Ahhhhhhhhhhhh it's been so long!

And for that i'm sorry. Really. VERY sorry. Every time I log onto this computer I think about this blog and how much i've missed you all and reading your blogs, but for whatever reason I just don't write. I never really feel like I have anything to write...but, I will trudge along.

I hope you are all doing well. I'm doing pretty good. Still working, still earning...still saving..a little. I've been paying a lot of tuition lately so my bank accounts are sitting at a nice, even, 0$ (after this last tuition payment goes through). Other than that i'm doing good, now that tuition has been paid off I'll be back on track.

On the plus side, i've gotten organized! I know most of you live on your own and you're all grown up, but I am not! Hah, I still live at home and I finally, FINALLY cleaned/organized and sorted out everything in my room. It feels very good. It's a small step to take in a good directions. I always feel that the moment I get one hurdle out of my way, I can take on the rest of 'em. It's a nice feeling.

I've also re-taken up knitting. It's very exciting! I bought a book, "Stitch and Bitch" a long time ago and started knitting then, but never got to anything more advanced than scarfs. Buuuuut last night, for whatever reason, I dug the book off my bookshelf and started again. I even managed to master a couple stitches that I had previously been unable to do. So, I have set myself a new goal: to knit a sweater by Christmas. It's a big goal, but I think it's manageable.

I hope to be back - permanently now, so I look forward to catching up on all your blogs. On a side note, 3-things-about-money, if by any chance you read this, I noticed that your blog is now private...I don't know what reasons you had for doing that (although I know for sure you had reasons) but I would love to be invited to read it again, yours is one of my favs. :)

Take care everyone!

I approach everything the same...

...When I fall off the bandwagon, I don't ever seem to jump back on.

It's been a long time since I've posted here, and I appologize for that. I feel guilty when I don't post, and yet I feel guilty writing this post as I have not been an especially frugal lady these past weeks.

I bought a laptop. Yup. Brand new Toshiba Satellite A200 - whatever that means. My old laptop has finally kicked the bucket and every time I turn it on the process takes me 5 minutes and I end up worrying that it's going to explode and take all my information with it. I have started the slow process of transferring data between the two, and when I'm done, my old laptop is going to be scrap metal and working bits for the new one.

I spent $799 on the laptop. It was at the top of my range, but for the specs I was looking at, it was a very good price. Fortunatly, because of Canada Day, Future Shop was having a sale and I did save some money - the laptop was originally prices at $1045.

That was supposed to be my largest non-frugal purchase of the week...but one can never forsee one's cell phone dying as well. So, the unfortunate thing of having to replace one's cell phone is also never a cheap venture.

My phone still works, receives calls and txt messages, rings, etc. The only problem with it is that I can't hear anything when people call me or when I call people. I have a sneaking suspicion that the ear-phone peice has been damaged by all the times that I've dropped the phone. Either way, the baby has lasted me 2.5 years and it's done me good. However, it's time to upgrate.

So I visit Rogers and talk to them about upgrading the phone. (This is where I mention that I hate rogers). I'm trying to tell this salesperson that I want to buy a new phone but that I DON'T want to resign a contract. I've only got about 6 months left on this contract and don't want to renew. I'm prepared to buy a phone at the flat rate. He nods in agreement and asks what kind of phone I want. I say the Motorola Krzr (very pretty). He tells me that it's going to cost me $200 plus a $50 mail-in-rebate. I think that that's perfectly agreeable and agree. As he's putting through the sale, I casually say "So this is without renewing the contract" and he sais something like "Yeah, you'll have the same plan." So this is the point where I realize that he has no idea what I was telling him, and so I remind him that I DON'T want to renew the contract, I still want it to end in 6 months. So then...he goes "ooooh...". And explains that he's brand new and has no idea how to cancel this transaction and if I would mind comming back tomorrow to remedy this situation. I say "no" and suggest that he call someone to fix it. (BTW, without the contract, the phone would cost me over $400). He ends up calling someone and cancelling the upgrade and I walk out. Siiiigh. I would have been more pissed had he not been so obviously new and incompetent.

So, I left with my broken phone and promptly came home and searched both Ebay and Facebook. The cheapest Krzr I could find on Ebay was about $300. Fortunatly, I found a guy selling one in Calgary for only $150! He bought it, used it for 3 weeks, put a couple scratches in it and went back to his Blackberry. So, assuming that it works properly, I will have a new phone by the end of this week and no extended contract!

Stupid phone selling people... Grrr.

Aaanyways. I went down to the Stampede yesterday as well. For those who don't know what the Stampede is, it's basically an outdoor rodeo-amusement park-cheap games-creepy people-barnyard animals extravagansa. I went down with my dad, and had a generally good time. It's expensive to be at the Stampede, let's see how much I spent. $13 to get in, $1 for a slushie, $10.75 for food for me and my dad (gotta eat at Weadickville if you go, food is cheapest there!). I didn't go on rides or play and midway, which is where most of the money gets eaten up. I did go into the casino with my dad and watched some of the people there. We ended up gambling a quarter and walking away with $98.50! which was pretty sweet. My Dad's quarter, my pull - I figure I was the lucky componant of that deal, and made away with my half - $45.00! So, for the first time ever, my dad at Stampede was profitable.

Other than that things have been going okay. I've spend the last couple weeks with my very non-frugal friend, which has resulted in some less-than-frugal evenings and days, however she did drive me to and from work for a week straight (she works down the street) which saved on an entire week or bus tickets - about $20! However, she's now in Las Vegas for a week and I find myself spending most of my evenings at home, relaxing.

The bank accounts are currently sitting at:
TD Canada Trust: $813.96
VISA: $197.93
ING Savings: $457.40
ING Emergency Fund: $112.98
AmEx: $853.29

Total + $1271.36
Total - $1051.22
Total = +$183.28

So I'm still sitting in the positives. I get paid again on the 15th, so I will wait until I get paid before paying off the AmEx (which only has one purchase - the computer) on it. I will have to take some cash out to pay for the cell phone this week, which will also take a chunk out of the finances. After that we'll see about getting some more money into the savings.

Hope you are all doing well!

Slacker!

I feel like a slacker! I haven't posted in 8 days! Yeesh, i'd better get my act together.

This past week has not been a frugal one. I don't even want to think about the money I've spend. Why is it that you always have that one friend who you seem to just spend money with. I have that friend. She's the one in a lot of debt. Yep. I'm not in debt, but, if I were to spend a large amount of time with her I may just end up in debt.

We spent the whole weekend together, and a couple days since then. Friday her and I went shopping ($30 - laptop bag, $2.50 - mini donuts, $12.50 - shirt). We took a mini road trip on saturday to pick up a gift certificate from a fancy restaurant just outside of the city ($50 - gift certificate, $17- breakfast, $15 - dinner, $32 - gas and late night snacks) with a friend of ours. Sunday I slept in until 1:15 p.m. (yes, you read that right, i'm still not sure how it happened) and then went to the market with her to pick up some veggies ($3.50 - lunch) and then just watched a movie at her house. Yesterday she called and asked if I wanted to go out for lunch with her (we both work downtown) and I agreed ($10 - lunch).

I mean, don't get me wrong, I had a great weekend, but I spent a lot more money with her than I would have if I had been sitting at home on my bum all weekend. The only good part - money-wise - is that her and I spend last night at her father's home. He's getting remarried and getting rid of a lot of kitchen things (I looooove kitchen things) and I was able to get some. I ended up with a box of IKEA dishes (big plates, little plates, bowls and a platter and jug) which I may or may not keep. I'll keep them around for a bit and if I change my mind I may just donate them. (I'm not sure if it's worth hauling cheap dishes around for however many years it will be until I move out). But, on top of that, I got a really good quality bread knife, and a nice matching set of spatulas - those i'll be able to use right away.

I watch a lot of HGTV (for those of you not in Canada, it's our home decoration, interior design, handyman show) and I dream about how I will decorate my future home. I'd love to have the money to buy a nice, old, sturdy, well-built home and redesign the whole thing. I collect images and paint chips and magasine clippings of things and colors that inspire me. Mmmm dreaming.

Either way, all my reckless spending put a bit of a knock in the budget. I put more money on my VISA than I had in my chequing account and I had to take some money out of my emergency fund (bad, I know!). But, I got paid yesterday and that money is back in the fund. Yeesh. So, this paycheque, i've left in it's entirety in my chequing account to decide what I need to do with it.

Another bump in my budget is that my computer is about thisclose to dying. I'm working right now to get all the important files off of it and onto CD's and external storage because I have a feeling that one day I will try to turn on my computer and it will just explode. Not a good sign.

I've been looking around for a laptop and am confident that I will be able to find one for less than $800. I was looking at the Dell website (I am a girl of habit and like to stick with what I got) but nothing really jumped out at me. So this weekend I am going to drag my dad over to future shop and see what they have over there. I'd love to get the new sony laptop (the itty bitty tiny one - I love the portability of it, and I was planning to getting a large, flat, widescreen to mount on my wall for movie-watching), but i'm not paying $2,500.00 for it. Boo on that.

