Debt Free in...

I told everyone who reads this blog - and I am surprised how many people there are - that I would update when we figured things out. Well... we haven't figured everything out but we are working on it.

1. We are not moving... housing market may be hot for people to sell houses but I am not sure about townhouses. Plus, if we did sell this place, would we be able to get into something comparable for less mortgage plus condo fees. I don't think so... at least not what we have researched.

2. Van... wow, we made a big boo boo but a necessary boo boo 14 months ago when we bought our van. For those of you who do not know our Sante Fe saga... let me sum it up to say it was a lemon. In less than 3 years we had the front struts done, the transmission changed, the engine blew - which threw ball bearings through the starter and one of the pistons... I was NOT taking my family into that thing again.
Now this was a challenge for us as we still owed a bit after we traded it in for our van. We chose to add that cost to the price of our van which increased our payment. I also realized that we are still paying the Sante Fe off and have not started paying off the van... OY! Needless to say, we cannot trade it in yet. I am very OK with that as I was not ready to give up my van... vanity rules on that one... Sorry, I'm human.

3.The TFSA's paperwork has been filled out and is being processed as we speak. Once that comes in, we pay off the MasterCard and put the rest on the Personal Loan and the debt snowball begins.

4. Our wonderful friends and bookkeepers, Michael and Tania Spears (www.spearsbookkeeping.ca) have agreed to be our financial accountability partners and will loan us Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. Excited and scared on that one!

Some other things have changed... I have picked up a part-time job on the side as an executive assistant. It will be challenging to balance things but I will make it work.

More importantly, my hubby was offered a permanent full-time job with Canadian North Airlines as a technical writer starting March 24... yay for benefits and vacation and perks! :) He has also been picking up contracts on the side too so that is fantastic.

As of right now, we will be debt free by August 2017. When that changes, we will let you know!

As I am writing this, the hymn "It is Well with my Soul" by Selah is playing right now. This is one of my favorite hymns and the truth... It is well with my soul!

Just When I Thought...

Just when I thought our $8,000 credit card could not be paid off this year, God provided an opportunity to do that. He has used it through a means I had no idea even existed. I have been trying to get a part-time - VERY part-time - job for awhile now to help get us on the further road to financial freedom. I have finally found it. I am working as an executive assistant to a friend of mine who is starting a project management company.
Also, just when I thought we would be struggling to get through each month due to my husband's hours being cut back in his contract, God provides not only basically full-time hours but also a lucrative second contract on a part-time basis. What a great blessing.l
All of that being said, what do I want to do? SPEND IT! I just said I wanted to use it to pay off our debt but the little voice is telling me to buy a bigger house - spend more money. Wow, will that ever stop?

I want to talk briefly about the category re-organization. It truly has only been a few weeks but I think it is going well for me. I like having all of the bills that we have to take care of between pay checks clearly separated. It is amazing how making little changes can make such a big difference. I can see all of the little boxes that I have to fill in between checks and make sure they are paid.

How do you organize your finances? Pen & paper? Spreadsheet? The seat of your pant? :)

Time to Reorganize

I am an organization person - not that you can tell by my house.  I love to rethink and reorganize things around me. The beginning of something like a season or year is when I love to do it the most.

That being said, I been thinking about reorganizing my YNAB categories to see if this will help me budget even more. My categories currently look like this:

 I have been using YNAB for about a year and I really enjoy it. At the beginning of using it, this is similar to their preset categories. I have used it for the last 11 months and now I think it's time for a change. This is the proposed changes:

As you can see, I have broken the categories into Expenses on the 1-14 and 15-30 of the month. I think this is going to help me with tracking. I am curious to see, though, if the double sub-categories are going to work or not. That's one of the other great things about YNAB, you adjust as you go along - which happens to be Rule 3: Roll with the Punches.
This category set up would be an ideal setting if you are paid on the 1st and 15th of every month - which my husband is. I am paid every 2 weeks so I will just add mine in as they come up.
For those of you reading this who are not familiar with the YNAB principles, they are pretty simple: put in your paycheck every time you get paid then give every dollar a job - what does my money need to do before I get paid next (Rule 1).
The 2nd rule is Save for a Rainy Day - which you can see in the above pictures. I will admit, we are not very good at this one yet. I am still wrapping my head around not looking at my bank webiste, seeing there is money in there and want to spend it - hence the title of the blog. I have really good intentions every month but fail - hey, it's a process, right?
The 3rd rule, as I mentioned earlier, is Roll with the Punches. Nothing about YNAB is set in stone. You personalize and adjust as you need to. I have used other software and it is set up just the way it is. You can make minor changes but not like this. The other part of this rule is YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT - another thing I am working on. I want to put everything in and have it work perfectly... yup, doesn't happen. There are adjustments made all the time.
The 4th rule is Live on Last Month's Income. I think my hubby and I are starting to do that more than we think. We started Dave Ramsey's baby steps as well by saving $1000 emergency fund. We were actually able to double that in the last month which was good timing for us. We may need to truly use it as an emergency. If, Lord willing, we do not need to use it in an emergency, we are 1/4 of the way to living on last month's income. Now, we have it set aside in a different account. As I said earlier, I cannot see money sitting in our joint account and not want to spend it.
I will keep you posted in week or two as to how the new categories are going.

Slacking Off

It has been a very long time since I have written anything on our blog. I have thought of it many times but it has not happened. So what's going on, you might ask...

Budgeting is hard work and it SUCKS at times. We were just hanging out thinking this budgeting thing was easy. Well it's not. I was thinking "I know this" and my husband admittedly was burying his head in the sand. 

Then I got into two fender benders - both my fault - and we had to rent a car AND pay for the deductibles on our insurance. For all of that, we did not budget and pulled out our MasterCard again. I was also buying a few things online with my Visa. In other words, racking up the credit card debt again. Then we went on vacation - which we did not budget for and put it all on plastic again. 

It seems like we have fallen back into our old patterns. We are now in our overdraft for a few months, temporarily, and we have credit card debt to pay too.

That is very difficult, and a bit depressing, to admit. We were both bound and determined this year was going to be different - and it was for a few months. Then "unexpected" things caught us off guard. I don't know if we should have used our emergency fund for the repairs and then built it back up. We also had an $8000 payroll debt that we had to get a loan out for and pay back - which we have.

It just seems like we are behind the 8-ball again. We have committed to each other that we are going to "meet" once a week to discuss our budget. We have not done that - and that was wrong. If you are in a relationship, discussing your money issues together is vitally important, in my opinion. If you can't discuss your finances with that person then who can you?

So, our new plan is to meet once a week, get back into the "You Need A Budget" and "Dave Ramsey" podcasts and bogs. As they say in the YNAB world, it's time for a Fresh Start.