Our monthly budget update does not change much.
It is primarily fixed expenses, like rent, phone bills and car insurance, which remain the same month after month. Even the amount budgeted to our miscellaneous line (more on that here) stays the same most months.
So instead of giving a line-by-line breakdown for our monthly budget update, I do something a little different. Each month, I share five highlights from our budget, along with three goals for the month to come.
Here is the update for February 2021.
Monthly Budget Update: February 2021
In February, we…
- Paid $450 to the student loan
Another month, another minimum payment plus a tiny bit extra. We are planning to do minimum payments on the student loan for the next little while; I wrote more about why here.
The good news: even making minimum payments, we are still making progress on our loan since most of it now goes to the principal instead of interest!
Outstanding principal balance: $18,998.04
- Added $1,674.20 to our emergency fund
At a minimum, we keep at least $5K in this fund at any given time. In 2021, one of our main financial goals is to beef up this account. I shared more about why we’re doing that here.
Current emergency fund balance: $7,858.24
- Started our taxes
And by the time this post goes live, it’s very possible they will be finished and filed. I always start our taxes early. By the end of February, I was only waiting on one thing: our final RRSP slip.
We file our taxes using WealthSimple Tax (previously known as SimpleTax). This year, it looks like we’ll be getting just shy of $2K as a return.
- Sold some things online
The decluttering efforts continue at the Our Bill Pickle house! In February, I made about $150 in sales through Marketplace and Kijiji. I’ve shared before about how I really dislike selling online; that hasn’t changed. But it’s been nice to find new homes for some of the things we no longer need and make a little extra cash.
- Received our travel rebate
I’m not sure if I mentioned this or not, but over the summer, New Brunswick ran a program to encourage travel within the province. Essentially, if you stayed overnight somewhere here, you could be eligible for a 20 per cent rebate on things related to your trip.
We got about $78 back through the program, which we split as personal spending money.
March 2021 Goals
Looking ahead, in March, we will…
- File our taxes!
As mentioned, it’s possible this will be finished by the time this post goes live. We’re waiting on one last receipt before checking it over and sending it off to the CRA.
- Continue listing items from the decluttering efforts
I have a few items up on Kijiji already with a few waiting to go up. Really trying to be intentional about what we keep in the house these days.
- Continue focusing on using what we have
Recently, I shared a post about things I’m not buying right now. I’m happy to report that for the month of February, I did not spend any money on any of those things — and I continued making progress on using up what I have. I’m planning to continue this in March.
Your turn! How did February turn out for you? What are your goals for March?
Photo by Shopify Partners from Burst
Wow that’s a cool program/ incentive that New Brunswick has to encourage you to travel within the province!
Right? I thought it was pretty clever. They’re doing/planning another run of it for the spring/summer by the sounds of it (imagine it will be somewhat contingent on our numbers, of course). In our case, it gave us an opportunity to spend some time in an area of the province neither of us had really visited before for any amount of time. Took a bit of time to get the cash back through it but worth the wait!