Catching Up

This blog post has been a long time coming - I feel like I've dropped off the face of the earth for a little while. How can it possibly be that I have no blogged in over a month!  It was a needed break, I needed to centre myself and realize why we were doing this journey to becoming debt-free, and what it all meant in the grand scheme of things.

So what have I been up to?

- I've spent a lot of time budgeting and moving all of our finances over to Mint.com  - I still have my handy dandy Excel spreadsheet to use as a cash flow statement though.  I like to use Excel because it gives me a chart of how much is in our account, and what things are coming out when.  It's nice to know at any given point how much money we have in our account just in case we have to squeeze in anything unexpected.

- I've been working (A LOT).  When I created our realistic budget that accommodated for things like car repairs and savings I came up with a $3,000 monthly short fall  after Nick's pay, which means that I have to commit to earning $1,500 per pay cheque.  This represents about 36 hours of work per week, which may not sound like much, but when I have to squeeze it in between caring for my kids and my home and can't just go to work, it can be difficult.  I love it though, I am so thankful for my job!

- While working I have been watching environmental documentaries on Netflix and am recommitting my family to working towards being more eco-friendly and implementing changes over time to work towards a healthier earth (and a healthier financial future).  Expect to hear much more about this in the future!

- I've been spending a lot of time with my kids.  We've been doing crafts, going to the park, shuttling them (well, Tristan) to activities, and volunteering in their classrooms.  My kids are pretty awesome.  I've realized that I would rather spend time with them than anyone else in the world.

- I've been spending time with my mom.  My mom was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in April of this year and has undergone 6 rounds of chemo.  I am happy to report that chemo is now done!  She's not in remission, but the doctor's have moved her to Herceptin and hopefully that will keep the growth of the cancer at bay.  The doctor's prognosis at this point is 5-6 years, and we are very thankful for that!

So I'm back and hoping to get back in the routine of blogging again!