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 free to add any comments or questions you may have - things will no doubt change (as they have a propensity to do), but this is big picture guideline for the next year or so. 

I'll be tracking our actual spending and posting that regularly so hoping to stay on track with that added bit of accountability.  I'll also be making phone calls over the next few weeks to try to get the cell phone bill and a few other items negotiated to a more reasonable level.

Where the Budget Stands

Okay, so now that we're down to just EI and Jordan's salary, it feels like a good time to post the budget we're working with.  Now, this doesn't apply for February because we still have the Mortgage and the Line of Credit, and all the expenses (utilities, taxes) associated with having the house in Alberta.  Once the house clears, we're going to be clearing those debts and eliminating those expenses,  so this budget is for March going forward until we find a new home.

Some things that will be changing soon are insurances.  We're currently looking at Life Insurance for both of us, and we'll also need to look at tennants insurance of some kind to protect our belongings that are in storage.  I've left line items for those, but the numbers are blank for now.

You might have read on previous posts that I was eligible for the maximum EI and that we also are receiving USSB and BC child care benefits, so that plus Jordan's scary makes up our monthly income.

Next we have our cell phones and the unknown insurances.  Following that we have the benefit premiums I'm paying to maintain my benefits through work.  These used to be deducted from my pay - health care is paid for 100%, but this is 50% of the dental care premium, and Long Term Disability Insurance.

We're paying for TV at my mom's place which is the next line item.

Following that is the car payment - which is paid bi-weekly.  We owe around $14K on this still, so have a ways to go and it is at 0% financing.

I often refer to our monthly spending as 'day-to-day' - this is the money allocated for gas, groceries, hair, clothes, EVERYTHING that is not a fixed expense.  I did a post for leaving this as is a little while ago - but we'll keep evaluating as time goes on.

The savings and planned spending are relatively low considering the amount left over at the end of the month ($1,500) - which is part of the point of this post, to figure out what to do with it.  I feel like it would be good to boost RRSP for a while, and important to always tuck away a little bit for emergencies.  The Baby RESP gets $100/month and the Baby bank account gets the $86.28.  I want to have some money in his bank account for 'long term savings' for him to learn about when he's older, but we may also use some money from here at the end of each year to top up his RESP - we shall see.

We pay for auto insurance in BC annually, so the $250 is to set aside for each year.  Then of course vacation, gifts, and maintenance.  This is more personal, than home right now, because we won't have  a home of our own for a while - but this is for basically everything that we would need from home depot for house maintenance (yard supplies, shingles, money for big house stuff like when a furnace quits etc.).  Personal Maintenance is things like hair cuts, work boots etc.  If we need a 'top up' from the day-to-day.

Okay....so.  The only debt we have is the Kia which I'm inclined to pay off with the rest of the $1,500 each month BUT with planning to buy a house, it might make more sense to just stash all the extra cash for a bigger downpayment, bigger emergency fund - that sort of thing.

What do you think?  Keep the cash, or pay off the Kia?

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 paid, and income like my EI and Jordan's salary is deposited.  It pays the day-to-day spending account $425/week.  Every once in a while, I review this amount and what's it for to make sure that it's aligned.  Given that we've had so many changes, I think it's time to look at it again.

If we look at our 2015 report from last week, I can pull out the categories that are from day-to-day spending rather than planned spending.

On average we spent just over $2,100/month on items that are intended to be covered by $1,842 ($425*52/12).     So, obviously we overspent what we had budgeted.

We have no credit card debt (I swear), but this is how it happens for sure.  The money came from cash we had stashed for planned spending - for example taking money from the home or vehicle maintenance accounts.

We do have some money in our planned savings accounts, it's clear why we don't have as much as I think we should.

So.  Do we change the budget, or do we spend differently?

I'm inclined to try to spend differently.

