Mortgage Statements Are Nauseating!

My annual mortgage statement came in the mail today.  Most years, I have thrown them out with out even opening them ( I know, I am so ba-a-a-d!).  But this year, for some unknown yet apparently sadistic reason, I decided to open it. 

Over the past 12 months, we have paid only $1949 dollars off of the principal, and a whopping $12,948 in interest.  Oh but wait… the good news is… there is only 36 years and 4 months left of the amortization!  To further disgust Shawn and I, I figured out how many hours Shawn had to work to earn that $13,000… you don’t even wanna know… I wish I didn’t!!

Paying off our mortgage in record time hasn’t been on our list of financial goals, but now I am starting to wonder…  After we pay off the debt ( still making good progress!!), and start saving on a more regular basis, will I increase our mortgage payments and try to blast that huge beast?  Or will I want to relax a bit more by then? 

I can’t say for sure.  Just thinking about what else I would rather do with $13,000 has re-stoked the fire under my butt, and makes me want to buckle down even more.  Our lovely January vacation is over ( and paid for, yay!!) so now it’s time to get back to kicking that credit card !

New Year, New Budget

As this year drew to a close, my husband and I sat down to evaluate our finances and see what needs adjusting.  We’ve come to see that our budgets have been like a pendulum, swinging back and forth with equal energy between spending and extra debt payments. 

We always seemed to manage one or maybe two really strict low spending months, but then a catch up month would follow.  We can eat out of the cupboards and freezer for a month, keeping the groceries under $400, but inevitably the next month we’d be out of paper towels, toilet paper, flour, sugar, rice , potatoes, diapers and just about every other imaginable household item.  Other budget categories had the same problem.  We had no regular line for clothes, which is ok until Shawn needs new winter work boots, which come in over $200, or someone needs snow-pants or socks or whatever.  We can wear out or entire wardrobe but the stock up at the end of it is a big bill!

Shawn received a raise late this fall, so our income has changed slightly.  We sat down to work out a new basic budget, the one that we start out with each month then plan any new items we know are coming up.  We start with the same basic amounts, and then adjust for each month’s unique needs.  We wanted to make a budget that was a bit more balanced, creating a more even pace.

Our first major goal this year is to increase our donation to the church and reach a full tithe by the end of the year.  Since I blogged all about it already (Read about that here)  I won’t do more than mention it today, except to say that I will be tracking more closely the portion of Shawn’s income that is variable and working on a system to make sure I am tithing on things like overtime and bonuses.

We added planned amounts for home maintenance, vehicle maintenance and clothes.  Instead of these things being added as an “ other expense we know of” in a month when a need popped up, we will now have a planned amount.  Unused portions will be transferred into savings, still ear marked for that category and used when bigger-than-this-month’s-allotment expenses come up.

We’ve decided to save a small amount each month, instead of using all extra funds as debt payment.  We will still be paying about 10% of our income onto debt payments each month.  We have decided that the “Dave Ramsey” method of an insane pace sprinting until the finish line isn’t working for us.  We are opting instead for a marginally smaller speed, which will leave us with different options.  The small savings number will help when we want to take a summer camping trip, or pay for something like soccer or ballet.  We can spread these items out over the year instead of the month or two before they are due.

We’ll continue our renovations at a slow pace.  Saving ahead and paying for each stage will set the speed.

It is still our main debt related goal to pay off our Master Card by October when our mortgage will be up for renewal.  After that, we attack our credit line.  Recently, when regular interest rates where changed at the bank, the fees on our credit line doubled.  This will make it harder to pay off extra principal, and we are even more determined to pay off this giant mistake from our past!!

We will start paying our children allowances again.  We have tried different ideas off and on without much success this year and are still looking for a system that is the right fit for our family.  We’ve decided that it’s purpose will be to let our children practice making decisions about how to save and spend money.  They won’t be “earning” it per se with chores, but there will, in the future, be a list of extras they could do if they would like to earn more money for a goal they have.

I have gotten really slack about planning and tracking each month, and I want to make a new excel sheet to get us back on track in this area.

That about sums up my financial resolutions for the up coming year.  What are your goals this year?

Let It Begin, Let It Begin!!

You know that little hamster from “Bolt”, anxious to begin the adventure?  Well that is how I have been feeling about our kitchen reno.  Now that I have accepted the fact that I will be living, cooking, and schooling amidst drywall dust and paint samples, I want to just get started already!!!  It’s killing me that my much loved new lino is still sitting in a roll in my garage.  We have a few things that have to get done before it can go in, but every time I wash this ( much despised) white floor, I get irked!

