Hello Spring!

Spring is in the air and the sun is finally out, over our fair city. Spring is my favorite time of the year - to me it's like a new beginning, so I will be refocusing on my weight loss and spending on only essential items. I also want to put together a "goal board", with pictures, sayings and action plans to keep us visually focused on our goals.

"Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand - and melting like a snowflake." Francis Bacon

Tax Time

We did our taxes this past weekend. We ended up buying Turbo Tax, and it was actually fairly easy to understand. We always us our refund to go towards our Property Taxes which are due on our primary residence by the end of June. This year we are getting back $1,416 between the two of us. Our Property Taxes are estimated to be around $2,300 so our short fall is approximately $900. We have a separate Money Market Account, designated as a Property Tax shortfall account, that we contribute to autotmatically each month, just for this reason. In a previous post, I mentioned that I would like to up my RSP monthly contributions, so by do that, hopefully it will reduce how much we have to take from that Money Market Account, in the years to follow. My goal "one day" is to put an extra $200 into my RSP per month or $2,400 a year - it's pretty lofty, so for now I'm just concentrating on putting any "extras" left over from our monthly budget into my RSP. I definately feel relieved that the taxes are done.

Our Registered Retirement Savings...

I really feel like we should be putting another $200 a month into RSPs (Registered Retirement Savings Plan) in order to secure a better financial future, for ourselves. Currently, between hubby and myself and our employer contributions, we have $650 going in a month. I would really love to see that number increased to $850 a month, but for now we just don't have the extra funds to do it. I've decided that any "extra" money left over from our budget will now be going into the RSPs, as every little bit helps. So we had an extra $20 left over from the budget from last month, so I put it into my RSP, as hubby currently has more in RSPs than I do. I would like us to try to be as even in our Retirement Savings, in retirement, as possible.

In order to keep track of how much extra, over the course of a year we can put towards my RSP, I have made up a spread sheet. I am looking forward at seeing what all these actual little contributions add up to, by the end of the year.

Emergency Budget...

Have any of you figured out the cost, if one of you, were to be laid off. I decided it was time I researched the numbers and worked out an "Emergency Budget" in case one of us lost our jobs. Unemployment insurance would be 55% of current salary, so I figured out what that would be for me, added that number with hubby's wages and compared it to the "Emergency Budget". It turns out, we would be $426.42 short. My SUV payments will be done in April of 2012, the finance was with 0% interest and the payments are $600.21 a month. So, we wouldn't have a short fall if one of us got laid off a year from now. If I were to get laid off tomorrow, the $426.42 x 8 months equals $3411.36, plus I believe Unemployment Insurance payments don't start to arrive until roughly 6 weeks, from last day worked, so that means an extra $3,085 (6 weeks of income) the grand total min needed inside of our emergency fund /accessible funds needs to be: $6,496.36. I'm relieved to know that we already have that amount, should we ever need it.

Hubby's truck payment is $210 a month and that will be finished in 4 years. I don't expect too many people know when they will be laid off, that far in advance, so I'm glad I took the time to research it out now. I hope we are fortunate enough to never lose our jobs, but by being prepared, we definately lessen the stress, I'm sure that would come with the loss of a job.

An Unexpected Propostion...

While shopping at Costco on Saturday, while I was standing in line, the lady behind me started chatting about this and that, and during the course of the conversation she mentioned how much she liked my leather jacket, that I had on. She inquired as to where I had bought it and when, so I told her. After some more random conversation she came back to how much she liked my coat, then she asked if I would sell it to her. I was totally shocked, I mean, I like my coat, but it's nothing that spectacular. So I politely declined her offer to buy my coat, but for a few seconds, I have to admit, I thought, wow, some unexpected money could go towards savings. If I really needed the money, I probably would have sold it to her.

Financial book from library

I've started reading one of the financial books I got from the library. It's called "Miserly Moms - Living Well on Less in a Tough Economy" by Jonni McCoy. I had never heard of this book before, but thought I would check it out, even though I am not a mom. So far I'm really enjoying the book, it's easy to read and understand and you can take away from it, what pertains to your own situation. She works on the concept of 'Eleven Miserly Guidelines' some of them that resonate with me are:

1. Don't Confuse frugality with depriving yourself.
2. Remove little wasters of your money.
3. Cut back on meats.
4. Cook several meals at once and freeze them.

I like to think that I already do these things, but it's always a good reminder and motivator to keep on track. I need to keep telling myself that in order to retire comfortably in 22 years, I need to make these changes now.

March is a long month...

In more ways than one. I can't wait until Spring and to see some off our heaps of snow start to melt. I wrote out our budget, and because of the extra week this month seems to have, we must be extra diligent, with watching where our money is being spent. On top of the tight budget, I had to end up going to the Dr's as the back pain returned but it just didn't feel right and sure enough, after some tests it's come back that I have an infection in the area of the back pain (Dr said that it's either bladder or kidney) so I'm on some antibiotics - which of course cost some money that will now have to be worked into the budget.

But all in all, I am so pleased with Hubby and myself for sticking to our reduced spending over the past year. I really love seeing our savings grow and becoming more aware of where and how we spend our money. Over the past year, some of things we are proud off is: cutting our gas bill down by being more efficient when we are out running errands; using the library resources for books, music and movies which has allowed us to cut down on our entertainment budget; not buying "precut" vegetables and salads - I used to be guilty of this, but have since changed my ways; reduced the amount of meat we eat in a week; there are more, but that is all I can think of right now. Sometimes I think we all need to stop and reflect on what positive changes we have acoomplished and in return that will help keeps us on the right track with our financial journies. Due to the changes we've been able to establish, March may be tight, but it's doable and we won't be going into any debt or getting stressed out, by bills.

Friday is here, Yahoo!!!

I'm glad Friday is here - but...lately I'm finding it very hard to resist spending a little extra here and there on the weekends in the form of hubby and I going out for a coffee at Tim Hortons or getting take out. I can usually "save" in other areas of our monthly budget, so in the end it seems to work out, but I don't know what's gotten over me - the last month. Work has been really busy and my usual routine has been disrupted with my back pain from last week, but still...I should have more discipline. This journey is such a balancing act, that I guess it is something that I will always have to be mindful of.

Back Pain Equals Spending?

I threw my back out last week so I was basically out of commission most of the week. It happened when I lifted the vacuum cleaner - no joking. I must have twisted the wrong way. The pain was extreme which is unusual for me and it lasted a week - a very long time for me as well. The last time I had thrown my back out was back in 2006 and so I still had 2 pills that were prescription muscle relaxants - again they were from 2006 so probably not very effective in 2011 but I took them anyways. I also had some T3's that I had left over from a fall (yes, I'm very clumsy!!!) back in 2008, again it's now 2011 and not exactly sure how effective they were in the pain department as I still had major pain, but I thought I would try them. I also found some Robaxisil (not sure on the spelling)they too had expired in 2008 but I took them anyways.

Yesterday was a much better day and my movements are almost back to normal and without pain. Since, I obviously didn't spend money on medication, LOL - Now how does this lead to spending? Well, I sure didn't feel like cooking and I didn't want poor hubby to have to do it when he came home from a long day at work, so it became very easy over the week to just tell him to pick something up on the way home. It wasn't expensive stuff, but it was more than we would have spent if I hadn't have been hurt. I missed 2 days of work, but I fortunately still get paid for those days. Surprising, we still came in right on budget for February, even with all the "extra" eating out over the last week of February. I'm not sure how we did it, but I did like always and tracked every expenditure down to the last penny and voila! Still came in on budget.