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?