So, this week as I sat staring at hideous green wallpaper, I thought “ This is it, I have had ENOUGH! I am tearing that down TODAY!”.  But then it occurred to me that Shawn might resent that.  He might feel as if I was forcing him to move the kitchen things up in priority on the to-do list.  We’ve been feeling so overwhelmed, over scheduled and over committed lately.  So I emailed him at work, wanting to gage his reaction before doing anything.

“Hypothetically speaking… If you came home and I had ripped the “chair rail” off the wall, your reaction would be: A) HAZAAA!!  An item crossed off my to-do list  OR  B) What the happening?!?”" ( Which by the way is Lily’s way of exclaiming and it makes us all laugh).

Ahh, but my hubby knows me well, so he replied: “ Based on the fact that you are asking me, I am assuming you’ve already done it, soooo… A”

After swearing to him that I had not yet started anything and that I genuinely wanted his permission, he assured me he would still choose “HAZAA!!”.

I wasted no time, boy!  I hate this ugly faux chair rail that was really just baseboards haphazardly nailed half way up the wall and the green wallpaper.  The kids thought this was the funniest job on earth! “ You mean we can rip it all off?”  They gleefully helped pull off all the paper.  Then Baden manned the steamer and we got the glue and backing off without much effort at all.  It was awesome to see it come down!!

Then, we painted a couple of color samples and are test driving them for a few days before I commit to painting my whole wall a very dark rust.




Also coming together are the plans for the built in bench!!

And, I did remember to take some “before” pictures a couple weeks ago.  This is as clean as it ever gets around here, I was going to REALLY clean it, but then I figured that most of you have seen my house in it’s real state  (much much worse than this!) anyway… Haha!  Plus, I figured, why lie?  This is what it looked like!

Exciting Purchases!!

Guess what this is???  It’s my colour scheme coming together!!
FabricLand is having a huge sale this week, so we decided to head over and grab the upholstery vinyl we want for the bench Shawn is building in our kitchen. He roughed out a plan last night so we would know how much we need, and I am very excited that he is at the design phase!!  I decided to wander around and see if I could find anything that caught my eye since everything in the store is 50 – 70 % off right now.  The orange cushions we had purchased a few weeks ago to be the back of the bench. I’m planning a buttery yellow wall colour. 

I’m planning to use this one for valences over the two windows and a few matching pillows on the bench.








This one is a heavier fabric that I’ll use for pillows on the bench too.



The cushions are shiny and silky so it was hard to get the colour to show well in the picture.  In real life, though, it matches almost exactly the orange in the two materials.  I plan on having one wall painted this orange.




Mwahahahaha, I love it when a plan comes together even though I’m winging it!!

If You Were At My House Today…

You’d have seen me dancing around, giddy happy and laughing like a crazy frenchman, mwahahahahahah! Hee hee hee!! All because of this:

 

That’s right, it’s my new lino arriving at my house in the back of my brother in law’s truck!!!

                                    

 

                                    Right now, the floor looks like this:

                             But very very soon, it’s all going to look like this!!!!!

So, Can You See Progress?

Having coffee with a friend of mine last week, we were talking about my goal of paying down debt, and she asked me "So, can you see progress?  I mean, can you see real, measurable improvement since you started?" I've been discouraged lately that our progress has been too slow, but when I took a second to think about her question, I realized that, yes, we have made huge progress in the last 14 months!  To encourage myself, and maybe you too, I thought I'd take a moment to sum up what we have achieved so far!

We have found a "budget sweet spot" that works for us.  Enough structure to avoid surprises with enough flexibility built in that we don't freak out over a few dollars over or under in a specific category.  I make a plan at the begining of the month, trying to leave a bit of room in case something does come up.  But I have given up on trying to track every single item with a software program.  I just didn't have enough time, and being behind was just one more thing to feel guilty about.  I know it wouldn't work for everyone, but this middle ground way is working really well for us - right now anyway! I no longer worry that we won't have enough to cover expenses because I have a plan to save ahead for things we know are coming up.  Less stress all around!


We are working together.  When I was the only one paying attention to the bottom line, I resented being stuck with all the responsibility and Shawn felt left our of the decision making.  Now we have more equal input on where money is allotted.  I know when we need to spend on groceries and he knows when we need to spend on vehicle or home maintenance.


We welcomed our fourth child, and made it through a pregnancy and newborn period without overspending!

We celebrated halloween, Christmas and all the birthdays in our family without overspending!

We started homeschooling and adjusting to this new way of life.

We payed off over $6,000 that was on our visa, and burned the cards! ( fun pictures here! ).

We lowered the interest rate on our mastercard, and have paid off about a third of it.  We sold some belongings to pay it off faster and continue to make progress monthly.  Our goal is to have the remaining $7,990 dollars paid off by next October.  We were so excited to get that number under eight thousand!!

We put aside an emergency fund and have been able to leave it intact!!

