Life Update

Wow how time flies, I might have said that before.  It's crazy to see what we have accomplished over the last several years.

We struggled with infertility for four years before going through IVF.  We were eventually able to have boy girl twins who are now 2.5 years old.  We also recently had another baby girl - meaning I'm on maternity leave with three kids under three.  Pretty crazy to think that a couple of years ago I didn't even know if we would ever have children.

Our infertility journey cost us about $20,000.  Most of which we cash flowed, but my husband ended up getting laid off while I was pregnant with the twins.  We struggled with him being laid off and me having a reduced income on maternity leave.  Eventually he started a new job out of town, but was only able to come home on weekends, leave me alone with the newborn twins.  Life was pretty crazy and our budget was not my number one priority.

After maternity leave, I went back to work and my husband stayed home with our twins, leaving our budget still pretty tight.

Our dog got really sick and we decided to pursue treatment, however after a year battle, she passed away from cancer.

After staying home for eight months, my husband went back to work and we started paying for childcare.  That alone cost us around $1800/month.  It made me seriously wonder what we were spending money on before we had kids!

Now we have money on two lines of credits we have been paying off.  My original goal was to have the first line of credit paid off by the end of 2018.  My updated goal is to have it paid off by the time I go back to work in September 2019.

We've been on and off the debt train several times over the last several years.  We need to up our emergency fund.  I've found every time we get trackers there has been another major expense that has really knocked us off our horse.  We have decided that we need to up our emergency fund at the same time as paying off our debt and creating sinking funds.  This year we have been making pretty good progress while keeping a balance.  I'm looking forward to updating our journey and how its fitting into our crazy life.

November Debt & Update

Wow, I can't believe it is the end of November, where has this year gone? I started this blog to be accountable with my debt repayment and even though I haven't posted as often as I would have liked, we've made a good progress with our debt.

Here is a quick update:

Credit Card#1: $500 Paid off!

Credit Card#2: $1350 Paid off!

Line of Credit#1:$5800 Paid off!

Line of Credit#2:$11800 Paid off!

Car Loan:$25800 - Currently we are around $24 000

We've struggling with infertility and we have decided to start the IVF process in early 2015.  We are not willing to take on any debt for IVF, so we are stashing away money as fast as possible - it will be around $10 000. We are not making any extra payments on the car until after we have paid the for the IVF.  If we have money left over, then we will throw it on one of our 2015 goals.

I'm feeling pretty free to get to the point where we only have are car loan and we are going to be able to cash flow IVF! 

We Moved!

One of the things that has kept me busy from posting this year is building a new house and selling our old house.  We started the building process in January, and we finally moved in last week!

We managed to have a few days to pack up, move everything and clean our old house before we had to be out.  It was very rushed but my hubby and I made an awesome team, and we had lots of help from family.

We are settling in to our new house, and it's going to take us some time to unpack and set up, but it's already feeling like home!  We moved to a smaller community outside of the big city we were living in. Commuting to and from work is so much easier and less time.  Hubby and I also carpool, so he drops me off and picks me up from work.  It's very nice for me, I'm spoiled!

Our two dogs and cat are adjusting and have tons of room to play inside and outside, and there is an offleash dog park a block away!

Now that all the dust has settled regarding relators and lawyers fees, and now we can get back to paying off our debt and building up our savings!

Update - August Goals

Here is an update on my August Goals:

Stick to Our Budget: ½ half of August: FAIL

We took out $400 in cash from the first paycheck in August, thinking we were going to use the envelope system and split up the expenses. One thing lead to another, and the month flew by and the cash flew out of hubby’s wallet. The good news is, we only used the cash and we didn’t use credit cards, but the bad news is I have no idea where it went so I can’t tell how much money we spend eating out/groceries/ gas etc. New plan for the rest of the month is to only take out in cash the amount for our personal spending money (because I really don’t care to track it!) and track everything else through the debit account.

Here is the break down for the remainder of August:
Groceries - $159 (rounded to create a zero based budget)
Restaurant - $100
Gas - $200
Pets - $20 (just in case we need something, but I think we have enough food etc to last)

Pay off Credit Card #2: Still in progress – we look like we will be within a couple hundred of paying the $1540 off!

August Update #1

I have a couple of financial goals set for August.  I want to focus on the financial aspect of our lives this month because that is the only this we can really control.

Here are my two August financial goals:

Stick to Our Budget: Meaning when there is no money left, there is no money left.  No food money left? We aren’t going over and spending money eating out. No gas money, well we are going to have to budget that well because 32 kilometers is going to take me a long time if I am going to have to walk to work!

Pay off Credit Card #2: This is going to be a tough goal considering hubby added another $230 to his visa for tickets he bought me for our anniversary.  Very sweet, but very not in the budget. We are going to have to really scrimp and save to pay off the credit card this month, hopefully having extra food and gas money at the end of the month we can use towards the credit card.

The good news is I started working full time at the end of July after working part time for 6 months.  The bad news is there was a problem with payroll when I switched to full time and my first pay check this month was smaller than what I had in my budget.  It will be fixed on my next pay check, but because of taxes, it won’t work out quite the same.

This month hasn’t had the best start but I am determined to get it under control!

Here is what our planned spending budget looks like so far:

Food (including grocery and restaurant) $0/$600
Gas $0/$400
Household Goods $50
His Spending Money: $60/$120 (cash)
Her Spending Money $60/$120 (cash)
Pets: $81.77/$100

Debt Free Take Two

I have not blogged in a really, really long time. Unfortunately we had some major medical issues in our house and it's been a lot to deal with. After two surgeries, my husband is on the mend. Unfortunately, we are also still dealing with our fertility issues but have made progress and have started treatments.

We also managed to pay off our $12 000 line of credit and keep our credit cards paid off, until earlier this year when we both were off work because of my husbands surgery. We also decided to move this year and are in the process of building a house. Our down payment is on our line of credit until we sell our current house.

We took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, and we are going "Gazelle Intense" this time!

In July this is where we started:

Credit Card#1: $500

Credit Card#2: $1350

Line of Credit#1:$5800

Line of Credit#2:$11800

Car Loan:$25800

We managed to complete Dave Ramsey's baby step #1 - $1000 emergency fund and pay off Credit Card #1.

My goal for August is to pay off Credit Card#2 but it might be a bit of a tight squeeze because we still have to make minimum payments on everything else.

It feels good to be back in the saddle and having a plan!!

Meal Plan Monday #2

Today is Canada day and we are home from work.  Dinner tonight is going to be easy and quick grilled - chicken and salad.  We used frozen chicken breasts for the longest time but have switched to fresh and it has made all the different.  I plan to chop up the chicken and add it to a huge salad with mixed greens, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, broccoli and cauliflower.

Our meal plan for the week of July 1st is:

• Grilled Chicken Salad
• Homemade Pizza
• Roasted Zucchini Pasta (emeals)
• Zucchini Pizza Casserole (Debbie Does Dinner)
• Shrimp and Broccoli Stirfry (emeals)