Posts Tagged ‘cbb’

The Saturday Weekly Review #17- All Mouth And No Trousers!

Posted: April 27, 2013 in The Saturday Weekly Review
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The Saturday Weekly Review
Behind Closed Doors With Mr.CBB

It’s Saturday, so close the door and come on in, sit down, grab a cuppa tea, relax and hang out with me for a moment. No, nobody is going to massage your feet and take the tension from your shoulders and rub hot oils all over your body to take the worry from your mind here at CBB.

To make up for the lack of spa like atmosphere at this moment If I can have your attention for 5 minutes I promise I will make you forget about all the crap you have to do this weekend. If not, go have a beer or cocktail with an olive and suck it up! It’s not every day on the blog I get a chance to kick back and wind down for a bit with everything that’s going on in my life.

With a newish career, the blog and working hard to renovate around the house life can get a bit hectic for me. I haven’t even factored in the wife but she gets me when she wants so I try not to bundle her in with “stuff to do” list or I may find myself in a tent in the back yard.

This past week I have been working on a secret project in my garage which you will learn about shortly. No, it’s not going to make me a millionaire but it will save us a few bucks and get the neighbours talking. Yep, I’ll be sharing my neighbours junk and what I’ve done to bring it back to life. Sometimes I am amazed at what I find and I hope you can trail along with me to see what I do to transform or bring back to life junk my neighbours don’t want.

Since the weather is heating up I’ll be tackling my fence shortly as well as making the deck all pretty so I preserve it’s beauty year after year. Amazing what  a bit of elbow grease and $25 can do for your deck. I’ll be filling in some crack on the drive and giving it a lick of black, working on the new landscaping project and the list goes on.

All Mouth And No Trousers

Do you know someone that you want to slap around a bit to wake them up? I do, and pretty soon he’s going to be driving the lawn mower home and not his Mercedes (just having a laugh). He’s a good mate, a bit arrogant and sometimes drives me around the nutter because he’s all mouth and no trousers (a little too full of himself). If you promise someone you are going to do something, just do it and be done with it. Don’t give them the run around with excuses.

Canadian Budget Binder Weekly Review

Mortgages Toronto Star April 25 2013

What an amazing week on the blog with lots to say and plenty of comments from the fans. I really do like when you toss in your two cents because that not only shows me that you read what I spend hours putting together. The other part I enjoy is that I get to learn more about you and your opinions as my readers. So, don’t be shy, leave me a comment.

PLUS…. Canadian Budget Binder made The Toronto Star in which I am so grateful that they reached out for me to ask me some questions about how we were able to save and why we wanted to pay off our mortgage. It’s not going to make CBB famous but what it will do is share our reasons for paying off our mortgage and hopefully motivate others to think about their own finances.

It’s a great read with a couple of other families that shared what they did to save in order to pay their mortgage off. If you missed this past Thursday’s Toronto Star it’s my understanding the article will be online in the upcoming week. It’s difficult to read the one part of 2 that I scanned but you can double click the photo to see if you can read it from that point. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I see it, I’ll let you know.

Facebook has heated up this week as well, my What’s for Dinner post is still on fire as my top post of the day and the fans dive in and share their favourite recipes, frugal living tips and what’s hot in the kitchen. I’ve decided to continue every Sunday on Facebook as “Frugal Food Sunday” with Mr.CBB.

One thing about personal finance that I’ve learned is money isn’t the most exciting topic but we all love food. Food is love and here at CBB we take food seriously and if we can make a meal that we love and can share it with the fans that’s what we are going to do.

So, if you have a recipe you want to share, pop around and share your recipe link every Sunday for my fans. Tomorrow I’ll be rolling out my Homemade Crockpot Lasagna which turned out surprisingly good! Don’t Miss this recipe if you like quick and easy in the kitchen!

Not alot to report back on the blog design front but I’m hoping to get my arse in gear with the new design as we roll it out shortly. I’m on the hunt for a hosting company at the moment and then we will turn Old CBB into New CBB with a bit of magic.

We are now full speed ahead with the CBB Facebook fans who call themselves “The Cheerleading Squad” who lead the way championing for CBB as we strive for 6000 Facebook Fans. You all know who you are and you can bet I appreciate every single thing that you all do for me and CBB.

So, if you aren’t following Canadian Budget Binder on Facebook.. head on over and LIKE my page!

Hot Posts Of The Week

Canadian Budget Binder’s Weekly Blog Posts

The CBB Blog Post Bundle… just for you!

PLUS… Check out my contribution post at “You Only Do This Once” called Smart Budgeting And Grocery Shopping For 2

Making A Difference

Making A Difference Wise Dollar

Last week I talked about how important it was to “Make a Difference” not only with my life but with this blog. I put out a call for other bloggers to email me a few sentences about why they are making a difference with their blog and to share what that difference was. I want to host this every Saturday and our first Blog to Make a Difference goes to Jose at Wise Dollar.

I’ve followed Jose for a little while now but one thing that caught me about Jose was his willingness to share and to comment on posts that he can add something of personal value to. Jose is making a difference not only for his fans but for his children. Today I ask you to head over to Wise Dollar and check out his blog that he works very hard on for all his followers. If you like what you see, hang out with Jose, just like I do. Well done Jose!

Why Jose Says He’s Making A Difference

I started my blog for my kids, particularly my 20-year-old son has always had a fascination with my investing activities. I’ve slowly, over the years given him tidbits of information on how I invest, what I look for, etc. I have never really had the discipline to document everything.

Creating the Wise Dollar Blog has given me a vehicle to document how I invest and pass that legacy on. Even if the Wise Dollar eventually goes away, I will have put down in words the information that my kids will need to be successful investors and better money managers. A secondary objective? Yes, of course. I would like to make the Wise Dollar a successful Personal Finance (and more) blog) to provide extra income when I semi-retire!

Blogs You Should Check Out And Follow

Who’s Talking Canadian Budget Binder

Thank you all so much. If I missed you please send me an email and I’ll get you on the list.

Carnival Glory

web search terms

Google Search terms really help me to understand what people are looking for at Canadian Budget Binder! Any typos below are simply how the person who searched Google and typed it in search incorrectly, or me ;-) Another week of thousands of search terms but only a few good ones worth mentioning.

Top Pick: How To Make A Home Pregnancy Test- Now there’s a science project I never thought of.

  • Sexy Men, Sex Men Over 60- Nope, none of that here.. maybe almost half that age!
  • Cash For Beer Cans- Crap, they’re catching on
  • Animated Pizza Tossing- Because that’s what we do here…
  • Why Man Like Money- Oh, I don’t know maybe because, it pays the bills.
  • Hiding Spots In Homes- Part of  The Burglar Research Academy

Quote-Budget and Money

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March 2013 CBB Budget Update #3- A Quiet Month With The Budget

Posted: April 1, 2013 in Our Family Budget
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Canadian Budget Binder Monthly Budget Update

Well, here we are at the end of March 2013 with another budget update which with confidence I can say is a bit better than our February Budget Update. Sometimes it’s a good thing to have a quiet month with the budget because it helps to put things into perspective. Sometimes budgeting and saving money doesn’t always happen depending on what your priorities are that month.

As an example, last month we saved no money in our emergency savings, a big fat zero. We actually spent more than we earned in February which can be discouraging but also motivating to do better the next month.This month we didn’t have any big-ticket expenses like our water softener that cost us over $1000 in February.

We didn’t have alot going on this month in terms of expenses but we did pre-pay the full 20% of our mortgage of over $32,000 for the 2013 year which I will get into in an upcoming blog post. I’m expecting next month to be costly for us with having another installment of city taxes to pay and our hydro./water bill will be coming due.

Other than that with spring and then summer just around the corner I will start to get the deck sanded down and treated. I already purchased the Thompson’s sealer with tint at Canadian Tire earlier in the year when it was on sale. I’ll also be looking at our landscaping projects which is top priority this summer as we’ve put it off for far too long.

I’ve got the vegetable seeds ready to go for the garden, so we will see how much money we will be spending on plants this summer but hopefully not too much. I had a peek in the compost bin which I jammed full of leaves and other organics at the end of last summer so I’m sure I will reap those rewards shortly. I did manage to save some of our flowers and plants from last year by bringing them indoors for the winter although next winter I will be pickier on what comes in. I try to do whatever it takes to shave some expenses off the home maintenance budget for the year including re-using and re-purposing items we already have.

I also plan to start renovating one of our main bathrooms with a full tear down, heated floors, new cabinets, new counter tops and faucets,toilet, Shower faucets, tile floor to ceiling, new mirrors, accessories, heated towel bar and shower curtain and bar. That’s a big project for me but I’ll be tackling the outside before I do any indoor work. This job alone will take a big chunk of our budget but will add value back into our home.

What spring cleaning do you do? 

How We Budget Our Monthly Expenses

Below are links to my budgeting series which I wrote while designing our spreadsheet. I’m not a financial planner/advisor so I can’t tell you how you should budget but I can show you how we budget. I’m just a regular guy just like everyone else, some might call me a budget nerd. I love seeing money grow and where it has gone. Please take the time to read through the budgeting series and I hope you take something away from the information.

  1. How We Designed Our Budget Step 1- Gathering All the information
  2. How We Designed Our Budget Step 2- Categories
  3. How We Designed Our Budget Step 3- Tracking Receipts
  4. How We Designed Our Budget Step 4- Note-taking
  5. How We Designed Our Budget Step 5- 5S Organization
  6. How We Designed Our Budget Step 6- Who Does What and When?
  7. How We Designed Our Budget Step 7- Balancing Our Budget
  8. How We Designed Our Budget Step 8- Knowing our Coupon Savings
  9. How We Designed Our Budget Step 9- Reading Our Bills
  10. How We Designed Our Budget Step 10- Projected Expenses

Click this link if you want to see a sample of a budget sheet spreadsheet that we designed>>> Finances+Budget= Success Formula

Changes to the Monthly Family Budget This Month

I mentioned a bit about our life insurance policies and how we applied for life insurance as non-smokers since we are now over 1 year smoke-free. We received our assessments back and we are now only paying $70.43 a month as opposed to the $135.05 so that is a bit of savings for us at $64.62 a month.

Our income taxes are done and I’m proud to report that I did them on my own. I read everything I needed to read in a couple of days and did them online for free. We are getting just over $200 back which isn’t much but that’s fine as long as we don’t have to pay the government any money. I’ll be removing the $2.50 a month we were saving in projected expenses out of our budget and put that money in our emergency savings now.

March Monthly Household Budget  Percentages Overview

Our savings of 60.18% includes savings and investments. I’ve also went ahead and added in our projected expenses this month at 12.53%  which brings the total budget percentages to 100% for the month of March.

March 2013 Monthly Budgeted Expense Chart 2

The CBB Family March Budget Expenses Breakdown

We have 3 Canadian Bank Accounts with our Chequing account being with President’s Choice Financial. We chose PC Financial as one of our banks because we didn’t want to pay any bank fees. We also have never felt the need to see anyone personally inside of a bank but if we do Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) will gladly help us out as PC is affiliated with CIBC.

  1. Chequing- This is where all the bills get paid from.
  2. Emergency Savings Account- This is a high interest savings account.
  3. Regular Savings Account- This a savings account that holds our projected expenses money.
  4. Monthly Budget Total: $4611.65
  5. Monthly Net Income Total: $8544.05
  6. Total Coupons Used (includes points redeemed, big box store coupons, not just grocery coupons:=$91.38
  7. Projected Expenses: These are expenses we know we will pay for throughout year and save monthly for = $1282.90
  8. Total Expenses Actually Paid Out: $2927.97
  9. Total Expenses Actually Paid Out Calculated is $8544.05 (total monthly income) –$4333.18 (total monthly savings)–Projected expenses $1282.90 = $2927.97
  10. Actual Cash Savings Going Into Emergency Savings Funds: $4333.18
  11. Calculated is $8544.05 (total monthly net income) – $2927.97 (actual expenses paid out for the month)–$1282.90 (projected expenses) = $4333.18

March Budget Updates

What are Projected Expenses?

PE= A Projected Expense is money which is automatically saved each month ready for when the bill comes in or for when you need it as in the example below. We go over our projected expenses at the beginning of the year to set up our yearly budget and adjust as we go along if a new projected expense arises and needs to be added to the budget.

This has happened on many occasions but it’s bound to happen as we can’t predict everything we have to pay for over the course of the year. The important part for us is that we are saving for the expense and we no longer have to stress about taking money from our savings to pay for them. To learn more about projected expenses read Step 10 in my budgeting series.

Projected Expense Example: Clothing we budget $50 per month. If we don’t spend it we move it to the projected expenses account. This means we should have $600.00 per year for clothing to spend. We have to track that expense as we spend it.

Below is our Budgeted Amount for March-Money that we budgeted to spend minus the savings as that gets added once we see what is left for the month.

Budgeted Amount March 2013

Below is our Actual Budget Expenses for the month of March-What we actually spent plus our emergency savings

Actual Budget March 2013


March 2013 Goals Revisited
  • Network with some new Bloggers let’s say 2 for now, keep it simple.- PASS
  • Reach 4200 Facebook Fans- PASS  4830
  • Reach 1500 Twitter Followers-PASS 1528
  • Reach  900 Blog Subscribers-PASS 905
  • Order 1 personal finance book from the library and start reading it (not sure how well I will do with this one but I’ll try) Any recommendations?-FAIL I really need to get on this.
  • Clean out the garage mainly the salt on the floor and organize it a bit- FAIL
  • Get my flower seedlings going as I’ll need lots of flowers this year!- PASS
  • Guest Post for an awesome personal finance blog (not sure who yet though)- PASS  
  • Complete our Income Tax Returns on my own (fingers crossed I don’t mess it up)- PASS
April 2013 Goals
  • Pre-Pay another 20% off the mortgage
  • Pay the mortgage in full after we pre-pay but will see how this all comes together
  • Order a personal finance book from the library and actually start reading it
  • Reach 5000 Facebook Followers (lofty goal but I’ll try)
  • Reach 1575 Twitter Followers
  • Reach 920 Blog Subscribers – I’m just taking baby steps with the blog until I move to self-hosted soon
  • Work out the final touches on the new blog design with my designer
  • Clean out the garage
  • Guest Post for an awesome personal finance blog (if you want me, email me)
  • Take the winter tires off and store the winter beater to bring out my hot rod (not really but I like my set of wheels)
  • Clean out the inside of the vehicles
  • Start sanding down the deck
  • Get the indoor plants out
  • Clean the windows inside and out around the house
  • Scrub the front porch
Our Year To Date Percentages 2013

Year To Date Percentages March 2013

Overall: March overall was a good month for us as we had paid down the mortgage which left us with $417 a month expense that we would typically use to pre-pay but are now at our max for the year. We didn’t spend as much as we budgeted in March simply because we didn’t go out too much and we didn’t have anything to purchase. All good things come to an end though so we will see some healthy expenses in and around the next few months to cover renovations around the home. We will also be paying off our mortgage hopefully by the end of April 2013.

How did you do in March with your budget?

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