I talked about these categories generally in the 2015 spend review - but we need to get better about the $$ that goes in our mouths (or in the trash as the case may be).  I think the Alcohol, Medical, Entertainment, and Pets are all pretty reasonable on a month to month basis.  It's the Gas, Groceries, and Eating Out that we need to watch.  Does this sound like a post I've written before?

If it does, it's because our groceries and eating out spending has always been something that we've struggled to manage.

My mom is a champion at shopping with flyers (we don't have coupon's like the United States) - and I'm starting to get re-aquainted with them.  I'm hoping to pick up more of my mom's grocery spending tricks as I spend more time in her home.

As far as eating out, I need to decline to go out as often as invited and perhaps when we do go - have cash for our portion of the bill. This is hard because I felt like we were doing better here, but we're clearly not doing as well as I thought.  I'm wondering if we're going out less, but spending more when we do, or if it's something else.  Either way, I'm going to try to get more disciplined here.

Maybe if I started posted all the eating out transactions a month, or a week - that would help keep me disciplined?  I'll have to think about that.

So, I don't think I can reduce the $425/week but I'm also not prepared to increase it.  I would like to get it back down to $400, but we can't do that until we're spending differently unless we want to be pulling out credit cards again.

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 all the commuting for me was around 75kms a day until I went on leave.  We also had a family emergency later on in the year which had me and my mom driving quite a bit to different parts of BC.

Groceries & Eating Out 
I want to mention here that groceries includes house cleaning supplies, dog treats, diapers (when we buy disposables), basically everything that you can buy in a grocery store.  We also were buying groceries for my in Alberta and splitting costs with my mom in BC.  With so much time on the road this year, Im not surprised by the eating out.  Since being in BC, its pretty common for my family to eat out for lunches, and Jordan and I have tried to pick up the tab quite a bit.  Going into 2016, I think that these will go down quite a bit as we settle into a new routine here.  Also, we're just going to have less money - so there's that.

We really just started buying Alcohol again in the latter half of the year.  I'm breastfeeding, so won't be indulging very often and Jordan doesn't drink a lot without me.  So I see this staying pretty low.

Entertainment
This is netflix, movies, lottery tickets here and there for Jordan, sometimes wine making supplies.  If anything, I think this will go down....I can't see going to the theatre very often with a newborn, but really would love to take Little Man camping a few times in the summer.

Pets
This is sometimes dog food (but more often than nit that is tracked as groceries), the kennel from time to time, and treats or toys every so often.  I don't see a whole lot changing here.

I don't see anything changing for Medical, Education or Vehicle Maintenance.  Once a lose a bit more baby weight, Ill need to look through my wardrobe and see what still works and what doesn't so I think the Clothing category won't change a whole lot.  I'm tracking everything for Little Man under Baby, so his stuff won't go under clothing.  Speaking of the Baby category - this includes everything for Little Man from our Cloth Diapering supplies, to clothes, to toys, to his crib & dresser.  We're pretty set up now, we had a wonderful baby shower, and he was spoiled over the holidays too.  We of course have picked up some things from us - but I don't see any BIG baby purchases in the new year. Just clothes and diapers as he needs them I think...but what do I know, I've never had a baby before.

I tried to get a bit of a handle on Gifts this year, but we always splurge some in July and December.  We always have the money saved ahead of time so Im not worried about this too much.

We spent a lot in Home Maintenance  this year - in part because we were preparing our house to sell in Alberta, and in part because we've tried to contribute to my mom's house where we can as well.  This number will either go way, way down as we sell our home in Alberta - or go way, way up if we buy a fixer-upper in BC.  So time will tell here.

So there you have it.  This what Jordan, I and Little Man spent in 2015 on our variable and planned spending.

Are you happy with where your money went in 2015?  Are you making any changes if you weren't?

Budgeting for Baby

You know that Jordan and I have decided to hold off of buying a home in BC just yet, but I'm not sure if I've shared that we're also holding on selling our home in Alberta.  This is for a couple of reasons, but the largest is that it's not a good time to sell with the current oil prices/economy in AB.

