I Hate my Spending Journal

Gah! I hate the spending journal, hate it!  Gail says you can't move forward in the process until you nail this - it takes discipline... I still hate it. I hate remembering to ask for receipts, and then trying not to lose them.  I hate that my notebook gets lost. Enough of that...I need a bit of advice. For those of you that use a spending journal, how do you build it into your daily...

Budget 2014 Tab Updated

Just a quick note to tell you that I updated the 2014 Budget Pa...

Tax Time!

As soon as January rolls around, I started to get excited for tax season.  I picked up a copy of TurboTax from Costco for $28 on an awesome sale and we got our taxes finished and submitted during the first week of March. This year we had deductions for the interest costs for an investment in...

My Money, My Choices - Level 2, Activity 2

Activity: Track Spending in a Spending Journal This is the activity that I haven't been looking forward to...but the one that I think will finally see Jordan and I getting on track with our $600/bi-weekly allotment for all discretionary (is that the right word?) spending.  It's the amount that...

I'm Getting a Raise!

It's that time of the year for me! Every year my company conducts performance and salary reviews in the first quarter.  I had my meeting a few weeks ago, and it went spectacularly well!  I've been awarded a 5.633% raise!  It's a $4,000 increase taking me from $71,000 up to $75,000...

My Money, My Choices - Level 2, Activity 1 (continued)

I left yesterday's post hanging - I didn't feel as thought I had adequately met Gail's challenge to balance  our cash flow, so put it all in a spreadsheet (easier to manipulate then a calendar), and started moving payment days around to find a schedule that didn't have us in the negative once. Once...

My Money, My Choices - Level 2, Activity 1

Activity: Align Cash Flow, with Bills The first activity in level two is to align our cash flow, with our bills.  I went to one of Gail's older blog posts on the subject to frame the activity a bit.  Here's what we had to do: Make a list of what you have to pay by date. Plot these payments...

I Heart DIY Painting

In my recent efforts to clean up my blog and get writing again, I noticed I hadn't actually posted this back when I wrote in October, 2013. Goodness! When Jordan and I moved into our home, it was (and is still mostly) builder beige/white.  I wanted my craft room to feel a bit funner, inspiring...

My Money, My Choices - Level 1, Activity 4

The fourth, and final, activity in level 1 is to create a networth statement. This was a pretty quick activity for me - but I did make a change to my regular networth statement (and why I missed posting for March 1st).  I've been including our home's market value, but I have not been including...

Overtime Payout!

You might have noticed that we already have $800 in our debt snowflakes tracker.  I had worked a tonne of overtime a while back and when I hit my banked-time maximum (75 hours) the remainder was paid out.  This represents that payo...

My Money, My Choices - Level 1, Activity 3

Activity 3 is to make a Balanced budget....balanced. I already have a budget set up (see the 2014 budget tab), but I wanted to go through this process to have the opportunity to really look at everything.  So, I decided to download Gail's Build-a-Budget Excel download. I made a few additions...

...One more change

After writing today's post yesterday, and then reading it again today, I felt good about saving the $20, but it didn't feel like enough.  We went back through the TV plan and decided to get rid of the premier package ($89.99) and move to Personal (basic) TV plus the Best of HD for a total of $74.90.  That will bring in an additional $15.09 in savings!  That brings our total bill from...

Home Phone?

Do you still have a home phone? It seems that less and less people actually do...I actually feel like a bit of a dinosaur for still having one.  Every time it comes up, we always find a reason to keep it...but here's the thing, we really...really don't need it anymore.  Our personal cell...

My Money, My Choices - Level 1, Activity 2

Activity: Create a Debt Repayment Plan This activity really aligns with what Jordan and I were talking about over the last few weeks - increase mortgage payment, pay of LOC, or pay off escape.  Well...let's look at it all and make a plan. Gail feels very strongly that all debts must be...

My Money, My Choices - Level 1, Activity 1

Activity: Complete a Spending Analysis I've been tracking our spending for a long time, so this task was pretty easy for me to do.  Here was our year-over-year comparison for the last four years, and I've added 2014's average so far. Groceries has been on the rise and as already described...

February Spend Update

I've just finished February's spend report - but thought I would post it along side January for comparison. You may remember I mentioned it had been a busy month - the gas bill sure shows it!  We're way down on groceries - but I would expect my mom's was higher than it normally is...I also traveled...

Great Aunt Izzy!

One of my Great Aunts lives in an Assisted Living Facility here in the city.  When I was visiting last week, I snapped a picture of her latest masterpiece. This, is a cact...

My Money, My Choices

I've just signed up for Gail Vaz Oxlade's newest project: My Money, My Choices. I'm wondering if anyone else has decided to go through her process?  I've just registered and am at Level 1 - Financial Literacy.  I think I'll probably get through the first couple of phases pretty quickly (I've kept a spend record for three years, so that'a tick box for the first activity). I haven't found...

Mortgage Payments

It's so so sooo tempting to increase our mortgage payments - but with the loan sitting at 3.39% and our Escape at 6.90% - it's hard to justify that over the Escape.  But now that we've changed our payment scheduled to accelerated bi-weekly, I don't like seeing that the amortization has gone up....

Weekly to BiWeekly

Wowza!  It's been a long time since I've written. February is a pretty hectic month for me generally speaking.  I spend a lot of time back home with family ( I went three times) and my brother comes in from Eastern Canada for a visit with his girlfriend. I also went to Ontario three times,...