Updated Tracking Bars

I have updated my tracking bars!Debt Repayment Goal Summary:Zero blanace on Credit Card - 29.5% ( 4 to 5 months left)Canada Student Loan - 25%Alberta Student Loan - 4.7%Savings Goal Summary:Planned Spending/Christmas Fund - 7.5%Shares @ Work Fund - 28.6%Emerg Fund - 28.2%House Fund - 6.7%RRSP Goal - 18.2%I'm happy that 2/5 savings goals are over the 25% mark and 2/3 debt repayment goals are at the...

Bi-weekly Budgets - update

I forgot that my student loans will also be coming out in the next two weeks, so I have updated my fixed items. I also realized, that i don't need to buy $200 worth of groceries all in the first two weeks of this month. So I'll now plan on spending about $100 on groceries over the next two weeks,...

Bi-Weekly Budgets

I'm curious how other people budget.I currently have a monthly budget set up, where I assume two payperiods a month. This would work if my bills and savings plans were also based on two pay periods a month, but every so often (twice in fact) there are three pay periods a month. For me that is May and...

Home Ownership - A Test

Today's post by Gail Vaz Ozlade is called Why You May Not WANT to Own. She offers a series of questions that you can ask yourself to determine if home ownership is right for you. I think this is a fantastic way to do some self reflection.I will answer those questions below:1. Do you have a variable income?No, my income is steady - I have an annual salary where I *should* receive raises at least once...

Unclaimed Balances

An "unclaimed balance" is a Canadian-dollar deposit or negotiable instrument,issued or held by a federally regulated bank or trust company. It can be in theform of a deposit account, bank draft, certified cheque, deposit receipt, moneyorder, GIC, term deposit, credit card balance, ortraveller's cheque. 'When there has been no owner activity in relation to the balance for aperiod of 10 years, and the...

Net Worth - Update

Despite all of the struggles I have had with my credit card over the last 6 weeks, my networth has actually increased from ($4,122) in March to ($3,867) in May. I'm looking forward to seeing my negitive networth continue to decline as my postive networth increases.Thank you to Jamie of Women in the Green Blog for her post called What's your Net Worth? for reminding me to update my Net Wor...

Money Saving Tips

Jeff Yeager of The Ultimate Cheapsksate wrote an article published on msnbc.com called 5 Tips to save $25,000 a year.I have summarized his suggestions below:Cancel your cell phone plan - Possible yearly savings: $1,200 per phoneGet rid of your second or third car - Possible yearly savings: $8,000Prepare more meals at home - Possible yearly savings: $2,000 Wear out your clothing - Possible yearly savings:...

$15/month

Over my lunch break I was checking the status of my student loans. With interest rates fluctuating so much, a greater percentage of my debt repayment has been going to the principal amount. I started playing with the calculators offered on the sites (Edulink & NSLCS) for my Canadian and Alberta student loans.Since my loans went into repayment status I have left the amounts at their defaulted payment...

Saving Money - With a Garden

One way to save money, if you have the space, is to plant a garden. It does cost a bit of money to buy seeds and plants - but I think it saves you money in a couple of different ways.I will (hopefully) spend less money on food;I will spend less money going out because I am investing time weeding, watering and otherwise tending to my garden; and,I will spend quality time with my great aunt and with...

Tracking

I've moved my credit card debt repayment tracking bar to the top right of this page. That way, everytime I'm on my blog (of which I am a lot) it will be one of the first things I see. It was lower down on the list and so I didn't always have to look at ...

Proposed New Canadian Credit Card Legislation

An article published on cbc.ca covers the 9 new proposals, regarding canadian credit cards. Some of the highlights of the changes are below, I have tried to extract these from the article itself.1. The main change would be the mandated minimum 21-day interest-free grace period on all new transactions when consumers pay their balance in full by the due date. Currently, there is no mandatory grace...

E. Andrews of the New York Times

I have just finished reading about Edward Andrews Personal Credit Crisis.If you have yet to read this article, it is a must read. It is the personal account of someone who should have known better about getting a giant mortgage he and his family couldn't afford.an exerpt:"As I walked out of the settlement office with my loan papers, I couldn’t shake the sense of having just done something bad . ....

Couples & Money Management

I often read, on other blogs, about either single people or married folks. I haven’t read too much about people in committed relationships where two people live together and how they manage their finances. There are three options really, keep your money completely separate, combine all of your money, or keep some together and some split (in one form or another).My household is a little more unique...

House Fund - update

Today was Jordan's payday (I LOVE that we get paid on opposite weeks). The house fund went up another $150 and is now at $2203.53. Slowly but surely we will make it to our goal - we're at 6.30% so far!The House Fund may also turn into a renovations fund or continue to be the down payment fund - depending on how financing works o...

