2014 Year End Net Worth

Well, here it is, our 2014 Year End Net Worth. We started out at $77,804 and are now sitting comfortably at $121,006.  A pretty sizable increase for just 12 months!  Okay, Okay, I know - we could always do better. and I get that, but I'm also really genuinely pleased with the progress we've...

Christmas Baking!

 I love, love, love Christmas Baking. I went home two weeks ago for the weekend and spent two days baking with my grandmother, my mom, and one of my aunts. Here's a couple of snapshots. We wound up with I think at least 4 or 5 kinds plus home made chocolates that we do every year. We tried...

Oil & Gas Makes the World Go Round

We all know (unless you live under a rock) that oil prices have been dropping steadily over the last while.  Unfortunately for me, living in Alberta, our provincial income is heavily reliant on it...not to mention my employer.  So oil prices hanging out around $55/barrel is not very good....we...

Networth Update

Just $600 shy of $120K, our net worth continues to climb. Total debts, including mortgage, have been reduced to $365K and change and total assets have risen to about $485K. The Escape has been paid off!  Completely! I'm so very happy to be going into 2015 with one less payment, and just as...

Fun & Sensible

A little while ago my mom sold some property and decided she wanted to give my brother and I a financial gift for something fun and sensible.  Giving money with strings can be tricky, but these are totally strings that I appreciate and value. Jordan and I have made some progress on deciding what we're going to do. Drive out to visit Jordan's family in Vancouver (if he gets the time off) (~$350...

Bottling Day!

 Last night was bottling day for my Reisling I bought from Costco a month or so ago. Just wanted to share!...

October Monthly Spend Summary

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!  We had 104 kids this year!!  Probably $100 or so of this months 'groceries' was Halloween candy. Some categories were a bit higher, some a bit lower than the average.  As is typical when we spend less on eating out; we spent more on groceries...

October Networth Update

October has been a very good month for our networth! We were reimbursed for Jordan's dental surgery, received just over $600 for contents insurance from our hail damage claim, Jordan's increased commissions scale have been realized and my mom gave us a financial gift for something fun and sensible...

Another $1,500!!

So after months, and months, and months of waiting, arguing and sending in letters - we have finally been reimbursed for the last phase of Jordan's dental surgery.  A deposit just shy of $1,300 was deposited today and there's a bit of overflow so I have $1,500 to work with. So...another SMASH on the Escape? Well yes, but not the whole sum. We're about to have to pay our $1,000 deductible for...

$1,500 SMASH

I don't usually do a blog post every time I pay debt down - which is just about every pay day - but I think sometimes because I often just tell you where we spend money; maybe you don't know that we pay down significant debt every month. Today was my pay day; and I just paid: $94.01 on our Mastercard This...

DIY - Christmas Cards

Every year, Jordan and I send Christmas cards to about 65 people.  The list started at over 100 (everyone we invited to our wedding three years ago), and has been whittled down over the years from moves/address changes that we weren't told about and from people who don't respond etc.  I...

Money Has Wings - Other Deductions

Yesterday we looked at the employer paid benefit premiums that can suck money off your pay cheque without you even realizing it.  Today I want to  look at some of the other deductions. Jordan $15/month for social club I'm sure there would be a way out of this if we needed to - but this is money that goes to team lunches, coffee, and other events in the shop.  For the fuss it would...

Money Has Wings - Employer Benefit Premiums

As we're looking to our 2015 budget and where we're spending money - I thought it would also be a good idea to look at the money that is spent before we ever see it, the money that is deducted straight from our pay cheques. First up - benefits! A lot of folks think that health care is free in Canada....

Cashing in Points

There's nothing like the impending holiday shopping that inspires me to look in on all of our points/rewards card balances and see if we can get a few gift cards to help with shopping or straight out gift-giving. I checked in with Aeroplan points and thanks to my recent work trip to Washington, DC...

2015 Budgeting

It's started....the 2015  budgeting process.  I'm sure all of you are going through similar processes - trying to identify what worked, and what didn't. One of the big things for Jordan and I this year was finally getting our day-to-day spending account sorted out so that we both had debit...

Escaping the Escape

Guess what?! Jordan's benefits finally paid for his teeth (we're still waiting on my benefits) - and in part because of that, and in part b/c of his pay raise, and in part b/c of the contents portion of our recent hail insurance claim we were able to make a $3,500 payment on the Escape. We now owe just $5,000.  Wahoo! I love paying it down - even more so than the LOC b/c with the Escape...you...

Insurance Premiums Going Down?

That never happens....never. ...Unless you switch providers, and that's just what my company has done recently. My long term disability premiums are being reduced from $1.097/$100 insured to $0.771.  That means we'll be saving $144.94/annually OR about $12/month. Not a lot - but I'll take it...every little bit adds ...

PIE!

Okay - I know this post is going to go live after Canadian Thanksgiving, but on the weekend prior I wanted to practice my pie making skills - in particular my pie crust making skills...check it out! The crust is the super simple recipe from the Lard-Tenderflake package and it turned out great! I...

DIY Soup Stock

 This past weekend I made home made soup stock, and homemade soup for the first time (without my mom). It wasn't quite as flavorful as her's is - but Jordan went back for seconds so it must have still been pretty good. I simmered a chicken carcass for about 8 hours with onions, carrots, celery...

Jordan Got a Raise!

Yesterday was a long post about spending money...so today will be a short one about making money. As many of you know from when Jordan started at his new company back in January this is the first time his pay structure has included a commission structure.  He was put on a temporary salary guarantee until he was training and into the swing of things, which was then extended month-by-month, as...

Where Has All The Money Gone?!

It's been a few months since I've looked at our spending over a month by month perspective.  October feels like a good time as in January I'll be doing a year over year comparison and year in review. I think the graph I have below is the most useful when trying to analyze the data...but if you...

Monitor Size

Hello my lovely readers! I've realised that folks with smaller monitors may not be having the viewing experience that I had hoped.  This blogger template shrinks with smaller screens, but some of the modules don't - and I would hate for all of you to be viewing this site all scrunched up. So, I ask of you two things. Please participate in my poll at the top/right of this blog to let me know...

Making Vino!

Stirring in the Chemicals Back in April, on my Good News! post commenter Janette suggested that Jordan and I look into making wine as a way to help manage our spending on Alcohol without having to necessarily limit our consumption of it...well Janette - thank you! For my 30th birthday back in July...

Wills - Getting Closer

We are getting so close to having our wills, POAs, and personal directives written up!  We met with a lawyer almost two weeks ago and are expecting to see drafts of everything soon.  Then we just have to sign, pay and we're done! It feels so good to be getting that 'end of life' business taken care ...

Auto Insurance - Help

Our vehicle insurance is up for renewal this October; and while we can make changes at any time to the policies - I use that letter in the mail as a reminder to review it in detail. On both the Kia and the Escape we have: One million in third party liability $1,000 collision deductable $500 comprehensive deductible Accident rating endorsement (if we get into an accident, we won't be penalized in...

Networth Update - October 1

Well, here we are - nothing like a networth post to get back into the habit of writing. You can see a steady increase from the image to the left. Now sitting at just about $107K - we have  $53, 215 in debt - including both vehicles...so coming down steadily.  The Escape is down to $8K which...

Miss Me?

Hiya! Have you missed me?...because I have sure missed you. I can't beleive it's been a month since I've written anything!! wowZa!  Well I have lots to share, and am going to start writing up a storm over the next few weeks. I have updates on Jordan's salary, our insurance policies, wills, insurance claims...and more. Looking forward to catching up with everyone! J...

Networth Update

Wow, another month has just flown by hasn't it! Our networth continues to increase bit, by bit with steady debt repayment and growth in our retirement and other investment plans.  This month we've gone up 2.71% overall to just shy of $105,000. We're down to $8,500 owing on the Escape, and $19,500...

Bill Creep

I struggled with a title for this post - but basically what I'm talking about is all of those bills we have - for TV, phone, internet, radio etc. that starts off at a promotional rate, and then creeps up in price over time. I don't have a set schedule for it, but at least a couple of times a year I call up our service providers to make sure we're paying the best rates for our services and see if...

Hail Damage

Quite a few of you know that Jordan and I are based out of Alberta, and some of you may know that we had some pretty intense hail storms here this past month (among others).  We certainly didn't have it as bad as many people, but both the Escape and the house took some damage. Here's a snapshot...

Life Insurance

There are a lot...a tonne of resources online around Life Insurance.  Calculators for how much you should have, blogs on what kind you should buy (whole, term, term to 100, universal), and debates around insurance as an investment vehicle...not to mention the plethora of do's and don'ts articles...

Getting a Will

Yes, yes we have finally found a lawyer and set up an initial appointment. We'll be looking at $700 + GST for $735 for Wills, Power of Attorney and Personal Directives. I have been advocating for both family and friends to have these documents in place...in fact, I have even used the words 'it's the greatest gift that you can give to your loved ones'....and 'it's a selfish thing not to take care...

Powers of Attorney....Continued

The Alberta Human Services department as a really good brochure on POAs that can provides a brief overview on the types of POA that exist.  It came up in the comments from the last post; but I thought it was important enough to mention here as well. First is the concept of 'enduring' a POA agreement by itself would cease to be effective in Alberta once the donor (the person for the the POA is...

Power of Attorney

Do you have one? Are you a representative on someone else's behalf? Over the last few months I have been working with my great aunt and her lawyers to make some changes to her current POA over to me.  It's right around the corner now, so I thought I would share that with all of you....I'm not going to be renaming my blog, Jessie, Jordan, and Jessie's Great Aunts money - but I might have some...

Net-worth & Debt Update

Bam! We did it! We've broken the $100,000 net-worth barrier!  As of July 31st we're sitting at a sweet, sweet $102(+). We've been tracking net-worth for the last 19 months...and it's incredible to see how far we have come in that time. Not including the mortgage, we're not sitting with...

What Else?

Oh...so besides slacking off when it comes to writing about money, what have I been doing? Well my mom, Jordan, and I all had birthday's in July - and I turned 30! Yea...30. Also; we've gone camping a LOT, and BBQing a LOT...and some quading and really - just enjoying the summer. Here's some pic...

Savings Plan Update

The Escape is so close to being paid off I can taste it...we're down to $8,900 - down from $28K. After a bit of a chat with Jordan, and bouncing some ideas off of my mom; we've decided to forgo re-starting the RRSPs/Planned Savings for just a couple of months (I had stopped them all when we were switching automatic transactions from the joint-chequing to the new joint-savings work horse account). I...

I've Been Slacking

...I can't believe it's been a few weeks since I've last written...and I haven't made much progress at all with the last few things I committed to. I haven't made an appointment with a lawyer for a will - BUT Jordan and I did have some good conversations about who/how/what in terms of our estate at this point in time. I also stalled on the home inventory...but I need to get back to that too! The...

Joint Chequing - Followup

So, Jordan and decided it was totally worth the effort; and have been working at switching over all of our accounts to a joint savings account over the last little while.  We actually started before the post about considering it went up! We have 13 different companies that interact with our work...

Making a Will

We haven't finished Level 4 yet, because we're still taking our home inventory; but I didn't want to lose momentum (either in writing or in the My Money, My Choices process); so I'm going to start working through Level 5. Activity 1, is to make a will. Oi!  I knew this was coming, but I'm not sure I was ready for it just yet. Activity 2 is to name a financial power of attorney, and Activity...

Taxes! Do Them!

It boggles my mind how many people don't keep their taxes up to date; especially when they have super standard; nothing to write home about taxes to complete.  We're talking a T4, maybe 2 and an RRSP or school deduction.  Seriously.  It's not hard. It just so happens that the last two activities in Level 4 of My Money, My Choices to get this years tax return done and catch up on any...

