Saving for Renos

 It feels like the bulk of my money focus has been on saving for the necessary upgrades that are needed at our new house and the old one. 

At the old house it is desperately in need of shingles. We installed the old ones in the fall of 2004 so they have made it not quite 20 years. The south side are a mess on both the house and the garage. I have the money saved for it. Now, the trick is just to find a weekend we can get enough people together to work fast and efficiently and get it done.

At the new house we had an electrician come to do an estimate on work in the downstairs garage. We have had to gut the ceiling due to water damage and squirrel damage. Once we get the electrical done again, then we can install the lights and the ceiling gyprock and get moving on getting it organized. A LOT Of memories in that space. My cousin was here last week and was quite overwhelmed with them all.

 At the new house we also to replace windows. They are the originals from when dad built the house in 1972. They are ridiculously NON energy efficient. We had a quote on that as well. To do the whole house (main level) will cost just under $14 000. I definitely cannot afford all of that so we shall do the picture window and the windows of the front two bedrooms this year. I will have to save up to do the rest. The install won't happen until November according to their schedule.

Ah the joys of home ownership.

First round of Christmas grocery shopping

When the boys both went off to college last fall, I did not change my weekly jar allowance for grocery. Instead I tucked $20 automatically into a Christmas grocery jar. Any spare $5 or $10 went in too.

It was nice to have that money when I headed off today with DH to buy all the non perishable Christmas groceries and a few final presents.

First I made DH help me clean the fridge and tidy. You can't come home with bags of groceries and put them in a messy fridge or cluttered pantry. He grumbled but helped out.

It didn't take long to fill the cart with items from the list.  It felt good to have the pantry and cupboards full and ready to go.  It had gotten more than a little lean.

We just don't grocery shop the way we used to when the boys lived here full time.

Helping DS2 save for college

Our traditional summer student jobs go from May 1 to end of August here in our neck of the woods. That's when the Uni kids are done and home and ready to work. The gov't jobs and municipal jobs gets snatched up then.

DS1 didn't get home until the end of the first week of June. Tougher to find jobs at this point that are above minimum wage.  Min wage is currently $10.20 here in SK. For those interested, here is a link of Min wage across Canada (as of June 1/15)

The night he came home, a buddy of his popped over to welcome him home.  Somewhere during their catch up time, DS asked him if he could think of anyone hiring at this point for a job. The buddy said there might be one at his work, and to get his resume there the next day. Grunt work, sweeping and loading/unloading grain cars, but good money, relatively speaking...$17 an hour

DS got the job. Thank you buddy!

He gets paid every two weeks. He was pretty frugal ( I think) with his money while he was down in the States, but he was spending a lot since he got home. Mama decided he needed help tucking money away.

We ( the royal we) decided that he wanted to have $1000 in his account when he left. We did this last year and that gave him money when he came home at Christmas, and some to survive  when he gets home in June, before a theoretical paycheck.  Then he needed to save $ for college.

So we are leaving enough in his account to pay for two weeks of expenses....Gas...gym fees...his ball hockey group he is in...hockey in the city once a week etc. He has to stay in shape or they will send him home in Sept. The rest I am transferring into my savings account and holding for him.

He didn't put up a fuss about it, so that means he trusts me to see the bigger picture. woo hoo!

Just in: picked up the mail and found that DS1 is now receiving the GST rebate check. I haven't had one of these in forever. Kinda forget they exist. He gets $128 x 4 over the next year.  That will help him add to his savings.

Change for January

I didn't spend a ton so there wasn't a whole lotta change to get.   Are there still accounts out there where your debit purchases round up to the nearest dollar and put those bits in an automatic savings account? I remember seeing those ads on TV a few years ago and I realized that is what I am doing, just ...the old fashioned way.

1 roll of loonies $25
1 roll quarters $10
1 roll of dimes $5
2 rolls of nickels $4
2 rolls of stray pennies found here and there $1

Total for the month - $45

This money went into my savings and was ear marked for the first $1000 of my $2000 TFSA goal for the year.

Delayed Savings

It's a bit of a mind game I play with myself. Rather like those of you who set your alarm clock ahead a few minutes to 'trick' yourself into getting a few extra , moments of rest in the mornings. I never did understand that one, but if it works, hey? why not.

I do much the same thing with 3 of my monthly bills: my landline, my cell phone bill and my satellite bill.

I know, I know, there are many of you who have gotten rid of your landline, or your satellite/cable. I would be game for the former - jury is still out on the latter. The kink in that hose is DH, who fights it tooth and nail. He is not exactly on board the 'understanding your money' train.  I have to pick my battles.

Anyhoo....back to the messing with my own mind. 

I overpay those bills each month by a few dollars. The satellite bill is fairly constant, except for it's too frequent price hikes. The other two bills have their base price and then can increase if there are long distance calls made on either.   By budgeting this little overpaying, it gives me a bit of self created cushion so that the odd call here or there doesnt' throw my budget out of whack. Currently, we do not make enough LD calls to merit the use of adding that 'package' onto our regular bills.

So I over pay by a couple dollars and a small surplus gets created. Should a month come with LD charges, then no worries. Like, say the month where DS1 was being wooed by all those US colleges. Those calls came in to him either on his cell or on the house phone. It added up, but there was room.

So at the end of the calendar year I skim off this self created surprlus and voila! It becomes a snowflake. A very nice snowflake.

So after those three bills were paid today, $120 was skimmed off and made a lovely snowflake that went to the bank and was added onto what I am saving for my TFSA.

I know there are a lot of big ways folks have trimmed their budget to create more cash flow. Here is a smaller way I am trying to make change.

November Change

I headed off to the bank today with my change for November. I had almost forgotten about it, in the craziness of the last month.

I had:

• 1 roll of toonies - $50
• 1 roll of loonies - $25
• 1 roll of quarters - $10

for a total of $85

I had $15 I hadn't spent from my  grocery budget so I added that too and put the money towards DS2's trip fund.

I'd like to draw your attention to.....

.......................... my  TFSA/EF progress bar on the right.

That's right. 100%

I haven't contributed to the darn thing since.....................2010??

Finally I have added a $1000 to it.

It's small. Really small. My contribution room is close to $20 000 I believe.

Things happened and I didn't set it as a priority and I just never ended up putting anything towards it the past couple years.

This year, after the LOC was paid off, I started using my change at the end of each month and some snowflakes, to boost that bad boy and save towards it.

I went to the bank yesterday and the teller did the paperwork to move it from my high interest into the TFSA account.

It feels good to see some green on there instead of that 66% and the pink.

I think I need to do that again next year....use the snowflakes /change to save for it. The savings goal didn't feel so onerous when it was added to here and there from money just sitting in a jar.

Yeah me ! A 2013 goal done!

2012 - a quick glance

This quick glance has been a wee tradition I have done last year, in 2010,  with a base comparison of 2009 numbers. I have included all four sets of numbers in this post to see the comparisons.

For dates, I am using information from the start of December for each  year.

Debts
December 2009 - $70 771.99
December 2010 - $52 410.25
December 2011 - $40 055.29
December 2012 - $35 921.04

So this year my debt went down $4134.25. I am not happy about this one. Last year debt went down by $12 000. Very big difference. Life choices have prompted this smaller than hoped for decrease. One being DS1's Italy trip that I did not save properly for. The second was for the unexpected purchase of a used vehicle  after DS's was totalled. We would have bought this car eventually but that would have gone on 2013's numbers. If I had not purchased the car, the debt would have been reduced by at least $8500.

 This debt number for 2012 even includes the fact that I paid off my vehicle early.  I really did not do a good job at all. It needs to change. I have two kids going off to university in the next couple years and I need to fix the bad habits.

Savings
December 2009 - $2 225
December 2010 - $10 640
December 2011 - $13 250
December 2012 - $18 245
This includes RRSP, RESP, and TFSA. This does not include my pension.

So there it is in a nutshell. It's a good visual for me that I need to do better at debt reduction.  It is my hope that my debt goes down by $8000+ for 2013.

Upcoming New Budget

With the loan almost paid off and some extra cash about to be floating around, I need to do some tinkering with the budget. If I don't, that money will pull an awesome magic trick and disappear. I haven't really tinkered with the budget since I bought the here were lots of possibilities, but the result was rather a simple one.

warning: if you were expecting something really exciting, this is not the post for you :P

Combining my vehicle payment with the money I previously had going towards savings goals and paying down my LOC, I now have $1350 /month to redistribute. While I would have loved to add money to the clothing budget or given myself a little shopping cash, the voice of reason came through. I have savings goals that need to be met and a line of credit that needs to be paid off. DS2 will be driving soon so we need to think about transportation. He also will get a school trip to Europe but not for 2 years. I will need time to save.

My first plan is to go meet with the bank and up the boys' RESP (education) savings amount. I currently am putting $100 for each of them in the plan, each month. I want to up this to $250 each. I don't really have a lot of time to save for either of them, but every little bit helps.

That leaves me with $1050 to put towards debt repayment and savings goals. Since I sacrificed putting money towards my savings to speed up the finale of the loan, I need to refocus on the savings for a few months to balance things all out.

