Shifting Money

Hump Day! While BF is away I made it a goal for myself to make a few little changes when it comes to my day to day banking now that I only have one job. Yesterday I walked to the bank where I had PT job cheques deposited to and where I had my wedding account and I closed both accounts. I then opened a new high interest esavings account with my main bank and moved the wedding money over there. I have also called and cancelled an old credit card I had kicking around that I never used. I had only opened it because I worked at the store it was from.

I still have a few more little tweaks to make hopefully tomorrow (my pay day) but am going to try to get back into talking about finances and debt repayment as I seemed to have drifted away! Hopefully I can get a minimum of 20 hours of overtime to submit while BF is away and get that Visa down quicker!

My Faves Lately

I haven’t been posting much lately but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been around! Here are my most recent favorite blogs from around the interwebs:

Fun, Cheap or Free

Frugally Blonde

and an old favorite Frugalwoods

I’m also on book 5 of the Harry Potter series and am excited that it looks like I’ll be able to reread the entire series this summer. What have you been up to this summer? Any new blogs you’ve been reading?

Debt Update July 2015

Well it’s here again!  Debt update day!  Unfortunately it’s not as good as I had hoped thanks to a few car repairs and a little robbing Peter to pay Paul. I’ll update my side bars shortly as once again I’m posting from my phone.

Debt as of July 18, 2015

Student line of Credit : $8286.08
Visa: $3746.62 😦

Total: $12032.70

BF left this morning for a whole week and while I’m kinda bummed out it does provide me the opportunity to work a lot of overtime and maybe even sell some things online to make up for the repairs.

Hope your debt update is better than mine this month!

A Little Help

Hi All! not much is new since my last post except for the fact that we’ve starting replacing the deck, the did all the demo yesterday and drilled holes for the new posts. Of course they were bound to find a few issues/rot that needs to be addressed but so far nothing too bad. Unfortunately they started late and the deck won’t be done for Canada Day (tomorrow) womp womp…

Yesterday I was sitting at work and the following email conversation happened between myself and my father:

“When are you getting your Jeep fixed?”

“When I come up with $1500 to get it done…”
“Ok I’m sending you some money to help with it”
“….are you dying?”
“well we all are lol”

So needless to say I felt the need to call and make the appointment to bring my Jeep in to the shop. I am still sticking to the goal to have my Visa down starting with a “1” by the end of the summer so I have about $500 more dollars to come up with between now and then to cover the cost of the repairs. Luckily I have awesome co-workers who will stay late and work overtime with me without too much arm twisting! That’s the plan though! Bank as many overtime hours as I can in the next few weeks and pad my pay cheques.

I hope everyone’s summer is going well so far and you enjoy your Canada Day/Independence Day festivities!

Debt Update – June 2015

It’s here! Debt update day for June! This will be the first month where I won’t be receiving a pay cheque from both jobs. I get paid on the 25th so that will be my first payday with only one cheque! I have some plans of condensing to only one bank to try and simplify my life a little and also updating my approach to budgeting once everything is together.

I had a little surprise this week when I logged in to check on my RRSPs and I had $2200 more than I thought! I also have a meeting with our company’s Retirement Planning/Investment guy today at lunch so it will be interesting to hear what he has to day about saving for the future. I also spoke to BF about living on one income when all of my debt is paid off and it received a lukewarm reaction but I’ll keep bringing it up, lets face it, I have some time!

So without further ado:

Debt as of June 18th, 2015

Visa: $2,900.76

Student Line of CREDIT: $8,356.02

TOTAL: $11,256.78

Hooray for that Visa getting down into the 2k’s!

I’m having a hard time staying motivated to work overtime now that the weather is getting warmer and will only have 10hours to hand in for my pay on the 25th. I hope to have around 16hours for my pay on July 9th. Wish me luck!