There's a few more things there, but I'm not quite ready to share all of that yet.  I am though, ready to share our draft baby budget.  This is with carrying our home in Alberta, and living in BC with family.

I would really appreciate any thoughts or advice you have!

Income is income.. I'll be eligible for the maximum EI benefit and the UCCB payment which just increased from $100, to $160/month for care givers of children under 6 years old.


Onto monthly expenses - these are our normal expenses for maintaining our house in Airdrie.  I've reduced the utilities slightly, but not a lot just in case.  It will be winter, and while the house won't need to be heated to 20, it will need to stay at 10 Celsius so pipes don't freeze.

We'll still have cell phones, though our contracts are up for renewal in November so there will hopefully be a smaller bill by the end of the year.

We still have the car payment, mortgage, and our LOC payments.  I'm leaving our monthly spending at $1,700 (what it is now) because while we'll spend less on gas etc. with me at home, I'm assuming their will be baby expenses that will balance that out.

My employer will keep all my benefits going, I just have to pay for my Long Term Disability premium (which I'm happy to do).

We're able to keep doing some of our planned saving/spending, but at a much lower rate.

For the first 15 weeks of my maternity leave, my employer 'tops up' my EI to 70% of my salary.  That means that we'll have approximately an additional $900/bi-weekly during that time.  My plan is to bank all of that money - but maybe it would be better to drop that all on the LOC (~$6750 total) or maybe to add to our vacation or emergency funds?

What do you think?

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 card access to it.  This involved moving our 'work horse' account from a joint chequing to a joint savings account and the benefits have been huge!  We're both more accountable to the $400/week limit; and while we both still go over from time to time (okay, often) and use our credit cards; it's helping to build the right spending behaviour.

A week ago or so I did a post called 'Where has all the money gone' - I went a bit further for this exercise and looked at our spending since I started tracking - back to mid-2010.  The chart of that is below and shows you exactly how we spend every year.  I did leave out the wedding in this chart b/c it's not going to happen again.

You can see that buying the Kia in 2014 really did impact what we were spending in gas since we had moved and my commute increased even though Jordan's decreased when his job changed...and you can see when we bought our house in 2011 and our home maintenance spending spiked.  For some categories, I don't think our spending changed (like entertainment) so much as our tracking got better.

The problem is that we run out of money before we run out of things we spend money on...that's what I need help with - where I would really appreciate your advice...it's prioritization time.

I have two columns right now - what's realistic...what we can afford and what we would budget ideally based on past spending habits.

I should mention here that our income does not include ANY commissions, raises, or added $$ when I cap out on CPP/EI maximums in August.

A few notes on the Monthly Spending category in our draft budget.  It is meant to include everything in dark grey above- Gas to Medical expenses.  For 2014 we budgeted $1,600/month and my mom suggested that rather than go straight to $2,000 to be realistic - we try to wean ourselves off more slowly.  So we're thinking of budgeting $1,800 as a more achievable number.

You'll also see that we don't have the Escape payment budgeted for in the draft - that money has been added to the LOC Debt category b/c I expect to have the Escape payed off by the end of 2014.

Everything from retirement, to planned spending is under Bi-Weekly Savings - including two new goals.

We would like to start tucking $$ away for a down payment on a truck once the LOC is paid off and we would also like to start planning to develop our basement.  Right now I'm thinking Jordan's commissions could go towards the truck/basement but again - would love peoples thoughts on this.

So there it is - out in the open for judgement and recommendations.

Thank you!

oh! Don't forget when looking at the Streetwise retirement savings numbers - I save 5% of my pay which is matched to a total 10% for my pension at work and I also save $75/month to purchase shares at my company which we consider to be part of our retirement planning.

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, northern Alberta twice and worked a crap tonne of Overtime for work.  Jordan and I also had houses guests on the weekend when I wasn't in BC.  So...its been busy.

Here's the thing though - I love busy!

My blog doesn't, but I do....

