February was a good month :)

I said before that we know just how fortunate we are to have friends who were willing to help us. We're so very lucky.

We made it through Christmas - it was hard and I wasn't sure how we'd do it, but we did. We spent about $1300 on gifts which, for us, was on the low side, but apparently it's more than the average Canadian family spends. Go figure.

We had a good month this month. I worked quite a bit of overtime at double time, so I took home about $800 extra, plus I got a $1300 bonus.

• Our rent is paid for the month, but we are three weeks behind. Our landlord doesn't mind, and he always says that we are such good tenants. I really want to catch up, though. I should be able to do that in May.
• We do have one payday loan, and we pay about $120 in interest each month. I'm counting on April to get rid of that.
• Our hydro is up-to-date
• Our gas is behind, but in March we should be caught up
• Our car is up-to-date
• Our insurance is up-to-date
• Our furniture loan is up-to-date and paid off in only four months!!
  
• We have had gas in the car and groceries in the cupboards
• I started my e-fund again. It had been depleted and, although I'm only putting in 1% of my net pay, it's a small start.
• I bought new contacts and paid for them in full
• We got an oil change and took and passed our emissions test
• We paid a parking ticket and paid for our car renewal
  

I am contributing very little to savings right now, however. I am putting $15 biweekly into RRSP, and I just signed up for the employee share program at 4% of my net pay (about $50 biweekly). My company will contribute 25% of my contributions in year one, 33% in year two, and 50% thereafter. My plan will be to convert the shares to RRSP each year.

M is back to work, too, and although she doesn't contribute to RRSP yet, she just signed up for the employee share program at 2% of her net pay, so about $18 biweekly.

Oh, I also opened savings bonds. I have $50 biweekly for me, and $25 biweekly for each of the kids. The kids' can be used toward education and back-to-school time. Ours can be for Christmas next year, or for emergencies if needed. The money collects interest immediately and can be withdrawn without penalty at any time. I have over $400 in there right now, just in case.

My plan for the near future:

1. Ensure rent is paid before the first of the month
2. Get rid of that last payday loan
3. Pay off the furniture loan
4. Increase e-fund
5. Get M contributing to RRSP
6. Get the dog vaccinated and fixed

I'll be back. :)

After typing all of this out, I realize that perhaps February wasn't as productive as I had thought, but at least it felt better. I never wondered where we would get our next tank of gas or our next meal.

Fresh start

I was really disappointed with how things were going financially. We got ourselves into a lot of trouble with payday loans, and I wanted to get rid of them by myself so I could proudly say that we did what we had to do. Unfortunately, it didn't happen that way.

We were buried in payday loans. The amount coming out of our account on payday was more than what was going in. We were behind in everything, and we felt like we were drowning. We were upset all the time and we didn't see a way out.

We finally asked friends for help. They were upset that we didn't come to them sooner, and they wrote us a cheque for $2700. We will pay back $225/mth starting in January and we'll have it paid in one year. No interest. We're very fortunate.

With this money were were able to get caught up on our bills and pay off our payday loans. This is where we stand now:

• We are still one month behind on rent. We'll get caught up by mid-November. I hate this.
• Our hydro is paid in full
• Our gas is paid in full
• Our phone / internet / wireless is paid in full
• The kids' school fees are paid in full
• Our furniture loan is paid in full
• Our car is paid in full
• Our insurance is up-to-date

We have a plan and we're working toward our goals. We are so thankful to have received a "bail out package" but we're disappointed it came to that. We understand just how lucky we are.

Going forward, we have to stick to our budget but it'll be really hard because Christmas is two months away and we have no plan and two kids to buy for. It's always a stressful time, and we don't want to "fall off the wagon." We also have to get our rent paid before our landlord decides he's had enough.

I'm hopeful. I'm scared to fail again.

Still not doing it :(

So we still don't have a handle on anything financially. M has been off work sick for more than a year. Although she's getting paid, it's less than she was getting paid before. We're still squandering more money than we should, and therefore we're not paying everything we need to pay.

• Currently we're one month behind on rent, which is $1312
• We're up-to-date with our $422.47 car, but it'll be tough to make the next payment
• We're up-to-date with car and house insurance
• We're up-to-date with gas
• We're owe about $200 to hydro
• We have $900 in payday loans which is killing us because we can't afford to pay them off without reloaning :(
• Our phone / cable / internet / wireless is about $370 behind
• I have no idea how we're paying for gas and groceries for the next month

This all really sucks. I thought that for sure by now we'd be well on our way. I thought wrong.