So, with a new laptop purchase in the works, I'm looking at this paycheque and maybe a bit of next month's paycheque to cover that. I was hoping to hold off until the fall to make that purchase, but it doesn't look like it will work out. Oh well.

Well, that's pretty much all the updating I have for you today. Hopefully you are all well!

How Honest are you?

I just went to Quizno's for lunch (I printed off a free coupon off their site!) and ordered a yummy sandwich. I paid via VISA (I'm only allowed 10 debit transactions for free a month) and promptly left. On the walk back to my office I realized that I never signed the Credit Card slip.

Now I know my VISA can be charged directly to my debit account, however, I didn't enter a PIN, so I know that didn't happen. The receipt I got shows that it was a VISA and the charge went through, but I don't know if they can put the payment through if I didn't sign the slip.

I'll have to wait and see if it shows up on the 'net.

This got me thinking - when it comes to company mistakes, how far will you go?

I've had situations where i've bought X number of things, and the cashier only rings in a portion of those by mistake. Do you tell them? I rarely do, if ever. Or if a cashier rings something in in an incorrect price - would you correct them? I don't.

Does that make me a bad person? I don't think so. I don't think that Zeller's suffers too badly for a couple mis-rung shirts or grocery products. However, that's the same thinking that shoplifters operate through. In my opinion, it's the cashier's mistake, not mine.

However, i've had friends who would correct them. I know someone who once left a store, went home, realized that she only got charged for one of her two purchased shirts and promptly drove back to the store to correct the salesperson and give them the additional money. I think that's crazy - very honest and good of them - but crazy!

I don't feel guilty when I tap into someone else's wireless internet connection or get a free chocolate bar because Safeway forgot to ring in the last one. To me, it's a faceless crime.

Is it really, though? Maybe that cashier at Quizno's has done that a lot lately, and maybe she'll get fired over it. Who knows? Would that, then make me a bad person?

When I worked at Subway I used to make mistakes like this sometimes. If I overcharged someone and didn't realize it until afterwards, I didn't track them down in the food court. I waited for them to realize and come back to me. Most of the time, they didn't come back at all.

Other times, when I undercharged someone, if they were still there I would correct them. However, if they had already left, I just let it go, knowing that the register would most likely even itself out over the course of the day. Sometimes people would come back and insist on paying, but I always thought it was weird. My boss didn't miss the extra dollar or so they were giving us.

What's your opinion? Would you walk away with a steal or would you correct them?

Losing Weight for Frugality's Sake

I am overweight. I'll be the first to admit it. It doesn't exceptionally bother me right now. It bothered me a lot when I was in that teenager awkward stage. I tried all sorts of stuff, and I used to stare at myself naked and just wonder why I was cursed. At the time I tried everything - cutting calories, excersizing like a crazy person (I hear they excersize a lot, them crazy people) and even comming close to being boderline anorexic.

Well, needless to say, it didn't work. I'm a reasonably healthy person. I eat well and excersize enough. However, I still find myself "obese".

While I was on vacation this year, I did a large amount of stairs. (Think 400+ a day - those old churches are taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall!). Since i've been home, i've noticed that my knees are crunching. Yep, crunching. Not when i'm walking, but when i'm doing stairs. It's that kind of bone-crunching, joint-grinding crunchiness. It's a little bit worriesome. I know that it's correlated to my weight. There's no other reason, really.

Last week I was at work thinking about all this, I wondered to myself "Is it weird that I want to lose weight to save money, rather than to get healthy?"

Well, is it?

The thought of having to pay for a knee-replacement surgery or arthritis medicine makes me feel sick. Even though I have Health Care and it would be covered, I hate the idea of paying for it!

I think that makes me really weird - I care about finances just as much, if not more than health. Hmmmm. My priorities may, in fact, be a little but crooked.

Either way, for whatever goal, loosing weight/getting healthier is on the books. I think this fits in quite nicely with some of my other goals, including spending less on fast food by bringing food from home.

Hope you all are keeping well, I love reading all your journals!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day everyone!
This is a short post, I appologize for the lack of posting as of late. I have a lot of things that I want to post about and have been thinking about, but the more I put it off the larger the post becomes. And my posts are long enough!

I bought my dad a bunch of stuff from the Think Geek website. If you ever need to buy gadgets or geeky stuff for the nerd in your life, I couldn't recommend this site higher. You can find it here. Aaaanyways I bought a whole bunch of stuff of this site for my dad. It ended up totalling about $91 including shipping (sometimes I hate living in Canada - shipping is always so outrageous!). However, right before I 'checked out' I saw a little box for a promotion code. I didn't have a promotion code, but I figured a quick Google Search couldn't do me any wrong. I searched for "Think Geek Promotion Code" and came up with a bunch of sites claiming to have promotion codes. After maybe 2 or 3 minutes of searching and trial-and-error I found one that got me $10 off my purchase! That extra work was definitely worth the discount. I would recommend giving it a shot, no matter where you are doing your online purchasing.

Other than that, it's been a good week. I got paid again, however, most of that paycheque is paying back my mom and my sister. Which sucks a little bit, but at least after that I won't owe money to anyone anymore.

My old boss from Subway called too - they were having an issue with staffing yesterday (Saturday) and asked if I could come in for a couple of hours. I agreed, mainly because I miss seeing her, not because it was extra cash. I enjoyed myself for those 4 hours I was there, but it did remind me that I am glad that I am no longer there. It was worth getting those extra $40 or so.

Well, i'll be off now, I've got an action-packed Sunday awaiting me! Hope you all are keeping well.

IKEA

...I trust you all had a good weeked. Mine was very good, productive, even. I spent Saturday morning visiting garage sales with my mom. I love garage sales, unfortunatly, I didn't find anything worth buying. My mom bought some things, mostly little knick knacks here and there. I usually buy a lot of houseware-type-things but I didn't find anything.

That evening I went to IKEA with my sister, her boyfriend and my dad. I wasn't originally planning to buy anything, but IKEA is one of my weaknesses and I did end up buying things. (At least not as much as my sister, who spent $502 on a new closet-type-organizational system.)

Okay, bit of background on the situation- I have a closet. It's tiny, compared to the crap-load (yes, it's a crap-load) of clothes I own. Needless to say, I don't have enough space on my single horizontal bar to hold them all. I went and bought some of those vertically-hanging mock-shelves from IKEA which are, in concept a good idea. My problem is, I don't fold things. I barely hang things up. Thus, quickly I find that all my clothes end up on the floor. When I ran out of things to wear, I would gather up everything from the floor, wash it, and then leave it in the laundry basket to wear again. Thus the cycle continues. It wasn't working. Remember how I am messy? Yeah...

I remember seeing an add for those Rubbermaid 'Closet in a box' systems (you can check them out here) and thought that they would be a good idea. Just hand the vertical and horizontal bars, put up the shelves and ta-daa! Since I am not incredibly handy (i'm a little handy, I can paint and nail things...and do some measuring...) I thought their concept of making things as fool proof as possible were a good idea... until I saw the price tag - $169 for the 3'-6' basic system!! The hell I was going to pay that much for 'easy.' Boo.

So, instead, I went to IKEA. Good 'ol IKEA. And there, I bought 3 vertical hangy-things (see? told you i'm not handy), three planks of wood, 6 brackets, 3 poles and came home and went to work. Total cost? $79.49. Time spent? A good 3 hours. And I now have a fully functional 2 tier closet organizational system that leaves me lots of space to hang all mah junk. I'm very pleased that my cheapness payed off.

So I spent Sunday morning demolishing hanging parts on my old closet and putting in the new ones. Sunday afternoon was spent cleaning the room and putting things back in their place.

I'm hoping that with this closet system I can stay better organized in the future. My clothes are really the biggest source of my mess. I tend to come home, change into my jammies and leave all my other clothes on the floor. It's a bad habit, and one I need to break.

Wish me luck!

Budget...Revamped

Okay, okay, okay...so i've re-vamped the budget. I took part in The Simple Dollar's '31 Days to fix your finances' (You can find it here). Admittingly, I did all 31 days in about 2 afternoons, but a lot of the tabs didn't apply to me (home insurance, vehicles, debt, etc). I would highly recommend it, I learned a lot and it really opened my eyes. I have learned a couple things about why my previous budget won't work, and I have come up with a new one.

Okay, so, a brief summary of my finances: I make $12 an hour. I work a full 40 hour week. That adds up to about $24.960.00 before taxes. The past 3 paycheques I have seen about 13% taken off in taxes. So that means that my take home yearly salary is around $21,715.20. I have only two monthly expenses: my cell phone ($40/month) and my bus pass ($75/month). This means that my actual take home pay after those deductions is $20,435.20. So, seeing this for the first time puts my goal of saving $20,000 a bit difficult. So, instead, I have come up with a new savings goal: $16,000 in savings and a $2,000 emergency fund by the end of June 2008.

So, the plan is the same, for my first paycheque of the month (the 15th)- save 80% for savings and 10% for the emergency fund, while 10% goes into chequing for my spending pleasure.

The plan for the second paycheque of the month (3rd last buisness day of the month), I take $115 out of the total($40 for my dad for my cell phone and $75 to buy my buss pass) then split the rest into my 80/10/10 scheme.

However, the plan for June's paycheques deviate a little bit from this plan because of some money I owe my mom for the vacation. I owe her $702 for the week-long stay in the apartment in London. So, I will put that money aside from the paycheque, after which I will only have a couple hundred bucks left. That remaining money will be split 50/50 between my chequing and savings in order to pad both accounts a little bit. June's second paycheque will be back on track with the regular scheme.

I feel relieved that I have it all sorted out, and although i'm a little disapointed that i'm not going to be able to save what I had originally planned, however, I haven't added in any of the extra money that I get during the year, including GST/HST rebates and odd money I get from bonuses or gifts, etc.

Hope you are all doing well!

My Top 10 Non-Frugal Habits...

...I'm sure we all have them. However, over the weekend I was thinking about them, any why I contiunue to carry them with me, even though I feel as though I live a fairly frugal life. These are in no particular order:

1. Losing Money
2. Watching movies in the theatres
3. Not recycling
4. Buying small amounts of food/drink/etc 'on the go'
5. Not sticking to a plan
6. Being messy- Losing things and buying replacements before I look hard enough to ensure that I can't find the original
7. Being brand-loyal and not checking out the competition
8. Not cutting up/getting rid of old accounts/credit cards
9. Buying books as opposed to borrowing
10. Buying things 'for the future'

1. Losing money
Yes, losing as in putting it somewhere and forgetting. I'm horrible for this, especially with change. Until recently when I quit my last job, I collected American cash and change from the register. I would put it in a pocket or in a purse and upon comming home, dump it wherever convinient in my room. (I still live at home, therefore only have a room as 'my' space). However, this space would change constantly and when I finally got around to cleaning said room, I would find change here and there - seriously all over the place. Now, the nice thing about this, is that I do find a lot of it when I clean, but I can't help wonder how much gets swept up into the garbage and/or simply lost and never found again. I now have various jars and bowls on my desk where I throw all my various change at the end of the day. I bring my purse with me to my desk so it's at a logical location.

2. Watching movies in the theatres
Okay, you might be a little bit puzzled by this one, or not. I love seeing movies in theatres. Love it love it love it. Any movie that I am even the slightest bit interessted in I will go see it in the theatre. If I really like a movie I will go see it more than once. I think the first Pirates of the Caribeean I saw 4 times. I saw the second one twice and I will probably go see the third installment again. That's a lot of money spent on movies. Additionally, when you add in pop or a popcorn (I usually...ahem....'bring' my own in since I hate paying $4 for a candy bar) it does bring the total up to around $15-20 a movie. (Our ticket prices are $10.95). I need to cut down on the number of movies I see in the theatre, as well as not seeing a movie a second time. Some of the biggest blockbusters I do enjoy seeing in the theatre, especially because the special-effects are fun to see on the big screen. Other movies don't require the detail of the big screen.

3. Not recycling
Although my family (well, really only my mother) are avid recyclers, I have a horrible habit of just 'not caring' when I get out of the house. I buy bottled pop, water, whatever, and I throw it away before I get home. Again, it's not a large deal, however, I lose out $0.05 for every bottle that I buy and then toss without taking it to a bottle depot. Again, it hasn't added up to much i'm sure, however, it's still money. I'm trying hard to drink tap water and to keep my bottles with me until I get home to put them in the bin.

4. Buying small amounts of food/drink/etc 'on the go'I've already discussed previously how I eat out too much. In the past couple of weeks I have curbed my spending habits - brining a lot of stuff from home and trying not to eat out more than twice a week. However, by getting this habit out of the way I have exposed a sub-habit: buying little bits of food here and there. I have a bad habit of buying a drink here or a chocolate bar there and other$1-2 dollar-items all over the place. I figure this adds up to about $10 or so a week and it's an expense that i'm not even thinking about it. From now on I need to start carrying a mini water-bottle (I got a good quality one on the airplane which i'll use) as well as a granola bar if I happen to get hungry.

5. Not sticking to a planI'm a nerd when it comes to planning. I make lists and bugets and to-do's and all sorts of lists, however, I never stick to it. Ever. I have all sorts of these notes all over my life - computer, walls, journals, etc. I need to either cut down on the amount of lists that I make, or ensure to make only required lists. I also need to find a budget that I will stick too. I don't enjoy writing down every little thing I purchase because it becomes tiresome and I have trouble sticking to it. I need to find an alternative to keep my money in line.

6. Being messy
This kind of goes part-in-parcel with my losing money thing. I tend to lose money because i'm messy. But I also lose a great deal of other things too - travel stuff, books, pens, clothes, socks, knick-knacks, computer stuff, etc. This creates two problems: 1) Since everything is in a pile on my floor, I tend to step on things and break them. Case-in-point: My headphones. Yup, stepped on them because they were underneath a pile of clothes which I thought was all clothes. They work, I just snapped one of the headphone-holder-on-things. They should last a little bit longer assuming I don't step on them again. Problem 2) I don't try hard enough to look for things that I've lost and end up buying them again only to find the original one and be stuck with two. I usually end up returning the purchased one, but that creates more effort and time lost, etc. Case-in-point: My european travel converter thingy. I had two, one for Great Britain and another for Western Europe. I couldn't find the one I had for western Europe, and, seeing as I was supposed to leave in less than a week just bought another one (cost: $16.00 or something rediculous like that) only to return home to have (really, a first) look around the house and find it within 10 minutes. Then, of course, had to cart the purchased one back to the store and get a refund which took time and effort. I need to develop a better organisational system for all my various stuff so at least I have an idea of where something should be. I also need to take the time to plan ahead so that I know what I am going to need and actually spend time looking for it before buying another one.

7. Being brand-loyal and not checking out the competition
I admit it - I am brand loyal. I also don't like buying no-name stuff. I don't know why. I think it's because my mother always talked as though the no-name stuff was of a poorer quality. I imagine that sometimes it is, which somethings are probably identical. However, even knowing this, I love my Advil, Dove, Goody and MAC stuff. I need to start learning about how to tell the difference in quality, rather than in the name of a product. I also need to remember that buying brand-name or no-name stuff says nothing about my financial status.

8. Not cutting up/getting rid of old accounts/credit cards
Yup, this is a bad habit. For several reasons such as 1) Wasting money, 2) Identity Theft, 3) Credit damage (not sure if that's true, but it makes sense). I currently have a Bank of Montreal Mastercard that I haven't used in easily a year. Why haven't I cancelled it you ask? Well, a couple of reasons; 1) I'm lazy, 2) I don't like high-pressure situations, and 3) I'm lazy. I hate cancelling things. I just hate it. I remember I had a BMO Savings account that took me 3 months or so of it sitting empty before I finally cancelled it. They asked so many questions that eventually I just told them that I was moving to London (England) permanently. It worked, but I hate having to resort to petty lies to get my way. Luckily this card doesn't cost me anything in terms of a yearly fee, however, having it sitting there doing nothing doesn't do me much good either. It's high-time I just cancelled it, it just takes so much to get around to it. I need to stop making excuses and just cancel it. The same goes for extra bank fees that just show up on my statement. I need to talk to them right away, rather than waiting 3 months to see if they'll go away.

9. Buying books as opposed to borrowing
I'm sure lots of people are in this same situation, otherwise large-chain bookstores wouldn't do as well as they do. I remember one blogger stating that the only reason for buying books as opposed to borrowing them is to put them on their bookshelf for the world to see, and in a way, they are right. Most of the books that i've purchased over the years i'm proud to have read and display them on my bookshelf with great pride. However, adding up the total $$ that i've spent on non-school related books (school books are a completetly different story) makes me a little sad - especially on those books that I've only read once. From now on i'm borrowing all my books from the library. If I really like one in particular once i've read it, I will go out and see if I can find a copy to keep. The books that I already own and no longer read I will gather together and take them to a used book store to see if I can get any money back for them.

10. Buying things 'for the future'
This is one of those habits that can sound good on the surface, but really ends up being a money-hole after all. I visit a lot of garage sales with my mom (Yay! I love garage sales). The only problem is, I tend to buy things 'for the future' rather than 'for right now.' I have a small collection of items that I am saving for a future kitchen such as: And old style napkin dispenser, tupperware measuring spoons and a antique syrup-dispenser and salt and pepper set. Now, those are standards, yes, I admit that. However, my personality changes over time, and with that, my tastes. Who knows in 5 years what I will want my kitchen to look like? It may be nothing like what I want it to be now. Same thing goes for buying cookbooks. I don't know who I am trying to fool - I don't cook. At least not fancy - my cooking skills rest in the pasta/quesidilla/mac&cheese genre. I don't cook fancy crap and I really should stop buying fancy cookbooks simply because I have dreams of one day cooking fabulous meals for my family. At this point in my life it just doesn't make sense at all.

