Guest Post: Finance 101: Building An Emergency Savings Fund

Jessie's note: The author mentions America, and while you all know that I'm Canadian, I beleive that the themes he talks about are applicable in all of North America. The fact is that most Americans will earn several million dollars during the course of their professional careers.  That is a lot of money!!  Unfortunately, very few will actually retire comfortably, but the truth is that...

Great Feedback!

Thank you to all the commenters for the feedback on the first draft of our potential house budget.  I'd like to summarize some of the comments here, and open the door for any others.  Quite a few folks had questions as well as suggestions, so I'll address those as well. Increase house maintenance budget by $100 Our thinking in having the house maintenace budget at $100 was that it may be...

House Budget Help

It may be a tad early, but Jordan and I have come up with a budget for when we are homeowners.  I'd like to share it with you in draft version - I'm hoping that any home owners who read this blog can share with us any insights on what we might be missing. So, what do you think? In theory, our...

House Fund Goal

Now that we have a number, Jordan and I can solidify our house fund goal. At least 5% downpayment At least $5,000 closing costs we won't need to pay a realator, but we will have legal fees and I'm sure other things that we don't know about. So, while we won't be pushing to reach our new goal until...

What's Next?

Now that Jordan and I are debt free, we are going to work on some of our short term goals before we ramp up our house fund. Coming up right away are our: Christmas Fund Need to get to $1,500 in short order This pays for gifts as well as decorations and extra travel Travel Fund (new) We would like...

We Have a Number

Jordan and I had a great conversation with my great aunt this weekend about....MONEY. We showed her the market analysis that was completed on her house and then showed her what we thought a fair market price would be based on the information the real estate agent guy showed us (about $300,000K on the open market - if her home was ready to be sold). As there is an expectation that my great...

DEBT FREE!

As of today, Jordan and I are 100% debt free! Jordan and I worked the numbers last night and have decided to manage our credit card based on our billing cycle not necessary our monthly budget.  So our monthly budget will actually include the last three weeks of a month and then the first week of the following month.  When I projected the numbers through to the end of October, there was absolutely no...

ING Introduces Thrive

Thrive is ING Directs new chequing account for their Canadian account holders. For all of my American readers - ING's chequing accounts will be old hat to you - but for Canadians, their annoucement of launching a FREE chequing account is a big deal. Truely free chequing accounts really don't exist in Canada, there's always a catch...or at least there always used to be before Thrive. Here is a summary...

Joint Credit Card - Over Spending

okay...so this is the first month using our joint credit card and we still have 12 days left...and we've wayyy over spent.  We've over spent by about $500 already! okay okay, it's actually $484.90 (that includes the $180 from our vacation) ugh. There are a couple of problems so far: We actually...

I Heart Employer Paid Benefits

I truly do. About a year ago or so ago Jordan and I claimed each other as common-law spouses on each others employer paid benefit plans - and I've finallly taken advantage of it. I usually wear glasses, but every so often I would rather wear contacts as an option.  I went through the fitting rig-a-marole ($35) and then bought 90 days worth of contacts ($144).  Because I wear them so sporatically...

Market Assessment Complete

Most readers know by know that Jordan and I are saving to buy our first home.  Only readers who have been around for some time know that we're looking to buy my aunts home when she decides to move. Her timeline is vague (anywhere from 3 to 18 months), but it's in both our best interests to start...

Allowances at Work

I think this whole allowances 'thing' is really working. During one of our excursions while on our camping/cabin-ing trip we wound up shopping.  I bought two new great sweaters (total was $55.68) and a new bathing suit (total was 65.53).  I also bought a couple of albums on iTunes (total was $19.96). I used my credit card for these purchases, and the grand total is $141.17.  I'm going...

Family Emergency

So, while we were on our trip we had a family emergency.  I won't get into the details, but my grandma had to go to the hospital on Thursday and has to stay until at least Monday to get some tests done. We made a few extra trips back and forth from the cabin to the hospital and ate out more than we would have otherwise - all in all a low-cost emergency.  That said, it is what the e-fund...

Guest Post: Getting Out of Debt - A Success Story

This guest post is written by Jason Holmes. He is a regular writer with Debt Consolidation Care and is also a contributory writer with other financial sites. His expertise is woven around various aspects of the debt management industry and with his e-books he tries to impart to people the different situations and simple solutions to get out of difficult situations. Some of his works include...

Joint Spending Update

I spent an hour or so on Wednesday morning sorting out how much Jordan and I had spent so far with our joint credit card... I had a feeling it was creeping up faster than perhaps we had intended it to.  We did know, that our first month would be the hardest though. So, currently the balance owing...

Camping Costs

So last night we had a family conversation about how we were going to pay for the week of having a cabin on a beach.  A few of us had made some assumptions and didn't ask enough questions (namely me), which is fine because my family is a great one to learn in. While money isn't talked about, as a general rule, I should have known to ask how we were going to pay for everything. We wound up counting...

Non-Sufficent Funds

So...we're camping - but we do have Internet and e-mail access. I was checking my online banking and realised that our newest roommates rent/utility cheque bounced!  This is as I'm re-configuring if we can pay of my student loans this month, so needless to say I was pretty shocked that we were missing $585! We (relatively) calming sent new roommates (who's17) mom an e-mail.  We explained...

Business Expenses

My trip to Saskatchewan was spectacular! The flights there and back were seamless and the cabs were available and helpful.  The local office was welcoming and I was able to get a tonne of training and work done while I was there. I wound up spending a total of $308, this included my hotel stay, four cab rides, breakfast and a lunch.  I went out for dinner and that cost $65 (yeah, I know...

Going Camping

Jordan and I are gearing up for another week long camping trip! This time we're heading into the middle of BC where there's currently a fire ban :( So we may not need to bring as much firewood as we thought. We're looking at a total travel time of about six hours, but we're going to stop at my parents place so it won't be straight there.  We're actually going with my parents, grandma and aunt...

Monday Morning Check Up - On Thursday!

So I'm getting ready to hit the office this morning and I'm really not sure what to write about.  My trip is going really well - but it's not over so I'll wait to share all the expenses. I thought I would  give My Pretty Pennies and her Monday Morning Checkup post a try, even though it's Thursday. 1. The most I've spent last week? We spent $114 on groceries on Tuesday....but...

Business Trip

Today I get to go on my first ever business trip. Okay, so it's not like I have a very long job history - two years at my current employer and a variety of other summer-style jobs while going to school., but I'm still pretty excited.  I think everyone at work knew too - I talked about it enough. The travel company that manages all of our travel booked my flights and reserved the hotel .  I...

Blogging Income

Do any of you make any? Since the inception of this blog, I  have made a grand total of $27.35 from AdSense.  As it's such a small amount, I've never requested a payment - and probably won't for the foreseeable future. I have on the other hand been approached by a few people who have/administer websites and wanted to either put up a guest post with links or have a link under...

Holiday Monday

ahhh...Love a Long Weekend. Jordan and I have done a whole lot of nothing!  Well, that's not exactly true.  We took my Aunt grocery shoppnig yesterday, watched a tonne of movies, I went horse back riding yesterday evening, and today?  I think today we're planning on doing a bit of grocery shopping for ourselves. We got our joint credit card in the mail on Friday, and now that it's...