New House

I've been in my condo for 16 years now. I now have a son and a dog. Every so often I look at what houses are for sale and this time there was a freehold townhouse available in the same school area.

I saw it on a whim and the next day made an offer. Luckily they accepted. Then came the fun of putting my place up for sale. I bought it for $160K in 2004. It sold for $465K. There were 45 showings but only one offer. But, it was the right offer.

It's very exciting and stressful. No more condo fees. I'm now responsible for everything. Lots more room, but not enough room for the furniture I own. I have to sell some things. My mom's wall unit being one of them. There just isn't room in the new place. They hold my things so perfectly right now.

Can't wait.

Old Patterns

This year hasn't been great on the spending front. I've fallen into old patterns while being depressed. I think I'm going to have just under $10K in debt at the end of the year.

My problem areas have been dining out, personal care (hair cuts, manicures, etc), clothes (I love the site eshakti.com, and have bought myself too many dresses, and of course I love shoes), medical (my benefits did not cover what I thought they did), house repairs (new washer and dryer), gifts (my son's birthday present cost more than I thought - but he does love it, I will just have to be more careful at Christmas).

I cancelled a trip I was planning for next year (in prior years I probably would have continued), but I can't seem to curb the rest of the spending. If my budget is correct, the rest of the year should be better under control (dining out probably won't be).

Next year I'll have even less money as I do not expect a good bonus (or at least not as good as last year's). So, I'll really have to watch my spending - especially now that I have a good chunk of debt to repay.

I'm hoping my depression swings closer to manic (which is at least good for work) and I can stop wanting to spend money all the time.

Two Steps Back

I may have spent too much on the Disney trip. Just after that came camp registration and that costs over $2000 for the summer (at least at this age). Then I had something go wrong with the car (well many things) and so far that has cost me about $2000.

So, I had to put off a couple of debt payments. I'm hoping I'll be able to make them up at the end of the year / beginning of next year.

We aren't going on an expensive trip next year. We are going to Mexico but the hotel is free so I just have to pay for the flight (and I have points for about $600 of that).

I'm upset with myself about the debt repayments. I thought I had budgeted correctly. I'm still on track to pay off the mortgage within 9 years (less than the original 25 year mortgage expectation). I should be happy about that.

Disney World 2018

As part of my vacation budget for 2017 and 2018 I took my son to Disney World in Florida. We had a full 7 days at the resort and 2 travel days.

I had tentatively planned for about $4500 CAN for the trip, and it ended up costing $4650 CAN for one adult and one child.

We stayed at one of the value resorts, which was fine for us. We didn't spend a ton of time there. It was too cold to really want to spend any time in the pool (my son did swim one morning).

I ordered about $100 worth of groceries, but we ended up not eating most of them. It was a good idea, I just didn't really know what we would need. We shared most of our meals. I spent way more on food for my son, than for me. We only did one sit down meal the whole week and it was EXPENSIVE ($70 USD). I'm so glad we only did that once. My son did enjoy the snacks at Disney (mostly the ice cream bars). I did partake of the frozen alcoholic drinks - which is probably where my food money went (no more than 2 a day).

We did 5 days at the parks and 2 'rest' days. The rest days I had planned a couple of activities for my son. He hated one (archery) and loved the other (pirate adventure). Because it was so cold we didn't get to really enjoy the amenities of the resort on our rest days.

Here's how it broke down (approx):

Park tickets $700
Hotel $1250
Food and drink $890
Flights $525 (I used points for one of the flights)
Documentation (passports, etc) $300
Gifts / Clothing / Attractions $980
Cash (so glad most was charged to the room so I could keep track) $20

So, in the grand scheme of things a very expensive vacation (Disney is not cheap), but I'm so glad we did it. My son says he wants to go back for his birthday (maybe when he's 12 and I can save up again). There were a lot of ups and downs on the trip. There is a lot going on at Disney and my son couldn't handle it all, but I hope he will remember the good parts.

Throughout the trip I used an app to keep track of what I was spending everyday. This allowed me to know if I was on track with my spending.

Cars

So, I've been tinkering with my budget again (what I do every day). I realized that my car is not going to last me forever. It's a 2010, so I'm hoping it will last me another 4 years (at least). So, next year I will start putting aside money towards a new (to me) car. In 4 years I won't have a ton to spend on a car, but may have enough in my emergency fund to offset that (without making a huge impact on the emergency fund).

I have also modified my budget when it comes to money being set aside for my son's higher education. When he's 17 instead of putting all the money I would have put aside to the mortgage (paid off by then), I'll take half that money for a new (to us) car for either him or I. We have public transportation where we are, but it's not fantastic. So, I want to at least plan for him having his own car. By then he should have a job and be footing the bill for at least the gas and maintenance, if not the insurance (we'll cross that bridge when we come to it).

I was asked yesterday how I was doing since being on Gail's show. I think I'm finally doing pretty great. It took me a few years. I was on the show when my son was only a couple of months old and now he's 7 and I'm finally on track. It is so hard being a single mom sometimes. I had no idea there were subsidies for day care. That would have been a huge help to me for 3 years!!! But, I can't change the past, I can only look to the future and learn from my mistakes. I'm finally doing pretty well and will have my mortgage paid off in 27 years instead of 25 (and I put debt into the mortgage at least 3 times). So, thanks again to Gail for putting me on the right track.

End of Year Budget Review

So, I rejigged my budget numbers based on what I spent this year (and what I plan to spend for the rest of December) and determined that I was over on two categories this past year. Now, I'm not sure where my math went wrong because I have enough in my bank account to cover my December Visa bill and have money left over. So, I'm not sure if I actually did go over my budget. Obviously, the new heating / cooling system was over my budget (my house budget was not equipped to cover a $13,000 expense), but that aside my budget tells me I was over in two categories.

I was over by $300 in my public transit category. At the end of the year I was asked to switch from my local office to a downtown office. Which meant I needed to start taking the train. This was not an expense I had expected and couldn't budget for. The expectation is that my yearly bonus would help to cover this new expense, but I had to handle it until January.

I was also over in my books / toys / gifts category. Apparently, I spoil my son. This category also held our expenses for computer backup and security ($250 at the end of the year - which I had forgotten about). I was over by $420. I've upped my son's allowance starting this month so that he will be responsible for the majority of books he buys (and will hopefully start to understand why I love the library so much). We spent a lot of money on video games this year. I bought my son a 2DS system for his birthday and games at Christmas. Plus we had games and accessories for the Wii early in the year. Next year I am planning on replacing the Wii (it is on its last legs). We will hopefully be able to borrow games from the library for whatever system I end up getting. I will have to plan ahead for that purchase as it will not be cheap.

But, with those (3) categories aside, I think I had a fabulous year in terms of budgeting. It was really my first year to really make sure I was doing it and I'm pretty happy with the progress I've made. I have my mega spreadsheet that I review daily. It has details of my budget, my spending, where my mortgage is and will be in the coming year, where my son's RESPs are and when I will be able to start putting more towards that goal, where my RRSPs are (not great). I know I should focus on my RRSPs but I really want to get the mortgage paid off and Jude's school costs figured out. Jude will still need to pay for part of his school, but I'm hoping that I can keep the amount as low as possible for him. I do not want him drowning in debt when he gets out of school (like my brother and I).

I'm planning to up the amount of money against the budget and Jude's RESPs next year. My goal is to have the mortgage paid off in 9 years and then put that extra money against Jude's school budget.

So, year 1 of budgeting is almost in the books. Here's hoping I don't spend more than I've planned this month.

Year End Review Part 1

It's coming up on the end of the year and I have a good idea of how much money I will be spending to the end of December (I hope).

I have a good idea of how much money I will have left in my bank account at the end of the year and I know what I had at the beginning of the year. I think it works out to me having overspent $900 for the year. I have managed to put away $3000 into a savings account and around $3000 into RRSPs, and some money set aside for my son, plus pay off my line of credit and most of my car loan (that will be done early next year).

This year I had the giant expense of a new A/C, heating, and water tank unit. $13000, I believe. I will hopefully have that paid off by the end of next year and will only have my mortgage remaining for debt. I've put bad debt into my mortgage I think 3 times. So, once the above is all paid off, my mortgage will be back at my original purchase price (not great I know). But, it is worth about $80,000 more than what I paid for it. On my current debt repayment plan I will have the mortgage paid off within another 8 years. I know not great, but I'm a single mom and I weigh the debt repayment against all of the activities my son wants to participate in (the activities tend to win out).

I know the debt repayment isn't as aggressive as it should be, but I'm trying.

I'm updating my budgeting spreadsheet. It now contains some charts so I can visualize where my money is going. This year the majority of my money went to: mortgage, condo fees, childcare, groceries, vacation (we are going to Disney next year and I have that time-share type deal that I'm still paying for), and debt repayment.

Next year I should have three categories removed from my budget: water heater (since I purchased this year), car payment (because I moved it into my mortgage payment and that portion is almost paid off), and pet (unfortunately, I had to put down my wonderful Placenta Head this year). Those three categories made up about $120 / month in my budget. That money can now go to debt repayment.

I'm also debating whether or not we will finally use that vacation time share in 2019. If we do, I'll be paying for the portion we have to pay, plus the flights in 2018. At the end of 2018 will be my last payment on the time share, so that will be a big amount of money for the year back in my budget for 2019. I'm thinking half to vacations and half to debt repayment (but let's get through 2018 first).

I still have a big amount on the Disney trip to pay in 2018 - the remainder of the hotel and all of our food. I know you can bring your own food into Disney, but my son is really picky and I expect we will just be eating pizza everyday. I'm going to start looking at the grocery stores that deliver to Disney to see what we can maybe buy and have delivered.

My spending app tells me that I was over my typical spend two months out of eleven. February - when I paid for part of Disney and summer camps. and June when I paid for the rest of summer camps. I had three months where I was on the cusp for overspending. So, I think that was a pretty good year. I can't expect to have every month under. I have Disney to pay for in January, camps to pay for in February and June.

I am hoping to keep my expenses down in December. I only have a couple of presents left to buy (should be under $100). We will have higher gas costs, and eating out costs because of travel for the holidays, but the rest should be under control.