July 1st Networth Update

guh! So...today, I was going to tell you how Jordan and I broke through the $100,000 Networth barrier!  Wow! but...we didn't. Our networth actually went down. So what happened? Our Tangerine Funds went down slightly My Sunlife Funds went down slightly We spent more money then we had We haven't...

Happy Birthday Canada

Happy Birthday Canada! I hope everyone is off enjoying the rights and responsibilities we have as Canadian's. This was just one of the last birthday photo's I took - that's my husband's shi...

Home Inventory

Do you know what you own?  Everything, every item - do you know what and where it is, how much it cost or what it would cost to replace it? The pictures I'm sharing with you this week are from the house fire my family experienced in Christmas Eve, 2003. Our house/garage fire was not nearly...

Joint Chequing

So we can make the money work; but can we make sticking to the debit card work? That's the question that I left yesterday's blog post with. I called Tangerine - and it turns out, things haven't changed...Ugh! The Tangerine representative suggested that instead of having two chequing accounts; that we basically open a new joint savings account (you can have as many as you like); and transition...

Is $300 Enough?

So, it's the middle of June.  We're halfway through the year.  This feels like a good time to look at the budget and to see if it's working.  In particular, is 300/week working for our day-to-day spending? I thought we should first look at what we actually are spending.  So here's...

My Garden

Is so, so pretty this year! Last year we transplanted a lot of flowers from my grandmother's garden, and this year they are all in full bloom!  Check it out! ...

June 1st Networth

June 1st we came so so so close to breaking through the $100,00K networth mark - but we're not quite there.  We were up to $99,623.31 and climbing.  Just the way my spreadsheets are set up; it would be more work than it's worth to do the screen shots for June ( would have to remove data, then add it back in) - but I gotta tell you; I'm really looking forward to the July 1st post...

May Spend Report

It's late - but here it is! Here it is!  Off the top it looks pretty crazy with over $7,000 in spending - but have a look a the line in orange.  Over $4,000 of that has been, or will be reimbursed by either our employers, our benefit providers or our family (Costco chopping for family). Items...

Credit Reports

My first post in getting caught up is to answer a reader's question on how/where Jordan and I accessed our credit reports.  I should probably remind readers that this is written from the Canadian perspective. There are currently two credit reporting agencies - Equifax and Trans Union.  Governed by provincial legislation they collect and disseminate information that pertains to Canadian's...

I'm Back!

...and feel like I have loads of catching up to do. Over the coming weeks you can expect an update on our credit reports, and the last couple months of monthly financial updates.  There's also changes expected for Jordan's salary; so we'll be looking at that, and what it means for the budget.  We're going to continue on our My Money, My Choices journey as well. Looking forward to getting...

I'll be Back Soon!

I haven't stopped writing! I'm just writing for another audience right now. I'm in the very last week, of the last course of my extension certificate.  The final paper is 50 pages, and 70% of my grade (eek!)....

Overdraft

Continuing on in our My Money, My Choices journey - we come to overdraft.  I've thankfully never lived in it, but have in the past dipped into a few times by accident.  The cashflow exercise we went through a month or so ago really helped getting this straight so that we weren't having bills automatically debit from the account before pay day. The great thing though, about banking with...

My Money, My Choices - Level 4, Activity 3 and 4

Activity 3 is one I can really sink my teeth into, in this one, we have to check our credit history reports.  Activity 4 is to correct any errors.  I requested them for both Jordan and I on April 14th from both Equifax and Transunion and the Equifax ones arrived last week. Managing your credit is your responsibility, and checking in on the two bureaus is part of that job to make sure that...

My Money, My Choices - Level 4, Activity 1 & 2

Level 4 is all about credit...which is a tool and important to learn how to use well.  When credit, turns to debt it becomes a tool that weighs us down and prevents us from achieving financial independence. Activity 1 is to get a credit card...well that's an easy one to check of as complete....

Coffee Addiction

I am addicted to coffee. Not Starbucks lattes, or frappes or whatever - just awesome coffee. So what's this picture all about?  Why am I camping in my kitchen?  Because my awesome Bunn Coffee maker died a week ago...DIED! Okay, just the heating element crapped out.  But guess what...