The distribution
$1350

• $300 more to RESP
• $50 to LOC
• $1000 to Savings goals.

I plan to tackle the following savings goals in the following order:

• $800 for plates (insurance) for DS1's car. He saved $300
• $1500 Back to School
• $1400 for Xmas

After these I will still have the RRSP and TFSA goals to meet. I guess we shall see how fast I can meet the first three goals above.

This budget will take effect at the end of June with that cheque.

January Change

I wasn't one of the ones who got in on the Sealed Pot Challenge. Not to say that I couldn't have, but I just..........didn't. I don't think I have it in me to wait a whole year to find out  :P  I am one who uses their rolled change regularly for different savings or debt goals. I look forward to those moments a lot. The sound of the change as it slides out of the jar and onto the bed. The methodical and soothing sorting of the coins. The smell of the crisp preformed little coin roller. The smile as one is full and the end all squished down. The site of it in the bottom of my drawer as it hibernates until it's time to go with his rolled friends to the bank.

So instead I will tally up what I have for rolled change at the end of each month and talk about where it is going.

Here is my change for January:


I have $50 lovely dollars to go to the bank.
1 roll of loonies - $25
2 rolls of quarters - $20
1 roll of dimes - $10


I won 't get to the bank today but I am hoping to go tomorrow. Where is it going? Why to my next goal, of course :-)

The simple things

I am really apprecating the simple things today. My first day back was good. The kids seemed happy to see me. One of them said "we missed you!!! and we really mean it this time". I laughed so hard. I missed them.

After school I stopped to visit mom and dad and play with their puppy. We need some warm weather so he can go out and run run run.

Week three gave me $40 left in the jars so I ran that to the bank and put it in my savings account, bringing me up to $900 for the needed $1000 for summer 2012.

My house is clean thanks to the time I was home this week. Laundry is mostly caught up.

I came home to change into something more comfortable (not THAT kind of more comfortable :-) I sliced up some chicken breasts and have them simmering to make quesidillas for supper. I lit a candle. There is just something so luxurious for me about a lit candle. I fired up the Keurig and made a cup of coffee and I am really just at peace today and feeling good. A little tired, but good.

jars and snowflakes

While the snow is falling for real outside and the temperature nasty, there is much to be said for the snowflakes of the $ variety.

After the end of last week's jar money, I was able to siphon off $20 from gas, $20 from grocery and my unused $20 in spending money. A lovely $60 from the jars.

I also curled up and scratched my gift pack of lotto scratchers and found myself $23 richer on Saturday.

Finally, I got around to cleaning out my mailbox at school on Saturday and remembered I had won $10 in the Survivor pool which finished before Christmas. I will slip down to the bank as soon as I can and deposit the lovely grand total of $93 snowflakes into my savings account. This will go towards my Summer 2012 goal of $1000, which is close to completion, mostly in thanks to little bits here and there.

First goal met

As I said yesterday, my first goal for the year has been met, happily. DS and I started saving last year bit by bit and thanks to some great snowflakes, we now have his spending money from his Europe trip. It feels really good to get one of the 12 done before the first month of the year is over.

I hope the momentum continues for me to get a few more knocked off as well as pay that debt down.

Now it's either the summer 2012 goal or the vehicle plates. decisions, decisions.

Little bits add up

Ok I do something weird with my phone, cell and satellite bills. I round up when I pay. I have a set budget for them. Nice even round numbers. My phone/internet budget is $85. This covers basic phone with call display and my internet. I leave a little wiggle room on that bill on the off chance I have made a long distance call. That rarely happens. As such, when I pay the $85 each month, the amount owing the next month goes a bit less and a bit less. About twice a year, the difference between my $85 and the actual amount is significant enough I can roll a snowflake out of it.

My end December phone bill showed a $30 difference. I pay $85 and owed $55. It was time to roll a snowflake out of it.  This time I paid the $55 and withdrew the balance, from my chequing account and immediately took the snowflaked $30 and put it in my high interest account towards a savings goal. 

weird? yes, probably, but a wee thing that amuses me and makes bills a little more psychologically fun.  I am close to meeting athe first of many savings (planned spending) goals for the year.

siphoning from the jars

Something good comes from being sick during the whole Christmas break - I had a whole week of No Spend. Never happened before and undoubtedly will never happen again.

My tank was full and I drove nowhere, so full it stayed. We ate several times at mom and dad's and ate out of the freezer and pantry. No money spent for food. Jars just sat there, untouched. I went yesterday and took out week 2's money and debated.....and debated....and slept on it, and debated again.