Well, there you have it. My top ten non-frugal habits in all their shame. What are yours?

How I rank myself...

I don't know whether it's just me, or a natural human-nature thing to do, but I constantly compare myself to those around me. All the time. I don't make fun of people in my head to make myself feel better, or anything like that. However, I like to see how I rank up to those around me.

I look around me and I see myself smack in the middle of a group of people - some who I deem are much more sucessful than myself and others who are less sucessful. Now, sucessful is a relative term. I don't consider being married with children 'sucessful' or 'unsuccessful.' It's a lifestyle choice, and one I'm not ready to make yet. However, things like 'owning a home' or 'owning a buisness' or being able to take vacations or having a huge savings account do factor in.

I try hard not to compare myself to people older than I am. My boss, for instance, owns a home and a sucessful buisness and has a great deal of expendable cash. I consider her sucessful, not only because she has all of that but because she is responsable with it. She works hard for it and I admire that. I know someone my age who just purchased a new home with his fiance. I'm jealous that he owns a home - even though I know they struggle to pay off the mortgage. I feel as though he is more successful than me. One of my closest friends lives in a sister-city to ours (about a half hour commute out of the city) who purchased a home with her hubby a couple years back. They really have a plan, he works/teaches out of their home, making part of their mortgage deductible on their taxes, not to mention a lot of the other stuff that he buys.

I also have a lot of friends who I feel are less sucessful than me. I have friends who have recently graduated and are $15,000 or so in debt with no plan on how to pay it off. The 6 month grace period is comming up fast and I worry about their situation. Most of them seem not to worry though, which makes me worry more! They seem to think it's part of the college process to graduate with debt, but I don't even want to think about how long it's going to take them to pay it all back, especially if they decide to move out right away. Those first jobs out of college don't always pay exceptionally well!

And, for the first time, I'm comparing myself to people I don't even know - YOU! I look around to a lot of the other financial bloggers and it's hard when I see people with net worths into the $400,000 range - I'm nowhere near that. However, I have no idea how old you all are. If you're 22 like me, then I feel like i'm completely slagging behind. At the same time, I see a lot of bloggers who are in mounds of debt. It's great that they are working towards being debt free. I feel as though I am more sucessful than some of them because I have no debt. Of course, I know none of your situations in-depth, so it's hard to compare lifestyles when I know nothing of yours.

I also have a couple of friends who I deem are less sucessful than me even though they have more money than I do. One friend, in particular, comes from a very wealthy family. She went to school in Scotland, and had the money to fly home many weekends (8 hour flight, mind you, but still!) and have her entire tuition and room/board paid for by her parents. She's never worked a job in her ENTIRE life and she's 22 now. So basically, one of two things will happen. Either she'll sail through life with lots of money, doing extravagent things and so forth. OR, she'll end up broke at 35 with no money because she never learned how to balance it all and make it work. Either way, i'm not sure I care. She was the kind of person who tried not to flaunt that she had a lot of money but it still managed to work its way into conversations. She just came off as though she felt as though she was better than you - a little pretentious I think. We're no longer friends, because I don't have the patience for that. I feel as though I am more sucessful than her since I think as though i'm getting more for my money than she is.

My other friend has the opposite problem. Her family was pretty average - didn't always have money but made it through just fine. Once her parents split up her mom (who she lived with) didn't always have money but they had a place to stay. Her mom eventually moved back home, leaving my friend to live with her grandparents while she finished school. She didn't have to pay rent, and the only bill she had (like me) was her $40 or so cell phone bill.

However, she never really decided on what to do in University and jumped around a bit before picking a major. Downside was that she racked up a good amount in credit during that time. Last time I saw she had $13,000 in debt from her line of credit and probably another $800 or so in credit card debt. That's pretty average I think, however, she then decided that working and being at school all at the same time was too much stress and promptly quit her job. She got an extention off of her line of credit and is living off that. Now, bad idea, right? Well, she isn't exactly, what you would call 'fiscally responsable' and still lives beyond her means. She has a lot of extravagent ideas and plans, but no real means to acheive those. She jumps around jobs a lot and never seems to settle. She is currently leasing a car (a debate I will get into later) for about $300 a month (paying with her line of credit) and still spending lots on frivilous things.

However, the thing that bugs me the most is that she's lucky. Things always seem to end up in her favor. She's recently landed a job which, although doesn't pay a whole lot, pays pretty good (Okay, this one's not luck, but the fact that she's sticking to it so far is good) and then yesterday she called me to tell me that her father is giving her $15,000 upon graduation to pay off all of her debts. Now, yes, that is a wonderful thing for her dad to do, however, that isn't really teaching her about the value of money if, everytime she gets into debt, she gets this magic gift of money to get her out of the hole.

She has suggested many times that if I bought a house she'd come live with me, and everytime I politely tell her 'maybe...sometime'. I don't have the heart to tell her no, but chances are she'd have other plans by the time I bought a house anyways.

Everyone seems to have that one friend, hey? I love her to bits, but I wouldn't hire her as my financial counsellor.

Now I know that this post has sounded very judgemental of me, and I'm sorry. I'm sure we all think things like that. I don't judge people for the situation that they are in (well, most people - there's a couple that I do) because it's not always their fault. However, it's how I compare myself to others in this big world!

Hmmm...2 posts today and it's only 10:00 a.m. Slow day at work so far!

And the House Prices today are....

...Here are some stats I pulled off http://www.jimsparrow.com/market-stats.php about the current housing prices in Calgary. I don't know if any of you live in Calgary, but this is pretty darn expensive. I remember (and here is when I start to sound old) when a good starter home was in the $160000 range. Siiigh. Well, here you go:

The average price of a Calgary house is now $473,876, up 13% from the end of January and 19% higher than the average house price the end of December 2006.

The average price of a Calgary condo is now $331,253, up 23% from the same period in 2006.

Uber siiiigh. And it's just Alberta, too! I could move to Saskatchewan and buy a perfectly wonderful home for $90,000. No jokes. Problem is, I don't want to move to Saskatchewan. Too bad their house prices couldn't come here.

I was talking yesterday to my mom about house buying and she called my desire to own a home in the next couple of years "ambitious." I'm not sure if she meant it in a good way or not. I know it's an ambitious goal, but I refuse to pay rent when I could be paying the same amount for a mortgage. I don't think she has faith in my ability to accomplish that. She said the same thing when I told her I wanted to save $20,000 (or 80%) of my income between now and next June. I think deep down she's trying to cushion the blow if I don't accomplish it, however, aiming to save only $10,000 instead of $20,000 isn't making the goal easier, really, it's just changing the outcome.

I'm seriously, SERIOUSLY hoping that the housing prices will start to drop and/or crash so that I could finally afford something other than a bench/shack/extra room in someone's garage...Hmmm.

Ka-bump, ka-bump...

So, i've hit a minor road block in my financial plan. Apparently I owe people money that I had forgotten about. Dammit. I hate that. My bad though, I completely forgot.

I owe my mom $702 for the British Pounds she purchased for me before the trip. She ordered extras and gave them to me. About £300 equals $702 with the horrible-exchange-rate of 2.34. Uuugh. Oh well. So, instead of splitting my last paycheque from Subway, I'll have to deposit that whole thing and then next month i'll have to deposit less into my savings/emergency fund in order to cover that extra cash. Too bad. I was all excited about finally getting this plan underway. Hmmm.

I also owe my sister some money but i'm not sure how much now. It was $400, however, some of the purchases that I made for both of us I took out of that $400. Eurostar tickets, which cost me: $366.54. So $183.27 was her share, brining the $400 down to $216.73. Hmmm. I'm sure that there is more that I took off of there, too, although I'm not sure how much. I'll have to e-mail her and ask (I'm too impatient to wait until tonight when I see her).

Hmmm...my saving plan may have to wait. Boo. Hiss.

Hmmm...I seem to have no control....

Of course, after I made it public to (potentially) the entire globe, I went and did preceisely what I said I wouldn't: Eat out for lunch.

Siiiigh. I even had a lunch! My friend who works a couple buildings over called to see if I wanted to go out. I assumed she meant out to a restaurant for lunch, so I didn't bring my sandwich. However, she meant out like, out to buy a smokie from the hotdog boy a couple streets over for $3. I could've just not eaten and ate when I got back, but then i'd make her feel bad. So I spent $3 on a hotdog and then another $2.85 on chocolate milk and a Kinder Bueno bar. The milk was good and the chocolate bar is sitting in my desk drawer, waiting for me to get the craving.

Yep. So at least now I have a lovely lunch waiting for me tomorrow. Which also means, no last minute morning packing of whatever I can find in the fridge lunch. Mmmm.

I have been thinking oh, the last 15 minutes or so (can you tell it's been a slow day here??) about my budget skills. I like to budget, I like thinking about budgeting and hell, I even enjoy making spreadsheets to organize said budgeting. However, I never get beyond the making stage. I never stick to said budget. Now, I do alright, financially concerned, so I can't complain. However, I am curious as to why I can't seem to stick to a budget.

