2010 Budget and Financial Goals

Wow, today is the last day of 2009 - with that in mind, I thought it apt to post my 2010 budget and financial goals.  My budget here is almost identical to the draft 2010 budget I posted a month ago. The only significant change is to the parking.  I've paid up to February at my current...

ahhh... still on Vacation

I'm loving this whole vacation thing that goes along with having a 'big girl' job.  Love it! I took off four days this week - so I left work at noon on Christmas eve, and don't go back to work until January 4th, 2010.  Pretty Sweet.  We're back in the city now as Jordan had to go back to work yesterday, so i'm just enjoying relaxing at home - having the place to myself. Speaking of...

Merry Christmas All!

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It's Payday (tomorrow)!

Wow, it's Christmas Eve tomorrow - and it happens to be pay day.  It would have normally fallen on December 25, 2009 - but they are bumping it back a day. There are a couple of fantastic items on this bi-weekly budget. First up, my pay is the highest it's ever been!  This is because I...

Roommate Updates

December sure has been a difficult month to find a roommate. We have had a couple lined up and then they have both backed out - each time someone commits, we stop looking - which has wound up wasting our time. Someone is coming by the place tonight after work - and sounded (as much as one can sound via e-mail) enthusiastic about the place.  This one, we'll call B-rad, wants a place for January...

Guest Post: How to Avoid Overdraft Fees with Prepaid Debit Cards

When prepaid debit cards began to appear a few years ago, many were skeptical about their use. Why would someone want to take the time to load money on a card when they already possessed a debit card connected to their checking account? However, as time went on, the obvious advantages that prepaid debit cards offer to consumers began to come to light. Leading the list of reasons to obtain a prepaid...

Overtime Update

I’m entering into the ninth hour for my overtime project. As of the end of today, I have logged 54 hours of overtime, which is 72% of my goal. To actually reach 75 hours, I would need to put in 21 hours between 5:00pm today and noon on Christmas Eve. Well folks, that’s just not going to happen. I’m going to work normal hours next week (8:00am-4:30pm), and just enjoy the week leading up to Christmas....

are you finished yet?

I'm starting to get this itch, it happens ever year.  A week or so ago I posted my final Christmas Spending Tally, signifying that I was indeed finished spending this Christmas.  A couple of days ago, the last item that I ordered online finally came in the mail - another indicator that I was finished.  I can feel it building inside me. I want to do more, get more, spend more on the...

denied... no CHRP for me in 2010.

I recently wrote about my desire to achieve my CHRP designation and my application to receive an award through work that would pay for it. Unfortunately, I wasn't selected as a recipient. I was right at the cut off line :( Dear Jessie, On behalf of the Regional Directors and the Continued Learning Awards Review Panel, we would like to inform you that your application has not been retained for a...

It's Christmas Bonus Time

Hurrah! My company's Christmas bonus is actually an annual profit sharing award.  The better the company does, the better the reward.  I won't get into all the details - but I will say that not everyone gets the same amount.  There is a portion that is similar for everyone, a portion that is based on your group's performance and a portion that is merit based.  You can...

Overtime Update

I'm please to say that for the week ending Friday December 18, 2009 I managed to bank 10 hours (which means I worked an extra 12.50).  My OT is coming right along, and I still have a lot of work to do! That brought my total banked time up to 47.50 hours or 63.33% of my goal which is an approximate value of $665. I don't know if i'll reach my goal of 75 hours before the end of the month, but...

RRSP Loans

I've been thinking about getting an RRSP loan for quite some time now.  Now that we're getting closer to tax time, I thought I would take a deeper look at my options.  For this exercise, I'm going to look at ING Canada. My 2009 contribution limit is $13,116 - and I've contributed somewhere around $1,000 this year.  I would like to 'catch up' and use my previous contribution...

this & that

This past weekend Jordan and I helped a couple of people move.  We worked our tails off on one of the coldest days of the year (-35 degrees celcius) for $15/hour for 8.5 hours. We each took home $127.50.  Not bad for making a little extra cash over the holidays.  I tucked some of it away, but that night we went to Jordan's work Christmas party and so we spent some on drinks and...

Bi-Weekly Budget - Today is Payday

Hello Friday - we meet once again! Items that are highlighted in green have already happened, things that are written in green are automatic transfers that haven't yet happened. I go through this weeks bi-weekly budget line-by-line: My pay is a little higher then expected because for the first...

How to: Tracking Bars

I have been asked by a few different folks lately on how to create the tracking bars I have on the right side of my blog.  I'm very pleased to be able to explain how to set these up, as this was one of the first things I wanted to do when I started my first blog. My blog is hosted using the blogger platform.  It's free, by google.  If you don't have a blog already - your first step...

We Found A Roommate!

