November Monthly Budget

You'll notice that there are a couple of fields that are empty already (roommates rent and Jordan's credit card) - that's because those transactions have already happened.  My budgets tend to be very active, always updated.

There is also a huge credit card payment - this is due to my reimbursable expenses (work trip).  About $2,200 of this is not Jordan or My house hold spending.  That still put's us over budget and the period isn't over yet (it will be on Nov. 5) - but I think we're getting better at this.

Our planned spending and savings categories are as per normal - nothing special here - just slow and steady.

Finally, we have to exciting things we're able to to make great strides toward this month.  We're able to make some very large contributions to our house fund and our wedding fund.  The house fund contribution is to pay ourselves back from what we have borrowed over the last couple of months.

slow and steady

There's not a lot of new things to report lately, other than I have a dreadful stomache bug.

We're still saving, slow and steady for all of our goals - and I'm hopeful that they'll all be met.

We have gone over our credit card budget, but trying to reign that in as best we can until Saturday.  This was from some Christmas shopping and more recently a trip back home.  Well, that's what did it in the end - but we could have planned a bit better and not splurged on other things.  My mom suggested that perhaps the majority of our spending happenes at the beginning of the cycle - so we run out at the end.  I'm going to see if I can graph our shopping days to explore that a bit further.

I'm not as excited for Christmas as I usually am by now...I feel like something is missing.  Not sure exactly what it is, but I'm on the look out for some Christmas Cheer.

Pay Statement

A while back I mentioned that at mid-October I would hit my EI then my CPP maximum.  Well, that time is here!  Whoohoo!  I've hit my EI max, so no more deductions for that, and I'm $49.05 from hitting my CPP max, so that will happen on the first pay in November!

I also just started contributing to my Pension at work!  I already have $611.52 socked away....how did that even happen?!  I love employer matched contributions!  This money is on top of the $25/week that Jordan and I each contribute to our personal RRSPs.  Eventually, I would like to increase our contributions, particularly Jordans because he doesn't have a pension or retirement plan through work.

I'm also very pleased that I'll be getting reimbursed tomorrow for all of my work expenses - to the tune of $2215.14.  It's quite a large sum of money that just sitting on my credit card begging to be paid off, so paid off it will be, tomorrow.

Hurray!

We've Hit Our Limit

It's only the 27th of the month, and our budget is meant to last us until the 5th of the following month - and we've already hit our allotted spending cap - plus some Christmas Shopping!  We have 8 days to go, and I'm not sure that we'll be able to avoid spending....

I know Jordan will owe some to his food truck and we need to go grocery shopping too.

I'm doing my part by getting up a bit earlier this morning and having coffee and breakfast here.  I also made a stew last night for our lunches and Jordan's supper tonight - because I'm going to a friends.

We'll have to try hard not to go and spend more than is absolutly necessary....this will be the third month in a row over.  Though the first two had huge wedding purchases and this month had my trip to Ontario, a deposit for our photographer and car repairs.

Sheesh.

Do you Bundle?

We currently have our TV, internet and phone services bundled with Shaw.  Normally we are pretty pleased, but leading up to yesterday the customer service has been pretty dismal at best.  The PVR was glitching, the prices went up b/c some promotions fell off, and I've spent far too much time on hold (over 45 minutes during my lunch hour yesterday).

Jordan and I went down to a physical Shaw location - after I was told that we could have a student discount applied to our services, but Jordan would have to take over the bill and there would be quite a bit of jostling to do.  Well, it turns out - if your nice to the lady behind the counter, it's not that hard to get your Shaw services sorted out.

She applied the student discounts to the account even though it was still in my name (I mean, we live together, so what's the big deal) and even gave us an extra $20 bill credit because while standing in line we discovered that we were being over billed for our phone service!

Because the bill for this cycle has already been generated I can't quite figure out exactly how much each service is now, but I know that it's around half what it was before.  It took about two hours yesterday (including on-hold time and waiting in line at the Shaw place), but I'd say it's well worth it!

Weekend Re-Cap

Jordan and I had a fantastic weekend in Golden.  We were able to visit with lots of family, see my grandmother win a volunteerism award, and have our engagement photo's taken!  I'm hoping that there will be a couple I am comfortable sharing here - but we'll have to wait and see what develops (ha-ha-ha).

I don't normally read blogs on the weekend, it's my evening activity, but I was checking out Shaking The Money Tree, and she was reminding people that proctor and gamble are doing their annual brand sampler give away. So if you are interested in some free samples, check it out!

Engagement Photos

I'm pretty excited!  Jordan and I are having our engagement photo's done this weekend in BC.  We've never had professional photo's taken, other then school class pictures - but I don't think that really counts.  I asked the photographer for advise on what we should do/wear and this is what she said:

In terms of prep, just have a think about what you want to wear and what kind of overall feel you're looking for (romantic, urban, quirky, in nature, etc). That will help me determine where we go for locations. If you have somewhere in particular you'd like to be photographed, please let me know and I'll go scout it out ahead of time.

In terms of attire, we'll have time to do two looks, if you choose. You might want to do one that's more casual and one more dressed up, or you might be happy in one outfit . . . that's great too. Don't worry about matching each other, but do take into consideration what the other will be wearing. It might look funny if you're in a sequined cocktail dress and heals but Jordan is rocking his favorite sweatpants ;)

Photographers often advice people to wear solid colors in darker tones, which are safe in terms of looking flattering. I vote for you wearing something you love, that speaks to who you are, and that you feel great in. Nothing translates better in photographs than confidence. If that means you wear a hot pink scarf, and yellow polka dotted jacket, so be it.

The total cost for the package that we're going for is $2,200.  That includes:

• Engagement session, including 10 digital files
• up to 2 hours
• Ceremony/Reception session
• 5 consecutive hours of photography
• private online gallery for 90 days
• complete set of digital files, licensed for personal use
• approximately 250 photo's that she has professional re-touched

If we want to increase the length of time she's there on the day, that's fine - we just pay her hourly rate.  


This weekend when we meet, we have to bring a 40% retainer = $880!


It feels good to have this service secured, and we're so looking forward to doing this fun thing together!