We have saved ahead and paid cash for all the activities our kids wanted to participate in, which at different times has included ballet, gymnastics, swimming, soccer, 4H and piano lessons.

We bought a piano and built the girls a bunk bed.

Yes, I'd say we have made lots of progress in 14 months!  We still have a long way to go, like paying off the mastercard, then tackling the credit line, but when I look back, I can really see how well we've been doing!  What's up next for us?  We'll be continuing to sell some items, working out a plan for Christmas which may include a trip to BC this year, and we need to start work on renovating our kitchen.. besides all the normal stuff!

Beating the Budget Busters: Spring

If the amount I spend on gardening every year was any indication, one would be sure I lived on an acreage.  I don’t know what size my imaginary acreage is, but it must be huge because boy is it costly to maintain!  Ok, all joking aside, every year I seem to manage to spend a small fortune on my postage stamp sized yard.  Something about spring makes me want to run out and buy a zillion plants. 

I head to a local garden center, or three or four, and load up on annuals, seeds, perennials and the odd bag of peat moss or compost.  Somehow I always manage to pick up enough to supply a hobby farm.  Last year I gave the extra annuals to neighbourhood kids to plant in their flower beds.  Even when I have enough plants for the few spaces I can plant them in, I inevitably find some beautiful little flower that I would love to have, which leads to me having to buy more pots.  Then, I can always squeeze another plant or two in…  You get the idea!

This year I determined to be more realistic about how much space and money I have.  I should have written this post a week ago, before I went to three local greenhouses…  Ok, yes, I went, and yes I bought a couple more things than I planned, but mostly I am on track for the year.

I decided to plan how many plants I could fit in the pots I already have, and only buy those.  This way, I know too that I will have the time to maintain them.  Besides spending too much, the problem with buying extra plants is that I always manage to kill most of them because I don’t have the time to water and maintain them all.  The girls want two hanging baskets on their playhouse, Baden wants two tomato plants, beans, peas, carrots and parsley in our children’s garden, and then I have three little window-box like containers that are hung on our fence.  That’s all, and this year I mean it! 

Buuuuuut, the previous owner of this house was an amazing gardener with no young children and therefore more time on her hands.  Front and back, this house has lots of perennial beds.  Over the last three years, I have changed and reduced them to a more manageable level for me, but every year, there is always more I’d like to do.  Just a few boards to make edging here… the odd plant to fill in where one died… and all those doggy spots on the lawn.  You get the idea.  I never seem to be able to leave well enough alone!

In this too, I resolved to do better this year!  I am 9 months pregnant, and cannot do a lot of the yard chores anyway.  Once I have the baby, the yard will be lucky if I remember to turn on the under ground sprinklers once a week!  Well, that determination lasted until my wonderful husband offered me a day of his labour.  All I had to do was sit in a lawn chair, and he would do whatever chores I asked him to.  Shawn got a lot done, and I got a nasty sunburn.  “ Hey hunney, you know, a few boards along here and this flower bed would look nice and tidy, it would really finish it well” he says… on his way to the garden center.  “ This old shrub is over grown and not too nice anymore, I’ll rip it out for you” was quickly followed by “ Hmmm, what should we buy to plant in it’s spot? Maybe some cedars?”  “ Would be nice to buy some boards and finish the walking path this year” had to be quashed, though.  “ You know, that edging in the back looks great, maybe I should grab some for the front yard too” is still in the negotiating phase.  I’d love to rip out the dead bushes in the front, change the shape of that bed and edge it, but I don’t really want to spend the money either.  I can’t decide, which is worse: the dead bush, or a huge bare hole?

Ok, there are some ways I’ve been frugal about my yard wish list.  Almost all of my perennials have needed dividing over the last few years.  I’ve used a lot of these cuttings to fill in spaces when needed.  I’ve also given away enough daylilies, irises,  and hostas to stock several friends’ yards.  This year, I’m mooching a few things from a friend who is cleaning up her yard.  There always seems to be someone dividing and cleaning out plants if you are looking around.  Also, because Shawn is always at construction sites as part of his job, he often finds odd scraps of sod.  Contractors order in enough for the project and then toss aside the one or two lengths that are inevitably left over.  He’ll grab them and use them to fix up the doggy spots in the lawn.

We’ve Frankenstein-ed together the sections of our fence that are the worst with scrap boards we had laying around, and determined to ignore how ugly it looked until we could afford to fix it.  But, in order to keep the neighbourhood kids out and the 70lb dog in, we really need to address the fence, or at least portions of it, and soon!  Several spans of the thing are rotted to pieces.  I am constantly hollering at the kids next door “ Get off the fence! You’re gonna get hurt!” and “ Don’t hit the fence, the boards are falling off!”  We had some wind this week, and the fence flaps like wind-chimes!  The back section is supported because our boat is behind it… classy, I know!  Several sections have been tied up with rope.  I don’t know how much longer we can ignore it!  I think we may have to pick the worst parts of it this year, and plan on replacing it section by section.  I remember from the last fence we built, fencing is a lot of work, and it’s expensive!

