I have not been motivated to write this post. I would think a year-end wrap-up post would be fun to write, but truthfully, I can’t do all the fun annual calculations I would normally want to do because our expenses were mixed between USD and CAD and I don’t have the patience for it. That said, I am VERY excited to start a new budget for 2021 that I know will be in ONE currency and make tracking our progress much simpler.

December was weird. I mentioned in my November Net Worth post that I was going to try to stay far away from humans so that I could spend Xmas with my family. Well, restrictions were in place and we did not see our families. We spent Christmas alone for the first time ever. We did lots of family zooms and made the best of it but it was definitely a weird Christmas.

Financially it was a pretty good month. We had a 48% savings rate <- I can actually track this now that we’re working again. And our net worth increased by ~$8k

December Net Worth

What Happened This Month?

This was our first “normal” month. Meaning we were both paid for the entire month, and there was no extra income from contract work.

Our spending was around $5,500. Higher than usual but… it was Xmas time.

Notable expenses included:

Christmas ~$933 – This is just December’s Xmas spend… There was another $500ish spent in November. Whatever – I love Christmas. I can’t help myself. Gifts are my love language and I want to buy all the gifts… and stocking stuffers.

Clothing ~$616 – Eeesh. Granted we’ve barely spent any money on clothing this year, and we moved from a place where I didn’t wear a jacket for four full years to a place where I’ll be wearing toques 5 months of the year so yeah… we were ill-prepared and both the husband and I bought snow pants, snow boots, gloves etc.

Alcohol ~$125 – Christmas… it was Christmas time.

I’m happy to say I finally found a tax accountant I’m comfortable using. He’s going to take too much of our money but the dual citizenship stuff scares me so it’s an expense I’m willing to spend and I’ve already gained peace of mind by having him answer many questions in the last few weeks.

I also finally invested my RRSP with Questrade. I’m very excited to get on a regular contribution schedule but we have some very big decisions to make in the next couple of months first. We’re buying a house. More on that later.