I think it's because I can't be bothered to keep track of expenses. Which is odd, because you think someone who insits on spending cash for almost every transaction would be more inclined to write down her transactions rather than someone who uses a debit card and therefore has all of the transactions written down for them via the bank. However, I just don't care that much. I do keep a lot of my receipts but I rarely check them unless something goes wrong or needs to be returned.

I think I should look up different types of budgeting since there's got to be more financially inclined people like me, who hate being nitty-picky about details. Hmmm....I think googling is in order. But before that - back to work...for another half an hour before I head home.

The Justice Student, who is also a slacker...

I spend too much money on food...

...and that's sad.

So today, I'm at work, chillin out. I ran out of stuff to do, and remember that I was supposed to get paid this morning (since the job is new i'm not quite clear on the pay-shedule thing, but i've got it all figured out now!) so I trod over and check my TD Chequing Account. Yep, got paid. Woo hoo. A big 'ol $1,003.77 dollars. I feel very relieved since I can finally pay off my VISA balance that's been haunting me from the vacation. I now have a bank account balance that's in the green. Feels good.

I also got to put my original savings plan into action. I couldn't quite remember it, but the plan was, 80% of each paycheque into savings and 10% into emergency fund, with the remaining 10% being towards whatever I desire. Of course this deposit is a little small since, after paying the $454.59 balance on the VISA I only had $570.98 left to shuffle around. But that's better than spending it all and 'starting fresh next month' (a habit which I am horrible for...). So. 80% (around $458) was dropped into my newly-formed second ING Direct Account so lovingly named 'savings' which now holds a grand total of....$458.

The 10% (around $57) was kerpluncked into my existing ING Direct Account that has been renamed 'Emergency Fund' which now holds a total of about $117 dollars. I can't remember what my original goal for the emergency fund was, since all my dork-induced spreadsheets are at home, but I will remember that for tomorrow.

I also have a paycheque from Subway (the last one..sniff..sniff) that I have yet to deposit and will do on my lunchbreak today. However, i'm debating whether or not I should leave this one completely in the chequing account or shuffle it around according to the plan?

If I did shuffle it around, I would only be left with about $100 in my chequing accound to make do with until the 15th of next month. That would usually be just fine except that I have a very close friend's wedding comming up next month, for which I have yet to buy a gift for. Since i've known him for a long time and we used to be very close, I don't want to just buy him some tableclothes and a dishrack from his registry...I would like to buy a 'nice' gift - something in the vicinity of $100-120. So I may split the paycheque from Subway, throwing half into Chequing and the other half split between emergency fund and savings. That way, everyone gets a little bit.

Anyways! Back to the original point of this post (man...do I ever get off topic fast!). So, i'm looking over my online statements for my TD Chequing Account and think to myself 'I'm at work, printing is free, I might as well print them out!' (I hate printing things out at home, even though my printer is good for money, it just seems like such a waste). So I print out my last 6 statements (as much as they had on record) and leaf through them. All of a sudden I realize that there is a lot of debits on my account for food purchases. Fine, I think to myself, I do eat out about twice a week with friends, sure. So then, my super-anal-organizational side comes out and I decided to go through them all and categorize them. So, my friends, here you have it, my spending patterns for the last 6 months:

TD Chequing Account (Not including today's lovely shuffling-around):
Deposited: $10,803
Cash Withdrawls: $731.50
Bought EURO Currency: $2,178.92
Food: $195.25
Bank Fees: $37.62 (This is also larger than normal because of an accidental overdraft incident...stupid fees)
Transfered to ING Account: $100
Paypall (for Ebay Puchases): $685.18 (This is also larger than normal due to a puchase of a Chanel Purse....)
Bought for Self (Books, movies, etc..): $121.04
Cheques to pay off Amex: $480.72
Gifts: $100
VISA Payments: $7,620.41 (Eeek! I'll explain why this is freaking huge now)

Okay, now onto the VISA:
Tuition: $4,221.35 (school is so expensive!)
Flights, Eurostar, bookings, etc: $2,101.34 (This is unusual spending, I don't usually take trips all the time)
Food: $278.32
Clothes: $423.13 (This is also unusual, new job required buisness attire - old job got free uniform)
Makeup: $105.89 (Also uncharacteristic, but can't really blame this one on anything..heh)
General (including stationary, wallet, sunglasses, admission to things, etc): $738
Gifts: $264.50
Books: $17.35
Games (Yay Nintendo DS!): $43.45
Interest paid: $1.98 (not bad but it couldn't been 0 - my stupid mistakes!)

Okay, so, i've defended a lot of my spending. The trip was a once-time thing. I don't plan on taking another large-scale trip for at least a year or so. Until then no more big-trip spending. The clothes were also unusual spending. I rarely buy new clothes. Jeans and t-shirts work out quite well for me. However, new job required buisness-casual clothes, and although I wear jeans, they have to be 'nice' jeans and somehow I didn't think my 'Green Day' t-shirt was going to cut it. So I had to buy some blouses and tank tops and the like. Fortunatly I got a lot of this stuff during a scratch and save event so I did manage to save about 30%, which was nice.

$473.57 is the total amount i've spent on food. So about $80 a month. I think that that's quite large seeing as I don't buy groceries. I'm lucky enough that my parents still buy groceries for the whole household. So that money is spent entirely on fastfood and/or restaurant food. So easily that's 2-$20 eat-in meals and 4-6 $8 fast food meals. I think that's excessive. I started out here (I work downtown, in the abundance-of-fast-cheap-bad-for-you-food center) bringing my lunch a lot, but laziness did eventually kick in and I had to go roaming for food. I'm back to brining my lunch, in order to keep things exciting I'm going to try mixing it up and bringing interessting things for lunch. For now i'm very excited about my salami sandwhich (i'm such a dork - I love pre-packaged meats) and potato salad for lunch. But think about it! That's easily $1,000 a year on food that could have been avoided! Hmm...I wonder what that would be upon retirement if I saved all that money for this year... Hmm.

Now, of course, i'm not going to hermit-myself into my home and never go out, but maybe I'll have to rethink all of my eating out plans. I mean, I can get chicken, burgers, and all sorts of fried-goodness at home, why should I go out? I'll have to remember that.

Well, i'm off to have lunch. And it's sitting here in the fridge!

I'm back from the dead!

Okay, maybe not the dead. But from tiring 7 day a week working and vacations, to name a few. I left on vacation on May 8th, 2007 and just got back on the 24th. I quit my other job before I left and now am only working 5 days a week. I'm glad I left when I did because I couldn't keep up that pace. For those of you who do it, I applaude you, because I sure can't keep it up.

Vacation was fun. For those who didn't know I went on vacation, thanks for the comments (3 Things about Money- Greatly Appreciated!) - it's nice to know someone reads all my ramblings. I went to Paris for the first week with my sister and then spent a week in London with my mom and my grandmother. It was a lot of fun, and I had a blast, despite some minor setbacks. First of all, Air Canada, being the lovely organisation that they are, lost my luggage.

We had a layover in Toronto (Flew Calgary to Toronto, Toronto to London, Eurostar from London to Paris all in 2 days) and apparently Toronto is horrible for getting luggage from point A to point B. Of course, I knew none of this and so had a 1.5 hour layover in Toronto. My sister's luggage arrived just fine from Toronto however, mine was not to be seen. The guy I dealt with was awesome, however. He appologized and was very helpful. He gave me free toiletries (I'm such a nerd for travel-sized toiletries and enjoyed my little bag of freebies) and told me that my luggage would most likely arrive on the next plane from Toronto. It was now about 7:30 in the morning and he said the next plane arrived at around 8:30 and asked if I wanted to stay around and wait. I said sure (hoping that it would arrive) and waited. Problem was, we had Eurostar tickets departing from Waterloo International Station at 10:10 and we were currently at Heathrow. To make a long story short, luggage didn't arrive on the next flight, we had to leave, tube line from Heathrow Airport to Waterloo Station was suffering from "severe delays" and we arrived at the Eurostar terminal 15 minutes before our train was due to depart. We got threw security, booked it to the train, got on and 3 minutes later, train departed. Holy-close-cutting Batman! Needless to say we were a little stressed. Just a little. Yep. Fortunatly they found my luggage and shipped it to my little apartment in Paris. It arrived two days later on the friday. That was really the only major stressful part of the trip.

During my vacation I spent about as much as I had planned to. The plane tickets cost me about $800, the Eurostar tickets about $150. The apartment in Paris cost us each about $228 for the week and my mom paid for the apartment in London (saving us each about $400 for the week). We brought with us about 600 Euros and 350 Pounds for the trip. I brought back 260 Euros having not really bought anything in Paris besides the odd knick-knack. I spent a lot more in London. I bought an umbrella from the original umbrella-maker-people (James Foster & Sons I think it was) which ran me 49.50 pounds (roughly 120 bucks). It's a gorgeous umbrella, i'm actually hoping for the rain now. I'm planning to make it last me the rest of my life, as long as I take good cair of it.

I also bought a Mason Pearson Hairbrush which was also 49.50 pounds. For those of you who have seen The Devil Wears Prada, these hairbrushes are mentionned rather briefly at one point. Man, am I ever so glad that I bought this hairbrush. I have reasonably long hair and it's been lovely. I bought the 'normal' hair one which is made with Boar Bristle and it feels so good on my head. I'm one of those people who usually has to shower everymorning otherwise my hair can get greasy and not look so good and since i've been using this hairbrush, i've only had to wash my hair once every 3 days or so. I don't know how it works, something about exfoliating the scalp and moving oils around or something. But man, it works. I also suffer from dandruff (which was known to get pretty bad if I wore my hair down) and I've notived a significant drop in flakes, too. I'm loving it!

My last, and most luxurious purchase was a pair of Chanel Sunglasses, running me about $400. I got the forms for the VAT refund (if you're ever in London, I would encourage you to do this, since the VAT tax is 17.5% of your purchase and you are entitled to get most (if not all) of it back since you're not a resident of the UK) and have about $50 heading back my way in a coupld of weeks. This was a purchase that I had set the money aside for, and I am very pleased with them. They aren't the huge, bug-eyed ones that seem to be popular right now (I don't enjoy looking like a bug) but more streamlined, less over-the-top ones. THey are green and brown (colors I wear very frequently) and look pretty good, I think. I am enjoying them, although my money-savvy friends are still shocked that I bought them. I am too, a little bit, but i'm also hoping to make these babies last. There ain't no way i'm doing this every year.

Other minor things I bought were scarves at Portobello Road Market (i'm a huge scarf wearer and they are dirt cheap there), pasta at Disneyland (Mickey Mouse Pasta and Disney Princess Pasta - cheapest gifts! 2.90 Euro for the big bags and 1.90 Euro for the small, and everyone loves 'em!), little Eiffel Tower keychains from the Street vendors in Paris, random knick-knacks at the science museum in London (coolest gift shop ever) and a crap-load of chocolate (gonna last me the year and i'm not even kidding!).

All in all I spend about $2500 on this trip, which ain't too bad considering I spent about $5,000 on the last trip. However, I am still sour about the exchange rates in the UK and Europe, so i'm thinking next vacation will have to be somewhere with a favorable exchange rate. I'm thinking Thailand? I've always wanted to go there, but i'm not sure if i'm willing to take the leap out of my creature comforts. I might have to just head to the United States with my saved American Cash - the exchange rate for the States is almost at 1:1 so I can't complain. I remember when the Canadian dollar was at .60 to the American, so we've come a long way.

I'm anxious to get back to work and start earning some money again. I have my last paycheque from Subway in my wallet, waiting to get deposited and the other paycheque from this job should be going through in the next couple of days. I'll feel much better when I have a positive balance again. Right now my credit card has my Chanel Sunglasses and Tower of London admission sitting on it and my chequing account is sitting at $21 dollars. Once I get those two paycheques I can balance everything out and start putting that money away. Gotta get to my $20,000 grand goal for savings.

I have a dilemna, too. You know how I applied for that line of credit to use while I was on vacation? Well, ING Direct called me and needed copies of my last 3 years worth of Tax Return statements. Okay sure, no biggie. But I couldn't find 2004 and forgot to send them in before I left. Now that i'm back, I don't really need the line of credit anymore, and it's not like they have been harassing me to get the forms in. I'm tempted to just not send the stuff in and leave it at that, but I hate leaving stuff like that half-finished. I don't know how much trouble i'd have to go through to call them and tell them that I don't need it anymore. Oh well. I think i'll wait to see if they contact me looking for the forms or not. Either that or i'll just go ahead and get it anyways, you never know, I may need it in the future. Hmmmm.

Anyways, looking forward to catching up on the past month of all your blogs, hope you are all doing well!

The Justice Student

Body...slowly....falling apart

I've been working 7 days a week for the past 3 weeks and I'm reaching my breaking point. There are a million things I have to do, like laundry (which should've been done tonight but wasn't) and room cleaning and decluttering of random parts of life. I've graduated and I feel as though I should move on, but I'm stuck because I have no time to throw away class notes and donate old textbooks and do any of that 'moving on' stuff.

I have great respect for those who work 7 days a week because I can't do it. I don't get a day off until I leave on vacation. It's stressful, because when I get home from work, I don't feel like doing anyting because i'm exhausted - either mentally or physically. Or both.

Take today, for example, I worked 12 - 8 at Subway (the 'old' job) and it was busy. Lots of new people there, and as much as they do try, it's frustrating because I am doing my own job and ensuring that they are doing their job. Fine. It's done. Tonight was supposed to be laundry night and finishing the itinerary for Paris night. Well its 11:17 p.m. and i've been sitting here since roughly 8:45 p.m. watching the Pearl Harbor movie with the useless Ben Afleck with my dad. We've been talking about war (i'm fascinated by war and love studying it) and thinking about how I should be doing my laundry. Now the sister and her boyfriend are sleeping downstairs so I can't even start a load now. So i'll have to do it in the morning. Oh well. I'll do it then.

But, i'm feeling the drag of working 7 days a week. I yearn for a day to sleep in and lay on the couch and finally get stuff done. I have to admit, the extra money is nice to pay for Tuition and Europe Stuff but I won't be able to continue it when I return. I admire people like my boss at Subway who works 7 days a week straight through the year. I can't remember the last day she didn't show up. Even on Christmas day when the store was closed she showed up to do extra work. I couldn't do that, and if you do it, that's great. I really admire that.

I'm tired, and I think I'll be heading off to bed soon to get my 7 hours of sleep before it starts over again. Take care all.

The Big Debate

So, I hope you all are doing well. I'm doing well today, other than the fact that I feel very poor. VERY poor. I ordered the Euros from the bank, and they withdraw the money before I get the Euros back, so I feel as though my money is in limbo. Hopefully they'll be in today. As well, I spent about $20 on lunch today. I used to have quite a bit of money in the bank and tend to always go out for lunch or spend money when i'm with friends. It's not too bad, although I don't feel as though I can affoard it right now. So for the next couple of weeks i'll be laying low.

This new job that I have has thrown a major life-altering question my way. I'll be making about $25,000 between now and next spring. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot when I'm still living with my parents and paying 40$ a month on my only bill (my cell phone bill.) The plan for this year is to save $20,000. I don't know for what, yet, and that's the problem.

You see, I could do two (as I see it, maybe three, but the third option - travel the world and blow it all, doesn't seem like a logical thing to do) things with this money: Save it, or; buy a car.

The car I want is a Toyota Yaris. Midnight blue. 4 door, hatchback. Yup. Runs me about $17,000 after tax and their "graduate rebate." Although, I did read somewhere that the price is negotiable. Now, i'm not the greatest haggler nor the greatest bargainer, but I am thrifty and stubborn enough that I might be able to argue someone down. I also love the idea of paying cash (or debit - or, even credit card to rack up the Airmiles - that would be sweet). That's option number 1 - and it would leave me with some pocket cash to put towards gas or insurance or "pimping it out" - Juuuust kidding.

Second option - Save it. The number one thing I would be saving for is a downpayment on a house. This would require 2/3 years of saving because, as you see, I live in Calgary. Where is Calgary, you ask? Well, we host the Calgary Stampede each year, apparently "The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth" or so they tell us. And we're also the fastest growing city in Canada. With the oil and gas money that flows into our town, we have a booming economy. The problem is, is that the average house price in Calgary was $457,624 in 2006 and for Condos: $326,645 in 2006. These are up around 22% from the previous year. That's not even a fancy house - that's your run-of-the-mill house. They've jumped more this year i'm sure - and they say that house prices are due to double in the next 20 years. At that rate, I couldn't even get a mortgage approved, let alone make the payments. I was hoping that the house market would crash just a little bit so that I could afford a house. I would much rather purchase a house and make the mortgate payments then pay the average $960 dollars a month for an apartment.

That is what i'm debating between. On one side, having a car would be sweet, on the other hand, owning a home at 22 would be sweeter. The problem is, can I really afford either?

I don't have a driver's licence. I have a learners. That's it. This may surprise you, most people judge me for it. But I don't have a desire to drive. Never really had. I'm quite content taking public transit for all my needs. I work downtown, I live next to train station, a mall, a video store, a thrift store and two grocery stores. I'm quite content. However, if I were to purchase a car, I would have to take Driver's Ed classes (run about $300 I think), the Driving lession (assuming I don't fail by smacking a car when I try to parallel park) $80, and some sort of "Learn about your car" classes ($80ish) because I am not going to be one of those gals who blows a tire and just stands at the edge of the road, waiting for help. So that's $460 dollars before I even own the car. As well, because I'm a brand-spanking new driver, insurance is going to well, be a bitch. TDCanadaTrust tells me that for a brand new Yaris i'd pay $2835/year for Car insurance. So, that brings the grand total up to a peek over $20,000. There goes my savings. And a very large dent off my paycheque for every year afterwards. Now, i'm not a huge car enthusiast but it just seems like an awful lot of work during the year and all that i'll have to show for it at the end is a car. Meh. I just shrug, really, at the idea. I think I just talked myself out of it, heh.

The only problem with option number two is that I don't think I can afford a house. ING Direct (my gifters of the oh-so-nice $5,000 credit account) would only approve me for a mortgage of $50,000. I couldn't buy a bench downtown to sleep on for $50,000. TDCanada Trust would give me Homeowner's insurance for the year for just shy of $700. That's not too bad, I guess. I'm not really sure. But I don't think that a $20,000 deposit is enough. I'd probably have to save for another year, maybe gathering about $50,000 in total for a down-payment. With a down payment of $50,000, ING Direct would offer me a mortgage of $66,688.00. Nope, still no house. I think i'm SOL on this one.

I think that my last and only option is to hoard it all. My ING Direct account has 3.5% interest, which is okay for now. If I put my $20,000 grand in there, i'll make at least an extra $700 dollars - which, is actually kind of pathetic. I'm sure there's a better place to put my money.

That's what I've been battling with recently, what do you think about where I should put my money?

That's all for today, folks!

My largest purchases

Well, I talked a bit yesterday about some of the purchases i'd like to make whilst in Britain and Paris. Those are some pricey purchases, I suppose, although they are not the most expensive purchase i've ever made.

I took a year off between High School and College in order to work full time and earn some money. I think I probably pulled off about $16,000 that year in savings. I had never before earned that kind of money, and it was a little overwhelming, but fortunatly my urge to hoard it all came into play and I ended up keeping most of it. Until just recently, I was debt-free. I've done all the classes required for my degree, now all I have to do is the two semester-long work terms. I will have to use my line of credit to pay for them, but fortunatly I am making money while working so I won't have to carry that debt for very long.

While in my first year at college I bought my laptop and a brand new camera. The laptop was around $1,800 and my camera ran me a little over $800. Both are still with me, although the laptop is comming close to kicking it hard. My camera survived my last trek to Europe as well as many a road trip. It's comming with me again, and I hope to use it for many many years. The laptop doesn't turn on very well anymore, which, I think, bothers me more than anything else that could go wrong with it. The fact that it works just fine when I can get it on frustrates me because the little on/off switch would probably cost more to replace than the computer is worth. But, it's like, I have a perfectly good computer that just won't turn on. It's like a brand new car that won't start. Arrgh. Sometimes it turns on just fine, other times I have to press down on the switch while pushing random parts of the keyboard to get it on. It's actually rather comical watching me try to get this machine running.

Both of those purchases I count as necessary. My laptop has become an extension of myself in both school and personal life. I am also an avid photographer and can't go anywhere on a trip without taking it along - I couldn't travel without it! Both of those i'm very pleased with.

My biggest non-necessary purchase EVER in my life was a Chanel purse off Ebay. I bought it, i'd say about 7 mos ago. It cost me around $450 dollars I think, once I added in tax and shipping, etc. Some would argue that it was a good purchase because the purse is sold at retail for over $2,000 and it's a limited edition so the resale on it might prove beneficial. But I can't count on that, since it's a very odd non-typical Chanel purchase. I don't know if any of you are at all familiar with Chanel purses, mine is nicknamed the "2005 bag" although it was made in 2000. I'll find a picture and try to figure out how to add it in. It's a hard sided bag, burgundy tweed in an almost 'tear-drop' shape. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it on Ebay. I placed a max bid of $400 dollars and waited it out. Well, in the last second I was outbid and it ended up selling for over $600. I was saddenned but thought it was probably for the best and moved on. I still checked Ebay for other types of bags, but they were all priced far outside of my range. To make a long story short, whoever sold it had a second one and put it up for auction and I won it. I remember my boss at Subway gave me permission to use the register computer internet connection to check my auction because I was at work when the auction ended. The whole day I probably shook with excitement and nervousness. Of course, the Ebay bug catches on fast and I probably ended up bidding more than I could of affoarded. But I made it work, and I got it in the mail a week or so later.

I love the feeling of carrying a designer purse. Some people love bragging to people how much money they spent on it, I love the feeling of knowing that I got it for a steal compared to someone who paid full price. I once wandered into the Chanel store here in my city, the salespeople took one look at me (grubby jeans, tshirt and a backpack) and turned up their noses. With my purse I can walk in there and they treat me like a million bucks... suckers. Not that I'll ever buy anything from them out of spite, I enjoy walking in there, having them turn up their noses, then flashing them the bag and having them fall over themselves. I am mean like that, but it's fun sometimes.

That's really my only large-scale impulse purchase. And I think it'll do me for a long time. I'm more focused now on saving money for something big like a car or a home.

I'll continue my car vs. home debate later when i'm bored...most likely in a couple of hours.

New job and new stress

Well, it has been a while since i've updated this thing. Not much has happened to me recently. Well, actually, come to think of it, that's a bit of a lie.

I've started my new job, and it's working out quite comfortably, actually. It's a different type of stressful than my last job at Subway. This one is more intellectually stressful. I don't know what to do with everything or how to do some things, and that stresses me out. This morning 4 calls came in all within 10 minutes - which was a little stressful - putting people on hold and trying to ensure that I don't accidentally hang up on them while doing so - I'm only now getting a grip on how to use these multi-line phones and fax machines and stuff! My other job was stressful in a busy busy busy way. There was a lot to do in a small frame of time, but at least I knew how to do everything and more. I'm enjoying the difference but it'll take some time getting used to. Until then, having 2 jobs looks nice to the bank account.

I ordered $2,200 worth of Euro's on friday - that took a big dent out of the bank account. Now all I have is a couple hundred left in the accound and a $100 balance on the VISA. Because i'm just starting out at the new job, I'm not sure when I'm going to get paid, but by the end of May I should have about $3,000 from this job and about $500 from the old job waiting for me, which will feel nice.

Last time I went on vacation my finances were struggling and I had just been rehired at the Subway job, which I had quit, thinking I had enough money - truth was, I didn't, and I went back. But it was a stressful time, financially, and because of that, when I was on vacation I didn't spend a lot of money. Now I don't regret not spending money on trivial things like beer and food - I made do quite fine buying groceries and not drinking. I'm not a drinker anyways and I loved going into the grocery stores and finding fun German cookies and French cheese MmmMmm. But I do regret not buying things. Most of the time I just talked myself out of buying pretty much anything I wanted because it was so expensive - especially with the exchange rate. This time I'd like to be able to spend some money (not ALL of my money, of course) on a couple of things:
1. A Mason Pearson Hairbrush (I have really long hair and would love a proper hairbrush)
2. A proper English umbrella (Not that it rains a lot here in the Canadian Prairies but I think i'd like to have a fashionable umbrella for when it does)
3. Chanel sunglasses (I have a love-obsession with Chanel, and since buying my first Chanel purse off Ebay would love a pair of proper sunglasses).

Those are the major purchases i'd like to make - Which will probably run me about $500. But that's what I'm expecting to pay - and I'm pleased with it.

I'll tell the story of the Chanel purse another time. Heh. It's quite a story.

Take care everyone!

GST Refunding It up!

I got my approval letter for my ING Direct "Credit Account" yesterday! I'm very pleased. The interest rate is prime + 4.9% which adds up to around 10%. It's not great, but for my first line of credit, I will take it! I'll only be borrowing $2,000 for one month, so i'll only pay $20 to have that cash. I think that's totally acceptable. My Dad seems to have a big issue with it, but when my credit cards are sitting at 20+%, 10% is nothing.

I also got my GST refund in the mail, too, yesterday. $80 some-odd dollars. I'm pleased. It's more than I was expecting.

I bought my Eurostar tickets for my sister and I when we travel from London to Paris and back in the spring. I am kicking myself for not buying them earlier, since the price had jumped about 10 GBP a person. But it's done and done. Paid 158GBP and charge went through on the credit card as $366.55. Exchange rate was 2.26 and VISA charged me 2.319. Not nearly as bad as I thought. Tickets are in the mail and on their way to me. Very exciting. I will feel better when I have the tickets in hand, because I hate waiting for International Mail.

Now all that's left to do before the vacation is buy the Euros. My Mom already ordered all the GBP that we needed, but I'm on my own for the Euros. I will do that as soon as my sister decides how much she wants to spend while we are there. She wants to do some shopping at some designer boutique by a guy named Alexander McQueen. I don't really know anything about him but apparently she loves him - and, living in Canada doesn't exactly provide her with the high-class shopping experiences she'd love. That's ok. It's her money.

New job is going good. Very slow here, but I like the change. It will be nice when I actually start getting paid, as for now I am just training. Well, pre-training. Next week is official training, then I am off! The job is not too hard, I am worried that I may get bored here, but that's ok. I could use some bored. I'm looking forward to being able to work alone, which is a liberty I never had at my old fast-food job.

