September was fairly uneventful. We returned to our home at the end of August after being evacuated due to a wildfire. The skies were still smokey so we didn’t get out a whole lot. September should have been more expensive as we had a roadtrip vacation booked, but we cancelled at the last minute due to yet another sickness.
How did we spend our $$…
Mortgage: $2,402: This amount includes both principal and interest. We are on an accelerated biweekly payment plan, hence the unfortunate 3-payment month of September.
Rental Condo – $2,207: We have two mortgages against our rental condo. We took out a second one in 2021 to help us with the down payment on our primary residence. So technically some of this amount is actually related to our home but I still keep it under the rental condo because if we ever sell it we’ll be able to wipe the entire rental condo mortgage out. This also includes the property manager fee and strata.
Daycare – $1,699: We pay for one of the most expensive daycare options in our city because it was the only one we could get into. We are very very fortunate to be able to afford this. Unfortunately we were informed at the beginning of September that their fees would be increasing or else they would be forced to shut down. The daycare situation in this province is truly a mess.
Vehicle – $1,661: We have a monthly car payment of $363. We also purchased wheels for the winter tires on the new vehicle in September ($493), and fixed the AC in our old car prior to selling ($383), and spent $339 on fuel.
Food – $1,195: This consists of $891 on groceries, $231 on Restaurants and Take-out and $73 on coffee shops.
Office – $840 – Thankfully this is our last full month paying for an office. I’ll explain this cost in a separate post one day but essentially we have been paying for a coworking space along with our child’s daycare as a way to secure a daycare spot. When we received notice that the daycare fee was increasing we put in our notice to terminate our office.
Kid Stuff- $679 – Winter clothes, bike helmet, a waitlist fee for a different daycare, a kitchen tower, a booster seat etc etc etc..
House Stuff – $329: This category includes anything house-related aside from mortgage payments and utilities. The majority of this was actually the cost of an air purifier we purchased after returning from the wildfires.
Utilities – $192: We pay for Gas (monthly) – $39, Electricity (bi-monthly) – $153, and Water (quarterly) – $0
Vacations & Travel – ($1,054): As mentioned, due to yet another illness we cancelled our AirBnB for a vacation we had planned in September, JUST in time to be fully refunded.
FREE GROCERIES: We redeemed $70 in free groceries in September. YTD we’ve redeemed $570.
Investments: We didn’t make any investments in September. We also contribute to an RESP for our child but I don’t include that in our Investment balances.
Our Retirement Assets number is calculated as: Cash + Condo Value + Investments – Mortgages – Credit Card Balance. I do not take into consideration the value of, or any equity in our home. It went down in July due to the large down payment we made on our car.
