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!