So...that said, on to today's topic.  Since Jordan has started his new job and his salary went from every two weeks (bi-weekly - opposite weeks of me) to bi-monthly (15th and the last of the month), I've been trying to keep up with weekly payments on all of our planned savings, retirement and debts...it was getting a bit much, so we decided to switch everything to bi-weekly and sync things up with my pay schedule because Jordan's salary will fluctuate a lot.

Most were pretty easy to do - all of my ING funds were just a quick switch.  The streetwise funds too slightly more effort to organize, and the Mortgage took some time as well.  

Here's a the before and after snapshots of our Mortgage:
 

Because technically we're now 'short' two payments of $385.11 and we'll pay a bit more interest because of the change - the remaining amortization changed.

The last thing I have to sort out is the payment on our Escape - we fought tooth and nail to get it switched to weekly and things got so messed up when we did that last time BMO took wayyyy more money then they were supposed to and bounced a mortgage payment...so, I'm nervous.  Jordan and I are debating just paying off the Escape with the LOC (and I know, I know, we've talked about doing that before) - I just can't decide.

That's it for now :)

No-Income Transition

I'm now pretty confident on how we'll handle the bills when Jordan's job changes - but I still need to work out the transition between the two.

His last regularly scheduled pay in December will include his last two weeks worked - last day is on December 20th and on December 26th he should be paid for the weeks ending December 13th and December 20th.  He will also be paid out his vacation accrual which is currently sitting at approx $4,300 - so they'll be a tad more added to that from December's accrual.

Jordan's first pay in January will be the 15th....that's almost a full month of no regular pay, just the vacation monies...though if nothing had changed it would have been on the 9th..so it's only six days longer that we're used to.

Juuuust in case I'm going to stash $1,000 from the vacation money to use for bills and the rest (less taxes of course) will go to savings/debt/Christmas.

Am I missing something?  Am I forgetting something?

$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.

Draft 2014 Budget

Since Jordan receiving his raise, I've been spending some time working on the 2014 budget.  I thought I would put it out to all of you for some feedback before we finalise things.  I've also assigned budget percents and added them up in Gails Life Pie Categories.  We don't line up perfectly - but I'm happy we've got really good balance here.

On to the breakdown...

In December we will be look at our cell phones and trying to get a good plan in place for the both of us - I'm also crossing my fingers that Jordan's work will start paying for half the bill.

I'm currently shopping for Auto Insurance - but it looks like we're already getting pretty stellar rates.

Monthly spending includes gas, groceries, entertainment, pets, haircuts, clothes etc.  - it's everything and is currently $300/week which is down from $375 since getting the new car we expect to save a lot on gas.

As I have a pension, we contribute less to RRSP for me and more for Jordan.

The Baby Fund TSFA is counted as savings right now but the intent for this is income replacement when I'm eventually on maternity leave (no, not preggo, just planning ahead).

We've broken the LOC debt into two parts.  One is for the purchase of shares which is considered savings as it's a long term investment. The other is debt we expect to carry forward from the backyard project.  We anticipated being able to pay more of this off then we were.

Also planning on saving more for emergencies/vehicle repair (winter tires for the new car), Christmas/gifts and vacation - we always spend it, so want to plan on saving more (this is included in the life part of our pie).

Questions?  Thoughts? Suggestions?

These draft leaves us with about $2,000 left over.

Updated Budget

Over the last couple of blog posts I shared with you our recent new car purchase and some of the expected fuel savings that we're looking forward to.  This post is all about how much it's going to cost us to save that gas and how the budget is going to change.

The total price we are financing, including fees and taxes, is $21.013.91.

Not too shabby for wanting to be under $20K.  Here's the breakdown:

We start at just under $20K with a $1K discount because we're good negotiators (at least we think we are) - next up are some pretty standard add on and fees.  I wasn't sure about the protective paint coating but Jordan works in the industry and was confident that it was a good price for a good product.

We are financing at 0%.

