Debt Much?

A couple of days ago, I mentioned we had gotten ourselves into some debt in 2019.  From renovations, to dog surgery, to vehicle breakdowns etc. etc. This post is about how we're going to get out of it.

After some brainstorming with Jordan and then bouncing the ideas off of my mom - we've decided to suspend all of our current savings (RRSPs, RESPs, TSFA, future spending) and direct all of it to the debt.  This will essentially have the debt paid off in 2020 rather than 2021 - so that's big.  To my husband's point - why are we saving if we're drowning....and we're not, drowning that is, but debt is a slippery slope.  Once you have it it, it's easy to keep sliding.

Our income/expenses are also going to change several times throughout the year so my other strategy is going to budget based on the constant and then as our situation evolves make additional lump sum payments, rather than continuously updating the budget.

Here's a snapshot of the budget.

Right away you might notice that I'm not budgeting here for annual insurance premiums etc.  I usually save for advance for those, but those savings are also being directed to the Line of Credit until we've got it paid off.

The next thing you might see is the monthly spending of $2,600.

This also has Jordan's income - but he's not back to work until February.

One of the mistakes we've made (several times) in the past, is not being realistic when we budget on what we spend on life.  So this number represents what we actually spend - not what we hope to spend.  Intention here is so that we don't go further into debt while trying to get out of it.

The numbers are coming from yesterday's post on our 2019 spending summary.

Of course we will try to keep this as a maximum, and even less - but also - let's be realistic here.
On to what will be changing over the course of the year.

• In April we'll see a tax refund of some kind
• In February I think we'll be eligible for the BC Affordable Child Care Benefit for the 2019 year.  This may (or may  not) decrease our child care expense by around $450.
• In July our CCB Benefit will be re-assessed and I expect this to go up based on 2019 reduced income.  I think it will be around $450
• In September little man will go to Kindergarten, so Daycare will be reduced by $850/month and then we'll have after-school care for a couple hours.  I don't know what that will cost yet.
• In a few months we'll be apply for Life Insurance for Jordan
• When Jordan goes back to work we won't have the RRSP premiums line item
• In June our mortgage is up for renewal.  We're going to see about reducing our weekly payment ($500/week) to manage cash-flow.  The goal is down to $400/week.
• In the spring, we'll be installing three new exterior doors - we're expecting that bill to be around $8,000.

So, that's it. 

That's the plan.

Money, Money, Money

Okay...so here's the plan.

After the few posts I wrote about what we should do with the cash from the sale of our house and the sale of my shares followed by a few conversations amongst ourselves.

We have decided to:

• Pay off the LOC (~$24,000)
• Top up our Maintenance, Emergency/Vehicle, Gifts & Vacation Funds
• Match my employer's last pension contribution (~ $2,700)
• Stash the rest of the cash our TSFAs for an eventual down payment on our next place

$10,000

Some of you know that the company I used to work for has an employee ownership model.  As part of that, I own shares worth $10,284.30 USD.  If the USD/CAD conversation rates stay about where they are now, the refund should wind up being closer to $13,500 CAD. I should note that it is not an option to maintain my shares if I'm not an employee.

As per my shareholder agreement, the company has up to six months from my departure to sell and issue a refund to me.  I've confirmed that I will receive the money in USD in a cheque.  So, sometime between now and the middle of February we'll get a cheque and need to have a plan for the money.

I've always considered the money invested in shares part of my retirement plan, but now that the funds are being paid back, I'm feeling a bit torn.  Jordan and I chatted about it over the weekend some and he's also a bit conflicted.

Here's the options that we're thinking on:

• Keep the money fluid in my TSFA 
• Pay off the Kia 
• Pay off half off the LOC debt
• Move the money to RRSP

Keeping the money fluid does have it's advantages.  Certainly it would fully fund our emergency fund and then some.  We don't know what type of job I'll find next year, so it might be good to have this as cash to remain flexible.  This also opens us up to spending the money even if we don't really need to.

