The Money Saving Continues

As our conversation continues on way to eliminate the fat in our spending, Jordan and I took on our Fishtank. We have been maintaining a 90 gallon tank (pictured) for the last three or four years. Prior, both Jordan and I had smaller tanks growing up. I expressed to Jordan that I felt like the...

We Sold Our Truck

Yup, that's right.  We are officially a one vehicle household again. You were with us when we bought the truck at the end of 2008 - lack of past credit history led to me co-signing a loan for Jordan for $4,500.  It was scary then - we weren't married, just newly living together and everyone...

Mortgage Pre-Payments

Jordan and I secured our mortgage just prior to the Canadian Governments move last year to reduce the maximum mortgage amortization from 30 to 25 years.  While right from the beginning, we knew we wanted to pay it off faster - the flexibility of a 30 year amortization meant we could adjust our...

New Couch & a Deal

Jordan has been looking for a sectional ever since we moved into our new place a year ago. Among other furniture in our small living room, we currently  have a regular couch (brown, microfiber, 3.5 years old, $500), and a recliner (brown, pleather, 1.5 yrs old, $200) - they are still perfectly...

Tax Assessments

Do you check yours? Have you ever contested it? For my NetWorth post a few days ago I went to my cities website and did a search for our tax assessment - pretty quick and easy!  In looking at the details of the page, it indicates the square footage, if the basement is developed, if there is a fireplace and if their is a garage. All of our details were correct...except for the garage.  It...

I Heart ING & RRSP Season

There have been times, where I have been frustrated with ING, but by and large, I have been very happy since we switched to Thrive back in January, 2011.  These last two weeks have been no different.  I was fortunate enough to be chosen to be part of the trial of their cheque in...

Our Life Pie

Inspired by a new year, and one of Gail Vaz-Oxlade's older posts about the life pie, I wanted to do some work to put together ours. According to Gail, the Life Pie "is very flexible and is only meant as a guide so that you have some sense of balance in your budget. If you’re way over in one...

Phone/Internet/TV Services

Source: shaw.ca So, I know this is a long post - but we really need help deciding what to do....all comments are much appreciated :) Jordan and I spent an approximate combined three hours on the phone this past Saturday morning with Shaw, Bell and Telus. We did a detailed review of our current...

Utilities - 4 Year Trend

As long as I've been tracking our daily spending, I've been tracking our expenditures on utilities longer.  This late in the game, I wish I had a break down on gas, water, electricity, power, sewer, ect - but this includes it all. Total Breakdown Having this much data gives me a huge...

Net Worth: January, 2013

It's been quite a long time since I posted on our Networth - so I thought I would do a bit of an update.  I don't think it's worth doing on a monthly or more frequent basis because quite frankly, our finances don't change that frequently - but I think ever six months could be a bit interesting. Yay!...

This Christmas

This Christmas was hard. It was the first without my dad.  It was also the first without my brother (he's moved to Winnipeg).  It was Jordan's first without his mom and his brother (they were on a trip together). I tried to stay upbeat and positive, mostly I faked it until I could...

Three Year Spend Trend

It’s hard to believe we’ve been tracking our spending for the last two and a half years…when I started that project, I really didn’t know how long it would go on for – turns out, it’s been an invaluable tool. Here is a look at our spending history for the last few years: Something key to note with...

BMO Sega....

Today, I hate the Bank of Montreal. All I wanted to do was change the payment frequency of my auto loan...shouldn't have been a big deal. They messed it up so bad the first time that my mortgage payment bounced. thanks. Then...then..after it was 'fixed', I found out that it actually wasn't. As it turns out the payments we had made weren't a change to the old frequency. They had just put the...