Where The Debt Stands...

So we have had quite a few snafu's over the last few weeks - it's causing a bit of pain with regards to meeting our goal of credit card debt free going into 2013. When we changed our car payment schedule, BMO accidently withdrew an extra payment of nearly $300 BMO's extra withdraw caused a ripple affect...

Giving

There is nothing like the Christmas season to have giving on the mind. It’s a time of year when there are so many people in need, and we receive so many asks for support.Two years ago, my family created a donor advised family fund to direct our philanthropic desires. Held within the Golden & District Community Foundation (GDCF), all donations to the Principal of the fund are in trust. The...

Car Payments - Made a Change

So we had a date with the Bank of Montreal this weekend.  Among many things including exploring the line of credit I asked you guys about a couple days ago and a changing my name - we also chatted about our existing car loan. The payment frequency used to be every two weeks, just under $195.  It was a pain, because we bought the vehicle on a weekend, so the payments always came...

Lines of Credit

We have been offered a $10,000 line of credit with the Bank of Montreal because of our good history with our auto loan and credit card that we have with them.  They are offering us a really reasonable rate (less than 4%), no credit check and it would be unsecured. We're very interested because of the work were planning to do on the back yard this year, we were planning on having to use...

Updated Tracking Bars

All the tracking bars are updated with the 2013 goals and current balances! Question - does anyone get a Christmas or annual bonus/profit share this time of year?  If you do, how do you manage where it gets allocated?...

Credit Card Update

Today I just wanted to share a quick credit card update. Jordan and I are still on track to get the card paid off by the end of December!!   ...

2013 Plan

Last week Jordan and I went out for a budget date - Vietnamese soup - so it was an inexpensive budget date.  I really like saving for everything at the same - money going into each 'pot' each week, so that you can see the progressive growth overtime.  Jordan likes aggressively tackling...

Loss

Yesterday morning, our family dog of the last 14 years passed away peacefully. My mom let my brother and I know straight away and it was so very difficult for us to all be in different cities - provinces too actually.  I'll be going back home in three weeks to visit - and it really just seems...

a Pleasant Surprise

Never have I, nor has Jordan, experienced what we did this past Friday. I mentioned in my last post that we knew the second part of his raise had finally been approved albeit six weeks late.   We weren't actually expecting it to be processed so fast - but it was - but the real surprise is how much it was. I pride myself on being able to run the numbers and figure out within about 10 cents...

Making Up for It

So we got a random deposit of $500(+) from Jordan's insurance provider this morning - that's fantastic because today our weekly mortgage payment also came out. We have looked into a few other things we can do to help with the bit of shortfall, and still meet our goal of paying of the credit card. We checked our points Aeroplan/Air Miles balances We had enough Aeroplan to order a $100 Costco gift...

STD - It Continues

So yesterday we found out that Jordan was actually only paid for 6 days at full time for the days he was at work before he went on short term disability.  The insurance company, will pay him separably for 80% of his pay for the 9 full days that he was off work. Jordan also found out yesterday that the rest of his raise is FINALLY approved. So I'm not sure if his STD will get paid...

Short Term Disability

So..Jordan had emergency surgery two weeks ago to have his appendix removed - he went from mild discomfort to get that thing outta him in about 14 hours. He's set to go back to work on Monday - but didn't have enough sick time to cover the two week period.  We applied for STD through his work...

2013 Budget Planning

It's the time of the year where I get to do one of my favorite things - make the 2013 Budget!  I know...what a geek!  But what did you expect on a personal finance blog?! I started by reviewing our spending habits in 2012 - the summary is below:  Variable Spending The image on...

Updated Tracking Bars

Just a note that I've updated my Mortgage, Ford Escape and Christmas tracking bars. We actually own 2% of our house!!  Somehow that's more exciting that owning 22% of our vehicl...

Bringing Chemo to our Community

Today's post diverges from the typical. Today I'm asking for a favor. Through the AVIVA Community Fund, my little hometown is trying to win a competition that would bring funding for trained medical staff to visit our community twice per month to enable them to provide cancer related treatment/services to those in need.  Currently, there are no qualified professionals in Golden, BC to provide...

so...The Summer Happened

I was talking with Jordan yesterday about our financial picture for the last quarter of the year and because we haven't talked about money for quite a while - we covered a lot.  In the beginning of the year, we set aside money for summer vacation, some travel and emergencies.  Since that time, we've spent all that money...and then some.  So it was a good idea to set that money aside,...

Credit Creep

Jordan is absolutely thrilled to share that his Visa has been paid off - and this time - he's going to cancel it.  He's been using his personal spending allowance to slowly but surely pay it off.  A few birthday and cheques had gone towards the debt too.  Once the final interest accrual is posted, he'll be calling the company and calling it quits!&nbs...

Last Week - ReCap

This is where I've been all last week - it was our one year anniversary :) ...

Year over Year

Now that we caught up on Friday with the last three months of spending - I'd like to update you on our year -over year tracking.  Below is our average monthly spending from July 2010-July 2011 then July 2011 to July 2012 and the difference thereof. It looks like our battle to eat...

Three Month Catch Up

I haven't posted the last three months of our spending, so this is a bit of a catch up post in that regard: The categories that are in bold are that which our day-to-day joint spending account are for - the account that we give ourselves $300/week for.  The other categories are typically...

Jordan Got a Raise

Jordan and I are both so very excited to share that he completed his Journeyman Parts Technician program. He took that, along with the last four years of yard work and dedication to his boss and asked for a raise - and he got it! He's going from $44,400 to $50,000. It's going to be a two part...

Hi! Miss me?

Hi! There's been a lot going on in my life over the last five months and it's been difficult to prioritize anything for myself, let alone my blog.    The worst of it some of you have picked up on from my cryptic posts and I can't actually type it without crying- so I won't. In addition to that, both my Great Aunt and my Dad's Mom are now in assisted living facilities in different...

Like Father, Like Daughter

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Coping

I receive a monthly email from participating in a crucial conversations workshop.  Normally, I read the letter, which often has tips and advise, delete it and carry on. Today's email is very relevant to me and my family right now and I would like to share it with you.  You can also read it online, on the Crucial Skills blog.  There are a lot of links and what not...

April Spend Summary

Quite a few of you know that I was pretty excited to get this post put together - it's a quick one, but powerful.  This is the first monthly spend summary where Jordan and I were spending money according to our New Plan.  It's the least we've ever spent since we started tracking money. the.least.we.have.ever.spent. ...in...

Allowances

Do you have them? When Jordan I merged our finances a couple years ago, we maintained our personal chequing accounts.  We thought that it would good to have some money available each month that we were only accountable to ourselves for – that we could spend without checking in with our partner. For the last couple of months or so, Jordan has maintained that he would like to eliminate...

Credit Card Debt Update

After finishing yesterday's post, we updated all of our spreadsheets and numbers to account for no more auto-debits to our emergency and gift funds which meant we freed up some monthly cash flow to go towards our credit card debt.  We also decided to put the $500/month towards our 'house fund'...

Priorities

They change. Sometimes they don't change very often, sometimes they do.  Sometimes events happen in our life that have us call into question the path that we're on and require some thought about the fork in the road. It has been ten weeks since my father passed away. My priorities have changed. Jordan and I have had some pretty big plans in finishing our house, including a garage, fence,...

March Monthly Spend Report

So it's a little late, but here is the monthly spend report for March.  March was the month that we transitioned to The New Plan so about half our spending was on the credit card, and the other half was using our new debit card system. This is the least we've spent on gas in quite a while...

Budgeting for a Baby

So a weird thing happened this week. Jordan went to the place of forecasting, guessing, planning, and 'what ifs' and I went to the - I want to work with facts place. weird. That is so opposite to most of our conversations. After we realized what happened, it was an eye opener in understanding...

I got a Raise

It's that time of year again at my company and I'm pleased to share that I received a raise.  This year, I moved up 6.8% to $63,000 (I was at $59,000).  I'm really quite satisfied with the increase and feel as though my contributions to my team and my company have been recognized.  In...

Update

A few weeks ago, I wrote about The New Plan and the Credit Card Pay Off Plan and I thought it was time to update you on how it's going. The New Plan is in full swing and it's working. ING Thrive was a bit of a pain in the a$$ but seeing as how they wouldn't allow for two joint chequing accounts...

Credit Card Pay Off Plan

Here go...round three? (ding - ding - ding) We currently owe just over $4,500 on our credit card..again.  Below are the months for the rest of the year and the debt pay offs that we're committed to each month.  Regular months, with four pays, will see $225 payment.  Months with...

Emergency Fund Goal

It's been white a while since we've looked at our emergency fund goal to ensure it realistically fits our current lifestyle.  Our worse case scenario for us financially would be a job loss - given that my income is a bit higher then Jordan's - in figuring...

The New Plan

On the drive home from work tonight, Jordan and I had a frank and honest conversation about money.  We chatted about where we've been, where we are and where we want to be.  It stemmed in part by two separate events -   ...we are both on the cusp of raises again and are expecting a significant change.  I wanted to have a look and make sure our budget actually reflects...

Tax Refund

In the past, Jordan and I have typically either used our tax returns for short term gain (laptop) or credit card debt.  This year, I'm please to share with you that we have deposited the $2,475 into our house fund - we're currently saving up to build our fence and deck in the summer.  This deposit brings us up to nearly $3,5...

February Spending Report

It's that time of the month again...below is our monthly spend report for February.  I've chosen to start including a percentage of total spending for interest. Our gas budget continues to trend high; however this month our grocery bill seems to have settled a bit.  We ate out a tad more...

In Support of BC Teachers

I don't live in British Columbia any more, but the majority of my family does and so I follow along with the news there.  There is some pretty heavy stuff going on with the BC Government and their collective agreement negotiations (or lack there of) with the BC Teachers. I wanted to share with...

Grocery Shop Comparison: Calgary

Back in August, 2009 I wrote a post about the price of groceries in Calgary that referred back to some local consumer reporting on CTV.  While it's hard to believe it was that long ago, our increased spending in groceries as of late had me reflecting on it. The comparison is...

Customer Chat Transcript

One of the things on our list while visiting mom was to have a look at her phone/internet/cable pricing.  She lives in a pretty rural area, so has has to have two different companies.  While surfing the companies website we found that they had an online chat feature with customer service.  I hopped on, and pretended to be my mom. Within about 10 minutes I got my mom a pretty...