Paying off the Kia is a super attractive option.  The interest rate is 0%, and as of today we owe just over $15,000 on it - so it would be so so close to being paid off with the share money.  We pay a little more than $250/month on the car and not having that payment would give us a different type of month-to-month flexibility.  That money could be redirected to paying off the LOC - going from $500/month to $750/month, or directed to savings that we've had to pull back on because of going on EI. Putting the money towards this debt has the advantage that it can't be 're-spent' unlike the LOC.

Paying a big chunk on the LOC would make tackling the rest of it feel actually achievable.  Since using it to build the garage and fence on our Alberta house, the balance has gone up and down from $19K to about $25K. Currently it's sitting at $23,500 - so the share money would get this down to a manageable $10,000.  The interest rate on the LOC is 5.73%, so from a financing charge perspective it makes more sense to lower this debt than the Kia as well.  The minimum payment would reduce by about half which would give us equal month-to-month flexibility that paying off the Kia would give us (reducing the required paying by about $250).

Last option would be to just move the money into RRSPs.  This wouldn't impact our cash flexibility in anyway, but would lock in the money to long term savings which was the original intent of it.

So, what do you think?  Keep the money as cash, pay off debt, or move the money to long term retirement savings.  We could really use your thoughts on this one.

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 for gas/road food)
• Buy Gym Memberships through Jordan's corporate discounted rate ($850)
• Pay for our Wills/POAs/Personal Directives ($735)
• Pay off the Escape ($2,700)
• Baby Fund ($1,000) - bringing the balance up to $5,000
• Summer Camping with Mom ($700)

A big thank you to my mom for helping Jordan and I achieve some of our big 2014 goals!  

Thank you so much, you're gift really means a lot to us.

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 our hail claim for the house; and so I've tucked that amount away so we have it handy.

Here's where the $500 is going:

• AMEX - $117.89
• This is gas & 85 for a new wine kit....that came from my birthday money, not out of the day-to-day or work-horse budget.
• Escape - $500
• I borrowed a few extra bucks from the day-to-day account to round up the payment
• Remaining owing $3,250

annnd Friday is Jordan's pay day; so hopefully I'll be writing to tell you about another big SMASH once we see how big his commission pay is.

$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 was from my last physio appointment (reimbursable) and Netflix
• $98.44 on the AMEX
• This was Gas and a small grocery shop
• $750 on the Ford Escape
• This was because I enjoy paying this off with 'gazelle like intensity'
• $574.93 on the LOC (minimum is just over $400/month)
• While our focus is on paying the Escape off, we still have minimum payments to make.
• $73.55 on the Kia Rio
• This was because I like round numbers.

Here's where the non-mortgage debt stands after these payments are processed:

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 can't spend the money again.

Debt Update

Just a quick update on where the debt stands.  All three credit cards have a $0 dollar balance, the Kia isn't tracked here because it's at 0% interest and the mortgage is...the mortgage.

As of Friday last week, the balance on the Escape and LOC was $34,900.  I've been continuing to add debt snowflakes to both accounts, but primarily to the Escape - because once it's paid, we can't add more to the pile (unlike the LOC), and it's interest rate is 1.5% higher than the LOC.

I've also included a bit of a breakdown of where the debt will stand at the end of the year with our regular payments.  My dream would be to have the balance at $0 but there's just no way we're going to find the money....My hope however, is that we're under $20K combined.

Once the balance is down another 5K, I'll pay off the Escape with the LOC, and we'll put the entire payment on to the single debt and then continue to decrease the available credit we have on the LOC until it's down to maybe $15K available.

Bit, by bit.

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 company shares, educational credits for me going back to school not to mention the regular deductions for RRSP/Pension contributions and professional memberships.

We're received a refund of $494.64 for me and $1,400.97 for Jordan for a grand total of $1,895.61 last week.

