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!

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

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.

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!