Alright, so if I was going to make myself a score card of how I’ve done so far this spring? I’d have to give myself koodos for improving, and tsk a little at how we did too.  Next on our plate this year is the job of finishing the playhouses.  Shawn built them the year Lily was born, two years ago, and has put time and money into them every year.  This year, we plan to finish the few details that remain, and stay on budget too!  Stay tuned!!

Hooray for Tax Season!

I have to confess, I LOVE tax season.  Now, I know I am a nerd, but it most likely has to do with the fact that I get a refund every year…  I sure didn’t like it as much the one year I had to pay a huge sum while home on maternity leave! 

Now, I know they say you should file the deductions form at your work place to adjust what they keep back from your pay.  The goal really should be to have a refund or payment within $50.  I have tried, believe me!  But one of the reasons we get a refund every year is because we donate to our church .  Because this is a donation deduction, the forms would have to be resubmitted every year, special approved by the CRA and by the time the necessary permission had been given to Shawn’s employer, it would be time to start the process for the next tax year.  I looked into it, trust me, remember, I said I’m a nerd!  You also have to show that you have done this several years in a row ( with previous tax forms) and that you are on track to do it again this tax year ( with cheque copies or pre-authorized debit receipts) for the first 6 months of the current tax year.  We could do it, but as I said, it turns out to be a bit more of a pain in the butt!

So! Every year, we have a nice refund to look forward to.  I know it shouldn’t be our enforced savings or payments plan.  Each refund we get, we sigh wistfully and say something along the lines of “ Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do something FUN with this, instead of paying for ( insert new bill or debt payment here)?” or “ Wouldn’t it be great if we could invest this in something?”.  And I know if that I actually did file the forms for the deductions, I would have that money in smaller instalments throughout the year.  I could put that amount on debt, and save interest.  I could invest that money and earn interest.  Hopefully, within a few years, we will be in that place!

In the meantime, I still love tax season.  I get all the papers ready, wait for any that are still outstanding and enter everything into a tax program ( I use TurboTax).  The program makes it quick and easy, even if you have small business expenses ( I used it the years I had a home business too).  I am perfectly capable of doing the math with the forms and a calculator, but I don’t mind paying the $40 or so to have the program do all the thinking for me.

This year, our refund will go a couple of places.  One, we still donate a portion to our church.  A friend of mine gave us the idea to donate it to specific “fun” causes instead of the general fund, where we would donate our regular amounts.  It feels great to contribute specifically to a cause or drive that we care about.

Second, some of it will go to fill in a (relatively tiny) hole that has come up in our finances over the past few weeks. I know, I wish none of it had to go to that!  But, at least the tiny hole won’t become a gaping one and keep us down for a couple months either.

Then, third, all the rest is going on our credit card, and I will reduce the limit! YAY!! This is the most exciting one for me.  I am so excited to get out from that high interest! Let’s be honest, it’s not fun paying the price now for things we wasted money on ages ago.  And let that be a lesson to me, not to do it again!!! 

Ahhh, I am so glad to have submitted the taxes today!! Now I can look forward to seeing that nice deposit arrive in my bank account!!!

Saving Money Takes Time!

Lately, I have been feeling so sick of thinking about money.  It takes so much time to make all these changes in our life.  Some days, I feel like it’s all I have been thinking about “ how can we do this or that cheaper”," “ How are we going to pay for that”, and “ We just can’t afford that” seem to be taking up a lot of my mental space.

I know that since we are just starting this journey, this is a time where there is a lot to do.  Calling the credit card companies was a smart thing to do, but it used up my time.  Making different appointments, searching for cheaper deals and re-planning some things are necessary,

and I am glad we are doing this, but these all take time too.

I enjoy making the things we’ve been giving as gifts, and the use of my time is definitely a benefit to my family.  Again, more time thinking about how to make or do something inexpensively.

A lot of these things, once done, won’t need my focus again for a long time.  However, I think that my time will still be in demand.  Shopping around for deals on things we need will be a focus for a long time yet. 

While we are making steady progress in this journey, it has been slow.  As I said to my husband, I wonder when we will get to a point that it is not such a constant focus.  Daily, it feels, there is some financial pressure, plan or thing we need to discuss.

