2014 - Savings Plan!

Yesterday I wrote in detail about where Jordan and I stand with our debts - today is all about what we want to save and plan to spend in 2014.

 I don't think we'll make it to 100% of the baby fund - but I want to have this full funded for when we eventually get pregnant and I go on maternity leave.  Nine months won't be enough time though, so we've started saving now.

$4,500 represents one month of expenses (I know, crazy!) and I would like to reach that this year.

Christmas/Gifts is always saved for and spent as is vacation.  I've got our personal accounts tracked with goals - but Jordan's real goal is until he has enough for a PlayStation 4 - he's got some gift cards too, so I'm sure this will be spent soon.  I'm a hoarder and never know what to buy myself...so I've got some leftover birthday money and some Christmas money in my account.  We're not actively saving for any home improvements right now but I stuck a couple hundred dollars their just in case anything comes up.

As you already know - we don't have any automatic savings set up for these except for the baby fund ($40/week) because of the unpredictability of Jordan's wage.  I wanted to start the year strong, so started each account with some cash from Jordan's vacation pay out and my end of year bonus - but the rest will be ad-hoc (the same as the additional debt payments).

I don't track retirement as a particular savings goal, because it's just so automatic.

Each of my paydays we contribute $50 to purchase shares where I work through a payroll deduction program and my pension savings are an automatic 5% from my employer and 5% from me (not optional).

I also still contribute $25/week to my RRSP streetwise account.

Jordan has no work RRSP program (he has under $2,000 from a previous job that did deferred profit share into an RRSP account) and so his savings are $75/week.

So all combined - I expect our retirement portfolio to increase by about $14,200 plus whatever market fluctuations we experience.

The last thing to decide is how to determine if Jordan's commission is automatically put to savings or debt - do we rotate it, or do we split if 50-50...or 80-20....or some other percentage.

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.

Happy New Year - Meet My Family!

One of my cousins was feeling inspired when we all got together on Boxing Day this year - and convinced us to create our own little music video.  I wanted to share it with you....though I'm not going to tell you which one I am.

I hope you enjoy it!! We sure enjoyed making it!

January 1, 2014 - Networth

and so it begins, a new year of Networth posts, goals, updates, spending reports and the personal finances in all of life's moments - both large and small.   Like many of my other blogging peers, the first few weeks in January will be filled with all kinds of posts around plans for 2014.  While I don't have any resolutions to share, or grand plans just yet - I'm sure it will come together in time.  I'm still in vacation mode - but wanted to get my Networth update done.

This months Networth update shows you that our chequing account has a significantly higher balance than normal - and that our Mastercard and American Express card have higher balances than normal - this is because we have not moved any of the income from my 30 hours of OT, $600 year end bonus or Jordan's final pay and vacation pay out.

We're holding out until Jordan's first pay day on January 15th as he's moving from bi-weekly pay days to twice monthly.

We also have some cash that we haven't applied to our accounts yet from my family paying us back for doing some shopping for them.  

I expect that February will see a big upswing in our Networth.

On Vacation!

It's officially started - Jordan and I are on vacation.  For the next two weeks, Jordan and I will be hanging out in beautiful british columbia.  Our roommates are taking care of the house - and I think it will be a great break for both of us as we get used to living together.  It's been a good start to the living arrangements - a few hiccups, but thats all settled now and I think we're in a good place moving forward.

It's 8am (ish), and I'm sitting on the couch enjoying my first cup of coffee - Aries (one of my dogs) is at my feet,  my mom is gearing up to make home made buns and all in all - it feels like a pretty awesome way to start the week.

As a follow up to my last post - my overtime pay came through and I was also pleasantly surprised by a $600 bonus.  I usually get around $1,000 but wasn't expecting anything at all this year - so wahoo!  Sure, after taxes it was closer to $380 - but still pretty awesome!  This Thursday we should see Jordan's final pay and vacation pay - his employer basically told us if they weren't organized that he wouldn't get his vacation pay until two weeks following - but we've done everything we can to hand-hold them through this process....so we'll see.

End of The Year Income

As the days left in December tick away Jordan and I have started to solidify our income transition plans from his bi-weekly pay schedule to his new twice/monthly pay schedule.  He has approximately $4,500 worth of vacation owing to him that will be paid out, and I have 30 hours of overtime that I have requested be paid out.  As Jordan has hit his CPP/EI maximum's, I expect that after taxes the vacation will  net about $3,000 and my OT will net about $650.  We also just received the second portion of December's rent ($300) so it looks like we're in fairly good shape to ride out whatever changes come our way.  

My mouse trigger finger just wants to sweep that $$ onto our debt, but the plan is to hold strong until mid-January to feel out our 2014 cash flow strategy first.

December Networth

Well, here it is - our final net-worth post for 2013.  We started this year at $16,938 and wound up at $74,198!  An incredible increase of $57,260!

The biggest factor you'll recall, is that we built our garage, deck and fence - all which significantly increased our homes market value.

We also made big gains in RRSP/Pension savings and purchased 100 shares through my work - which have already increased in value.

I am so proud of our accomplishments and look forward to the coming year where hopefully we can break through the 100K barrier!

Here's a breakdown of where the assets and debt are currently sitting.

While we still owe more on both vehicles than their trade in value - I'm comfortable with this because of the 'off the lot' phenomena.  We like new vehicles - with new vehicle smell...and (knock on wood) - these two will last us a long time.

RRSPs, Pension, and Shares have all grown significantly where planned spending has had it's ups and downs.

Our checking account has a healthy buffer which serves as our own overdraft protection - something that has been nice to have and as we move forward with Jordan's new career - a must have.

Since buying our house a little less than two years ago - we have paid down 4.43% of it - a mere $15,457.  We've sure paid a lot more than that in interest - but it is going down bit by bit.  We've toyed with increasing our weekly payments and while I'm not ready to do that just yet - it's something that is certainly on the horizon.

We have only paid down 2.73% of the Kia - as a very recent purchase we've only had a few payments so far.  The Escape on the other hand is down 40.40% of what we financed and I'm confident we're going to make a lot of progress with that loan in 2014.

Finally - our line of credit.  What we once thought would be a $10,000 limit to help coverage overages on our backyard project, turned into a $40,000 limit for several of life's incidentals.  Sitting on the LOC now is:

• $900 in online courses (crossing my fingers for reimbursement)
• $2,6179.50 for the first phase of Jordan's dental work (to be reimbursed)
• $5,406.43 for our recent share purchase at my work (interest is tax deductible)
• $977.60 for winter tires

The remaining $14,836.47 - is a combination of the remaining back yard debt as well as some credit card purchases (consumer spending).  We were expecting to carry forward around $15K in 2014 before I decided to go back to school, Jordan got dental work, we decided to invest in shares, and we bought winter tires.

So, technically (?) we're on track (ha!).

Okay, so we're not on track for the LOC - we had some expenses that we decided to incur that's that - our LOC balance has gone up.  As we knock it back in $5K increments, I intend on also reducing the amount of credit we have access  to in the same - until it's down to a 10K limit - - the original plan.

There it is - 2013's ups and downs of our networth, thanks for reading along as we navigated all these changes, I'm looking forward to another fantastic year with you.