$1,200 went straight to debt snowflakes, $500 was split between Vacation, Christmas, and Home Maintenance Planned Spending and then Jordan and I split $200 for some mad money.

What are you going to do with your tax return?

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 payout!

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.  Here's some scenarios for what we could do.

Our current payment is now $770.22/bi-weekly and we could increase it as high as $885.75.

We could drop from 24 years amortization to 15 years, 6 months....from being 53 to 44 years old w/out a mortgage.... wowza!

...but what would we have to sacrifice now in order to do that?..For each of these scenarios we would need to come up with $29.78, $54.78, $79.78, or $115.53 bi-weekly.

 Do you see where it could come from?  Here's a snapshot of our current monthly budget and our debts:

 

I should  mention...just in case there's anyone new reading along - that this monthly budget is based on Jordan's salary with no commission.  I can't budget fixed amounts for that - but it's how we intended on reach the rest of our planned saving/spending goals.  We also intended to continue to pay of the LOC, and Escape using commissions.

oh!

One last thing.. in case your interested....the interest rates.

• Kia Rio - 0%
• Mortgage - 3.39%
• Line of Credit - 5.49% (unsecured, and tied to prime)
• Escape - 6.90%

2014 - Debt Pay Off Plan!

Well - it's time. All of the holiday bills are in, and I've reconciled my spreadsheets with who we owe what to.
We had done a lot of holiday shopping for other people, a lot of shopping for ourselves and each other - as well as travel and some emergency expenses (parking, meals out) we had in December (my grandfather had a stroke). We are still holding on to a lot of cash while we wait to see what Jordan's first pay looks like (Jan 15th), and we are still waiting dental reimbursements ($3,000), and school reimbursements ($900). All of that said - I wanted to get our tracking bars updated, and start the year off on the right foot!

We have though - started making progress and it shows in our Networth which has already increased by about $2,200 in the first week of the year.

We paid off the Amex card which was around $900 owing, settled up with our family that we purchased gifts for (on their behalf), and made a payment on the MasterCard.  I transferred the balance (as it was about to start accruing interest) over to the LOC, so the M/C balance is now also $0.

The LOC, with an interest rate of 5.49% and the Escape with an interest rate of 6.90% are our two debt priorities for this year.  In the short term - we are expecting the dental and educational reimbursements which will bring the balance down to $25,100 - from there we have regular weekly payments of $100 which will bring it down (throughout the year) to $19,900.

We have about $6,000 in our chequing account earmarked for the LOC as well which should get us down to about $14,000.  So - in pretty short order we should have gotten this down quite significantly.  Our ability to get the rest of it paid off will depend greatly on Jordan's income which we expect to vary quite a bit.

The LOC maximum is $40,000 so once we get $5,000K paid off, we can move the balance of the Escape over and save a bit on interest there.  The Kia is at 0% interest - so we'll pretty much just ignore that as far as additional payments go.

Savings & Debt: Monthly or Lump Sum

I need help...

Jordan and I have a budget date coming soon; and we will need to decide if we should approach paying off the Line of Credit and our Savings (including planned spending) monthly or lump sum as well as if we should count on rent in the budget; or use it as surplus to pay off the LOC early.

If we attacked it lump sum; the repayment/saving schedule would look something like this:

This plan assumes that we will be able to incorporate about $500/month into our annual budget for the first six months of 2014 from our new roommates.  The Emerg fund would see a lot more money then in our plan; because at the end of the year; everything extra would go to that.

Monthly, would look something like this:

This plan does not assume any income from renting out a couple of our rooms.  The monthly plan would see us reaching all of our goals; at the same time, in December, 2014 rather then reaching goals all throughout the year; every couple of months.  Each month we would apply the rent to the Line of Credit to help reach that goal faster - but would not assume/count on the money to reach our goals.  The end of the year would see some cash left over and unaccounted for currently without a plan.

I would really appreciate comments/suggestions/challenges to either plan.

