2016 financial resolutions.

[saundyl]

@saundyl : Yes. We determined how much we wanted to be in the bank for the baby fund before the baby arrived for furniture, diapers, RESP, etc. Then we divided it up into the number of months we'd be planning to save, for example, $10,000 in 12 months. Each month, we'd put away $833.33 as a percentage of income. If I made 40% of our total income that month, I would put $333.33 in the account and DH would put in the rest. This might vary from month to month.

Since each dollar of income is already spoken for, we cut whatever we could (for example, I started walking to save an extra $3 instead of taking the bus), and paid the minimum on our mortgage for those months. Whenever we found extra money, we would put it in the mortgage since that was where the money was being diverted from. If we were given Christmas money, it went to the mortgage. If I had a coupon for $1 off a product, the extra $1 went into the mortgage. If I found $1 in the shopping cart, it would go in the mortgage. You get the idea.

After the baby was born, we tried to save wherever possible by using cloth diapers, BF, and borrowing as much as we could from friends. I tried to stick to it as much as possible and only used disposable if we went out. Or DH would put on disposables every chance he got. The laundry was intense, but keep the savings goal in mind and you can do a lot of things you didn't think you could as a new mom! Eventually, for LO's entire lifetime, I think I bought 1 large box each of size 1, 2, and 3. I bought two large boxes of size 4s, and we have one large box of size 5 unopened. Our LO will turn 3 in mid-summer.

The two months after LO turned two, she went to a daycare that provided all diapers. You'd think that would help, but we toilet trained her two months into it so there was no need. If we started her there from 13 months, we would have saved a lot more! But, we also found daycares that were willing to use our cloth diaper system. That helped and I carted home dirty cloth diapers each day.

Saving really depends on your stubborness of doing things like laundry and an hour of scrubbing every two days. Come to think of it, I deserve a medal. One kid, five boxes of diapers and only during sleeping after the age of 2. I got a hug from LO this morning, so that pretty much covers it.

No one told me but you don't have to scrub cloth diapers until your baby is eating solids because they're on a liquid diet. I wish I knew! Oh, and those disposable liners you can buy for diapers are unnecessary because LO always pooped around them somehow. I could have saved an extra $40.

That is intense. Something we need to discuss before things move forward.

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

[wimbly11]

April has kicked us in the ass. My parents came to visit so extra money was spent. Owed $3000 on taxes Step daughters braces started coming out of the bank fund. We are hurting and I'm feeling more than a little discouraged...

[coupon girl]

-yes it is so great to hear all these stories of saving before baby -I am proud of my daughter for what she has saved

--well we are saving every little bit for our driveway reno for end of june -just paid a visa bill off 300.00 (extra income from selling mom's chair lift)extra saved towards our driveway

[Frugalbigmama]

April has kicked us in the ass. My parents came to visit so extra money was spent. Owed $3000 on taxes Step daughters braces started coming out of the bank fund. We are hurting and I'm feeling more than a little discouraged...

Go for a walk and get some fresh air if you can. Put baby to bed and ask DH to brainstorm with you what you can do the next month to make things easier/better for your family. I would start buy cleaning out the kitchen cupboard/fridge/freezer and see what meals you can plan for the next few weeks. Just buy fresh stuff. I find when I am organized in the kitchen everything else starts to flow right! Can you have a garage sale? Decluttering the house is good for the soul and for the wallet. Coffee and lunches come from home? If not start that. It really helps. That's just a few things for now.
Just remember that tomorrow is another day . Hugs!

[wimbly11]

A garage sale is a good idea If only I could get DH to part with anything! lol We do coffee and lunches from home everyday. We have been paying off our debt since last year, and it is a struggle even though we are watching our spending very closely.

I know it's one day at a time. We had paid about $5000 down on our debt in about 10 months. Had to put the taxes on the LOC so now we're only $2000 down from where we started. When it's such a staggering number you start to feel like you're getting nowhere!

Go for a walk and get some fresh air if you can. Put baby to bed and ask DH to brainstorm with you what you can do the next month to make things easier/better for your family. I would start buy cleaning out the kitchen cupboard/fridge/freezer and see what meals you can plan for the next few weeks. Just buy fresh stuff. I find when I am organized in the kitchen everything else starts to flow right! Can you have a garage sale? Decluttering the house is good for the soul and for the wallet. Coffee and lunches come from home? If not start that. It really helps. That's just a few things for now.
Just remember that tomorrow is another day . Hugs!

[sweet sparrow]

That is intense. Something we need to discuss before things move forward.

I felt it going through it. I had tree hugging friends who would actually cloth diaper her kid while camping for a week. She hauled around a week's worth of dirty diapers! Now that is hardcore! Although, she used a diaper service so she didn't actually have to deal with the mess.

Even though it sounds like a lot of laundry, there will always be something else to wash. I was actually grateful that there was laundry every few days because there would always be an accident before/during/just after you get the diaper on, there will be burp ups, throw ups, face cloths, and drool stains to clean off. Babies are experts at leaking liquid out of one end or another! For children's clothes, you're supposed to use the least amount of detergent because of their sensitive skin. We went through surprisingly little detergent the first year. I don't think we even went through two bottles!

My mom cloth diapered three children and swears that all of us were toilet trained within the year of birth. Back in the 1950s, on the resources they had, there were no real cloth diapers, just torn cloth fashioned into diapers. Mine had snaps and velcro and came in designer colours. I tried to remember I had it loads easier than generations of moms before me and it helped while on my knees scrubbing at 2 AM. So, Mom was bugging me that my LO wasn't trained by eight or nine months because there was a real push back then to be out of diapers (because no one wants to be scrubbing diapers for more than a year). Ha ha!

I guess the disposable diaper industry would have us diapering kids through college if they could.

There's other things too like making your own baby food. All you need is a blender and a steamer (or in my case a silicone pot insert) and a few books from the public library (or internet!) on making baby food. My mom reminded me she didn't have fancy Gerber purees and all of us turned out fine, nutritionally.

She also grew all the food we ate as well, but that's another story. Mom is a marvel. I think if I had to live like her, I'd stop at one kid, having learnt my lesson! :D Did I mention she knitted all the clothes too and would travel into the city twice a year to negotiate yarn prices?

[sweet sparrow]

A garage sale is a good idea If only I could get DH to part with anything! lol We do coffee and lunches from home everyday. We have been paying off our debt since last year, and it is a struggle even though we are watching our spending very closely.

I know it's one day at a time. We had paid about $5000 down on our debt in about 10 months. Had to put the taxes on the LOC so now we're only $2000 down from where we started. When it's such a staggering number you start to feel like you're getting nowhere!

Hang in there! It might help to write down all your progress and achievements. I even considered making a bar graph at one point with dates and how close we were to the goal. It's the visual of seeing the progress that we were moving towards debt-free that gave the extra incentive to keep going!

[saundyl]

I felt it going through it. I had tree hugging friends who would actually cloth diaper her kid while camping for a week. She hauled around a week's worth of dirty diapers! Now that is hardcore! Although, she used a diaper service so she didn't actually have to deal with the mess.

Even though it sounds like a lot of laundry, there will always be something else to wash. I was actually grateful that there was laundry every few days because there would always be an accident before/during/just after you get the diaper on, there will be burp ups, throw ups, face cloths, and drool stains to clean off. Babies are experts at leaking liquid out of one end or another! For children's clothes, you're supposed to use the least amount of detergent because of their sensitive skin. We went through surprisingly little detergent the first year. I don't think we even went through two bottles!

My mom cloth diapered three children and swears that all of us were toilet trained within the year of birth. Back in the 1950s, on the resources they had, there were no real cloth diapers, just torn cloth fashioned into diapers. Mine had snaps and velcro and came in designer colours. I tried to remember I had it loads easier than generations of moms before me and it helped while on my knees scrubbing at 2 AM. So, Mom was bugging me that my LO wasn't trained by eight or nine months because there was a real push back then to be out of diapers (because no one wants to be scrubbing diapers for more than a year). Ha ha!

I guess the disposable diaper industry would have us diapering kids through college if they could.

There's other things too like making your own baby food. All you need is a blender and a steamer (or in my case a silicone pot insert) and a few books from the public library (or internet!) on making baby food. My mom reminded me she didn't have fancy Gerber purees and all of us turned out fine, nutritionally.

She also grew all the food we ate as well, but that's another story. Mom is a marvel. I think if I had to live like her, I'd stop at one kid, having learnt my lesson! :D Did I mention she knitted all the clothes too and would travel into the city twice a year to negotiate yarn prices?

The diaper companies....so true. Same with more than a year of scrubbing! I think on holidays id cave and use disposable ones!

My mom used cloth on me and my next sister but the other 2 got disposables. Grew our food took care of us and the farm while dad was away 2 out if every 3 weeks right up until he died 6 yrs ago leaving her to raise my youngest sister without him at all (my youngest sister arrived 15 yrs after me)

Looking back i slways most moms seem like superman! Or superwoman i should say.

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

[beckie.c]

A garage sale is a good idea If only I could get DH to part with anything! lol We do coffee and lunches from home everyday. We have been paying off our debt since last year, and it is a struggle even though we are watching our spending very closely.

I know it's one day at a time. We had paid about $5000 down on our debt in about 10 months. Had to put the taxes on the LOC so now we're only $2000 down from where we started. When it's such a staggering number you start to feel like you're getting nowhere!

Its important to remember that two steps forward and one step back is still going in the right direction. If you hadn't paid down that $5000, you would be in a very different place. Keep going! You got this!

[lizzie bargain]

I used Kushies fitted cloth diapers and never scrubbed them-just washed them in the washing machine and occasionally added bleach-I guess it depends on the type. I do think perhaps the older top loading washing machines that used more water did a better job on cloth diapers because even my dish cloths in the front loader can come out a little smelly!

[Ciel]

I did not know that if one has a bank account plus the bank credit card that the bank can access one's account to get paid on the outstanding balance on the card. Gail V-O wrote to never get a credit card from the place where you bank. Scratch CIBC off my list of places to consider for that credit card later this year.

[Ciel]

There must be something wrong with your shoes, they should have been broken in by now AND blisters are so tender.

Have you considered switching from your bank to pc bank, there are no fees. We switched last February/March and I have no regrets. If we need cash we can withdraw from PC bank machines or CIBC. We do have to go to CIBC branches to deposit as we are rural and the bank machines in the grocery store only dispense cash. Just a thought to save you some $ each month.

Great job on the found $ and treating yourself, it's well deserved if I may so with all your savy clothes shopping & altering

My shoes are a discontinued model (runners, not cross trainers) and cost just under $80 in Feb (one of my unexpected costs that month) so it was just luck spotting my size at the discount location of the shoe store. I am not going to return to the New Balance website for shoe orders-sticking with the discount store for now. Planning to do another shoe purchase for July unless I happen to find another brand that stocks my size in cross-trainers (but none do AFAIK).

When I get employed, a TFSA needs to be started to get that savings fund going. But certain investments that one can put into the TFSA (when investing variety helps) will not be CDIC-insured. More reading to do.

[saundyl]

I did not know that if one has a bank account plus the bank credit card that the bank can access one's account to get paid on the outstanding balance on the card. Gail V-O wrote to never get a credit card from the place where you bank. Scratch CIBC off my list of places to consider for that credit card later this year.

I didnt know that either. I dont like granting places permission to auto-pay funds to themselves either! There are times like with the power bill rates change or usage was more thsn expected and theres not enough budgeted and it it was taken put something else would be short or behind as well....or bounce all together

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

[Frugalbigmama]

Ok I am declaring May a no spend month. The focus of the month will be cleaning up the house and posting all of our junk for sale to fill the (summer fun fund) jar. Our fridge and freezer is full. Will only buy fresh stuff if possible (and absolute good deals only- food wise) Wish me luck!

[amira84]

Ok I am declaring May a no spend month. The focus of the month will be cleaning up the house and posting all of our junk for sale to fill the (summer fun fund) jar. Our fridge and freezer is full. Will only buy fresh stuff if possible (and absolute good deals only- food wise) Wish me luck!

I have also tried this "no spend" or "no EXTRA spending" for myself. But i get side tracked when i see something for free or when we are earning money to shop for some item. My question to you is: do you ignore these free/overage typeof deals when you are on your no spending goal?
Example of Free = if you have to spend $5 to buy something but you are getting $5 LATER as a rebate/cashback for thst item.
Example of overage = spending $5 for something but getting > $5 LATER as a rebate/cashbsck for that item.

I have noticed that i cant stayaway from free/overage shops so "no spending" is probably not for me. What should I do? Thoughts? Suggestions? Help please! 😊

One more question: do you have a co51 and zweet accoint? I have never seen your "end of month totals" for these accounts. Why dont you use these apps? These are great apps to get money back for commonly used items.