Already!!! I can hardly beleive it.  Four people had responded to our ads thus far and we had set up two viewings, one yesterday and one this evening.  The one yesterday went fairly well. He was a little concerned about the amount utilities are each month (i think he lived in a condo before), but other then that - things went really well.  We had some really steller weather tonight...

Christmas Spending Final Tally

Our budget (me and Jordan) for this Christmas was $1,000 on gifts.  We had a total of 24 people (or groups of people in some cases) to buy for.  Whoa! On the surface, that seems like a lot of people.  Well, maybe it is - maybe it isn't. This year, Jordan and I decided to do all gifts...

Christmas Cheer

Unfortunately I have nothing all too insightful to share with you this morning, so instead - I leave you with some Christmas Cheer: Jordan and I got this decoration at the mall this weekend - it was a little pricey ($20) - but so worth it...

...So what will we do if we don't find a roommate

A couple of days ago I mentioned that our roommate is moving out.  Joy. I want to thank everyone for all their support as we go through the roommate finding process once again.  It will be a challenge - but we're up for it. One reader, Manshu, asked if we have so much trouble with roommates (which it seems we do lately) - why don't we try moving, and renting some where cheaper.  Well,...

December Goals

It's Christmas!  Okay, it's not Christmas yet, but I love living in the spirit for the whole month of December (and well into January) - so let's keep this month's goals easy: Finish Christmas Shopping by December 15th  Stay within $100 of joint Christmas Budget Reach all 2009 financial goals Make a plan for just in case we don't find a roommate Enjoy the holidays Do some yummy...

November Goals - ReCap

Here was my list of goals for the month of November: Clean up Halloween decorations within the first couple of days Resist decorating for Christmas until the last weekend of November I wound up starting to decorate the second weekend in November Start Christmas shopping We're almost finished!  We have three people left to buy for and then each other! Have a fabulous time visiting my mom Reach...

Roommate Wanted...

It would seem, that once again, that Jordan and I need a roommate. Last night roommate gave his notice.  He has a friend in need, and he's going to move in with her to help her out. I'm tired and frustrated - didn't sleep well at all.  Everything was just humming along - and now we have to try to find a roommate over Christmas/News Years.  I think the chances are...

How Much Does Your Christmas Tree Really Cost?

Real or fake - do you know how much your Christmas Tree really costs? Growing up, my family always went out to my grandparents farm and cut down a tree for Christmas.  After I moved out and had my own place, I continued to have live trees each year - as I'm now a good three hours from the farm...

ING - Do you have your account?

I've noticed lately that a few bloggers I read have not yet opened an ING account.  I find ING one of the easiest ways to automate and track my savings goals.  Once your account is openend you can open as many (or as few) savings accounts as you like.  You can create trackers and automatic transactions (if you like) - and it's all free!! I have my emergency fund, Christmas fund, clothes...

November Top Referers

This is just a short thank you to my top referrers in November: Saving 4 Later Frugal Dreamer Canadian Savings Shaking The Money Tree Girl Makes Cents Give Me Back My Five Bucks Financial Catastrophizer Gail Vaz-Oxlade's Blog Small Steps for Big Change Punch Debt in The Face Thanks everyone!  I love the Love - you're some of my top reads as wel...

Bi-Weekly Budget - Tomorrow is Payday

I got my paystub this morning for tomorrow's pay, so I thought I would post my bi-weekly budget. My current balance is a little higher then usual as I transfered over the rest of my Christmas fund into my main account to pay my mom back from some shopping she helped me out with.  I...

Making More Money

Jordan has discovered a great way to make more money! Okay - well he probably didn't 'discover it' but he introduced it to me. On Monday night we participated in a two hour research panel and each made $75!  Not too shabby!  It was a group of 8 people (plus a facilitator) and he just guided th conversation around the topic at hand.  There were people behind a two-way mirror,...

Joy - Parking Rates Go Up...

Here's the e-mail I received this morning: Dear Parker, As you may already be aware, effective December 1, 2009 the monthly parking rate will be increased to $57.50 per month and for those customers who pay quarterly (every 3 months) the rate will be $170. Please note these rates include GST. For example, those customers who have paid for a 3 month period which includes December, the next billing...

Overtime Update

By the end of today I will have 26.75 hours of banked time - that's 35.67% of my goal of 75 hours before January 1, 2009.  I actually had another 7.50 hours, but I used that when my family was in town. So.. what does that mean?  Well, to reach my goal - I'll need to bank another 48.25 hours.  I have 4 full weeks left prior to the end of the month, and two short week when Christmas...

...an update on my recent raise

Last month I wrote about the raise I received which was effective on October 3, 2009. I guessed at what my income would be, and even shared what my first new pay cheque looked like, but now that I have had a few, I thought I would share what my income looks like now. My benefit premiums are split over two pay periods each month, dental comes off of each and my Long Term Disability premiums come off...

2010 Monthly Budget - Draft

I've been humming and hawing for the last month or so about what my 2010 budget will look like.  Before I could post it, we had to figure out a few things. What my salary would be in 2010 Tomorrow I'm giving a full update of my monthly salary, but for the purposes of my 2010 budget, my monthly...

My Canadian Credit Score

Your credit score is a judgment about your financial health, at a specific point in time. It indicates the risk you represent for lenders, compared with other consumers. In Canada, there are two credit reporting agencies: Equifax and TransUnion. You can receive either just your credit report via mail, or you can receive your credit report and your credit score if you pay a fee and order them...

Tracking Bar Updates

I have updated all of my tracking bars, and am pleased with the progress.  Here is a summary: Emergency Fund I'm exactly $75 short of reaching my $1,000 goal for 2009!  As I don't plan on changing my bi-weekly contributions - but the time January 1, 2010 roles around - I will have reached this goal! Shares Each pay $50 comes straight off my pay cheque and goes into an account managed by...

Payday!

Below is an image of my bi-weekly budget for the next couple of weeks.  You'll see that my first joint account payment is set to go, and last months utilities.  Jordan and my utilities will be held in the joint account and my past roommates will be held in my account - because so far, only...

What an uplifting experience....

this is a post for the girls... I love bra shopping! I breifly mentioned on an earlier post that I went bra shopping with my mom, aunts, and grandmother this past weekend.  We were all blessed, and cursed, with the same.....affliction body type. We are all in the range of 36G through to 42H (or higher - I'm guessing) - yeah, it goes up that high (and we're allll natural). These lovlies need...

Christmas Spending Update

When I first made a budget for Christmas, I just sort of guessed that $500 would work - well, it turns out that, that, is not a very realistic number.  I have a great many people in my life!  Not only that, so does Jordan.  Jordan had a great idea of giving gifts as a couple rather then gifts from each of us.  This will allow us to do one great gift intstead of two smaller ones...

I'll Never Forget

...

Buying a Home of Our Own

As some of you know, Jordan and I are planning on buying my great aunts home in a few years when she is ready to move into an assisted living home.  We brought up buying her home about a year ago when she mentioned she was thinking she might move, that's when we started the house fund.  She was more then happy with the suggestion and we often talk about different things that we...

Overtime Update

Last week I was able to accumulate 8 hours of overtime, which was fantastic! As my family was in town this weekend, I had booked Monday off to spend a little extra time with them.  I used 7.5 hours of last weeks OT (instead of a vacation day) and so only increased my tracking bar by 0.50 hours.  This week, I hope to plug in a few more hours - and should be able ...

Weekend Update

I had an amazing weekend! I was actually pretty sick for most of it with an awful cold, but my mom, two aunts, and grandmother were in town for our annual Christmas Shopping Trip, and how could I complain about a cold in such great company.  I'm pretty sure I stayed on budget - but i'll check my receipts and do up a post on that later on. Not only did I accomplish a lot of Christmas shopping,...

It's here, it's here!!

Our couch has finally arrived!! Jordan and I are sitting, enjoying a hot cup of coffee before joining our family for Christmas shopping.  my aunt and jordan both think the room is screaming 'throw rug' - what do you thi...

House Fund Update

A while back, Jordan and I went on a bit of a spending spree and aquired some household things that we would need given the changes to the household. We bought a couch, a chair, a tv stand, a souround sound system, new pots and pans, some home decor, and a few kitchen odds and ends (popcorn popper, gravey boat, cups, mugs)...i think that about coveres it. Right before we did this, we had broken...

Household Bills Are In.

On the 5th of each month, I receive the final bill (of three) for the household for the previous month.  I don't know that I've posted this before, but I'm going to start so that I can keep track. Enmax $235.55 Bell $75.98 Shaw $41.39 Total = $352.92 what a fantastic number!  I've written about it before, but I will mention that I'm pleased with these numbers because over the last few months...

Common-Law

I've recently had to fill out some paperwork at work where I had to identify my relationship status.  After a few conversations with family and Jordan, we decided that we are very likely common law. As it turns out the law varies province to province and even federally. According to Wikipedia In Canada, the legal definition and regulation of common-law marriage fall under...

Getting Married

What does it cost? (ha-ha you thought Jordan proposed didn't you - don't worry, he hasn't) Jordan and I did have a conversation a weekend or two ago about what we thought a wedding would look like if it happened in the next year or two.  We even got as far as making a guest list. Jordan Dream: Jordan really wants to have a wedding/reception in a fancy hotel where we can eat/sleep/wed ect all...

Debt Update

I don't believe that I posted an update on my total debt for a while, though I think that most of you know it is down to just student loans.  As my student loan payments just went through, I thought I would post an update. I am 38.91% towards my goal of being 100% debt free.  Slowly...