I don’t want to get bogged down, or discouraged, though.  While I would love for changes to happen quickly, I knew that wasn’t realistic.  It took us many years to get here, so it will probably take us a few to get out of it too.  It was encouraging to me to read about others who decided to stop being in debt and live without credit.  I love the TLC show 19 Kids and Counting.  I was reading the other day about the Duggar’s financial journey, and how, once they decided to get out of debt, it took them seven years.  I’ve only been doing this for 7 months! I’m going to pray about my discouragement, and focus on the progress that we have made, and choose thankfulness instead.  I know that thinking about our finances differently than we did in the past will be a life long change that is worth making.  I will teach my children, and they too will reap benefits many times over. 

I think, we are about to reach a plateau, where a lot of the big changes are made, and then it will be a time of simply continuing to do the right things.  I am looking forward to focusing more on simply enjoying my kids, playing with them without my mind wandering to my financial to-do list.  I want to apply my brain to other family and faith matters.

When I started blogging, I wanted it to be about Faith, Family and Finances, not just finances. As our frantic pace stage evolves into more of a steady payments stage, I hope to have more blogs on the Faith and Family aspects too!  If you’ve been on this road too, I’d love to hear your story!

Wrapping Up Another Month

Well, it’s now the end of January, and I am warding off discouragement.   We did have some fun milestones this month, namely burning our VISA, but the progress still feels painfully slow!

This month, we caught up on the $185 we’d over spent on Christmas last month, but we didn’t make any further extra payments on our debts.  We did ok making a budget covering everything that would come up in the month and sticking to it.  That is, we did until our van needed brakes ASAP, and we took that money out of our emergency funds.  I’m glad we had it there, but now it means instead of making extra credit card payments this month, we’ll be needing to refill that emergency fund.  At least, because we got our interest rate lowered, the payment we do make will take us a little further.

I’m still battling to get our grocery budget down, and will be doing a few more break downs on meal costs.

I am glad that we are, at least, not going into the hole each month any more.  I admit, though, that I wanted to see an actual amount that we would be using to pay things down more often.  I don’t want our progress to be “ well, we’re keeping afloat at least”. 

When I sat down to make our February budget, I was able to make the math work, and cover everything that will be coming up this month.  But unless Shawn ends up with some unexpected overtime, we won’t be making any extra debt payments.  “Birthday Season” starts at our house this month too, so I will thinking, and writing, about doing that on the amount we could fit into our budget.

As I go get groceries this morning, in this –44 morning, I am going to pray about my discouragement, and focus on how good it is to have come at least this far in our journey.  And drink lots of HOT coffee!  How does your month wrap up feel this week?

What Are You Willing To Pay For Convenience?

This week, I have had to pay for two things that got me thinking about this question.  I ordered cheques, and I bought a quicken program.  And since I planned neither of these things in the first place, both kinda irked me.

My banking plan does not include free cheques.  I knew this when we opened this account.  I have never sat down, however, and figured out what it costs me to have cheques.  Let’s face it, I don’t need cheques, they are just to make life a bit more convenient for me.  At one time, they were almost a necessity, I think.  I don’t need them to pay bills, I use online banking.  I don’t need them to order things from a catalogue, or online, I can use my credit card for that.  I don’t need them to inform someone of what my account number is for direct deposit or direct withdrawal reasons, I can just tell them, or have the bank fill out a quick form.  But that would be less convenient!   would have to go to the bank! 

I have only just now used the 50 cheques I originally ordered when we opened this account two and a half years ago.  When I sit and think about who I have written them to, I realize that they were all times I could have used cash instead.  I can pay my hairdresser in cash.  I can send cash for school book orders.  I can pay cash to sign my kids up at gymnastics or swimming lessons.  I have written cheques for such dumb amounts as $3.50 for a hot lunch at the school.  The reason I use cheques is because it’s more convenient for me than carrying cash. 

I don’t usually carry cash anymore, it’s just easier to use my debit card wisely.  To pay for the things I have been using cheques for, I would have to keep different denominations on hand.  It’s one thing to say I’ll have a $20 bill for when I sign up the first week of mom’s morning out, but it’s a lot more to plan on having $13.52 for a book order.

All this to say, I realize that I have been using cheques because it’s easier.  But what is that costing me?  I just ordered 50 of the most basic cheques.  No extra sayings or cute pictures.  They cost $35 including shipping, that’s 70 cents per cheque!  Ok, that’s not a ton, but it adds up.  It seems even sillier to pay that for the cheque if it’s only $3.50!  In the future, I think I will plan ahead on my way to the hairdresser’s and stop at the ATM.  I may even try to keep a bit of cash on hand for those things that always seem to come up at school like lunches, book orders, or fundraisers.  Every time i consider writing a cheque, I’m sure I’ll be thinking “ is this worth the extra 70 cents?”.

