HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'd like to take this time to wish everyone and their families a Happy New Year! I can't believe it's already 2009 and what a year ahead.

Being the beginning of a new year and having taken the time to look back on the past year, I sat down with my fiancé to review the year and make amendments/changes to our budget for 2009. Here is what we have decided:

Emergency fund: $15 /week- this will stay at the same rate as 2008
Gift fund: $30 /week- we have agreed that we can only spend what is in the fund
Travel: $0 /week- a wedding, honeymoon and our first house = no travel for 2009

What is different this year of course is:
WEDDING: which we will pay as we go and see where we are after the wedding. If we are uncomfortable we will have to cancel our honeymoon- but we won't know until the day after our wedding. We are spending $10,000 less than the average wedding in our area and having more guests- so we are doing very well comparatively- but the average wedding where we live is $30,000 for 120 guests!!! That should be a crime.

HOUSE: buying our first house has lots of different things coming with it! Our last deposit to the builder will be on the 12th so we will finally have that done with, we will use our credit line to pay the $5000 deposit and I will be pulling the last of our money from our RRSP's this month, approx. $1767 to offset the deposit.

DEBT: We made a commitment to have our debt to a certain level to qualify for the mortgage so once deposit and wedding are completed- every spare penny will go towards lowering our debt. That is until our house is ready- our plan changes immediately once we have a mortgage. Once we qualify and take on our mortgage our credit line is likely to be rolled into a weekly loan payment. We will make the payment and bank every spare penny to supplement Mr. K's low season income as we cannot budget what he will make for the winter and our budget is so tight! Being our first house we want to see a full years expenses before allocating any extra monies to debt- we want to ensure we don't hurt ourselves or jepoardize our home. It's not only low season income but also a non-emergency type fund, car maintenance, house maintenance, and surprises. I want to avoid using the emergency fund at all costs as it is so low- it would barely cover two weeks mortgage payments and nothing else. I want it for an actual emergency- not unbudgeted items if that makes sense.

CAR: Mr. K will need to buy a second vehicle this year, we have agreed the maximum to spend is $6000. As we would like the car to last until our debt payoff is completed if at all possible.