Quarterly Life & Spending Update: Q2 2022

Hey everyone!  We’re back with another quarterly update. I felt that having the life update and net worth breakdown all in one post was wayyy too long so going to break it up into a life & spending update this week and net worth update next week.  It’s been awhile since we’ve published a post, so let’s dig in!

What Happened in Q2 2022

• For those who remember from last quarter, one of Nic’s best friends passed away at the beginning of the year.  There was a celebration of life weekend for her which was jam packed with events and it was so great for Nic to be able to be surrounded by close friends.  It was a great reminder to spend time doing things you love to do.
• My mom, brother, and his girlfriend all came up for a nice visit.  We hadn’t seen my mom in 2.5 years so it was great to be able to finally spend some quality time together.  It’s crazy to me that she wasn’t able to meet her grandson until he was almost a year old! Hosting people for a longer stay is a bit draining but it was so good seeing everyone.
• Both kiddos had their birthdays this quarter.  Finn’s happened while we were out in Vancouver Island and her request was to get not only one, but two, donuts from the local bakery that was a few blocks away from our rental.  The donuts and cream puffs there were sooo good so we honoured the request haha.  We also went out to her favourite restaurant in Chemainus (ours too) which was the locally owned Indian restaurant.  We ended up eating there 3 times in 3 weeks!  We also planned to go to the aquarium on the island while we were there so we coined it as a birthday trip.  When we got back we had a little backyard party with some fam which cost less than $40.  Parker’s birthday shenanigans cost a whooping $0 to go to the zoo for the day (as we already have the annual zoo pass and we bring our own food – including banana chocolate chip muffins for the birthday gang for that trip).
• Finn is riding a bike without training wheels so we’ve been getting out most days for a family bike ride which has been awesome!  Finn is what we would call clumsy so to see her pick up on riding a bike so quickly was pretty impressive for us. Parker started walking at 10 months and “running” at a year.  His favourite thing is anything his sister is doing.  He’s obsessed with plants and puppies.  Those energizer bunnies definitely keep us busy. Finn is also starting to read Bob Books on her own which is so awesome to witness!
• Tis the season for cabin trips.  We were gone for ~2 weeks in June spending a majority of that time at Nic’s family cabin and then visiting some friends afterwards.  We will be back again in July and August for 10-14 day trips.  The July visit is in conjunction with Nic’s grandma’s celebration of life event so it will be nice to see a lot of people we haven’t seen in a long time.  It’s kinda wild that this event is the same time as a wedding for one of my best friends growing up that I sadly can’t make.  Seems so surreal to have conflicting schedules when COVID wiped out any sort of plans for the past 2+ years.
• As for the markets, there’s not much to say here besides red, red, red.  Everything keeps heading downward, inflation is rising, and the media is sure to let us know how to freak out!  Stay calm, stay cool, stay the course.  This is a longggg term journey.  I’ve definitely been checking my Yahoo Finance app more frequently than normal but I still am feeling quite good about everything in general.  Figure out how to make your own personal inflation rate not as large of a figure compared to the general national inflation rate going on.
  • Can you reduce your meat intake?
  • Can you bike or use public transit more than driving a car?
  • Can you be flexible with travel plans to wait until there is flash sale somewhere?
  • Can you reduce the amount of times you go out to eat each month?
  • Can you improve your energy efficiency to not be so dependent on energy rates?
  • Can you reduce some of your monthly spending? Switch to Square One for your home, renters, or landlord insurance?  Switch to Public Mobile for your cell phone plan?  Switch internet providers?
• It’s now been an entire year with both of us off work (wow!) and it still remains glorious.  We are both so drained by the end of each day.  We honestly don’t know how parents who also have to juggle in work do it.  We are incredibly privileged to be in the situation we are in and are trying to make the most of it.  My parental leave goes through until September.  It’s been so amazing to be fully present for our kids.
• Nic and I have been spending most of our evenings (when we can actually talk!) about free dreams about our next adventure.  We want to do an international trip next – preferably for 6-8 weeks over the winter to somewhere warm.  Not having a set destination in mind makes for lots of ideas floating around.  Here’s what we’ve narrowed down to.
  • Somewhere with a pool,
  • Somewhere where it’s generally 20-25 C temps with minimal rain,
  • Somewhere where the COL is relatively low,
  • Somewhere safe, walkable, and lots of activities for young kids,
  • Somewhere not “too” far to travel to from Calgary
  • Somewhere with good food
  • Any suggestions?? We’re leaning towards Colombia, Mexico, or Portugal but totally still a wild card.
• It’s been great to connect with even more FI minded folks.  We opened up our local FI meet up to the more general Calgary/Alberta crowd and had over 50 people show up in June.  It was an amazing turnout and so awesome to see so many like minded people in one place! We can’t believe some people traveled 2-3 hours to be there!
• We also hosted a couple FI folks this quarter who were passing through on their adventures.  Steven and Lauren from Trip of a Lifestyle (name ring a bell?  They were FIRE Community Guest Interview #21) are on a road trip from Florida to Alaska and spent the night to give them a break from van life, have a proper shower, and do some laundry.  Also, Eunice and her family (who I met through the ChooseFI Canada FB page) are biking across Canada from their hometown of Victoria, BC to the eastern Maritimes this summer with their 11 and 13 year old kids – wild!!!  They spent the night with us after trekking 77 kms from Canmore before heading off the next day for Calgary.  You can follow their journey on Instagram @OakAndReedLifeCoaching.
• We recorded a podcast episode on the Queer Money Podcast with our friends David and John from Debt Free Guys.  I really enjoyed the way the conversation went and hope you enjoy it too.
  • Queer Money Podcast, Episode 321: How To Retire Early When You Have Kids
  • This recording, along with all previous podcasts we’ve been on, can be found on our Guest Appearances page.

