House Maintenance Fund

Do you have a house maintenance fund? We don't. We pay for house maintenance as it happens, through our Grocery/Misc Budget allowance. Gail Vaz-Oxlade, the host of 'Til Debt Do Us Part, says that everyone should have a house maintenance fund in addition to an Emergency Savings. I'm feeling stretched to the limit with all that "we are supposed to be saving" according to the experts. Life needs to be about balance and I feel really strongly on this point. I wonder how many people out there in the general public, even have an emergency fund that could sustain them through 6-8 months of unemployment (factoring in unemployment insurance), let alone a house maintenance fund. I think it's a good thing to have, but I know for us, if we need to repair something, we just adjust our grocery budget to account for it, so that we still remain within our over all budget.

'Til Debt Do Us Part - Home Editon

I am so excited that Gail Vaz-Oxlade's new show on HGTV canada starts tonight. Her new series is called 'Til Debt Do Us Part - Home Editon. This new series is about the realistic life of home ownership. I went to hear her speak a few years ago, and she definitely has a large presence. She tells it like it is, whether on camera or not.

Ahh, the 1st of the Month...

I love the 1st of the month, because I'm weird, and I love the thrill of paying the bills. Paying off our credit cards in full each month, assures me that our budget planning is working and I know that with each payment, our mortgage is one step closer to getting paid off, our vehicle loans are one step closer to being paid off and our Savings are growing each month. We had $45 extra left over this month from our budget so I put $20 towards liquid savings and $25 towards my RSP.

I feel very optimistic going into April, how about you?

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.