Part of me really wants to 'set it and forget it' and not have a bunch of manual transfers every month - the other part of me wants that debt gone and pay as little interest as possible.  

Jordan doesn't want to count on the rental income; but I think that income is income and we should count it.

What do you think?

$7,900 in Teeth

Jordan was born with two congenitally missing teeth - every since he was small; his benefits have only provided for a flipper/mouth piece that give the appearance of teeth.  That appliance after 20+ years is now starting to wear on his existing healthy teeth causing more problems.

So...given that for the past year we have been exploring alternatives to the mouth piece.  There are two - either bridge or surgical implants.  For a variety of reasons; primarily longevity, quality and ease of maintenance Jordan has chosen implants.

After many quotes, and many arguments with our benefit providers and dental surgeon...we have a plan.  The total cost of the two implants is $7,900 - are combined benefits will reimburse us $3,000 each calendar year....that led us to the tough decision to plan for two surgeries rather then one.

Jordan's already undergone the first surgery to implant a screw into his jaw bone and now we wait 2-3 months for it to heal. Once healed (end of December), the implant/screw will be fitted with a tooth.  Then, and only then - when the first tooth is considered 'complete' can the dentist submit the expenses to our benefit providers.  So, Jordan and I have had to pay cash (read use the credit card) for the first part of the procedure (and will continue to pay cash each time something happens related to the procedure).  In January we should get our first reimbursement; and then we'll promptly schedule the second surgery.  

Our debt load is getting a bit scary, but we have a plan and will eventually be reimbursed.  Jordan and I would both rather pay the interest now for him to have a happy and healthy mouth before we have kids or anything else when there are more demands for the money.

Update: LOC, Big Backyard Project, Shares & Escape Pay Off Plan

In November of last year, I was offered a Line of Credit with BMO.  We accepted it, thinking that it couldn't hurt to have the funds available - especially with planning our Big Backyard Project.  A few months back, we actually increased it from $10,000 to $40,000 thinking that it would be a way to also pay of the Escape at a lower interest rate.

When we polled our readers, everyone suggested that we increase our payments as well as pay off the Escape with the LOC.

We haven't done it yet (waiting until the dust settles with the Big Backyard Project), but we're getting close.

We currently owe a total of $15,337.77 on the LOC - this includes payments for the backyard to date (Fence, Deck, materials for garage) as well as about $3,530 in spending from our MasterCard that was unplanned (some costs with the Escape - windshield, new tire ect., spending more money on birthdays then planned, as well as extra costs from camping more than we had planned).  We're expecting the following upcoming bills that are planned to be covered by the LOC as we pay it off as aggressively as possible:

• $5,775
• Labour for garage
• $356.30
• Last 8 Feet of Fence
• $6,782.10
• Investment purchase of Shares through work

That will bring the total LOC balance to approximately $28,251.17.    We’re planning on being able to pay off $12,500 to the LOC for the remainder of this year (less then originally planned - details on that later when I finally catch up on our month-to-month spending updates) which will leave us carrying $15,669 forward into 2014.

The original plan was to carry forward $0 into 2014.  This changed to being comfortable with carrying less than $5,000 into 2014.  With the addition of the share purchases, and spending more this summer than planned - we're now looking at a significantly bigger number.  I'm sure we'll make a plan for that too - just haven't looked at the 2014 budget yet.

Let's loop back to the Escape - we currently owe about $18,500 there.  If my approximations are right for the last big of the garage and the share purchase - we should be able to transfer the balance from the Escape Loan (also with BMO) over to the LOC sometime in late Fall.  The balance owing on the Escape will be about $16,600 which would bring our total debt load (not including the mortgage) to be - $32,269   

We will then increase the automatic payments and treat the LOC line any other loan and get it paid off as quickly as possible.  

So, there it is - all of the details of our current projects and debt load.  I've probably missed a few details so please feel free to ask questions if you have them.

a Plan to Pay off the Escape

In November, 2010 Jordan and I purchased a 2011 Ford Escape.  We chose this particular vehicle because we knew in the few short years afterward we would be increasing the size of our family and wanted to be prepared for that.  So far, we have two dogs.  We adopted Aries in January, 2011 and Baxter in 2012.  No kids yet, but we'll have the space for the lot of us when we do.

When we made the purchase, we were given the choice between a good interest rate, or a better price.  We chose the better price and committed to paying the vehicle off early to make up the difference.  With an interest rate of 6.99% and a loan of $27,937 we signed up to pay the vehicle off over 7 years.  As the warranty ends after 5, Jordan and I wanted to have it paid off prior to then.

We started with bi-weekly payments of $189.88 then in January of this year after a ridiculous saga we moved to $100/week - increasing our payments by $260.26 over the course of the year. 

After all the talk of buying a Condo, Jordan and I have decided that we should look at all of our investment options - and some of those including paying down expensive debt.

I called up BMO and found out that there are absolutely no penalties or fees if we pay off our Escape, using our Line of Credit which has a lower interest rate.  The LOC has an interest rate of 5.49% - 1.5% lower then the Escape financing.  Switching, and leaving our weekly payments the same would save us $788 over the rest of the loan peirod (4 years/4 months) - having the escape paid off in late 2017.

To honour our original commitment of having it paid off in 5 years, we actually need to have the debt paid by November, 2015 - or in 2 years/6 months.   

Using an online debt calculator, I ran a couple of scenarios based on the lower interest rate.  If we increased our weekly payments from $100 to $160 - effectively $3,120/year - it will be done.

So, should we do it?

I suppose it's a two part question - one, do we tie up half of our LOC (currently at $0) with the auto debt to save an initial $788 and two, do we then increase our payments by $60 week to have the Escape paid off within 5 years of purchasing it?

If we did, here is what our monthly budget might look like to accommodate that:

There is still quite a bit of cash left over every month - but keep in mind that is cash that was allocated for the backyard.  Making this change would also mean that we would need to find an additional $2,640 to pay for our back yard in cash (or, use the LOC and have it paid off be February, 2014).

Okay - I think those are all the facts - what should we do?

What should we do?
	A: Keep things status quo
	B: Pay off the Escape with the LOC
	C: B & Increase Payments to $160/Week
	D: Other - Please leave a comment
pollcode.com free polls

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 make it.  I think for the most part people believed that I was in good spirits, and that put me in a better mood then I would have been otherwise.

I had a lot of lists.. I always do, but this year it felt a bit more mechanical.  That helped get through I think...task lists...accomplishing things.

To distract myself, I made a lot of Christmas gifts this year.  We also spent a lot - but instead of telling you how much we spent (I don't 100% know just yet... haven't added up all the receipts), I would like to share with you some photo's of my creations...

Homemade Chocolates

Hand Painted Christmas Bear

Home Made Spice Blends

Stocking Stuffer for Jordan

Scarf for Jordan's Cousin

Scarf for my Mom

Scarf for My Cousin 

The Credit Card is Paid Off!

It feels amazing to have this debt wiped out for the second time...and I hope, the last time.  I'm not sure how many of you caught my guest post on Krystal's blog a while back, but it described how we wound up here ni debt again and more importantly a theory on why it happened again.  I would like to re-post my thoughts here:

When I first started blogging, I wrote from a single person’s financial perspective. And I struggled to stay committed – not to the end goal, but to the process. I found it easy to come up with goals and to write about them, but I had a very difficult time tracking my spending. So while I could check my debt balances, I had no clue if my spending was in line with my budget. I also spent a good part of the first year of my blog worrying about job loss. Thankfully I survived three rounds of layoffs, and I continued to get recognition and pay increases – which helped the progress on my debt goals.

