I Screwed Up

It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but I screwed up.  I was backing out of the carport, and turning to avoid the pickup that parked their (just out of the picture) and I caught the corner of the Escape on the pillar. The carport is fine, the Escape is not. Ugh. The first quote I got to...

Moving

So begins the process of packing up our old house without a new house to put everything in.   A while back I mentioned that Jordan and I were preparing for this by purchasing a 20 foot long container.  Fingers crossed that it winds up being large enough to hold everything - but if not,...

Plantar Fasciitis

Thank goodness for health benefits! I don't think I've shared this before, but I happen to have chronic planter fasciitis.   For those not familiar, it's when the ligament that connects your heel bone to your toes gets inflamed.  It's been ongoing for me for going on three years. I've...

Foreclosure Sale

With the pending closing of the sale of our house, Jordan and I have been on the house hunt again...and we've just found a diamond in the rough that we're going to put an offer in on.  It's a bank foreclosure sale, so comes with some complications. There are multiple offers going in, and no...

Jordan's Retirement Savings

We got some great news a few weeks ago.  Jordan's employer is increasing the amount that they will match for his RRSP.  I mean, the really great news is that he's actually working somewhere that has a retirement program!  It's the first time ever. The company establishes contributions...

Insurance

I'm not sure what automobile insurance is like outside of Alberta and BC but I can tell you that it's wayyyyyy cheaper in Alberta. The renewal came up for the Kia so we got organized to switch the policy over - for comparable coverage it's going to be $418 more a year.  On top of that, they charge a premium to pay monthly, unlike Alberta where they just divide the premium by 12. So, we...

Planned Spending

Okay, so yesterday we looked at our day to day spending to see if that was in alignment.  Today I thought we would look at our planned spending.   On average we spent about $1,770 each month that we had planned for (or had intended to plan for).  Again, I went through the categories...

Day to Day Spending

For those of you who have been following our journey for a while now, you know that Jordan and I have our fixed and variable spending money split into different accounts.  Our fixed account, or workhorse, does not have debit card access.  It's the account where bills like the mortgage are...

Child Care Benefit

Back in June I wrote about money I would be eligible for while on Maternity Leave, other than EI.  The Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) was one of them, and the BC Family benefit was the other.  At the time I had estimated I would be eligible for $125/month.  Since then, we've had...

RESPs

For my non Canadian readers, RESP stands for Registered Education Savings Plan.  It's a government sponsored plan where they will contribute 20% of what you contribute up to a maximum of $500/year for your kids education fund.  You can set these up as family or individual plans, though I think...

2015 Variable Spend in Review

Phew!  2015! This graph shows both what we spent each month in 2015 in each category, but the total sum of our spend over the whole year. Gas is what it is - we drive a lot. Well, I think a lot in comparison to folks who didn't live 7 months apart and drove at least 600kms every weekend plus...

Monthly Spend Report October - December

The last time I did a monthly spend report was back in September.  I'm not going to go too in depth here because tomorrow I've written up a full 2015 in review, but I wanted to get this posted anyways. The average that's displaying is the annual average for comparison.  The other bit of information...

My Money, My Choices - Level Five Update

In updating my blog, I thought it was time to revisit our My Money, My Choices progress.  The last I left it we had just finished level four, and were working on five.  Level five has four activities.  The first three we've completed: 1, 2, 3... Make a Will, Designate a  Financial...

Cloth Diapers

Lots, and lots of people have written on the pros and cons of cloth diapering.  Anyone who's looked into cloth versus disposables knows that cloth - over the long term - is far more cost effective than the alternative.  So for that reason, and for Jordan - because of the environmental impacts...

Life Insurance 2.0

I've written quite a few times about life insurance - I know it's something we need...but now that we have Little Man, I'm feeling a lot more pressing urgency to get it taken care of.  There was a medical issue that we needed to get more information on before we felt like we could confidently pursue...

Life with a Newborn

So often I think about sitting down to write - it's passing thoughts really.  When we started our cloth diapering journey, as I'm dealing with some of the payments through my layoff, EI etc.  and then, Little Man wakes up, or fusses, or is just awake and fun and I would much rather play...

Pages Updated

Hey Gang! The About Us, and Current Budget tabs have been updated.  Woohoo, Little Man had a n...

Updating

Over the next day or two the blog will probably look a little sloppy. I'm working on updating it, and doing so live. Thanks for your patien...