Pay Statement

A while back I mentioned that at mid-October I would hit my EI then my CPP maximum.  Well, that time is here!  Whoohoo!  I've hit my EI max, so no more deductions for that, and I'm $49.05 from hitting my CPP max, so that will happen on the first pay in November!

I also just started contributing to my Pension at work!  I already have $611.52 socked away....how did that even happen?!  I love employer matched contributions!  This money is on top of the $25/week that Jordan and I each contribute to our personal RRSPs.  Eventually, I would like to increase our contributions, particularly Jordans because he doesn't have a pension or retirement plan through work.

I'm also very pleased that I'll be getting reimbursed tomorrow for all of my work expenses - to the tune of $2215.14.  It's quite a large sum of money that just sitting on my credit card begging to be paid off, so paid off it will be, tomorrow.

Hurray!

We've Hit Our Limit

It's only the 27th of the month, and our budget is meant to last us until the 5th of the following month - and we've already hit our allotted spending cap - plus some Christmas Shopping!  We have 8 days to go, and I'm not sure that we'll be able to avoid spending....

I know Jordan will owe some to his food truck and we need to go grocery shopping too.

I'm doing my part by getting up a bit earlier this morning and having coffee and breakfast here.  I also made a stew last night for our lunches and Jordan's supper tonight - because I'm going to a friends.

We'll have to try hard not to go and spend more than is absolutly necessary....this will be the third month in a row over.  Though the first two had huge wedding purchases and this month had my trip to Ontario, a deposit for our photographer and car repairs.

Sheesh.

Do you Bundle?

We currently have our TV, internet and phone services bundled with Shaw.  Normally we are pretty pleased, but leading up to yesterday the customer service has been pretty dismal at best.  The PVR was glitching, the prices went up b/c some promotions fell off, and I've spent far too much time on hold (over 45 minutes during my lunch hour yesterday).

Jordan and I went down to a physical Shaw location - after I was told that we could have a student discount applied to our services, but Jordan would have to take over the bill and there would be quite a bit of jostling to do.  Well, it turns out - if your nice to the lady behind the counter, it's not that hard to get your Shaw services sorted out.

She applied the student discounts to the account even though it was still in my name (I mean, we live together, so what's the big deal) and even gave us an extra $20 bill credit because while standing in line we discovered that we were being over billed for our phone service!

Because the bill for this cycle has already been generated I can't quite figure out exactly how much each service is now, but I know that it's around half what it was before.  It took about two hours yesterday (including on-hold time and waiting in line at the Shaw place), but I'd say it's well worth it!

Weekend Re-Cap

Jordan and I had a fantastic weekend in Golden.  We were able to visit with lots of family, see my grandmother win a volunteerism award, and have our engagement photo's taken!  I'm hoping that there will be a couple I am comfortable sharing here - but we'll have to wait and see what develops (ha-ha-ha).

I don't normally read blogs on the weekend, it's my evening activity, but I was checking out Shaking The Money Tree, and she was reminding people that proctor and gamble are doing their annual brand sampler give away. So if you are interested in some free samples, check it out!

Engagement Photos

I'm pretty excited!  Jordan and I are having our engagement photo's done this weekend in BC.  We've never had professional photo's taken, other then school class pictures - but I don't think that really counts.  I asked the photographer for advise on what we should do/wear and this is what she said:

In terms of prep, just have a think about what you want to wear and what kind of overall feel you're looking for (romantic, urban, quirky, in nature, etc). That will help me determine where we go for locations. If you have somewhere in particular you'd like to be photographed, please let me know and I'll go scout it out ahead of time.

In terms of attire, we'll have time to do two looks, if you choose. You might want to do one that's more casual and one more dressed up, or you might be happy in one outfit . . . that's great too. Don't worry about matching each other, but do take into consideration what the other will be wearing. It might look funny if you're in a sequined cocktail dress and heals but Jordan is rocking his favorite sweatpants ;)

Photographers often advice people to wear solid colors in darker tones, which are safe in terms of looking flattering. I vote for you wearing something you love, that speaks to who you are, and that you feel great in. Nothing translates better in photographs than confidence. If that means you wear a hot pink scarf, and yellow polka dotted jacket, so be it.

The total cost for the package that we're going for is $2,200.  That includes:

• Engagement session, including 10 digital files
• up to 2 hours
• Ceremony/Reception session
• 5 consecutive hours of photography
• private online gallery for 90 days
• complete set of digital files, licensed for personal use
• approximately 250 photo's that she has professional re-touched

If we want to increase the length of time she's there on the day, that's fine - we just pay her hourly rate.  


This weekend when we meet, we have to bring a 40% retainer = $880!


It feels good to have this service secured, and we're so looking forward to doing this fun thing together!

Potential 2011 Budget

Based on the goals I described in the last post, here our potential 2011 budget.

 

While we budget on a monthly basis for the big picture, the variable expenses get broken down into weekly transfers to align with our pay schedules.

Rent and utilities are based on having two roommates, so we split the bills four ways.  Hopefully we can keep this going for the foreseeable future.

Our insurance rates recently went down a fraction and my horse board stays fairly steady.  $165 in the winter and $90 in the summer.

We haven't been tracking our spending long enough to know if $1,500/month is enough or too much 'planned spending'.  We're going to roll with this for now and continue to track and post our spending patterns.

Here are where the big numbers lie.  The House Fund and the Wedding Fund.  If we can make this work, we'll meet our 2011 goals.

While I just started my pension, I'm not at the maximum for contributions into RRSP's (neither is Jordan) - so we'll just continue along with $100/month for now.  I would like to see this increase in the future.

I'm hoping my readers will take a look at this and let me know if we're forgetting anything or if something doesn't look realistic.

J&J's Goals

I wanted to do a 2010 checkup on the goals that I started out with this year.  I did a search and found that they changed so often, it's no wonder that I feel like I havn't acheived much.  Of course, we did have the huge success of becoming debt free this year - but we didn't realize any of our savings/planned spending goals.  Part of this was the merging of our finances and working to sort out what that would look like.

In 2011, we have two huge life changing events.  Not only are we getting married, we intend on being prepared to buy a house.  While I can appreciate that it is important to have money set aside for all types of different things - these events will happen, so we best plan for them.  The other part of these two goals is that we wan to realize them before/on August 6, 2011.  That means, we have 8 months to get organized.

We currently have just over $6k in our house fund.  I had to move some money around to pay off our credit card bill before the due date, but have some money set aside to pay ourselves back next month.  By the end of December, we will have just over $11,250 set aside.  We anticipate needing, at a bare minimum $20,000 to purchase our first house (I've posted about the details of this before, but if you want them again, just let me know). 

So, goal Number One:  Save $8,750 in 8 months (by August, 2011)

Next is our wedding.  We currently have just under $300 set aside, but we have also already spent almost $6,000 of a project budget of just over $22,000.  By the end of December, we anticipate having set aside about $1,750.  We also anticipate that we will spend some of our planned spending budget (paid via credit card) will be eaten up by wedding expenditures - so we won't have to actually have that much cash sitting aside next summer.  That combined with talking with some family members, we anticipate some monetary gifts that will help us realize this in time

So, goal Number Two: Save $7,500 in 8 months (by August, 2011)

I imagine that we will continue to put money away for both Christmas/gifts as well as vehicle maintenance/emergencies - however this will be about $100/month - without strict goals.  We need the flexibility to be able to achieve our primary vision of a wedding and a home.