After I bought, installed and set up quicken’s “Money Manager” program, I regretted it.  Oh, it’s a great program, I have always loved the quicken line-up of software, and every year I buy their tax program for the easiest taxes ever. ( I highly recommend this!)  Since my previous quicken expired, I have created a spreadsheet which basically does the same thing for me.  I use it like a cheque register to plan and record what is going into and out of our account in a given month.  It does the math for me.  I can track what category a given purchase falls into, and create a budget planning what we will spend in each area for that month.  Yup, I’m a nerd, and I spent a lot of time on this.  Then, I got an even better spread sheet from the budgeting presentation we had at Mom’s Morning Out.  But, I wanted it to re-organize transactions by date as I put new stuff in.  Ok, I probably could have figured out how to continue tweaking my spreadsheet, or I could have asked some of my friends who are even bigger spreadsheet addicts than me.  I also like the convenience of downloading transactions straight from my on-line banking instead of flipping from window to window.  Ok, I could have done that too, I suppose, if I’d tried a little harder to figure it out.  The program has a couple of quirks that annoy me, like you can’t post transfers between accounts, so it shows up as an uncategorized transaction and keeps going back to it, asking you to put it in a category.  I don’t really like their budgeting system, I still prefer my own.  The program is worth about $40.

Even the spread sheet was the first step in “convenience”.  I used to use a paper check register, and track all of our transactions.  I can do that.

The quicken comes with a money back satisfaction guarantee, apparently, so I may still see if I can return it.  Though, since it was a program that is downloaded, I’m not sure how a return would work?  I may have to check in with some of my spreadsheet loving friends this week about the couple of things I would like to tweak…

So, that was two things this week I paid for because they were “more convenient”.  Which is just a polite way of saying I paid for them because I am too lazy to do something another way.  Have you ever paid for something and then realized you bought it only to make it “easier” or “more convenient”?  Would the alternate route have been that hard? Was it worth it?

A Whole New Playroom!

Just in case you were wondering how it turned out…

I can’t believe I got this done in one day, I thought it might take a week.  The kids fell in love with this space, running around and enjoying it again. Lessons learned for mommy, less really is more, and no they won’t miss it!





Next room I’m tackling?  I’ll have to decide either the laundry/storage room, or the storage room…

Wanna see what it looked like when I started?  Scary Playroom

Spring Has Sprung!

Ok, not really.  But at my house spring cleaning has sprung at least.  Talking with many of my friends lately, I realized that lots of us get the itch to sort and clean everything and purge clutter from our homes right after Christmas.  I don’t know if it’s trying to find new places for all those new things that inspires it or not.  Maybe its the knowledge that, where we live at least, we are going to be cooped in the house for three or four more months.  We just don’t want to sit in the house and look at it, and it gives us something productive to do during the last of winter.  It’s a lot easier to ignore it in the summer!

I have started going room by room, doing a massive purge.  We purged once before we moved to this house, about 2 1/2 years ago, and we’ve even pared down lots while living here.  But there are just some things we kept holding onto, in case we found a place for it here.  I think this is a good time to go through it.  If we haven’t used an item since we moved here, odds are we don’t need it anyway! I started in the
basement, and am finished the craft room and the guest bedroom.  Now I have a huge pile of boxes that is growing, for a garage sale I plan to have this spring.  I have a couple of pieces of furniture that I need to haul up from downstairs and sell.

Today I am tackling the scariest room of all. THE PLAYROOM.  My kids have too many toys.  We’ve tried a lot of things to manage this room.  We’ve already cut out half the toys.  We’ve rotated boxes.  We have a floor to ceiling shelf system for the bins.  That’s just what’s inside the house, not to mention all the stuff that’s in the yard.  I hate this room.  The kids can’t play in it, because there is so much stuff, there isn’t actually room to play.  Even when the room is cleaned up, they don’t play that much with the toys.  Their favourite thing in the house to play with is whatever recent box daddy drags home for them, or better yet, Daddy himself.  Why bother owning the toys anyway?!?  Most days we go down there, I can’t ignore the mess and just play with the kids.  I begin picking up, and then I get angry at the way they’ve treated the toys, and a fight starts.  It always ends with me upset and yelling at them, and hating the toys even more! 

About a year ago, I finally had the last straw ( or so I’d thought!).  I boxed up every single thing they owned and stacked it all in a storage room.  The basement room, which is roughly 400 square feet, was empty from corner to corner.  I let them each pick one bin, and that was all they had for a week.  They earned back bins one at a time, a week later.  As they earned back a bin, Shawn and I would go through it and pare it down by throwing out whatever was unused or broken in it.  For a while, this made a huge impact on how they tidied their toys.  What stuck me most about the whole experience was how little they missed anything.  They loved simply having the place to run and play.  They enjoyed more time to imagine and pretend.  They didn’t ask for the toys, we had to remind them when it was time for them to earn a new bin.