It's been a while . . .

It's been way too long since I've last posted an update. We're doing OK financially, but we are having a hard time withdrawing the cash and filling the jars. We were doing well, but I had a death in the family and we had to combine all of the jars to allow us to go to the funeral. This meant we had to play "catch up" the next week. That's the story of our lives.

We did have some successes, though. Our car payments have been made on time in full every month, as has our insurance. That big cable bill, which was once just over $1000 is paid in full. In fact, it's been paid in full before the due date for the past 2 months. Our hydro bill, which was nearly $500, is now $269.85. K's daycare is up to date. J had a field trip which, besides paying for, we were able to donate a few dollars to help subsidize someone else's trip. Our cell phone / home phone account is paid in full on time each month.

Right now it is March 2 and we get paid March 6. We have to pay all of March's rent out of that pay because we spent too much last week. :( We also have a $50 camp down payment cheque and a $14 field trip cheque out.

Oh! We have $80 in savings! That's new!

We're currently paying $80 biweekly in interest on payday loans. I want to get rid of those so badly.

The good news is both of us got a raise. M's raise is 2% and mine is 5% and it started yesterday. Apparently we're getting another bump in salary on April 1 as our workplace hasn't raised starting salaries in 8 years and they're doing so now, but also increasing everyone else's as well. I have no idea what to expect for that one.

On Friday I'll be filling the jars. My biggest goal is to stick with them.

Finally, we break out the jars!!!

Okay, so yesterday was payday. We had agreed that on payday we were not going to spend any money using our bank card. Instead, we were going to take out all of our cash and use the "magic jars."

We paid:

• $76 to hyrdo


• $85 to cable


• $100 to home phone / cell phone


• $118 to Mom's Mastercard for our purchases


• $105 to payday loans (I thought it would only be $90, but I was wrong)

In the bank and ready to go we have:

• $26 for school pictures


• $70 for afterschool care


• $424.42 for our car payment


• $100 for insurance


• $415 for 1/2 of our rent for November 1st. This is new . . . part of the rent payment before it's due? Wow!!

We have our jars filled and ready to go. Groceries, Transportation, Clothing / Gifts, Entertainment, Everything Else.

I'm so excited. What a great feeling to have money for stuff not only for this week, but for next week, too.

We were even short money. I had 3 days off unpaid, and besides that there was an error on my cheque and I'm about $50 short. I'll get it added to the next pay, though.

Things are looking up!

A step in the right direction (m)

October 3rd was payday, and although we didn't stick to our budget, we did pay of $100 toward our $400 payday loans. This means that instead of paying $120 biweekly in interest, we'll now be paying $90.

We didn't stick to our budget because before payday we had charged almost $400 in stuff (gas and groceries mostly) to my mother's Mastercard, so we had to pay back that $400 and it wasn't in the budget. We did pay our rent in full on time by cheque, and it didn't bounce! We got an oil change, and we paid for K's field trip and her afterschool care. Unfortunately, we did eat out twice at a sit-down restaurant and a few times for fast food. :(

Success?

It's been a while! We had been falling off track before even having the opportunity to get on track. However, on Friday we had some success!! As it turned out, I did get more money on my paycheck than I had anticipated. Let me tell you what we paid . . .

• We've paid off the rest of September's rent ($415)
• We've paid our car payment on time and in full ($422.47)
• We've paid our insurance on time and in full ($95.89)
• We've paid K's child care up to date ($98)
• We've paid off 42.5% of our cable / internet bill ($400 of $941.01 - and this was the first payment we've ever made on this bill, and the service has been active since May. We've also made arrangements to have it paid in full by October 3.
• We've paid off about 1/3 of our hydro bill ($100 paid, $241.98 owing). Again, this is the 1st payment we've made since activating the service in May.
• We've paid $200 to our wireless / home phone bill. We still owe $152.
• We've paid back what we've borrowed on my mom's credit card this month ($72.89).
• We've purchased tickets to an event that we're allowing ourselves to splurge on, but it doubles as J's birthday gift ($121.92).
• We've bought groceries and gas as well.
• We've paid $120 in interest on a $400 loan that was taken out from a cash advance store a few months ago - ridiculous, I know, but I'm proud that it didn't bounce.
  

I'm really happy with what we've done. Yes, we did squander money and therefore did not have the correct amount in our jars, nor did we write down what we spent in a "budget binder." I am happy with how it all went down, though. Right now we have $70 in cash and each back account has enough for the end of the month's banking fees so there will be no overdraft fees. Not a perfect success, but a success none the less.