I can’t believe it’s August already. I’ve been thinking about how fast time flies lately and want to cherish every moment. Having said that, the lingering debt we have from our elopement is bugging me. I need that gone ASAP.
July was a month of failure. Haha!
When my mortgage was last up for renewal, my credit score was in the low 600s and I had $43K in consumer debt and owed $20K to the CRA. I decided to stick to my existing lender since I figured nobody would give me a good rate. My rate was 4.1% for a 3 year term. This is horrible considering the Prime Rate was the lowest it had been in years.
Fast forward three years and a credit score in the high 700s (Equifax) and low 800s (TransUnion). My credit report doesn’t even reflect that I’m debt free yet but that didn’t matter. I was ready to find a new lender to renew my mortgage with and give the double finger to my existing one.
The first step was to gather all my documents which consisted of:
● Two years of Notice of Assessments
● Property Assessment & proof that Property Taxes are up to date
● Condo docs (Bylaws and two years of Meeting Minutes)
● Recent pay stubs
● Letter of Employment
I met with my mortgage broker who is wonderful and handed off the documents. Our family has dealt with her mom and her for years.. I told her I was looking for a 3 or 4 year term. She said she would, of course, look for the best rate for me.
In the meantime, I received my mortgage renewal notice from my existing lender and laughed my ass off! The rates were atrocious:
6 month open: 7.00%
1 year closed: 5.99%
3 year closed: 4.99%
5 year closed: 3.74%
I also noticed my TransUnion credit score went down 15 points. I get weekly updates through my Capital One credit card. I didn’t panic since I knew she’d be taking a hard credit check as opposed to a soft one.
Within one week, my broker contacted me and said she secured a 4 year term at 2.99%. Yay! I met with her the following day to sign my mortgage commitment which basically states the conditions of the mortgage and that they’d pay out my existing lender. I also had to gather a few more documents for her, one of which I had to pay $199 for. Grr. She also got me to sign a document that I was aware that she will make about $1500 from the lender for going through her. Of course, that was fine with me.
My mortgage payment will be dropping to $880.75 per month which frees up more than $100 per month for saving. I highly recommend using a mortgage broker when buying a house or renewing your mortgage. Don’t blindly agree to what your existing lender offers you unless you have no choice. Mortgage brokers will get the best rate for you and take the stress off of buying a house or renewing a mortgage.
I never wanted to marry The Ex and I confused that with not wanting to get married at all. Then I met my now husband. We are both simple, frugal people and are on the same page about weddings in that we don’t want a big one or one at all. That’s why we eloped.
It was a ceremony involving us, the marriage officiant and a paid witness and our photographer. We wanted to get married in a picturesque location so we could show pictures to our family and friends. Finding a marriage officiant that would hike out to the location we wanted was a bit tricky. Finding a destination photographer was easier. I know we could have done it for way cheaper had we stayed in our home city but we wanted something truly memorable and great pictures we could give to our parents. A city elopement would have been way cheaper but the pictures wouldn’t have been as jaw dropping.
Actual cost $3823:
Dress+earrings: $105+15 = $120
Makeup+lash extensions: $30+160 = $190
Kilt+shirt/tie+tailor: $577+45+105 = $727
Wedding bands: $212
Wedding officiant: $652 (pricey because of the travel time and there’s a 15 min hike to our location. Also includes witness fee.)
Photographer: $1360
Hotel (2 nights): $334
Wedding license: $103
Dinner: $125
I chuckle when I see how much my dress was compared to my husband’s kilt but now he can wear it to special occasions… or just around the house for me. Haha! Yes, I know I spent $160 on lash extensions but to me it was worth it. I’m Asian so I have short lashes and I can’t put on strip lashes for the life of me. I wanted to look good on my wedding day and lash extensions really helped me feel like a queen. #noregrets
The process of getting married was exhausting! Who knew? I spent the first half of the week packing and making sure I got everything on my list. I’m normally a very light packer so this drove me nuts. I had to bring all my full-sized hair and skincare products, makeup, makeup brushes, etc.
The second half of the week was spent driving there and finding the precise location for the ceremony. The instructions that I found on a trail website were so vague. It was as if they didn’t want us to find this treasure but once we did, I could totally understand why they were so vague. I did my own hair and makeup which thankfully, turned out well.
We are very happy that we chose to elope instead of having a full-blown wedding. It felt so intimate and we felt so happy and at peace in the mountains. Most of all, we have a memory to share that is truly ours.
I became consumer debt free last Friday due to it being a three paycheque month (I get paid bi-weekly). While I am absolutely ecstatic, I still feel poor. I still feel like I am in debt and need to be in austerity mode. I think it is due to being in debt for about 10 years. This is something I know I need to work on.
Now that I am consumer debt free (still have my pesky mortgage so not completely debt free), I can allocate half of my paycheque to savings which is about $2,100 per month. One thing I’m struggling with is how much to save for retirement and savings (house down payment, TFSA, etc.). I don’t get a company pension anymore or RRSP matching so this is all up to me. I read articles saying you should save 10% of gross income and other articles that say 10% of net income. Can you see why I was confused as to what to do?
I was planning on saving $1000/month for RRSPs to aim for early retirement at 55 but then I realized I am now part of a team. I will soon have a husband to help out with retirement savings and I also have CPP and OAS benefits to rely on in retirement. So I’ve decided to halve that amount to $500/month for now and see what happens. Part of me worries if I don’t put $1000/month away for retirement that I’ll end up spending the money. I’ve been obsessively plugging in numbers for different scenarios on the Canadian Retirement Income Calculator and $500/month seems like a good place to start for now given that I have under $100K in my RRSP/LIRA already.
What am I going to do with the rest of my money? I’ve decided to start paying back my family. While I am consumer debt free, I am not technically debt free. I still owe them for lending me money to make stupid decisions with The Ex. My plan was to give them the proceeds from the sale of my condo but I won’t be selling for 3-4 years. In the meantime, I’ll be paying them $500/month. I’ll be saving the remaining $1100/month in a high interest savings account such as EQ Bank. I can always give my family or RRSP a lump sum payment whenever I feel comfortable.
These saving streams are just new “payments” to me and that’s why I still feel poor. Don’t get me wrong. I am extremely happy to be in this situation now. I have never had an opportunity to save this much money before and it’s all new to me. I am so excited to learn so much more and am looking forward to what the future holds!