That memory is inspiration for me today.  I want to give them a big room with space to just BE.  But it’s hard!!!  It strikes me today, as I look at the huge piles of stuff, sorted and yet to go through, how much money is wasted on clutter.  It’s not just mine either.  Up until this last year, my kids were the only grandkids for all of their seven grandparents.  We’ve all enjoyed buying them fun toys, but it really has become too much.  Clutter wastes money in several ways, first and foremost because I have been spending money on things that we don’t really need.  And sometimes, when I couldn’t find the thing I did actually need, I had to go and buy it again.  Hasn’t everyone done that at some point?

Another thing I have been pondering today is why it is so hard for me to part with the kid’s things.  Partly, I am influenced by the fact that my mom never got rid of anything of mine, and I feel like I am supposed to keep all the childhood toys forever.  Also, I think that most of my life, I have seen acquiring things as an accomplishment.  It feels a little like taking a step down on the accomplishment ladder to choose to give up things we have.  But why???  Lately, I have begun to feel like a slave to these things, needing to clean and maintain them takes so much of my time.  I’m tired of this burden! 

Cleaning this room today really has nothing to do with money for me.  Yes I plan to have a garage sale this spring, but that is not the driving reason behind what is becoming self imposed labour camp!  I want to be free of the burden of the junk.  I want to have time and space to enjoy my kids, my husband and my friends.

                                              

Believe it or not, when I took these pictures, I had already been cleaning for over an hour.  Two garbage bags were hauled out, as well as several boxes to garage sale.  And I didn’t start with the messiest state this room could be in!  These pictures actually look pretty good….compared to how it often looks!  I had to stack and pile things, just to be able to walk through and decide what to do with the stuff! I had no spot to start from.

I’m heading back downstairs during nap time to make more headway today.  If no one hears from me by bedtime, maybe send someone to make sure I am not buried under an avalanche of toys? LOL!



In case you're wondering how it turned out... Playroom

What Makes You Feel Secure?

On my way to the grocery store this morning, an odd line of thought took up my drive. “What if something happens or one of the kids needs something, and we can’t pay for it?  Maybe I should have kept that credit card instead of burning it?”

I stewed over this for a while, and pondered why it worried me so much.  For many years, we have had no savings, but I always comforted myself with the idea that I could always deal with things by using a credit card.  I realized that I had been deriving a sense of security from that.  Suddenly finding myself without that (false) safety-net made me feel vulnerable.  I have believed it for so long, that I felt almost bare without that card.

The reality is, we now have some savings. True, it’s not a lot, but we will be able to deal with most things that could come up.  And really, since we never have to worry about medical bills thanks to our province and our health coverage through work, what could possibly come up that is REALLY a need?  Our savings would cover most things, if we didn’t have wiggle room for something that couldn’t wait, like say new boots if someone lost theirs.

But even these savings are not where my security is supposed to be.  No matter how much money I have in the bank, there is always some calamity that is possible.  There are things that could happen.  Who knows, maybe this is the year that the  North Saskatchewan River floods it’s banks!  What amount of money would change or prevent that?

Sitting and worrying about that is not a good use of my time, and not how God wants me to think.  He’s been showing me lately that my life is in His hands, because I placed it there.  True, I want to be wise and use the money He does bless us with wisely, but that is not what makes me feel secure when I think about the future.  I need to remember that God is in control, and that I am His daughter.  THAT is where my security needs to come from, no matter what!

Satisfying Progress!!

  Taking this picture might have been one of the most fun, most satisfying things we have done for our finances since we started this challenge last summer!

We paid this credit card down as low as we could get it, then moved the small remaining balance to a much lower interest rate( from the credit card’s 20%   5%)
.  
Consolidating helps us save and makes it easier to pay.

When I phoned to close out this account, I was told that I had outstanding reward points to cash out first.  I thought they added up to nothing, but it turns out, they added up to $100 in gift cards from one of the participating retailers.  I opted to have cards from a local hardware/home improvement store.  Now, for no extra cost to me, we’ll be able to use that towards some of the things we’d like to do around our house.  I was pretty excited!

But the day was going to get better yet!!  I was flipping channels when I saw a clip from that show “’til debt do us part”. Gail, the host was talking to  a couple ,asking how talking to their credit card company went.  She says that all anyone has to do is phone and ask for a lower rate.  Everyone can save money this easily! She’d said.  Well, I was sceptical, but figured I had 10 minutes to lose, so why not call?   I simply told the person on the phone that our family was trying to pay down our debts and would like a lower interest rate so we could make more headway.  And you know what? They cut my interest in half!!!!  We plan to continue making the payments we’ve been making anyway, and look forward to seeing more progress month by month!!!

And the Poll Results Are…..

So those of you who read regularly know about the poll I’ve had posted for everyone to answer.  It closed at Christmas, and here are the final results:

Which of the following would you consider acceptable as gifts?( 22 people answered)

Garage Sale find (19)
Re-gifted Item  (21)
Thrift Store Purchase  (19)
Item from Giver’s Home  (19)

I have to admit, I am happily surprised with that.  I thought that people would think less of gifts if they knew that they came from one of these places.  Maybe I haven’t been giving the people in my life enough credit!  What about you? Are you surprised too?

Working on another poll…stay tuned!

What to do with Gift Money?

What do you do with money you’ve received as a gift?  I always hate the idea of it being mixed in with everything else and just being part of my everyday spending.  Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me.

When  our parents give us money as a gift, they tell us to use it where we need it most.  But what if where we need it most is making a payment on a credit card?  That doesn’t seem right to me either.  Someone else shouldn’t have to put their money towards the hole I dug all by myself.

Sometimes when we receive money, it’s towards a specific thing.  Last year we asked all the grandparents to help us pay for the activities the kids wanted to do when we travelled to Drumheller.  Shawn and I paid for gas and tenting, and we paid for all the attractions and mementos the kids wanted with money that was given to them at Christmas.  We’ve also been given money and told “ I know you’ve been wanting to paint that room ( or buy that light fixture,or whatever project) so here is some money to help you out with that”.

This year, the kids were given money from grandparents, and we’ll use that towards paying for an activity.  Then we can tell the giver that “ we used to money you gave them to pay for swimming lessons” and that person knows what we used it for.  I like being able to share with them what we used the gift for.

Sometimes, when I don’t have a good idea for the money yet, I just put it in our savings and think about what would be good to use it on.  This year at Christmas, Shawn and I received a sum that was large to us and totally surprised and astounded us.  So We have the happy job of deciding what to do with it.  We decided that we would use some of it to get us to our $1000 which we are saving first following the Dave Ramsey plan.  We were getting pretty close, and finally getting there is a great gift.  Some of it will be put aside to re-paint our house in the spring.  This was another job we knew we needed to do but weren’t sure we’d get enough saved.  Not having to worry about that is a great gift, and I will do a few extras that I might not have been able to if we were scraping together just enough.  I can’t wait to get rid of the hideous yellow glass 70’s light fixtures on the front of our house, and now thanks to the Christmas gift, I will do that when we re-paint.  After that, I think there are still a few dollars left, and they will set in our savings account, marked so they don’t get mixed in, to await a special project.

What do you do when you receive money as a gift?  Do you make sure you use it on something special, set it aside?

Looking forward to the New Year

Okay, I haven’t been writing in a while.  I took a bit of a hiatus because our family had a lot going on. We’ve been sick with a cold, busy with commitments, and of course, it was Christmas.  But now I am looking forward to the new year, and have lots of post ideas rattling around in my brain.

I am looking forward to starting the new year off on the right foot budget-wise.  We made it through Christmas in good shape, but it’s time to get back to planning where to spend our money.  We were fortunate to receive some money as Christmas gifts, both for us and the kids, and it’s fun deciding what to do with it.

We have some fun things to look forward to this year….mainly Baby #4!  This is the main reason I’ve been sick lately and now that we’ve surprised our families, the secret is out.  We need to figure out what to do about bedroom arrangements, for one thing, but there are lots of other changes ahead.

I used lots of neat gift ideas this season, and I’ll still share them, in case you want to use them for upcoming birthdays, or store them away for later.

I had a great Christmas, but I am ready for things to get back to normal around here, and to do come clearing out.  This weekend Shawn has extra days off, and I am looking forward to the family time.  I hope you and your families had a great Christmas too!!

Small steps...

Well, yesterday I was feeling discouraged about our month so far.  Shawn got a bonus at work, and had some overtime on his last check, but the amount left to save in our account is less than these things.  I wanted to see ALL that money go to savings.  But yesterday, I needed to focus on what is going well.  There is some money to save, a vast improvement from two months ago!!

Yesterday, I went to the consignment sale our church hosts for childrens toys and clothes.  If you've never been there, you might not be able to understand the huge-ness of this sale.  The whole basement of our church ( two gyms and several classrooms) is converted to a shopping-palooza!  I had volunteered to work at the sale and planned to shop for our kids while there.  Before I went, Shawn and I sat down and figured out what each kid might need, and came up with a short list...nothing.  Yup, we evaluated the winter clothes, and what they have in their drawers and realized that our kids have plenty.  I did decide to look through the toys in case something jumped out at me as a good christmas present, and I came home with two small things totalling four dollars.  My mind set is already changing!  I didn't even look through the areas of things I had already decided I didn't need, why tempt myself?  Yay Progress!!!