I feel like i'm finally starting to grow up - it's a nice feeling. Now all I need is a car and a mortgage. Hmmm.... Maybe i'll wait for now.

RSP's and 38 million dollars

So, up here in Canada we had a &38 million dollar lottery wednesday night. I did what I usually don't do and bought some lottery tickets. I didn't win. Boo. Oh well. I'm not terribly disapointed since I never truly believe that I am going to win, however, it is nice to dream once in a while.

I got my taxes back yesterday. This year I actually didn't do anything wrong! Usually I forget to adjust something minor and it usually results in an extra $10 bucks or so. This year I was right on the money. I also discovered that I can deposit $6,000 some-odd dollars into an RSP this year. I've gotten notices like these ever since I started doing my taxes a couple of years back- but I never really gave it much thought. I think this year may be the year to open one up. I'll actually be making a decent amount of money this year - so I would be able to swing it. I'll have to re-work my budget, though, which is alright since it's not set in stone anyways because I haven't gotten my pay schedule all sorted out.

My new job (from what the other guy told me) pays pretty odd. I get paid on the 15th of every month and then the 3rd last friday. So basically I have one huge paycheque - tallying up about 25 days or so, then another tiny one that barely covers 5. It's strange, but I'll deal with it if that's the way it has to be.

I have to fill out some tax forms for the school too. Because i'm doing my work term, the school pays me and then my company reimburses the school. Because of that I have to fill out a couple of forms - TD1's, I think they're called - to determine how much (if any) taxes I want taken off. It's a horribly confusing form so I may just wing it and see how much taxes come off - I get them all back anyways since I have so much tuition banked from previous years. $11,000 provincial and $18,000 federal, to be exact. I don't quite know what the whole 'banking' thing is, so this year's taxes may have to be done by a professional who knows what they are talking about.

I get some weird pride in doing my own taxes, though. It's a strange accomplishment for me knowing that I'm doing them myself and I don't have to pay anyone else to do them for me. My friends always seem shocked when I tell them I do them myself. Mine really aren't that hard - income, tuition, total. That's about it. I don't have dependents or rental properties or anything, really. I'm sure when my life gets more complicated i'll seek out a tax-return professional. Until then i'm keeping that extra $20 bucks and spending it somewhere fun.

Until tomorrow, keep saving!

Laughing all the way to the bank...

So remember that I had posted that TD had turned me down twice for a student line of credit? Well, I also have an ING Direct Savings account, so on a whim today (while I was in class none the less) I applied for their credit account. Now I don't need $5000, but since that is the minimum one could apply for, I went for that. I filled in all the details, thinking that this is never going to get approved. BAM! Less than 15 minutes later I received an email saying that my application had been approved and the paperwork was in the mail to me. So I'm clueless why TD would turn me down for $2000 but ING Direct happily forwarded me $5000. I'm beginning to lean closer and closer to the idea of dropping TD altogether and sticking with ING Direct.

I also made a budget for the upcomming year. The first few months will be difficult because I don't quite know how often I get paid or how many deductions will be comming off my paycheque. Once I know that this budget will be much better. However, I've decided that I will put away 85% of my paycheque (roughly $20,000) into my savings account. This will provide me with the funds to purchase a vehicle or start investing or make a downpayment on a home - whatever I'd like. I think that that is a reasonable amount. On top of that 10% (roughly $2,500) will be dedicated to my newly-created 'emergency fund.' Although at the moment if I had an emergency I am still living at home and would most likely be able to make it without a fund, I think it's good to get on top of it. The remaining 10% will be mine to enjoy. I have a $500/year cellphone to pay off, plus driver's ed classes to take and possibly a laptop to upgrade.

I'm thinking about opening an RSP - I think it's really good to start young. However, I know absolutely nothing about RSPs, so I'm going to have to either talk to my dad or talk to a finance professional. I find it difficult to find information on the internet about Canadian RSPs - everything from America isn't completely relevent. If I did open an RSP, I think I would try to put into it the maximum possible this year (I think it ends up being less than $1,500) and maybe re-allocate some funds. We'll see.

While I do have some savings and have the next 6 weekends or so at my old job before I quit, I'll probably end up spending much of it on vacation. It'll end up being about $800 that I'll have acquired before I quit. Last time I went on vacation I was pinching the penny and ended up comming home and regretting not purchasing some things. I'd like to feel, this time around, that I have the funds to make some purchases without feeling horrably guilty. The American money that I am saving is for a day when I decide to visit the United States. Until then it remains locked up, change rolls and all.

Whatever is left of that spending money when I return will be forwarded to the line of credit that I used to pay for the Directed Field Study (the work practicum - that's right, I have to pay my school in order to earn the credits while working at my job - yes it does suck). Hopefully that will be paid off completely by June 1st.

That's all for today, folks.

So what have I got?

Well, I figured that since this is a financial blog per se, I should let you all know where I keep the mountain (or pile, or puddle, more likely) of cash that i'm sitting on.
TD Chequing Account: $965.26
ING Savings Account: $256.64
USA Savings: $902
AmEx: $0
Mastercard: $0
VISA: $0

That's where I stand. My cheqing account is at a high I haven't seen in a couple of months - I was pleased when I broke the thousand-dollar range, however, that has falled again. When I was at my previous job (working till, mostly), I collected American change and bills from the register. The change I bought at face value, and much of the bills I also bought at face value. $ is the amount that I have collected since fall of 2004. Unfortunately, I have given my notice at that job to pursure more Justice-related careers so I won't have that luxury anymore. But it's served me well: Now all I have to do it wait for the Canadian dollar to drop again so that US stuff will be worth something.

Something else you should know about me: I'm terrified of debt. Absolutely terrified. Once a check I wrote for my AmEx put my chequing account into something like 75 overdraft and I freaked out. I didn't sleep well, I couldn't eat. I couldn't spend a single penny until I knew that my account was in the positives again. Of course, it bounced back within days, but for those few days I was a wreck. This has served me well in the past but I will have to get over it for the future. In the past this has kept me from overspending or overcharging my multiple credit cards. In the future when debt may be neccesary I will have to face it and learn to deal with it.

For this very reason I took a year off between High School and college to work full time and earn some money. I earned $15000 some-odd dollars - more than enough to cover the first couple years - and I've worked part-time ever since then. I've been fortunate enough to have an amazing boss. She let me work the hours and the days that I wanted/needed to and gave me appropriate time off when I needed it. I also was lucky enough to live at home with parents that didn't ask for rent or grocery money. My only expense was my cell phone which (still) runs me about $40/month. I took a trip to Europe last spring with a class and that ran me about $4000 and the trip this spring is looking to run me about $2000. I like to live by the mantra that I need to travel while i'm still young and unmarried and un-childrened. Not that you can't travel when you are all those things, but I am very selfish (and I think that it's good for me) and like to do things my way and for me - especially when I am paying for it.

Seeing as $1800 some-odd dollars are due in tuition at the end of April, I am forced to either borrow money from my dad or from my sister to cover for it. I am leaving on 3 weeks vacation (most of which is already paid) to Europe and want to save every available dollar for conversion to British Pound. I dislike the idea of borrowing from my little sister, because it's the concept behind that. She's my little sister, and she has more money than me. It's not a big deal since she only spent one year in college and has worked full time for a year now, but it's the concept. I could borrow the money from my dad, but then he'd most likely charge me interest seeing as he'd be taking it directly off of his line of credit. But, i'd better decide soon.

I actually applied for a TD CanadaTrust student line of credit and they turned me down. That made sense to me seeing as I have no assets. No car, no house, no nothing. However, they still turned me down when my mother and I applied together. I got pissed off, and, as stubborn as I am, I am not going to call them and see if we can come to some arrangement. I am just going to seek alternatives and refuse to let them have any of my money. Suckers. I'm not bitter at all. No. Of course not.

This post ended up being a lot longer than I had originally planned. But I hope it was of interest to you. Stay tuned for more fun, finance-related nonsense!

Who Are You?

Who am I, you ask? Well, as the title of the blog says it all, I am a Justice Studies Student. Justice Studies is the fancy term for 'Criminology' or other law-type-CSI studying. The title is supposed to encompass everything related to the study of crime, although I do feel that it is a poor title because I do have to explain it to each and every person I talk to.
I am also a financial whore. I read, talk and breathe finances. Which is ironic since I don't actually know much about it all. I'm reading financial blogs like there is no tomorrow, trying to absorb every tidbit of information that I possibly can. One problem, however, I live in Canada.
Now, I don't really think of this as a problem, I really enjoy living here. However, all the financial blogs out there that I find are from America. They talk about things that I'm not sure are relevent to me. I must track down some good sassy Canadian financial blogs.
So with this blog I hope to tell you all about my life and my finances and hopefully you can enlighten me with your knowledge. Either that or you'll spam me. Either way, it's nice to know someone looks at your blog. Enjoy!