Our 35 Year Mortgage

In 2010 we bought a house and we took a 35 year mortgage.  In the personal finance books I've been reading, they all seem to recommend a 10 maybe 15 year mortgage but that was not feasible for us.

We didn't buy an expensive home, we bought an older home in an niceish neighbourhood.  It's a safe neighbourhood where our houses aren't cookie cutters and we actually have a back yard.  We bought a home to renovate, but that had good bones and we could live in it without doing any work if we had to.

We took a 35 year mortgage, which, after our down payment of $30 000, made our mortgage payments $1235/month.  That was pushing what we could afford at the time.  Shortly after we bought the house, the Bank of Canada reduced the maximum mortgage length to 30 years.

Last week I heard on the radio that now in Canada you can't get a mortgage over 25 years.  I am so happy we bought when we did. We live in a big, expensive city and while a 35 year mortgage is a very long term, we can increase the payments and put money down in lump sums when we can afford to.  In the meantime, we are putting our money into our own asset (well at least some of it, tons is going to the bank as interest).  


I was one of the first of my friends to buy my house and I really wonder how people are going to be able to afford to buy a house with the shorter terms.  Our "starter" house was $315 000 and we bought during the recession when housing prices had dropped.  

I am so thankful we bought when we did, even if it means paying extra interest.  We have already increased our payments as our paychecks increase and have already shaved years off our of mortgage.

I don't think longer mortgage terms are a bad thing.  It makes the payments affordable for those who are just starting out, and give you the ability to increase the payments as you go.  Having affordable housing, with an affordable mortgage payment is very important!

Happy Canada Day

Just a quick note to say Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends!!

Halfway There!

I've been pretty quiet for the past month, but that is because hubby and I have been super busy with renos, planting the gardens and doing some home made cooking.  I will have to share pictures of our progress a little bit later.

This past week we made a $110 payment towards our line of credit and we are finally at $6000 on the dot!  That means we have paid off half of our line of credit since November!

We are very happy and excited and we are picking up our momentum!  We should have the line of credit paid off between September and November of this year which means we only have the car loan to pay off!

As you can tell from all my exclamation marks, I am very excited!! We have done this while putting away money into savings (RRSP's, TFSA's, and regular savings) and our savings currently out weigh our debts.

The other thing is, although we have put a few planned things on to credit card, it was mostly for the cash back rewards my husband and I receive and because we planned for it, we could pay it off in the same month.

I'm giving us a HUGE pat on the back!!!

Congrats to my Hubby!

This month my hubby got an unexpected HUGE raise.  It was very unexpected but very welcome, I had been stressing about money a little bit when I got the news.  He got a 39% raise!

That is right! THIRTY NINE PERCENT! When does that even happen?  He is one lucky boy and he knows he will probably never get that big of a raise at once again.

He is now making the same amount we were combined when we bought out house two years ago.  I thought, well paying off debt should be super easy now since we would have been able to live off his paycheque alone two years ago.  I looked through our expenses and our expenses have gone up, especially our utility bills! We also have a newer car, more money on insurance, and we have car payments. We also weren't saving anything and I was only saving 2% for retirement and my husband wasn't saving anything.

Now we are putting about 60% of my paycheque towards debt (including the car payment) and another 20% of my paycheque into savings.  Meaning we are living on his paycheck plus 20% of mine.

I finally feel like having children is a possibility in my future! By the time we have children - we can be debt free!

To the Bank, To the Bank!

So I went to the bank last week, my husband was supposed to go with me, but he had to wait at home while we dealt with our series of unfortunate events.  I went in looked at different things to do with my RRSPs, and my advisor helped me look at what I need to save to retire.

Moral of the story, I'm 23 and I don't think I'll ever be able to retire!!!!!!! *end panic*

It just goes to show that you need to start planning early. I would like to get to a point where I can save my whole income and we can just live off my husbands.  We would certainly have a chance at retiring happily if we could live off of one income and save the other.

Right now though, we have to pay off our debt.  We are paying more interest than we are making, so it makes sense to keep snowballing our debt payments and then start snowballing our savings payments once we can really afford too.

My goal is to one day life off of one income, and save the other.

Saving on Groceries

I know a few people who buy $600-$700 of groceries at once and still say they have nothing to eat! My husband and I rarely spend more that $100 at at time, and we find that stocks us up. Why is it that some people get so much for so little, and others have a heart attack every time the cashier reads the total? Here are a few changes we have made to make our money stretch further:

1. Buy what is in season - This might seem really obvious but not a lot of people buy and stock up in season.  One of the things I love doing "in season" is going to pick your own farms.  It's a great way to spend the day together with  my husband and we can freeze things like berries to put in our cereal all year around.  I also love watching for deals at the farmers market.  Last year I bought 20 lbs of red peppers for a good price, sliced them, blanched them and froze them.  I add them to everything, omelettes, pasta, stirfry.

2. Meal plan. - We are working on this one! I try to meal plan from the flyers and use what's on sale. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't - meat can be frozen so I don't have to use it in the same week, but if it's veggies, then I really have to figure out how to use them!

3. Shop with coupons and, very minimum, the flyer. - I like coupons, sales and discounted products.  I find I save a fair amount of money going up and down the aisles and finding the sale items, both what is listed in the flyer and what is not.  I also love to buy meat when it's marked down and through it in the freezer.

4. Know what you can freeze and stock up when you find a good sale.  Note, 20 cents off is not a good sale (unless maybe the item is under a dollar).  When I find a really good sale I like to stock up.  For example, paper towel is really expensive and I hate paying a lot of money for something I'm going to throw out, but at that time I had two puppies and we were in need of paper towels, I bought enough for $20 to last me over a year!  It was a good investment because we needed them, and we were able to store them.  I don't care what people on Extreme Couponing do, cereal under the bed is not good storage! Only stock up on items you would use anyway, don't use sales as excuse to buy things!

What tips and strategies do you use to keep your monthly grocery bill under control?


Credit: (Photo)

Reno Update - A Series of Unfortunate Events

We started with our renovations a couple of weeks ago but last weekend was the start of the major renos.  Last weekend we took stripped down the walls and took out the old bathtub.  I bought myself We bought a nice big soaker tub!  The new bathtub was a little hard to get in, but it managed, after a lot of cuss words, to fit just right.  Then the problems came....

Our shower sprang a leak and we ran downstairs to turn off the water, turned the tap... and nothing. That's right, our main water shut off decided that would be the perfect time to break. Not a big deal right? We will just call the city and have the water turned off from the road.

While we were waiting for the city, we noticed that the leak was draining through the floor, down into the basement and over the wall with the electrical panel.  Nice..... Two hours later, city arrives and turns out the curb shut off is broken too. Luckily, we were able to shut off the hot water tank and stop the majority of the leak.  No hot water for a week meant leaving for work at 5:30am everyday to shower at work...that is an hour I'd like to never see again!

Now, almost a week later (and many many phone calls), we finally got the water shut off long enough to replace the main valve. In order to do that, they had to shut off the water to the entire street (sorry neighbours!).

So after a week of dealing with the City (which most people were pleasant, just took a long time to get anything done) and an $1100 plumber bill... we are back on track to getting our bathroom completed.

Except that $1100 was the money we had to finish the tiling in the upstairs bathroom so we could have a shower again!

But hey, we have running water again (hot and cold) and we get to have safe electricity, so I really can't complain.

Did I mention a tire on the car also blew this week? AND I managed to slice open my finger in the kitchen (something I've never done before).

All's I can say is TGIF!