The 0% financing deal accompanied terms up to 60 months as well as their 60/84 plan.  I hadn't heard of the latter before but basically is their way to trap people into owing a balance at the end of the plan with an option to re-finance (most people just roll the amount owing and trade in for a new vehicle apparently.

Well, we're not that silly but we like flexibility of lower payments and we like 0% financing.

So, we went with it.  Our payments will default to $115.65/bi-weekly for 60 months with $5,979.41 owing at the end of the term.  We intend on comming up with the extra $1,000 each year to add to the loan (it's open with no penalties for early payments) to make sure it's paid off sooner rather then later.

So!  We have increased payments of $115.65/bi-weekly - now what? Well, we're also saving about $110/month on fuel and will have increased insurance premiums of about $31.48/month (it's about because our insurance is currently under renewal).

We were planning on increasing our day-to-day spending from $375 to $400 in January, instead we have reduced it to $300/month.  That leaves us with an unplanned overage of $77.78 (($115.65*2)+31.48-75-110).  We'll have a little bit less cash going towards the backyard debt, but it's not significant enough to worry about - you'll see more changes coming to our budget in the months ahead, but this will get us to the end of the year.

May, 2013 Monthly Budget

A few days late, but here is the budget for May:

I haven't posted budgets for a while - because mine are usually always the same.  I thought though, for the sake of any new readers that have come my way over the last few months since I started writing more actively again, I would do a bit of a catch up.

This May, Jordan is paid three times - so you can see his income is a lot higher than normal.

Below our income you can see our fixed expenses.   Utilities are paid every other month and include water, sewer, waste and garbage pick up.  Enmax (further down) includes our electricity and gas (heat) and that's every month. Now that we're in the summer I expect Enmax to go down (less heat) and my city utilities to go up (more water).

Property taxes are every month, and we pay them ourselves rather then incorporating them into the mortgage.

Next up are our cell phones - we're waiting for our contracts to expire in about six months and then we're going to look at a combined family plan, to get just one bill/one contract and hopefully pay a lot less.

Shaw includes internet, tv, and home phone.  We did a big post about that a few months back and are paying a lot less then we used to be.

I'm excited that in October, when our auto-insurance renews because my last speed ticket falls off of my record so our rates should go down again.  That'll be great!

Next up is our Car (Escape) and Mortgage payments - these are every week and because May has 5 Fridays, we'll have five payments instead of four. Our Monthly Spending (this is gas, groceries, clothes, entertainment and everything that is not a fixed expense) is managed the same way with a deposit every Friday.

Finally we have our RRSP contributions and the last top up to our Emergency Fund (which should actually show as a negative number, not positive) - which brings all of our savings goals for 2013 to 100%.

The last (perhaps most interesting?) is how much cash is left over.  This is all going towards our big backyard project!  Every  month going forward - every bit of cash left over is being directed to this project.

Feel free to ask any questions you might have!

Our Life Pie

Inspired by a new year, and one of Gail Vaz-Oxlade's older posts about the life pie, I wanted to do some work to put together ours.

According to Gail, the Life Pie "is very flexible and is only meant as a guide so that you have some sense of balance in your budget. If you’re way over in one place, you have to be way under in another. The bottom line is that you can’t spend more money than you make."

You can see that because Jordan and I have 0% allocated to debt repayment, that leaves us a lot of wiggle room.  We have decided to allocate this money towards life - we've got plans to finish the back yard this year (deck, fence ect) - so that money will come in handy.

 For anyone who doesn't recall the post, or didn't click on the link, here is the breakdown of Gail's recommendations vs the exact percentages of ours.

Not only do we have 0% allocated to debt, we also spend less in housing then she suggests, and we contribute more to long term savings.

For those who like the details, keep reading below.

When filling this in, I started with what we spent last year and also had a look at what our budget for 2013 was - that helped guide this.  Using our utilities tracking history and tracking our daily expenses (gas, vehicle maintenance etc.) also was a big help in being accurate.