A year or so ago, Jordan (my now husband) and I merged all of our finances. We got a joint credit card that we used for all of our spending. We were able to start tracking where our money was going, and it was a huge eye-opener for us.  We found out that we spent a lot more on eating out and alcohol than we had imagined – including our groceries, we were putting an average of $1,000 in our mouths every month!  That realization brought us to a place where we were more focused than ever and we progressively curbed our spending in those categories each month.

We were able to pay off not only my debt, but his as well. Merging our incomes provided us with opportunity to re-think our spending and saving strategies. It also provided us with the financial power to pay off our debt.

We enjoyed being debt-free for about four months before we started to fall into the debt hole again.

We had convinced ourselves that because we had good jobs. And because we were not afraid of a job loss, we told ourselves we would be ‘fine’ no matter what came up. On top of that, we were both really really tired of thinking about, talking about and writing about money. Then, Jordan and I bought a new vehicle together, adopted a dog, got engaged, purchased a home (through a new home builder) and got married – oh, and we just adopted a second dog. With the wedding planning underway and having to make decision after decision about our new home purchase, we became – quite simply - exhausted.

Most of us have heard of debt fatigue.  Gail Vaz-Oxlade describes it as the mental state that occurs when you have been in debt for so long that it feels like you’ll never get out – so you stop caring and just continue buying. She believes that it is at the three year mark when debt fatigue tends to sit in. The description never really seemed to fit for us; we certainly got debt paid off the first time in less than three years – so why were we so tired?  Why did we stop caring?

My mom found an article in the New York Times that talks about Decision Fatigue which seemed to describe what we were going through. Here is how the article describes it:

No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice. Ducking a decision often creates bigger problems in the long run, but for the moment, it eases the mental strain.

Wow! That described Jordan and I to a T.

I don’t want to use “decision fatigue” as an excuse, but it certainly helps explain so much of our behavior. We had been making so many huge decisions that our capacity to make small ones has been diminished.  

I’m hopeful that understanding this type of fatigue will help us to avoid getting in debt a third time. Come November, we will take possession of our new home and we will be debt free again – aside from our mortgage and car loan. 

It’s the awareness of our money and our energy levels with both paying off debt, and with the mental energy it takes to make good decisions, that will keep us on track. Combine that with the love and support we have for each other, and a couple of good spreadsheets – and we should be just fine.

Tracking Bars Updated

Just a quick update this morning -

We are now permitted to spend the funds we had been required (by our bank) to allocate to closing costs.  While Jordan and I knew that our closing costs would only be beer/pizza/uhaul rental (so max $500) we were required to have 1.5% of the value of the mortgage available for closing costs.

Jordan and I have moved some money into our emergency fund, Christmas fund, and new home furniture fund as well as made a large credit card payment.

yay!

Home & Debt Update

If you follow me on Twitter you know that Jordan and I have our possession date - December 8th! You also know that to save money we gave notice for November 30th, which means we're pretty much going to be homeless for eight days.  At first we thought we might stay at a hotel because even that would be less expensive then rent and utilities for the full month of December but then both our Maid of Honor and Best Man offered their homes to us and while smaller, we chose to stay with my Maid of Honor.  She lives in a quieter place and also has a free parking stall that we can use for one of our vehicles.

Here's a few pics of the house:

We've been purging and packing every night for the last few weeks so that we're only bringing things into our new home that we want to have there - everything else has to go - including everything that old roommates have left behind.  So far, we've filled our recycling and garbage bins three times (full!) and sold $460 worth of goods. After a late night delivery last night of a few items, we stopped by the bank to make a deposit - it felt soooo good!

Here's an update on our joint credit card debt after making a payment this morning - unfortunately, it's gone  up a bit but we are still on track to have it paid off at the end of December - where is this extra money coming from you ask?  It's an assumption that I'll get a bit of profit share from my company, some of our damage deposit back and will pay out some banked overtime hours if I have to.

I hope to get back to posting a bit more regularly soon - but for now I imagine it will continue to be sporadic.