PalmSprings - Update

I talked to the boss lady last week and althought she didn't outright say I couldn't go, it's not a good time - to take time off.  There's one other person that's taking vacation time that week and we're already short staffed as it is.   I'm going to keep saving and getting things organised - just in case - but it might not happen afterall.

My Best Friend has invited me to Quebec the following month - so that trip may be more feasable - work wise.

Saturday Morning: Money Here & Money There

Not too long ago I told you that Jordan and I were making the TV switch from Bell to Shaw due to an amazing offer!  Well, the Shaw guy just left and we're all hooked up!  We will now have two bills each month instead of three - Shaw and Enmax.  We'll have a final bill and cancellation charge from Bell, but after the deals we get with Shaw - it'll still be worth the switch.

I also mentioned a while back (this is six months ago) that we got a deal on our Shaw, well today - that deal was up.  I had spoken to Shaw twice before to make sure we wouldn't be billed for the promotion they gave us - and they messed it up.  The bill is $10 higher then it's supposed to be.  Ack! Way to go Shaw....  I'm on hold with their customer service now, so hopefully it won't take too long to fix it... by the time i finished writing this post, I had spoken to Shaw and they had fixed the billing mistake!

Here's what the bills look like:

Enamx $280.92
Shaw       50.50
Bell          77.47
Total    $408.89

We split this by 3 for Jordan, myself and our roommate who just moved out (because these bills are for last months services) and we have a grand total of $136.30 each.

Roommate had given us a damage deposit of $250 - so we owe him $113.40.

We'll write him a cheque, give him a call and leave it in the mailbox for him to pick up this weekend.

i hope you are all enjoying this lovely weekend

Bi-Weekly Budget

Once again, it's time for my bi-weekly budget post.

Things are starting to get back on track.

This week I'm finally able to start contributing to my savings goals again.  I've got $90 slotted for my clothing fund - which may turn into a travel fund (we shall see - I'm taking to my manager today about time off for Palm Springs).  

My variable allotments for transport/food and entertainment are the same as usually.  I have an extra $20 in transport b/c I think it's just about time for an oil change but at the very least I need to top up my washer fluids and what not. I'm set to do a $200 lump sum payment on my student loans.  Car insurance is due during this pay period and I have a $200 visa payment to make.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty good about this.

Palm Springs

My Best Friend (BF) has invited me to Palm Springs. This is a big deal. 

I’ve never been anywhere. I’ve never left Alberta/BC – the two western provinces of Canada. I don’t have a passport. I don’t have any savings for travel. I so so so want to spend some quality time with her. BF lives ohhh…about an 11 hour drive from me – so we don’t get to see each other as often as we like. 

So what to do. 

1. Step one – make sure I can get the time off work 
2. Step two – get a passport 
3. Step three – figure out the money 

• I've sent an e-mail to my boss (she is out of town for a couple of days) asking about the time off – there are two other people taking time off in April, so we’ll see how that goes. 

• I’m going to get my passport photo taken early this week and then go about filling in the application forms and what not (I've now done this since I wrote the original post)

• The Money. Oi! The Money. 

I checked on WestJet and if I CAN'T get any seat sales, flights will be about $1,000. Lodging would be free b/c BF's parents have a place that we can stay at - so that would be amazing.  I have absolutely no clue how much to budget for food, fund & beer.  Can anyone help guesstimate that?  I'm thinking anywhere from $500-$750.

I have $385 in my clothing fund which I would be okay to use for the trip - but the rest I'm not so sure about. BF worries that if I'm always planning on doing things like traveling "later" then I'll never wind up doing it.....

what if later never comes?

Private or Public?

I've noticed that lately there has been an increasing number of personal finance bloggers that have been 'found out'.  Their anonymity has been challenged and/or they have been outed in a public way.  Often, the result is that these bloggers close down their sites - some start again under different names - some never come back.

I think this is so sad - that people have come to the blogging world looking for an outlet to share and place where they will find support and guidance and maybe even friendship - and they get turned out so to speak.  It's particularly tragic that they seem to be outed in a negative way.

On the curtails of that, those who follow me on Twitter may know that after a few glasses of wine too many I became a tad loose lipped and told my best friend that I have a personal finance blog.  I think she was fairly surprised - but we didn't get too much into it.  Well, last week she asked for the link to my blog.

I was really nervous at first - for me, this blog is a like a diary for my personal-finance related thoughts....and giving the link to a loved one on purpose - wouldn't that be like leaving my diary out in the open?

I thought about that some and came to the conclusion that I think people don't talk about money enough - it's taboo! Wouldn't I be perpetuating this ridiculous taboo by not sharing the link?  Didn't I share it with my boyfriend, my mom and my brother (okay - my brother was mostly b/c I needed HTML help when I first started).  Of course I should share it with my best friend!

So that's just what I did.

Welcome Best Friend!

~betcha didn't know how hard it was for me to share the link with you - but I'm so glad I did~ 

I can understand why a lot of people choose not to be public, and you won't see me putting my last name out their anywhere - but I think that I'm at a place where I'm comfortable sharing this blog with a few close people - best friend included.  Of course, with it being my choice to share this blog with her, it feels much different then if she had just figured it out.  I hope that no one finds me out who has intent to cause hurt and I hope that if that ever happens I have the wherewithal to handle it in a way that lets my writing survive (even if I have to change blog names).

So, how private/public are you with your blog?  Have you shared it with family/friends - or are you truly anonymous or public?

Taxes are Complete & Filed

Phew!

That was one other thing I accomplished over the weekend.  I did my, Jordan's and my grandmother's taxes.  I've used QuickTax for the last several years and so love how easy it is.  You can use their Easy Step process which asks you a bunch of questions or you can just fill out the forms page by page.  I normally really like the Easy Step - but this year it was like they had dumbed it down so much it was confusing! I went back and forth quite a bit between Easy Step and Forms to make sure I had done everything correctly - but after using the software for so long, it was pretty simple.

Our refunds will be just about the same - we're each getting about $440!  Not too shabby. My grandmother is getting about $2 back (she has no income, just receives government benefits).

We had originally planned on putting that money towards our house fund, but we're both concentrating on getting our debts paid off - so instead Jordan's will go to the truck loan and my refund will go to my Canada Student Loan.  It'll feel pretty great to put a lump sum on the debt like that.

It will move Jordan's debt free date up a month to June, 2010 from July, 2010 and make my journey to being debt free in 2010 that much easier.

This Weekend...

Canada won gold in men's hockey!!!!

also some other things happened, but probably not anything as interesting....

It feels like this weekend has lasted forever - which is really weird because usually they go by so quickly.

On Friday roommate number 4 and 5 moved a bunch of things to the house - so naturally after work I did a bunch of housework and what not.  We had to clean out our spare room, which we'll be renting (fully furnished) to roommate number four's friend (roommate number 5) for a couple months.  I wound up vacuuming the stairs which only served to remind me that it should be done wayyyy more often!  how often do you vacuum by the way?

On Saturday we did a tonne of running around!  I had to renew the registration for my car (about $75 and we picked up a bra that was getting repaired ($15 to fix a $200 bra) - later on Jordan got a desk and an office chair so he can work/play more comfortably on his laptop, and I picked up an inexpensive shelving unit for all the scrapbooking things that i'm slowly starting to acquire.  When we finally got home (we did a lot of price comparisons which meant driving all over the city) - we wound up completely re-arranging our room and building the new furniture - it looks pretty great in here!

Today we got up early to do a Costco run for my great aunt.  I've never been to a Costco when it opens at 10:00am on Sunday morning and I don't think I'll ever do that again!  There was an insane line-up!  Seriously, a line up for Costco.  There weren’t any special sales, it was just an average Sunday afternoon.  I made Jordan take a picture for the sole purpose of sharing it with you.



Once at my aunts we did a short computer lesson (she's 80, just got a laptop and wants to figure this whole e-mail thing out and did a few odds and ends around the house (this usually involves changing a lightbulb).

We got home in time to watch the hockey game.  In the middle of that new roommates finished moving in and shortly after old roommate finished moving out.  phew!  Jordan and I finally got around to folding all of our clothes...I think just about ever last scrap of clothing we own was in the basement on the couch.  It was pretty bad, but now everything's all put away in it's place.  It's going to be nice waking up in the morning and knowing where to find socks! We also wound up with a big box of clothes to go to charity.

At the end of the evening I decided to try my hand a bread again - this time I made two loaves, 10 buns, and 10 cinnamon buns.  So far so good!! This time I let things rise a bit better so i think the results will be much tastier (also used half whole wheat flour).

Aside from all of that - we've been intermittently working on a 1250 piece puzzle that my great aunt gave us the other day.... and man is it hard!  But it's hours of FREE entertainment - and who doesn't love that?!

this is what it's supposed to look like....i'll be sure to let you know if we ever get it done....: