A Dive Into The Dashing Family Finances

Jan 20, 2021

4 min read

I’m very excited to announce a new collaboration for Dashing Dad – Servus Credit Union.

But why should you care?

BECAUSE YOU CAN WIN A MILLION DOLLARS!

I’m not joking. I’ll get to that in a bit.

Personal finance is something that Dashing Mom and I have been interested in for a while. Ok, I’ll be honest, Dashing Mom has been more interested in it than me, but after having been married for 8 years she has definitely rubbed off on me.

We have always had some ambitious financial goals, but this collaboration with Servus Credit Union will allow us to check-in on our finances on a regular basis and make sure we’re on the right track. Along the way, I’ll be letting you know about everything I learn while also delving into our finances and how we have (hopefully) improved.

First, let me introduce Servus, then we’ll jump into the Dashing Family finances.

Servus Credit Union

Servus Credit Union is Alberta’s largest credit union, with 100 branches and nearly 380,000 owners. They have been in Alberta since 1938, and all of their experts are Alberta based, meaning they can offer tailored advice for you and your business because they live in the same area as you.

Personally, I didn’t know a lot about the differences between a credit union over a bank when Servus first contacted me.

First, the biggest difference is they are owned by members, much like Co-op grocery is member-owned. That means that unlike a major bank that is privately owned, profit-driven and publicly traded, credit unions are non-profit and share their profits with members. For Servus customers that comes in the form of their Profit Share® Rewards cash. Generally speaking, the more you bank with them the more you earn.

As an example, for a $300,000 mortgage, you could expect approximately $500 a year in profit share.

But that’s not the only advantage of a credit union.

Because they’re driven to provide the best value to their members, members can generally get lower rates on loans, pay fewer (and lower) fees and earn higher rates on savings products than bank customers.

And with Servus, deposits are 100% guaranteed by the Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corporation. This means the money you put in and interest earned is safe and secure no matter what (say a financial crisis) – and up to ANY dollar amount.

So why would you go to a major bank? Yeah, I don’t know either.

The Dashing Family Finances

So here’s the juicy part, a peek into the Dashing family’s finances.

The first step to our collaboration with Servus was getting set up with a financial advisor. We were set up with Brock who quickly won us over with his financial nerdiness and glowing compliments about our general financial situation (Jane’s credit score is SLIGHTLY better than mine, but he described both as “perfect”). He also didn’t at all mind when Clara jumped in on the call to tell him all about Skye from Paw Patrol. Because of COVID we were able to meet with him from the comfort of our own home, and frankly, that is a feature that I hope sticks around well after COVID is gone.

As I previously mentioned, Jane is big on personal finance. Because of this, she spends WAY too much time reading articles and generally fretting over every penny we spend. I actually love this because she has financially set us up on a great path, however, it does mean I can rarely surprise her with a gift without getting incredibly creative about how I get the money for it.

Her worries, however, also made both of us a bit apprehensive about having someone dig through our financials. Will we get judged for our credit card bill? Are our savings on the right track for people our age? Are we doing enough for our kids? These were our worries as we presented him with the following financial picture of our expenses as a percentage of our income.

Mortgage – 25%
Groceries/General Household Expenses – 24%
Car/Insurance/Maintenance – 11%
Savings – 10%
Utilities/Prop Tax/Insurance -10%
Misc – 9%
Phones/Internet/TV/Netflix – 6%
Health/Fitness – 5%

What we want most is to ensure that we are spending our hard-earned income in a way that best aligns with our values. Doing a review with a financial advisor is a great way to take a step back from the day-to-day of paying bills and look at the big picture to make sure we are actively working towards our goals.

Our income – which comes from my full-time employment, Jane’s part-time employment, the child benefit from the government and a small and modest amount from Dashing Dad – is precious to us and we want to carefully consider how we spend it monthly.

Our goal with Servus will be to find ways to increase our savings.

Everyone could use more savings, but if you need added incentive, here’s a doozy.

You could win $1 million.

With the Servus Big Share, every time you save $500 you get an entry to win $1 million. So not only are you saving to help your family’s future, but you could be setting yourself up for life!

Click here to find out more info about the Servus Big Share and how you can enter.

Each month for the next six months I’ll be writing a couple of articles a month on how we’re doing financially, what we learn about financial products like TFSA’s and RESP’s, and announcing the big million-dollar winner in June! If you want to stay looped in, join the Dashing Dad Inner Circle below.