So it starts...Buying and Renovating my Great Aunts Home

I recently wrote about the possibility of buying my great aunts place with Jordan in the next few years. Her home is 50 years old, and she and her husband lived in it together for 30 years (he recently passed away). They were both chain smokers, and collectors - with the only renovation or upkeep being the roof they replaced a few years ago.I've made a spreadsheet (I have so many spreadsheets) with...

I'm back

I've returned from my small hometown camping adventure to the big city. Camping was absolutly fantasic - spent more money then I planned to, and had an absolutly fantastic time. I havn't added everything up (though I did bring a notebook along to track what i spent).My next payday is May 29th. That is when I will see how much money I can throw at my visa in addition to the $250/biweekly payment....

Camping

Hey all...I'm going camping for the May long weekend and will be taking off early Friday afternoon - so I probably won't post again until Monday or Tuesd...

Cheap Healthy Food

My mom found a blog that might help people find less expensive, healtheir ways to eat:Spend Less, Eat Healthier: The Five Most Important Things You Can Do Check it out and let me know what you think...

A positive note...

On a positive note, I just received notice today (after many angry phone calls to BC Heath) that BC Health has gotten rid of the 'debt' they say I owed them.So, I no longer have to pay the $129.60 they wanted from me, and they will stop threating to send me to collections. It took a little better then a month of fighting with them, but it's all sorted out now.Wooh...

I hate my credit card...

Well, I don't - it has saved my butt a couple of times. I am working towards not needing it to save my butt, however; there has been a few times where it was use my credit card or not eat, or not get to work... ect.anyways... I now owe $2552the breakdown goes something like this:Current Owing $2082 (including recent car repairs)Unidentified Owing $ 54 (can't remember what this is for, and it hasn't...

Slowing Down

I have found that even the best of intentions, without enough forethought can fall through.That may sound a little harsh, but here is where I am coming from.I have recently had quite a few hiccups in my plans. In part because I have bought a few things, but largely due to some unexpected expenses that I wrote about previously. I had my credit card debt down to about $1300. I then had about $300...

Making More Money

My Great Aunt's husband passed away about 6 months ago (or more now) and her only family left in this City is myself and my brother. J and I have taken to bringing her to Costco every couple of weeks to do her bulk shopping. She has other people (neighbors and friends) that help with weekly shopping, banking and the like. She has started thinking that she might like to move to the small town where...

Living our Parents Lifestyle

I have found that there is a significant number of my peers who feel they have the right, the need, or at the very least the desire to live the life that their parents do. There seems to be a disconnect in that our parents worked for twenty years (while we were being raised) to accumulate the wealth and ‘stuff’ to which our generation desires. The catch is that there are a number of 20-somethings...

Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind?

An e-mail was passed around work today, and apparently our brains have a limit on the amount of will power we have. So, with the recession in mind more and more people are thinking about money all the time, trying not to spend (at least they ought to be). The result of this is less or no will power when it comes to other things - such as eating!I found it a pretty interesting read, although I'm not...

Investing Time

How much time do you spend on your personal finances? Is it enough, or too much?I think when you first start budgeting and planning you can start investing a lot of time. I review my budget, and tracking numbers at the very least each week. I’m hoping to eventually do it just on pay periods, and then eventually monthly.I would estimate that I spend about 2-6 hours each week, thinking about, writing...

Timeframes - do you know what yours is?

Today I was going over my budget (again) and realized something. I set up some arbitrary goals that I am saving towards. The goals section of my blog has some arbitary dates for said goals. I haven't actually sat down to figure out if the plan I have will help me realize my goals in time.I spent some time on excel and it looks like it will take about:Emergency Fund - 27.05 monthsHouse Deposit - 108.57...

Spend Less Money

Alternativly, to making more money, I could spend less money.Give Me Back My Five Bucks recently posted asking her readers what their barebones budgets looked like.This is what my barebones budget looks like:This Hearth & Heart budget assumes that I am still employed. I have paid upfront for parking,...

Making More Money

It always comes back to this doesn't it. Either make more money, or spend less money. These are the two options when it comes to being debt free and building a nest egg. Below are a list of ideas I am tossing around for making more money. Keep in mind that I am up every morning at 6:30am and get home around 6pm (I'm done work at 4:30pm, hit the gym, and then have a 30-45min drive depending on traffice)....

Unexpected Expenses - okay, maybe I should have planned for this.

Something new has popped up again. Maybe this is why it's so hard to stay on track. I need summer tires. Well, I needed summer tires. Growing up in my family, there is one thing you don't neglect on your vehicle and that is proper summer and proper winter tires. That's right, you need TWO sets of tires. I did find an excellent deal!I managed (through my boyfriend) to get 4 Hankook Mileage Plus...

Updated Tracking Numbers

Today was pay day - so I have updated all of my tracking numbers. I am quite pleased to say that I am on track with my credit card. I now owe $1368 on it! My student loans are creeping downward ever so slowly and I am really looking forward to being able to up the debt repayment on those soon.In terms...