What's Your Networth?

Have you ever sat down and dreamt about your future?  If not, I encourage you to do it with your partner soon. Talk about all the things you want to do in your retirement years.  My husband dreams about going to all the ball parks to watch baseball games.  I want to explore in an RV and see where we end up.  These two dreams can mesh together.
We also want to explore Europe  ( one of us wants to stay in hostels, one of us wants nice hotels) but for these dreams we need money. We will compromise and do a bit of both.
Below are 2 great calculators to help figure out if you are on the path to see your retirement dreams come true.
I change the rate of return on the Chris Hogan  RIQ I don’t get 10% on my investments, I am a moderate risk investor.
The NETWORTH calculator also puts your spending and possessions into perspective.

https://www.sunlife.ca/ca/Learn+and+Plan/Tools+and+Calculators/Net+worth+calculator?vgnLocale=en_CA

https://www.chrishogan360.com/riq-tool/#slide=0

It pays to be frugal.

Pay Down Your Mortgage

(I used to use the PC Financial mortgage calculator to help figure out the savings, since it is no longer available I am using the CIBC calculator that can be found at the bottom of this post.  All numbers are on $100,000 bi-weekly payments so you can multiply by 2 if your mortgage is $200,000 or 1.5 for $150,000 etc. )


There are lots of arguments to talk you out of putting extra money on your mortgage.  Some people told us things like "You will always have a house payment" or "My money makes more in investments" but we didn't see it like that.  Yes, your money will make more in investments most of the time, but the peace of mind to know that there aren't any more payments is priceless. 
However, we worked hard to pay ours off quickly, and it was worth every moment.

Without making any extra payments, the first five years would see $10,993 going to principal and $24,933 in interest!  GROSS more for interest in the first five years then to the principal.  You would be left owing $89,007. 

We started small, and every Friday we used to order pizza and it cost us over $20.  Instead, we bought frozen pizza or Pink Sticker deli pizzas. The deli pizzas are very yummy, but aren't always in our freezer.  They freeze and cook very well.  We  put the extra money each Friday from this one choice on our mortgage.  $20 a week x52 weeks is an additional $1040. WOW we used to eat over a grand in pizza a year! Chomp on that for a moment.
Sticking that extra $20 on as an extra payment every Friday sees $17,085 in principal, and $24,040 in interest and $82,915 owing.  Your 5200 in extra payments is saving you $892 and time off of your total months owing on your mortgage.  (Assuming you did this for the whole mortgage)This example has the house paid off in 19 years.
Your extra payments from PIZZA will have saved you $21,486 off your mortgage and 6 years off your amortization.

Once we saw the principal going down a bit each week, we got motivated.  We began to find other ways to pay it off fast.  Play around with the calculator and see what inspires you.
I also suggest making a chart to track your progress.
It Pays to be Frugal.

https://www.cibc.com/ca/mortgages/calculator/mortgage-payment.html https://www.cibc.com/ca/mortgages/calculator/mortgage-payment.html

Vacation Fund

Oh I’m a planner.  To the point those that know me well know I have vacations planned for at least two years in advance.  While many don’t want to plan this far ahead, it helps me be able to travel without debt when it is in the budget.  There are times we are spontaneous but not often!

Our trips to Disney are always planned at least two years in advance. I know that they cost roughly 5,000 so we need to save $210 a month in our trip budget. 

We also budget and plan our other vacations.  We do a google search for flights and hotels in the area and divide it by how many months until the trip. We add $100 for each day we are away for food to get a close estimate on the price. 

We have a bank account to deposit our vacation funds.  Monthly we deposit all of our change, money from selling things we no longer use, Cash Back Apps Cheques, money from cashing out loyalty points,SCOP money and coupon money.   

Traveling is fun but doing it on a budget and planning also makes it stress free

It pays to be frugal.