I decided to take some out of the jars to create snowflakes. Week 2's money was not touched and went straight into their jars.

I did not spend my $20 allowance (didn't go anywhere - didn't need any make up or girlie stuff) so I took that $20.

I had $50 in my gas jar so I left $30 in there and took $20 of that. Longer drives will come up and that gives me a bit of spare money.

I had $40 in my entertainment jar, but did not touch any of it. Entertainments don't happen often and I'd like it to build.

I had $170 in my grocery jar. I left $70 in there so I can have a bit extra to stock up for back to school and lunches, and took $100 of it.

That gives me $140 of repurposed (found) money. I took it to the bank and put it in my High Savings account to put towards one of my Savings goals.

I know a week like this probably won't come around again so I will celebrate it and hope it inspires me to wiser spending and savings for 2012.

2011.. a quick glance

I was peeking through last year's posts and found this, and wanted to do it again. It certainly helps put things in a frame of reference for a glance at a  year.

For dates, I am using my information from the start of December for each years.

Debts
December 2010 - $52 410.25
December 2011 - $40 055.29

Debt was reduced by $12 354.96

kind of...really about $8000 and change. I added debt to the tune of just under $4000 which I will talk about soon...ish. le sigh 

It was not nearly as good as I wished but expenses happened so often, a good part of it offspring related. Some of it came through lost wages for the job action days.

Savings
December 2010 - $10 640
December 2011 - $13 250 

Total savings increase of $2610.

This included money from RRSP, RESP and TFSA. Not a huge increase. In 2010, the RRSP $ was added in November and this year I only did it yesterday so it does not show on this number. That is a $1500 difference. I cut the plan for 2011 TFSA in order to accomodate other expenses.

Gold party

I went on a short 45 minute adventure this afternoon to a gold party.

I hadn't heard of them before October. I'd seen a few invites on my facebook from various people. I wasn't even sure what they were, to be honest.  My only visual of selling gold was that annoying man on a TV ad (from Ontario, I think) that danced around and looked beyond ridiculous - and also the ad that said just send your gold in an envelope and mail it away and voila, they would send you some money back. Ohhhh yes and the girl on a TV ad that traded in her gold from an old boyfriend and made derogatory comments about his........and bought new boots for herself. Classy.

I am not sending things to a strange place in an envelope and I doubt I would give anything to the sad man dancing around in the ads. We don't have anyplace around here to take things like that to.

After about the fourth invite I decided I would go to one. I am fully aware that selling gold at a party like this would only get me 50% of what it was worth (if that) but I was  curious.

The lady hosting received 10% of the net made at the party (plus potential bonuses and % if others book a party). The lady grading the gold got 10% and I am guessing the rest goes to the boss of the party hosting business.

I really don't have much of anything, but found in a box downstairs a couple tangled chains I  hadn't worn for 20 years, a bracelet and a ring I think I bought myself in high school. Funny....I had totally forgotten I had that ring, yet I have purchased for myself (5 years ago and 3, I think) two rings that are the same style. I guess I must really like it.

It was interesting to watch. You get so much per gram, depending on the carat of gold. I watched 2 go before me so I could observe.

I came away with $100 in cash. Two pretty little $50 bills. I know if I knew of other places to go to I could have made more, but I went in understanding that, and was fine with it.

I tucked the money into the envelope where I am saving up for spending money for DS1's trip to Europe. He is contributing to the envelope as well. 

Was interesting, to say the least.

A week of Ta Dones!!!

Lordy I felt like I was running all week. It will be good to kick back and relax tonight and enjoy a great supper and WICKED.

What did I get off my list?