Spending Report

Here are the one off expenses we encountered this quarter:

• Property taxes.  We’ve now surpassed the $3k mark on property taxes owed.  Crazy!
• We switched cars, again!! This has been ‘the year of the car’ for us.  We sold two cars, purchased car A, purchased car B, sold car A.  And spent too much money on repairs for car A in the meantime!  Overall we are still ahead financially by dropping to a one car household but my goodness I hope to never spend this much money on car related repairs in a long time.  We got rid of the CRV and now have a Subaru Outback.  The CRV ended up being quite a dud and we are hopeful the Subaru lasts us awhile.  I did not include the cost of the sale/purchase of all the vehicles in here as it was nearly a wash and a one-off expense that we hope to not to encounter for years to come at this point. This quarter we spent an extra $1,600 on car related maintenance expenses.  Overall, this year we spent over $3,000 on car maintenance (besides your typical gas, car ins, oil changes)!
• Annual zoo passes for the season cost us $210 for the year for our family.
• I got a speeding ticker, grr!  $146 down the drain.
• Renewed the blog hosting site for another 3 years.  Over $500 to do that, crazy!!  Note to all readers, there is a VERY high chance this blog will go bye-bye in 3 years from now. You’ve all been warned 😉

Overall Spending

Since June 2021 was when I first started parental leave we decided that July 1st – June 30th will be how we tally up our spending in our post-FIRE world.

After adding everything up, we’ve spent a total of $39,357.  My guess was that we would be just shy of $40,000 and here we are meeting our goal!

• • This does not include our mortgage, townhouse HOA, townhouse property taxes, and townhouse home insurance as we house hack and have these items being paid by other means.  This figure does include other random costs associated with the townhouse.
  • This does includes $5,000 towards our kids RESPs ($2,500/each/year).

Here’s the general breakdown:

Where can we improve next year?

• Car maintenance costs must come down!  Over $3,000 in maintenance besides oil and filter changes?!
• We both bought quite a few new clothing items this year.  We likely will not spend this much on clothing next year. (Note this category is just for Nic and I, kids clothing is all mixed into the “Kids” line item.)
• I cannot believe we spent nearly $500 at Dollarama!  Wow.  Definitely going to aim to reduce this.
• I think some other categories will go up – food, gas, gas/electric utilities, and phones.
• My guess is in the main category section we will see a similar sum ~$30,000 next year too after accounting for some items being reduced and others rising.
• Of the one-off spends, some will disappear this year (EI work benefits, couch, license renewal, heart surgery package, home gym, eye exams, fundraisers, CRA back owe, Trusted Housesitters, townhouse condo docs, blog hosting, speeding ticket).  That makes up $3,594. These will likely get replaced with some other one-off items that we aren’t aware of yet.
• Some one-off spends we expect to see again this year (home stuff, mom flight, camping, credit card annual fees, dental cleanings, tax filings, vacation, zoo pass, and the cabin park pass).  That makes up $5,397.

Overall, I see us spending a similar figure next year compared to this current year of spending.

That’s it for us this week!  Stay tuned to check out our net worth update next week. What new has been going on in your world?  How has the market volatility made you feel? Any questions about our spending?

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We believe in stacking up life hacks to keep your enjoyment levels to the max without depleting your bank account.  Here are some ways to further educate yourself and save thousands of dollars over your lifetime by making some simple adjustments:

• Investing Newbies: Check out our free Investing 101 Series.
• How much are you paying for your phone plan?  Canadians, learn more about Public Mobile, and see how we are paying $3/mo for our cell phone plan.
• How much are you paying for internet?  Canadians, learn more about the various Independent Service Providers out there to see who services your area so you can lower your monthly bills.
• How much are you paying for home insurance?  We were able to reduce our rates by 25% by switching over to Square One Insurance.  If you live in BC, AB, SK, MB, and ON, check out Square One for your home insurance, landlord insurance, and/or tenant insurance.  Use this link to receive an extra $15 off your quote.  (Note that you must use this link to start the process to get the $15 off even if you prefer to pay over the phone.)

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