Followed Through

Well, I did what I said I was going to do.  I used our Tax Returns to slam down our Line of Credit.  Feels Great!  We're down to owing just $6,000 and nothing is owing on our credit cards either.  It'll just take a month or two and this should be cleared out as well. Renovations are coming along though we are stalled waiting for a mudder/taper to move forward.  At least spring...

2018 Tax Return

Just last week I was able to submit our tax returns for 2018 and it looks like we can be expecting a combined refund of about $4,300!  With all the renovations going on - it really couldn't come at a better time (despite the adage of this really just representing an interest free loan to the government). The...

Renovations Update

We're getting to a really exciting stage with our basement renovation.  Framing is done, plumbing and electrical are mostly complete, insulation is done and drywall has started.  So things are really starting to take shape.  We've chosen our flooring and paint and some of the fixtures...

Monthly Spend (February, 2019)

February was a great spend month - groceries were really under control.  All of the freezer/meal planning that I did back in Nov/Dec really paid off.  I had prepped dozens of meals for when we brought our daughter home from the hospital.  The freezer is nearly empty now though, so I'm...

Monthly Spend (January 2019)

Here is the full monthly spend for January... The budget for what I refer to as our day-to-day expenses is $400/week - I was trying to get this down to $300/week for the month of January but pretty much failed at that.  There are five weeks in January though, and so our average came in at $398...

She's Here!!

She's here, she's here! I'm not going to post photo's of her - but she was born a week and a bit ago and is absolutely perfec...

EI Approved

My Maternity Leave officially started on January 21st and I'm so pleased to see that my employer issued by ROE quickly and my EI claim has already been approved!  I was planning on having to wait at least until beginning of March due to previous experiences with Employment Insurance - but this is going very quickly! Once I get my first payment (I'm thinking Feb 8th likely), I'll submit that...

Weekly Spend - January (week 4)

There are five spending weeks in January but this takes us up to Thursday of the fourth.  It's cumulative from the post I did a couple weeks back rather than each weeks spending re-cap. In the last two weeks, we spent: $25 more in gas $440 more in groceries $288 more in eating out $25 in alcohol $260...

Demolition

Who doesn't like pictures of renovations? Yes? No? The majority of the demolition of our basement which was previously poorly finished was completed before the snow was flying.  Now that we have all of our final financing in place we were able to continue with some of the more...destructive...

The Results are In

Our home appraisal results are in! After the quoted renovations are completed, market value is estimated to be $425,000 - which is pretty much where we needed to be to get the full budget from the quote out of the equity in our home.  We still very much intend on doing some of the work where...

Weekly Spend - January (week 2)

Two weeks into January and I wanted to post my first spend report of 2019.  I think it'll be easier to stay on top of it if I do every week or two instead of just once a month - at least at first until I'm back in the swing of things. Not including the Car Insurance renewal for one of our vehicles...

Networth Update

I've been tracking our Net-worth since 2013 and when looking at just the current year month-to-month, sometimes it feels like we have such slow (or no) movement.  I enjoy end of the year posts because you can really see the long term impact of the changes you've made over the years. I think also...

Raise the Roof

Well, not the roof actually. Jordan just got a raise!  Woohoo!  Great timing with the renovations about to start and me about to go on Maternity Leave.  The excitement is because we have no idea when these changes happen - is workplace doesn't do formal communications.  It's just a cost of living adjustment, but it's a happy new year surprise. I actually also got a raise effective...

Budget (s)

Last week I mentioned that Jordan and I are expecting eight iterations of our budget over the next year as we start/stop maternity and parental leave.  Here's the high-level of the five major changes that we'll see.  We're actually operating under the 'Wait for EI' budget right now. Feel...

Blend & Extend or Renew

Now that we have our quote and initiated things with our bank to get started on our basement renovation, we have a decision to make about how we handle our mortgage. Current balance of the mortgage is just under $250,000 and the appraisal we had done in May of 2018 had the value come in at  $365,000.  We can borrow up to 80% of the value and so we have to re-appraise at  $423,000.00...

Renovations...are we done yet?

Since we bought our home back in 2016 we've been taking on one renovation project at a time.  Before we moved in, we actually did a full kitchen and bathroom renovation on the main floor.  This past summer we did extensive work in our backyard (full privacy fence, deck, patio, pergola &...

Money on Leave

The other day I mentioned that I've stripped back our budget to the bare bones in anticipation of waiting for Employment Insurance when I go on maternity leave.  We'll have several changes to our financial picture over the next 12 months or so.  I'll be taking Maternity/Parental Leave for 6 months, then taking 3-5 weeks vacation (pending approval).  When I start vacation, Jordan's...

...The Wait

Happy New Year!  Now that it's January, I feel like we're in the real count down until Baby #2 arrives.  She's due near the end of the month, but due dates aren't really predictors of when babies are going to show up.  Our son was a full two weeks overdue, so it feels like a real crap shoot. Anyways, things have been so hectic with work and the holidays that I was feeling a bit under-prepared. ...