November Goals

Writing out my goals for October seemed to work pretty well, so I thought I'd have another go of it for the month of November. Clean up Halloween decorations within the first couple of days Resist decorating for Christmas until the last weekend of November Start Christmas shopping Have a fabulous time visiting my mom How about some financial Goals as well: Reach 2009 goal of $1,000 in my emergency...

October Goals - Recap

Last month I tried posting monthly goals for the first time, here's the results: Meet Christmas 2009 Goals of saving $500 Turn Sam's (old roommates) room into a spare room/office Decorate the house and my workstation for Halloween Learn how to make apple cider Incomplete Start second phase of overtime/filing project at work.  There we have, I met 4 out of 5 goals.  I didn't get a chance...

Joint Cheques Arrive

This past Friday, our joint cheques arrived!  It was pretty amazing to see both of our names at the top of the cheques, with our address. We dropped of six months worth of rent cheques to landlord (November through to April) - we've just got to remember to put a reminde rin our calander's that we'll need to write a few more come May.  When we were writing out the cheques, we actually took...

Overtime Update

I managed to bank an extra 5.25 hours this past week - slowly but surely I'm getting the...

Savings Snowball Update

It's Friday!! Love Fridays! I've updated my side bars and am pleased to say that I'm right on track. Below is an image I've taken from my savings snowball tracking spreadsheet (from late September on).  Today I transfered about $50 from my Christmas fund (b/c I already hit that goal) to my emergency...

Joint Bank Account

Recently I mentioned that Jordan and I would be opening a joint bank account for rent and utilities.  Well, we've opened the account and I've sent away all the notifications to each biller to have the automatic withdrawals changed. Each biller said it would take about two weeks to process, and I'm just now receiving October's bills.  So, in theory, by the time we get...

Landlord & Rent Update! Wow!!

I don't say this often, but I am absolutely impressed with myself right now! Over the last while I've been in negotiations with my landlord.  It was most recently left off with people encouraging me to just pay the $1500/month and never mind the rest b/c being in a month to month lease was worth it.  Well it turns out we're getting a rent decrease, with no other changes...

Bi-Weekly Budget - Tomorrow is Payday

It's that time again, my how the weeks fly by. Below is how things are shaping up for the next couple of weeks.  I have a bit of a heavy current balance that is being carried forward from last pay - this is for two reasons.  One, I had expected to have rent of $750, which I don't because...

Overtime Update

Phew - it's been a crazy week, both on the work front and the home front - and it's only Wednesday! I've just hit the 40 hour mark today (including 7.5 hrs for both Thurs/Friday).  So any time I work above and beyond my normals hours for the last two days of the week will go towards my OT count.  It defn. won't move as much as last week, but I'm hoping for at least 2.5 hours each d...

Benefits Reimbursement

So not too long ago I mentioned that I had bought some glasses but had to wait for my benefits to reimburse me. Well they finally did.  I received $126.  It was deposited directly into my account yesterday, how fantastic! I was actually confused for a good 20 minutes trying to figure out where the money came from, but was pleasantly surprised once I figured it o...

2010 Monthly Budget - Looking Ahead

Have you starting thinking about your 2010 budget? I have, off and on, for the last few months.  My Mom and Jordan have been encouraging me to just get through the rest of this year before worrying about it - but there are seriously only two months left!! It's hard to figure out what I really want to do.  Do I want to eliminate my student loan debt, reach $10,000 in the house...

Slow OT start this week...

When I commit to putting in some serious OT at work, I like to get the first 2.5 hours out of the way on Monday.  That way, the rest of the week is all banked time.  Unfortunatly, Jordan and I slept in this morning and I only worked an extra .50 hours.  So tomorrow, I'm going to go for a loonng day to try to catch ...

Weekend Update

Phew! What a busy, busy weekend we had! Samantha finally finished moving on Friday (October, 23) which was a full two weeks later then she said she would be. Nelson and Lindsay have nearly finished moving as well.  They did the bulk of their things on Saturday, and then came on Sunday to do a little cleaning and do one more car load.  They still have quite a pile of things to move, but...

Kindness pays double time...

So my supervisor/boss-lady at work was sick for half the week and in all day meetings for the half of the week.  On Tuesday she dumped a pile of work to get done (some of which I hadn't done before) - and I managed to get it all taken care of for her.  She gave me a gift card for The Keg for $50, when I combine that with the one we got earlier in the week - that means we're going to have...

what to do about cell phones...

My cell phone is crapping out. I actually used to work for Bell for a couple of years when I was going to school, when I graduated and got my real job, I left the cell phone world.  At that time the best plan I could get was with Solo Mobile, a subsidiary of Bell's. Unfortunately, my solo hardware (LG Rumour) is dieing.  I'm getting these white screens of death, when it's not...