on my engagement ring.  It's currently being made, and we should be able to pick it up (and pay for the rest of it) on Monday. 
• We needed a new light for the tank and had to pick up some fish food.
• Medical was cold medication for Jordan and I
• Banking includes the initial fee for our BMO C/c and a second card
• Vehicle maintenance was a part for my car, the heater wasn't working properly so Jordan had to order a new part

Oh, for those who forgot the credit card budget it includes:

• $450 for groceries/house expenses
• $250 for gas
• $500 for everything else

Wedding Blog Help

I am on the hunt for some excellent wedding/marriage blogs. I would love recommendations for Canadian blogs that have great diy prjoects and discuss budgeting (of course).

Thanks all!!

what a whirlwind

The last week has gone by so quickly, I can't believe it's Labour Day already!

I've spent just about every day since getting engaged last Saturday thinking and planning our wedding.  Jordan started getting a little overwhelmed and asked if we could just enjoy being engaged!  Well, of course we can (while I'm planning).

I spent the weekend wedding planning with my mom, and Jordan was fairly involved too (when he wanted to be).  We have a good sense about theme, colours, food, location ect.  I'm not going to post anything for sure because we are still looking a bit.  My best friend Amy and I are going to a bridal show next weekend to get inspired, so things may change, but I'm not thinking they will.

My grandma has offered to make my wedding dress *eek* (I get a wedding dress).  She made a couple of my aunts wedding dresses and a couple of family friends dresses too.  I'm looking forward to getting a sense about what she can make and what I want and having that come together.

When we announced our engagement on Wednesday, one of the comments was 'and another one bites the dust' - it is a bit funny that quite a few personal finance bloggers have recently gotten engaged/married.  I won't make any promises about what I will or won't write about - but I do promise this, I'll keep writing.

Grrr... Roommates!

Hi All,

I haven't disappeared - just have been in meetings (will be) for two full days, plus work dinners and what not.  Also, I'm freakin' exhausted.  Actually, too tired to think about money, so I'll tell you about my crummy night.

My roommate, for the fourth or fifth time woke the house up in the middle of the night.  His weekends are Wednesday/Thursday - but he's just got to stop waking me up!  I told his guests, one of which was a former roommate, to get the F* out of my house if they couldn't keep the nose to a dull roar.  They all left, and then talked about me outside my bedroom window.... granted, our roommate tried to tell his guests that me and J are 'nice people' and Jordan was sick - they started getting noisy again.

He finally got them away from the house and I went back downstairs to turn off the lights, where I ran into the roommate coming back in for something.  We wound up having a  "conversation" at 12:30am about respect.

The conversation actually went pretty well, with good back and forth however; I ended it by telling him that he needed to make a choice.  If he wants to live like a a responsible adult, with adults than we are happy for him to live with us.  If he wants to live like an irresponsible person, then he needs to find like minded individuals to live with - because that isn't acceptable behavior in our house.

He said that he wants to live with us, and I said great!  Honestly, I'm happy for whatever choice you make, just let us know what you want either by your actions or by giving us notice, either way, just please - let me sleep.


He then went in for a hug... which I gave him...which was sort of weird...but hopefully a good sign.

We're Engaged!

do you love it????