January’s Money Moment

Eight or so years ago, I fell in love with a lady. A straight shooting lady who told me what’s what about money. That lady was Gail Vaz-Oxlade, Canada’s beautiful bountiful money queen.

After reading her book “Debt Free Forever”, I became a full-fledged member of the Church of Gail. I found jars. I taped silly pictures to them. I told my husband we were going to do this.

That last part is kindof a regret. We have pooled our money for as long as I can remember and yet… my husband has rarely been involved because I was kind of a freak about money. Truth is, I wanted to have control over it.

Fast forward to September 2018 – my hubby has redone the budget, using his new found knowledge in financial management. I love watching him get stoked about what we can invest and save and how much interest we can save by paying down the principle of our mortgage.

BOOM. We’re on the same page. Now we’re talking and money is not one of our problems. What we’d like to do is share how we bring our values, lifestyle and love to the tool of money.

Making a Budget

After many iterations, our budget has many layers and is a true reflection of who we are. There’s two main parts: Health and Adventure.

My hubby prefers the Adventure part of the budget. That’s the part we plan to have a lot of fun. The adventure part of the budget is where we imagine our summers, our “try somewhere new”, our “let’s go!” moments. My husband is fantastic at that. He brings out that spontaneous part, encourages me to see the world in a way that doesn’t need to be strictly planned, adhered to, structured. He brings out my playful side.

My part of the budget is health. Strength is one of my core values and I heartily believe that it starts with the body, no matter where you’re at, you can be strong. I focus on feeding us well, figuring out what we’re in need of to take care of our different dimensions of being. It’s not always physical. Our minds, spirits and emotions need as much tending because it’s part of the system. The whole being is important.

The relationships of the systems and being in a type of balance is important. Clarity on that last bit is important too. A type of balance is needed. Your balance may not fit my balance. Kinda like pants. You have to trust yourself that you know what you need and when something seems really out of whack, you know to ask for help. Sometimes you know that you need to eat chocolate and spend Saturday mornings balancing the books.

Other times, you gotta adventure.

What Happened in January?

In January, we had some good moments and, not so good moments.

-We had our water pipe to the house freeze. Thank goodness for our emergency fund and awesome handyman. We also used part of our emergency fund to buy supplies in case the pipe freezes again.

-We bought the husband a webcam for his streaming on Twitch.

-We started paying for house cleaning services as a way for me to cope with anxiety while hubby is in school. I couldn’t keep up, take care of myself, work and do it all.  I ended up putting stress on both of us. This is a solution that a counsellor recommended we try for six months.

-Out of our all budget lines, 26.4% were over budget.

-We had a budget for all our expenses in January, meaning we know where our money is going and have a pretty good idea of what we spend on.

-We were able to put over  towards our investments.

-We started saving to make a lump sum payment on our mortgage principle. Our aim is to be completely debt free before 40.

That was our January, money-wise. I’m so incredibly proud of us and our use of this resource. I am thankful we have the skills to handle our money in a way that works for us.

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