Rent's Due Tomorrow

Well, we're at the end of September and my roommate is MIA.  I haven't seen her much at all the last couple of weeks.  She did say when she moved in that school keeps her very, very busy - but still.  Very strange.  In case she is 'late' with rent again, I have already transferred her damage deposit from my ING account over to my chequing account.  That way I'm protected...

$100/month

Thanks for all the well wishes with my recent bit of good news. I'm wondering what reader's would suggest I do with this $100/month I'll be netting.  I see a couple of different options: Increase student loan payments Increase contribution amount to emergency fund Increase RRSP contribution amount Clothes & other fun stuff Something else I'm not thinking of What do you think...

It's Official!

I'm pretty thrilled.  I just got a 4.5% raise!! It's effective October 3, 2009.  I'm the only person in my division who's getting an October raise...and out of the entire office there's only about 10 people out of 500 folks getting increases mid year. Wow. Apparently, they want to keep me around! I spoke with my direct supervisor about whether this will impact company-wide raises in April...

Gardening!!

So I had a pretty stressful day, if anyone follows me on twitter you know I thought I was going to be laid off for the first half of the day.  Turns out, I'm not!  I'm actually getting a raise which is pretty sweet!  I don't know all the details yet, but once I do I'll defn. be sharing. ...

I'm Getting a Raise!

hurrah!! I'm getting a raise!! I don't know all the details yet but my manager told me in his descrete way that I'm getting a raise, as sooon as the paperwork is signed off on. I knew something was up today!!! More details will follow so...

A few updates

So, we are holding our breath with the landlord/living/moving situation until the middle of next month when they are back in Canada.  Hopefully we can come to some sort of resolution.  It would be nice not to have to move, but in the end if that is what makes the most sense - it's what we'll do. On a postive note, Jordan and I had an unexpected $200 fall into our financial situation this...

Negotiations with the Landlord Continue...

I just got off of the phone with the landlord's husband, and we agreed that I would drop off a cheque for October's rent of $1,500 sometime after work today.  Apparently they live about five minutes away from where we are.  I told him this would be find and a 'good faith' gesture as we don't have a signed lease.  He agreed that we would 'pretend' that October was a month-to-month scenario...

Negotiations with the Landlord - Part Two

All I have been thinking about over the last couple of days is this lease negotiation business....I called my mom this morning to work out the first e-mail that I was going to send to her today... I wanted to make sure it had the correct tone.  Here are the e-mails that I exchanged with Landlord this morning: Good Morning,I am hoping that you might have had time to review the e-mail correspondence sent...

Negotiations with the Landlord

Yesterday I told you when we wrote in our e-mail to the Landlord.  This was her reply" Thank you for your email.  No problem on the notice.  I had just passed the email to my husband last night and we can simply toss it.I am sorry but I will not change my view on the pet situation.  All of my units have a “no animal rule” which also now extends to pet fish.  If we discuss...

Moving...or not?

So Jordan and I have been doing a tonnne of talking about the whole moving thing, and now we're thinking that we might as well just stay where we are...We figure we'll be going from three roommates to one roommate and that might make a big enough difference.  Our rent will go up to $500/month each and of course utilities will go up some as well, but it's probably only going to be $100-$200/month...

To CHRP or not to CHRP?

There are a great number of professions that have 'designations'.  A few letters to put at the end of your name to signify that you may know something that others of your ilk don't.  Well, as someone in the field of Human Resources it would be a great advantage to receive my CHRP designation (description below). The Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) designation is...

Do you know what's hard?

Looking for a new place to live while maintaining sanity is hard. I fear much of my blog posts will relate to this in some way or another for the next while.. oh also, I accidently put an extra $75 into my RRSP this pay period, which means I have about $75 for the next two weeks...and my grocery budget was $100.  I am anticipating a giant fail. Do you ever just get tired of thinking about...

I'm Moving

My household has been in a bit of a tumultuous state and there's going to be some major changes.  My brother and his girlfriend have found a place and our moving out on November 1st.  Jordan and I are going to try to be out by November 1st or December 1st - depending on how things shake down. Unfortunately for our new roommate she may h ave to move as well.  I'm waiting...

Sunday Morning Funny

I'm enjoying myself visiting family in my home town, and thought I'd leave this cartoon with y...

Bi-Weekly Budget - Today is Payday

Below is a picture of the next two weeks. Things will be pretty tight because I got a much needed haircut and splurged on some Halloween decorations as well as some party favors and a gift for one of my roommates birthday's last week. I have $200 for my variable expenses, $100 of that...

Utilities - Phone & Internet

As you know I'm taking part of this week to explore my households utility bills.  This post is about our phone and internet services.  Next week I will write about our major utilities including gas, water and electricity. On average we pay $67.47/month for our phone and internet...

Car Insurance

so I just received my policy renewal information for my auto insurance.  It's going to go down by a whole $5.28...that's a whopping $63.36 for the year.  My new premium will be broken down into payments of $150.28.  I called a couple of insurance brokers, and unfortunately - my current one - is the cheapest I can find. Hopefully next year I'll see a bigger chan...

Utilities - Satellite TV

My post last week, and the comments regarding it, got me thinking about each utility provider.  I'm going to take the next couple of days to review each of them.  I will start with Bell - our TV provider. When we signed up, the best deal was to sign a two year contract.  We are through...

Planning For the Future - Episode Two

Yesterday I wrote about making a plan with the funds I'll have 'left over' each pay period, and I briefly mentioned that the money could go towards my student loans.  I'm actually quite surprised that folks didn't put a larger emphasis and paying down this debt. Perhaps it is because student loans are traditionally looked as as 'good debt' Part of the conversation my mom and I...

Planning For the Future

I had a great conversation with my mom last week and thought I would share some of it.  I told her that with my new saving plan in place I would be able to reach my 2009 goals by the end of the year and still have about $1,300 left over.  I was panicking because this money wasn't allotted...

This Weekend & The Bank

I don't believe that I have written about this before, but about eight months ago Jordan was looking to buy a small, used, truck for himself.  After much debate, we decided on a 2002 Ford Ranger.  The truck, although it has high kilometers, would be perfect for us. We took out a personal loan for $4,500, during the application process we learned that Jordan's credit was not steller....

Magic Jars Update

I didn't post my bi-weekly budget last pay period because I had all sorts of financial stanfu's happen, culminating with my roomate paying rent four days late.  I am still using the jars and have about $40 left until next Friday.  I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not yet but Jordan decided to use the food jar with me.  This will be his second pay period using a joint food jar with...

Pictures from Camping

Here are just a few pictures from our August long weekend camping trip...

August Utilities

Frugal Dreamer got me thinking about my utilities this month, so I thought I would share as they will be debited from my account during this pay period. They are as follows: Major utilities - $269.42 The major utilities include water, sewer, recyling and garbage pick up as well as gas and electricity.  If people are interested I could break down all the costs. Satillite TV - $74.86 I'm...

Go house fund go!

Today is Jordan's payday, another $150 goes into the house fu...

Interest Reversal

Too funny. I put so much $$ towards paying off my credit card, that my bank over charged me in interest. They now owe me $1.02 How strange is tha...

So now what?

Now that I am credit card debt free, I ought to make a plan for going forward.  I have already written my revised 2009 goals which included: Pay off my credit card Have a debt free Christmas Replenish my emergency fund to a minimum of $1,000 by the end of 2009 Increase my total RRSP contributions to $3,000 by the end of 2009 You have probably noticed that I moved my tracking...

I am credit card debt free!

...that's right, I am finallly credit card debt free!wow. I'm not sure I believed this day would actually come! I feel like in some way or another I have owed money on my credit card for the last five years or so. I've come very close to paying it off a few times, and then promptly plummeted right back into debt. I even cashed out a few RRSP's a couple years ago to try to pay it off. My CC debt...

Updates!

I beleive a few updates are in order before I get back to regurlar posting... Our roommate gave me rent ($500) plus $50 on Thursday!  phew! I did go into my overdraft and will have to pay interest and overdraft charges because of this.  The $50 will more then cover it.  I didn't ask for any extra cash, but I beleive that she really just wanted to make things right.  I really appreciated...

Gone Camping!

I hope everyone (who gets one) has a wonderful long weekend!  Jordan and I are running away to BC to go camping with my parents.  Unfortunatly my brother and lindsay have to work. It will be a great trip I think.  The only significant cost is gas, which really won't be that bad because it's only about a 3.5 hour drive to the lake we'll be at.  Camping with my mom is fantastic,...

Furniture

Jordan and I fell in love with a couch on Wednesday night.  It's comfortable, priced perfectly, and has a great warranty! For the couch, loveseat and chair - the price was $1299!  That includes set up and delivery in home as well as a lifetime warranty on the frame and springs. ...

Roommates = Stress

*note, I wrote this post on Wednesday evening and it is set to post for Thursday morning* So as most of you probably know, we recently took in a roomate to help lower our costs.  Great idea!  In theory... Our new roomate seemed great (and still personality wise, seems really nice and outgoing).  She paid her damage deposit in full - no issues.  We even let her start moving in...

APPLES!!!

I don't know if I've shared this before or not, but I have two apple trees in my yard!  One is a crab apple tree that is baring fruit for the first time this year.  The other is an amazing tree with delish apples (not sure how they would be branded, but they are verry tasty.  So,...