Practical Gift Giving

As I get older *GASP!* I find myself asking for practical gifts more often. When it was younger I would always ask for something that I wanted but couldn’t pay for myself or was still more of a “want” than a need, like clothes or spa services etc. However this year as my anniversary rolls around with BF I found myself asking him for an oil change and a new lightbulb for my burnt out blinker. Although these things aren’t as fun as getting jewelry or flowers, I appreciate them because I don’t have to spend money on car care, my most dreaded expenses. I also found myself doing this as a broke university student “Hey Mom, would you buy me my Psych textbook for my birthday?”, “Hey Dad, could I have 2 new tires for Christmas?”. I always feel like its a weight off of my shoulders knowing that I can have these things done without having to work them into my budget.

Now that I have two nephews under 3 I find myself giving them gifts like a t-shirt or small toy and also money for their education accounts that my sister and brother-in-law have opened. This Auntie might not be the most exciting gift giver right now but when they’re so little I’d rather beef up those accounts and I’m sure they’ll appreciate it later in life! (Once they’re a little older I might change my gift-giving M.O. with them). I also bought my parents a gift card to a home improvement store for their anniversary as they’re building a new deck this summer, to me that is something they can use and it’s less money out of their pocket!

Do you ask for practical gifts? How do you feel about giving practical gifts?

P.S. My birthday is in December for anyone who would like to get me a new ice scraper 😉

Saving for the Future

I don’t have children yet but when I do I already plan on putting a little bit aside each month to help them with the cost of post secondary education. My parents paid half of my tuition through university and it was a huge help to me. Looking back now I regret taking out my student loans and not starting to save in high school for tuition. Check out this post from one of my favorite blogs on how one family has chosen to start saving for their two boys!

Want to Know How I’m Saving for the Future of my Children? – Happy Pretty Blog

Are you planning on helping your children out in the future with the cost of education?

Freshening Up

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! This weekend I participated in a small community event called “seaglass the city” where homeowners were encouraged to paint their doors bright colors to liven things up a little. Local Benjamin Moore stores offered a discount for those who participated. Here are my results!

I’m adding these on my phone so I’m sorry if they’re huge on a computer!

I also got another quote on car repairs and am just waiting on the shop to price out a bumper.

How was your weekend?

Summer Goals

Happy June everyone! I’m so happy to finally see some sunshine. This weekend I was about to get outside and get 95% of all of my planting done for the summer. I got a sunburn for it that I’m still paying for today but I feel like I was able to get a lot accomplished. Also….thanks to my tuition rebate my Visa balance starts with a 2! Exciting to see! 🙂

My new summer wheels came in and are on my jeep! Having them put on only cost me $80 however my mechanic told me there is other work that needs to be done to my jeep and prioritized the list for me as well as giving me a price breakdown. BF ordered my new TPS sensors since he gets a discount and said he’d pay for them as my “retail retirement” gift.

I had my dinner with the girls from PT job and was overwhelmed with how generous everyone was! I have about $75 my favorite store (Indigo), $100 to a garden centre, $25 to a local restaurant and a few other things as well. I’ll miss  them all so much!

As I said before I have a few goals for this summer now that I’ll have some free time:

– Reread the Harry Potter series (guilty pleasure)

-Get my Visa balance starting with a 1 by September 1st

-Emergency Fund $500 balance

-Savings $500

For the month of June I would also like to:

-Try 1 new recipe each week

-Walk 3x per week

What are your goals for the summer? Reading anything good?

The End of an Era

Today is my last day at PT job after 5 years and it’s absolutely a bittersweet moment. Its true that when you spend so much time with people they become like your second family and the ladies at PT job have been with me through so much! Loss, boys, breakups, new jobs, graduations… I’m going to miss seeing them on a regular basis so much! I am very happy to only have one job after tonight though! Luckily overtime is still available at FT job for about 6 more months so I can ease into the financial changes and re-vamp my budget

Since this is somewhat of a new beginning I thought I’d set some new goals for the summer! Stay tuned for upcoming goals posts!

I may be late to the party but I’ve also just discovered the Fun, Cheap or Free Queen! Check out the video about how she budgets here: