I started this blog over a year ago to help get our personal finances in order and prepare for our wedding and eventually starting a family. Well as these things tend to go, life got busy, the wedding came and went, now here I am in the delivery room with a lot of the same financial questions.

Babies have a way of changing perspective especially on the day of their arrival. With this new perspective I need to get the following done in the next 2 weeks:

1. Confirm My Beneficiaries: Technically this should of been done when I got married but this has now become a even higher priority item. I need to make sure that my wife is in a position to receive the money from all of my accounts to support our child.
2. Get Life Insurance: I’ve slowly been working towards this by losing weight to get a better premium but I still haven’t made up my mind on whether I want term or life and exactly how much insurance. I need to calculate all of our future expenses and determine the amount we’ll need.
3. Set Up An Education Fund: As soon as the baby is born I’m off to the bank to setup an resp. Luckily I have a fairly good idea what I want to do. However I haven’t given in the analysis that I would like to make sure I’ve done my due diligence.

The future seems so exciting now that my baby is due to arrive in about 3 hours, hopefully. My list of things to-do reflects my thought to the future and the care of my wife and baby.

--mfd-

P.S. If you’re wondering how I found the time to write this during labor all I can say is this “Bless the miracle of the epidural and the support of a doula”.

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Kids are almost back to school and some may already be back and parents are looking to save some money . I’ve enlisted the help of a teacher (my wife) to get the inside scoop on how parents can save. Here’s what she came up with:

1. Say no to binders:  Don’t get your child those big binders since duotangs are often provided. As well teachers prefer to keep the subjects separate rather then have everything in one.
2. Label clothes: Label your child’s shoes, hats, mits, and jackets as they tend to get mixed up and lost. They’ll eventually end up in a lost and found bin and it will make it much easier for you to identify the items.
3. Seasonal discount clothing: Buy their new back to school clothing at the end of September.The weather will be warm enough for them to use their summer clothes while you wait for the fall/winter clothing to go on sale.
4. Meal programs: Look into utilizing school breakfast and lunch programs as they can provide healthy meals in a cost effective manner.
5. After school sports: Speak to teachers and administrators about what athletic activities are being offered or what you would like your children to take part in. You can get the school to start up activities if there is enough interest.
6. Reusable water bottles:  Purchase a reusable water bottle instead of a disposable ones as the disposable ones tend to sit there all day and get thrown out at the end of the day by the teacher.
7. Homework clubs: Look into after school home work clubs to help avoid expensive tutoring costs.
8. Fund Raisers: Keep an eye on school fund raisers as you can purchase items and even Christmas gifts while supporting your child’s school. A prime example are magazine subscriptions offered by QSP which has something for everyone. P.S. if your child’s school doesn’t have a fundraiser then look into starting one!
9. The school library: Rather then purchasing books have your child look at the school library. If they don’t have a novel that your child is interested then discuss it with the librarian as they are responsible with keeping the library stocked with the latest age appropriate books.

What school saving tips do you have? Any teachers out there have some money saving tips for parents ?

-mfd-

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The recent post on Million Dollar Journey discussing how couples structured their personal finances got me thinking about how we have ours structured. When we were contemplating putting our first bid on a condo we went to a wonderful Greek restaurant to discuss our finances. The first thing we did was calculate a budget. We calculated our fixed expenses which included the mortgage, condo fees, property taxes, cable bill, internet bill, car lease, and car insurance. Then we calculated our variable expenses which includes groceries, a dinning out budget, a “household” budget, and some money for entertainment. Personal expenses like clothes and gifts were left out of the budget. Once we had the total we then included one additional “expense” which was a $1000 towards a savings account for emergencies. The total came within a manageable number for both of us.

We then began discussing how we wanted to divide up the bills. On the surface I make more money than my fiance, however I contribute $500 every two weeks to my RRSP. This is my version of a pension which my fiance has as a teacher. When we take that into account then I only make about $100 more than her so a percentage based system doesn’t really make a difference. We were left with two options: Either have each of us pay different bills or split it 50/50. We went with the fairest solution and one that required less management. We went with the 50/50 system.

In order to implement the 50/50 system we setup a joint chequing and high interest savings account with PC Financial. Every month we transfer our individual portion of the bills into the high interest savings account. We then automated transfers between the savings and chequing to optimize the bank interest.

This system has worked well to date for us though there is some concern. Even though I work in a salaried position I have access to holiday pay and overtime. This means things have been a bit tighter for my fiance and a lot smoother for myself. The additional income isn’t always guaranteed but I get enough that it keeps me worry free.

I have been putting more thought into how we can deal with this. One possible solution could be moving to a percentage based system and calculate it on a cheque by cheque basis. One thing is for certain, we enjoy our individual accounts and the challenge of trying to out save each other so one joint is out of the question.

How do other people account for variable income when it comes to dealing with the bills?

-mfd-

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