There have been a few changes since my last post... specifically a new baby boy! Josiah was added to our family on April 2, and is such a blessing to us!
I have also snagged a bookkeeping job that I can do at home, so that has REALLY been helping to stretch out the budget a little. Our diaper budget is going up a little now that there are 3 in diapers, though the oldest only uses a diaper at night. He may be ready to leave the diapers behind all together, but I don't want to be doing laundry every morning or in the middle of the night if he isn't.
Grocery budget is going up as well, as we have added some extra in there due to the fact that I now have a job. It's really a priveledge that we've worked hard for, and now we can "splurge" a little without touching the amount going into savings each month.
I'm so very excited to say that this year we bought a new laptop, digital camera, built a deck, and are planning a vacation- and we did this all without going into debt or spending money that was designed for something else. We've been saving for a deck since last year, so when it came in underbudget by about $1000, we were thrilled! My old laptop bit the dust that week, so we were able to purchase a new one, and a digital camera, with the let-over funds from the deck. The vacation was also being saved for, and we are excited to be going soon! The vacation is nothing extravagent yet, but sometime in the coming years, we will be going all out on a vacation.
It sure is nice to know that all these things were planned for, saved for, and will cost us nothing for interest and fees.
We are also VERY excited that our emergency fund is very rapidly reaching the top! By the end of August, we will have a Dave Ramsey style Emergency Fund. This is very exciting!!
We are starting to look into RESPs for the kids, RRSPs for us, and possible investment opportunities. It's kind of scary... we feel like we are slowly stepping into the world of the wealthy people. We have a LOT to learn about investments before we will make any decisions as we are certainly not interested in getting into something that will hurt us. We realize that investments have risks, but we want to understand each one completely before deciding what's right for us.
So that's our update. We are still plugging away at the 7 Baby Steps that Dave Ramsey lays out, and we have nearly completed step 3. Once our Emergency Fund is in place, we will be saving towards a down payment for our next house (hopefully next year). Dave calls this step 3a.
Hope you are all doing well!