• Well I am writing this as I curl up and wait for my oil change to get finished. It's been needing done for about a month and I honestly haven't any excuse for not booking it aside from procrastination. With school starting toute suite, it was time to get it done.
• A run to the school Monday to move out all the trash I cleaned out of my room. Not really fair for the caretaker to come back from holidays and find dozens of bags throughout the school that need to be hauled out. The boys helped one of the other teachers move out trash. She is retiring after this year and spent dayssss this summer going through all her things so that she doesnt' have to sort and clean when she is done in June.
• Dr appt for DS2 on Tuesday
• Eye appt for me. Lordy that took up HOURS on Wednesday. (see future post). The receptionist reminded me that the boys haven't been in, I knew my days were limited to book before school so...
• Eye appt for the boys on Thursday.
• Took boys for school supplies and a few new clothes for school. We barely get home and ds1 has a new shirt on. Oh no no mama says. Those are for school. He doesn't get it. Sigh. I will have to keep working on him.
• Binders/school bags are ready to go. It's much easier to do when they are High School level. Still it's nice to know that they can just grab their stuff and the pens/looseleaf, dividers, etc are all ready to go. Yesterday was the last day all four of us are home all at the same time until August 31 so it needed to be done.
• Laundry and bed linens are all caught up. We spent a glorious 30 minutes matching socks while watching the Rider game. tooooo many sock widows.
• Scouting supper on Wed for the group that went to BC and their families. Was delicious and so lovely to spend time and bbq with folks. I made an apple crisp and a rhubarb crisp. mmmm rhubarb crisp.
• Of course before they get to put away their new stuff they have to clean their rooms, go through their closets and drawers etc. They were not happy but they did it. dH even did some which is rare (and greatly needed)
• 7........count them 7 garbage bags of clothing sorted and ready for donation. Another 2 bags  of clothes that were ready for trash along with 3 bags of actual garbage out from shelves and closets.

and now I am off. Laterssss all

Saturday This'n'that

What a fast and busy first week back to work.  I was swamped with meetings before school, meetings after school. meetings at noon. It was still bitter cold out but there is just the slightest chance of things improving weatherwise *knock on wood*


Thank you to everyone for your wonderful commiseratory comments about gas prices. It is nice to know the whole country's gas is crazy. One of the mornings on my way to work I saw my station back at $1.119 (8 cents less) but I was en route to a meeting and could not stop. By the time I got home from work, it was back up again. I guess it was not meant to be. I had come home from Edmonton with gas in the tank and I never actually used my gas jar money this week so that money is still tucked aside in the 'gas wallet' so that when I need an oil change or when we have some longer driving trips, there is extra gas money ready.


DS1 is busy reffing this weekend. I told him we're going to start his jar for his share of the vehicle plates. I want him to come up with $400. Hockey season will be soon over and he will need to get on it to find  a job for spring/summer so he can continue to learn how to budget and save. The hard part for him (as it was for me) is to understand that once that money goes IN the jar, that it ceases to exist as money he can spend. We shall see how successful I am with that lesson. I don't know how receptive I would have been if my mother had did that for me, but I honestly wish she had.


As I went to get their allowance this morning I realized that we never got around to handing out last Saturday's. With their consent, it is going in my snowflake jar for DS's plates. $20 towards my goal. wheee


Both my snowflake and my vehicle savings goals  in the sidebar have been updated this morning. It is nice to see them growing. The snowflake jar will grow more whenever the Income Tax refund comes.

I have a bit of banking to do this morning. Once that it is done, there won't be anymore 'banking' to do this month aside from taking out my  last 3 weeks of jars, as each week starts.

Once that is done it is off to the school to meet a couple of other girls and we shall work on report cards while watching the first game of the Briar (Canadian Men's curling). The number of extra hours of work that go in during report card season is high. I've probably done about 8 so far as I mark the last assignments, or locate them, for the students who never bothered to hand them in)

It's still frosty out there and a very light snow is falling. Well hopefully if March comes in like a lion, it goes out like  a lamb.

PS - ohhhhh I forgot to write that our furnace quit on Monday night when it was 40 below out and dropping. I noticed something was off whilst DS2 and his father were at scouts. It just kept dropping no matter how lovingly I encouraged the thermostat to warm it up. When he got home I told hubby that something was off. As per usual he accused me of doing something to change the default settings. mhm like I have nothing better to do than play with the default settings while you are gone just to piss you off when you get home. *sweet lil eye roll*. He tinkered with something and the heat cut in giving him the chance to erroneously say ` I told you so`.  He woke me up around midnight to declare that the furnace was broken. I refrained from saying anything. We made it through the night with quilts and the repairman was called in the morning. This avoided emergency call out fees. It was the switch which was broken. This was replaced and the bill will be mailed. No clue how much that will cost.

2010 A quick glance

I thought I'd do a quick glance to see how my year went.

For dates I am using the beginning Dec 2009 to beginning December 2010, for simplicity.

Debt December 2009 - $70 771.99
Debt December 2010 - $52 410.25

Total Debt Reduced over the year - $18 361.74

I think that's pretty darn good! I eliminated my consolidated loan, paid down a fair bit on my vehicle and the rest is the little bits of dilligent monthly mortgage payments.

Let's look at savings.

Savings December 2009 - $2225
Savings December 2010 - $10 640

Total Savings Increase - $8415

Again a woo hoo Jolie. In this category are the RRSPs, the RESPs and the TFSA (EF).

I like what I am seeing here. I hope I can have some wonderful additions for 2011.