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 

Organized for the New Year

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas/Holiday celebration with friends and family - I've enjoyed having a week off and am looking forward to another.  I spent some time this morning finalizing the transfer of all of our accounts to our new house and getting our 2012 budget confirmed.  Jordan and I, unless an unforeseen disaster strikes, will have our credit card totally paid off by the end of the year and we are both so looking forward to entering 2012 being consumer debt free (aside from the vehicle loan).

We have settled on the following as our monthly budget:

Our utilities won't be that high - but it was the average of the bills in the rental.  While our home was built with some upgrades in the windows and insulation and we also have six months free of our phone, internet and satellite tv services - we haven't received our first bill yet and just want to have a bit of wiggle room.

Our insurance has been a huge win, we had further discounts when we actually moved and so this payment includes both of our vehicles as well as the house.

I have increased our gas budget because our commute is a bit longer - we don't have a good gauge on what it will be, but if it's more - the overage in the utilities guess should cover it.

I'm not really concerned if we spend more or less in either booze or eating out/entertainment categories - as long as the three combined are equal to or less than $450/month.

We have started our allowances up again so that we have a bit of personal spending freedom.  It's so nice to be able to treat someone to lunch without having to check in with each other first.

The Joint House account is a planned spending account that includes everything from clothes, shoes, hair cuts, pets, annual expenses, vehicle and home maintenance as well as large household purchases.

The majority of the Joint Gifts account is for Christmas, but it is also intended to include birthday presents/housewarming gifts and that sort of thing too.

The Joint Emerg and RRSP accounts are pretty self explanatory - although last year we only put $100/month into each of these and we've increased it to $200/month for each of these categories.

Financially, I'm feeling a lot more positive as Jordan and I embark into the new year as a married couple in our own home.  I'm looking forward to staying positive in the rest of my life too!

Wedding Budget

Two days before the wedding I lost my life.

That's right, the little USB that I carry around with me everywhere - it's always in my purse, always.  and...I.Lost.It.  Thankfully my mom and my Maid of Honor helped keep my head on straight and we figured out who I owed money too and what the itinerary was.  

Jordan couldn't find the USB back home and I was convinced that it was lost for good - so I kind of gave up on keeping track of the last few things we had to buy for the wedding.  I've gone through credit card statements and banking statements and tried to figure it all out.  So it's taken a little while but I've finally finished tallying all the numbers from the wedding and honeymoon. 

August Monthly Budget

August's monthly budget is pretty simple - with a MEGA credit card payment.  Take that BMO!  

When we get back from our Honeymoon we're going to evaluate the debt load and the allowances may disappear for a while - we're planning on taking from September to November to nail our credit card debt to the wall.

Wedding Budget Update

A few people have asked or made reference to our wedding budget so i thought that today was a good day to post an updated.  In the image below you'll see what we expected things to cost, what they actually cost,  what we've paid so far and what's left to pay.

Anything in red is either no longer applicable or we decided not to do it.

Some things, like stationary - were a lot more expensive then i had expected and some things - like grat/taxes wound up being build into our costs - so we saved there.

I have cheques ready to pay the rest of the vendors on the day of (that my momma has offered to hold for us) and there are a few items (like the bar mix) that we won't be buying until the week before the wedding.

I feel like a post like this is better suited to questions/answers if you have any rather than me going line by line explaining things - so if you have any questions - ask away.

July Budget

Here is the July spending plan:

Feel free to throw your questions at us if you have any :)

Centerpieces & Isle Flowers

This past long weekend I went to my parents place in BC to spend some time with my mom putting together the centerpieces and ceremony isle planter pots.  Other than getting a nasty sunburn, it went really well and was low cost too!

We had gathered the centerpiece pots and painted them a while back and had some excellent soil that we had been given a while ago which was fantastic.  My mom graciously bought some miracle grow as well as the flowers (approx $175) and we had bought some large planter pots from Walmart (approx $30) as well.

All told the total cost was just over $200 for our centerpieces (25) and isle flowers (12).

Here's some photo's of pulling everything together: