April's Monthly Goals

Paying Myself does monthly goals at the beginning of each month and then at the end does a goal round up. So I am going to steal borrow her idea.  Starting this month I am going to set monthly goals to help me progress through my yearly goals and just to get things done in a timely manner. And just like Paying Myself first I am going to split the goals up in to two groups: Professional and Personal

                                    Professional 


1) Have read the full text book for my LLQP
2) Have done notes for all parts of the LLQP
3) Have done all the multiple choice questions in the Q&A book

                                       Personal


1) Pay off visa card with tax return
2) Make charitable contribution
3) Write cheque to ING to link accounts
4) Get Rez project sighed by prof for Duke of Ed
5) Get vol. signed for Duke of Ed
6) Getting my line of credit under -30,000.000

I think that is ambitious enough for this month. I would love to add more things but I am afraid to over do it.

Weekly Money Check-Up

Once again thank you to MMP...

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on Korean BBQ, which was $20, unless you count paying bills and then it would be $400 on my Line of credit.

2. Today I feel impatient about money. My tax return hasn't come in despite asking it to be direct deposit and getting my stuff to the accountant 2 weeks ago, and I know the accountant has done them because I got my copy in the mail.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was I went to see my sister play hockey it as the quarter finals. It was a great game had us on edge the whole time!

4. I will consider this week a success if  I can get last week's 2 book cases catalogued, It will be an even greater success if I can get 4 done!

5. The last time I had a good nap was likely kindergarten or when I was last really sick. I don't nap otherwise I can't sleep the next night. The only time my body takes naps is when I am so sick my body decides to take a time out.

Weekly spend Recap March 21-27, 2011

March 21 (Monday)

 No Spend Day

March 22 (Tuesday)

 $2.50 cookie at Future Bakery 

March 23 (Wednesday)

 No Spend Day

March 24 (Thursday)

 No Spend Day

March 25 (Friday)

 $20.00 Korean BBQ

March 26 (Saturday)
$45.00 taxi ride to work (just found the receipt as it was put on visa :( 

$7.05 Tim's breakfast and lunch 

 $7.55 Go ticket to Whitby

$12.50 TTC tokens

March 27 (Sunday)

 No Spend Day


I ran to the bank on Saturday after work and snowflaked $8.53 and I deposited another $25.00 in to my visa bill. When my tax return comes in I am going to wipe out my visa debt!!! I am so excited about the prospect. when that happens I will redo my budget again so as to reassign the extra $50 I will have. I have the updated amount on my line of credit with out the $400 I put into it Friday night. So according to the bank my line of credit is currently $-31,275.25. I will update the side bar to reflect the number but not the green line. I only my green bars once a month. Only a couple of more days until  then but hopefully my $400 will show on there system by then. 

Bi-weekly Pay, Fund Allotment and Playing with Money

It was payday this last Thursday. I didn’t however move money around until yesterday.  As it turns out I was in over draft again by $0.11 and because I always have my Work Bank Account at zero they dipped into over draft again. What this all means is next month I will be paying over draft on overdraft… ARGGGG!!! I fell like such a (fill in blank). It bothers me because I have never had nor neared overdraft. In my mind when the bank balance says zero then that’s it. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Also in those rare occasions where I want on the read with Scotia I never got charged over draft interest. So I now have had to leave $2 in the account so as to stop these charges once and for all.

I made sure that I walked into the bank and withdraw the money that was left in my account AFTER ING had taken the money out. I use to do email money transfers as we are allowed 2 free, on one month billing cycle. I thought I had been ok that I hadn’t gone over the 2 transfers. However it has been indicated to me that I did which is how my account ended up in the negative.  Another reason I was given because I called in twice to find out how the charge happened; was that the ING stuff comes out of my account at 12am the day I picked and my pay comes in at 4ish in the morning. So hopefully by resetting my ING money to come out the day after I get paid this will stop the over draft interest as well.  Than on Fridays I will be whipping my account out at a branch and walking it over to Scotia. The hope is that all this will brake the gross cycle of over draft interest I have been paying. After all I worked hard for those 11 cents!!

My last month’s bill for Rogers was way over budget due to the stuff with Cuba, coming in at $155.83, thus $55.83 over. So I have had to play around with the numbers again. I had $28.00 left over from last pay. This was snowflaked into my bills account to help cover this cost. I had $25 (in cash) left over from the cost of my licence renewal that I was going to put into my car fund. This will go into my visa account and my allotted $25 from this pay for my visa will be rolled into my Rogers bill to cover the excess cost of the cell phone bill. This means that I will have $54.00 extra for this bill.

My Company Stock contribution was dropped .I would like in the future to make the full 10% which is $136.93. However I really can’t at this point, so I have dropped it down to 6% which is $82.16 a pay. My Bank only matches up to 50% of your contribution up to 6% which means that they will match 3% of my 6% contribution. You are allowed to put up to 10% but the Bank only matches up to 6%.

I have also added my Emergency fund to my direct withdrawals with ING. Starting this last pay ING will now take of $50 bi-weekly off my pay, $25 for my retirement fund and $25 for my emergency fund.

Last but not least, I have $7.28 that I am carrying around with me until I can get to a TD bank. This money will be snowflaked into my Line of credit.

Bi-weekly pay and fund allotment:

               Amount (after stock contribution): $1, 011.73

TD Line of Credit: $400

OSAP:  $0

Visa: $25

Retirement fund: $25

Emergency fund: $25

Christmas fund: $40

Storage Unit: $85

Vet bills Fund: $100 (50 for last pay and 50 from this pay)

Cell phone: $100 (50 for last pay and 50 from this pay)

Car Fund: $100.00

Spending money: $75

Bills paid to date for this month:

TD Line of credit: $700

OSAP: $300

Visa Card: $25.00

Cell phone: $155.83

Pay Day and Other things

Today is pay day... I was so looking forward today. Except everything is messed up again! My work bank charged me over draft interest of $0.11 and I can't get a straight answer out of them for why!! Basically what I am going to have to do to stop the over draft charges is leave at least 2$ in the account. This is completely upsetting and I feel a complete waste of $2.

The night before pay day I had 28.00 left in my account I snow flaked this into my bills account. When I got back from Cuba my Rogers' bill for this month was 180.00+ however they messed up on my account and charged me for the travel pack but didn't actually put it into effect until after I got back. So after 4 calls I got it dropped to just over $155. In an effort not to completely kill my budget for this month I have put the extra money a side to pay for the phone bill.

I have decided to let sleeping giants lie and have not paid any bills or done anything with the money in my account until tomorrow.  So expect an update on funds, debt and bills tomorrow.

Who am I, fill in the blank

Ninja had a fill in the blank paragraph that I thought was interesting so I have decided to take part. Enjoy!




Hi, my name is CommonCents. I currently work at A National Canadian Bank and make around 35,700.00 per year. I really find my job repetitive and currently boring. The scariest thing to me about personal finance is debt. If I had a financial do-over I would go back and budget my student money better or save a little more. One thing most people don’t know about me is I would rather spent time alone then with other people. I think that cats and insects is/are the coolest thing since sliced bread. When I fart, it smells like swage and sounds like nothing (silent but deadly). Twenty years from now, I think America will be in bad shape because if its governmental system. The most non-mortgage debt I’ve ever had was $49,058.75 and today I have $32,431.73 amount of debt. If I won $10,000 dollars right now, I would go out and buy a car and put the rest into my Line of Credit. Okay, enough of this silly paragraph, it’s time I go back the TV so I can continue to watch the news.


Now  for you.....


Hi, my name is blank. I currently work at blank and make around blank per year. I really blank my job. The scariest thing to me about personal finance is blank. If I had a financial do-over I would go back and blank. One thing most people don’t know about me is blank. I think that blank is/are the coolest thing since sliced bread. When I fart, it smells like blank and sounds like blank. Twenty years from now, I think America will be blank. The most non-mortgage debt I’ve ever had was blank and today I have blank amount of debt. If I won blank dollars right now, I would go out and blank. Okay, enough of this silly paragraph, it’s time I go blank so I can blank.

Weekly money Check-Up

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on money at the arcade.

2. Today I feel frustrated towards money.  I read Fabulously Broke's posting about net worth and calculated that I should only be $-17.850.00 in the whole. And I am definitely no were near that number. Frankly I would be happy to be at 0 in my net worth. At least it would mean that I was either debt free or hand enough cash to balance out my debt. I am frustrated because I want to be able to provide my sister an alternative option and I can't... not in my financial situation. 

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was I went salsa dancing and had a wonderful time.

4. I will consider this week a success if I got to see my friend which i have blown off twice for family emergencies and if I can get 2 shelfs catalogued... ideally I would like 4 done but that might not be realistic.

5. Today I am thankful for my sister being ok... I know I can't always understand God's decisions but last night he answered my prayers in a most interesting manor. Now if only He could help me straiten out my dad's attitude. 

Today has been a very hard day and I am not really interested in talking about it, so thank you to MPP for having this weekly questionnaire I definitely needed it to fill the void today.  

Weekly Spending Recap March 14-2, 2011

March 14 (Monday)
$3.38 shoppers dog treats
$0.62 Bank the rest program

March 15 (Tuesday)
No Spend Day

March 16 (Wednesday)
No Spend Day

March 17 (Thursday)
No Spend Day

March 18 (Friday)
No Spend Day


March 19 (Saturday)
$22.50 (20.00@ ATM + 2.50 surcharge)
1.50 ATM Surcharge from my bank

March 20 (Sunday)
No Spend Day


Last night my BF drove in to see me. We had a really great time. His debt card didn't work at the little ATM they had so he asked if I would pay for the tokens to play at the arched, which I had no problem with. However when I realized that I had to pay $2.50 at the ATM I turned to my BF and asked if we could leave so I could use another ATM. He said no so I sucked it up but it pained me to pay $2.50 knowing full well that I was going to be paying an additional $1.50 from my bank for using the other ATM. While I had lots of fun if it had been 4.00 in my wallet you'd have had to prey it out of my cold dead hands....

The End to Cuba Money

In a previous post I mentioned that I came home from Cuba with money in my pocket. In total I got $205.00 back. I decided to use the money to cover the cost of my Anime North Ticket and the cost of fixing my sewing machine. The ticket cost $73.75 for Anime North this year. And to get my machine fixed it cost me $129.95. This leaves me with a grand total of $0.20. I have decided to add this to my condo fund.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Weekly Money Check-Up

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on bus tickets.

2. Today I feel  unsure money.  I am going to have to rejig my budget for April so I can meet my Line of credit goals.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was went out salsa dancing.

4. I will consider this week a success if I.. Can get two more shelves catalogued. 

5. My ancestors are Scottish, English.

weekly Spending Recap March 7-March 13, 2011

Yesterday was a busy day for me and as you can tell I am still up. I renewed my licence which cost me $75, I had budgeted for $100, so I have 25 left. I was going to snowflake it into my car fund but something has come up. I was at the accountant today and I should be getting back about $1800, hopefully more. Trust me hopefully more. My phone bill came in today, for $189. I argued this charge down because Rogers has messed up I bought a travelling  package that wasn't added on until March 1, long after I got back and as a result I paid premium. My bill is not down to $155 and this is where my extra $25 will now go... sigh.

March 7 (Monday)
$16.16 Whistle Stop restaurant

March 8 (Tuesday)
No Spend day

March 9 (Wednesday)
No Spend Day


March 10 (Thursday)
No Spend Day

March 11 (Friday)
No Spend Day

March 12 (Saturday)
$24.00 bus tickets

March 13 (Sunday)
$3.38 Shoppers Drug Mart

The Cost of Debt and Budget Bumps Again...

The other day I was getting an update on my line of credit. Over the course of the conversation I asked how much I am spending daily in interest. I was lucky enough to have an amazing lady on the other end and she took the time to look over the last few months and generate the figure for me.

Daily interest per month:

December: $4.21
January: $4.14 (-0.07)
February: $3.94 (-0.20)
March: $3.89 (-0.05)
TOTAL: $ -0.32

How gross is it that in December I was spending $4.21 a day in interest. I wonder what I was spending in September...

Today I was paying bills and putting money into funds while watching Till Debt Do Us Part. However I wasn't paying attention and my computer cookies put in the amount to pay OPSA. This means that instead of paying $200 to OSAP I actually paid $300. While $300 isn't a bad thing it was just not budgeted for and as such my bi-weekly budget ended up being $100 short. As such I have not put $50 into my Cat vet bill fund and I did not put aside $50 for my phone bill. This means that I will have to reduce my Line of credit contribution next pay from $500 to $400 in order to make up the budget shortfall from this pay. I know that in the end of the month it will balance out; I am not happy. I am not happy because it should not have happened, I should have been paying attention.  The second thing because I have reduced the amount going into my line of credit from $800 to $700, this is less then amount that I put into my line of credit in January. This is the most depressing part, I want to reduce my interest cost by another $0.20; which happened between January and February as a result of putting $719.90 into my line of credit during the month of January. The third thing is at end of the year I am starting to worry that I will not hit my $15,000 target. We are 3 months in and I haven't even got $2500 in my extra $15,000 fund.


Lesson Learned: Can't watch tv while paying bills. One activity at a time.

bi-Weekly Finances/Funds and New Developments at Work

As I write this post I am watching the very first episodes of Till Deb Do Us Part. It my guilty pleasure and its now free on www.slice.ca :D

I have mentioned that my March budget had hit several different bumps and we are only about 1/3 through the month. The first one was the reality check of my income which is $1,027.08 not what I thought/budgeted. The second reality check came when I finally got my enrolment into my company stock started. The first thing was I didn't know the amount came off the gross income and not the net. This reduced by take home pay and also affected my budget. The other thing is that I didn't have a place in my budget for this added category -I can hear Gail saying 'HELLO'- and she would be right. So the next question is what category do I 'steal' from to cover this unbudgeted expense. I have decided to take it out of my car fund. However I will be adjusting my stock contribution from 10% to 6% as I still get the most out of the fund with my company's contribution but will not completely affect my budget. In an attempt to try and reduce the damage on my car fund goals last night I decided to snowflake the $18.37 left over into my car fund. This brings my fund to $2631.77.

As for work, my DPTM is going through restricting. What this means is that I will be refocusing my skill sets and required to get my insurance licence before June 6th other wise "we will be reevaluating your continued employment in your current role" or so the letter says.  So that means its back to bank school to get my licence. I will explain the rest in more detail in a later post.  Without any further delay here is my budget:
    
                                                                         Amount: $1,052.79
                                                      After stock taken off: $956.96

Line of credit: $300
OSAP: $200
Visa: $25
Retirement Fund: $25
Emergency Fund: $25
Christmas Fund: $40
Storage unit: $85
Vet bills fund: $50
Cat Food Fund: $20
Cell phone: $50
Car Fund: $61.96
Spending money: $75

Weekly Money Check-Up

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on bank fees... wow that's depressing

2. Today I feel on edge towards money  I am hoping that this month's budget can be salvaged in the end. 

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was I spent the weekend with my BF.

4. I will consider this week a success if I am able to balance the budget, snowflake some money and book an appointment with the accountant. 

5. My guilty pleasure TV show is till debt do us part... but I don't get to watch it often.

Weekly Spending Recap Feb 28-March 6, 2011

I signed up for a NetWork IQ account. However I do not think it went though because I didn't get a conformation email form them... sigh what a shame. So I will have to try and sign up again. Another thing that I have discovered recently that my $1,050 bi-weekly pay estimate was a little on the generous side. Turns out I actually make $1027.08. I actually found this out because I was sorting out/organizing/filing my bills/pay stubs/others. I am a little very disappointed. I had no idea. I am feeling so upset with how this month's budgeting adventure is going. I have another surprise for you related to this budget. But I will save it until later this week. Basically I feel like throwing it out the window since there is no way that all my funds are going to get funded the way I want them to be. Oh well, I am sure I will muster through...


Weekly Spending
 February 28 (Monday)
Bank Fees $11.95

March 1 (Tuesday)
No Spend Day

March 2 (Wednesday)
No Spend Day

March 3 (Thursday)
No Spend Day

March 4 (Friday)
Work Caff $ 3.52

March 5 (Saturday)
GO transit $7.55

March 6 (Sunday)
No Spend Day

Being a nag works/I hate Tide laundry detergent

As of February 23, 2011 I am entitled to enrol in my company stock program. Because I was away I submitted the paper work early. However this means that it sat in a file on someone's desk. I called yesterday and chatted to a nice girl in HR and I explained that I wanted to check if my paper work had gone through and been submitted. She said that the person who does the processing had gone home and that she would check the system but she didn't see anything. She did escalate the call but basically she could tell me nothing. So I called back today and got the same person. I asked about my paper work again. She said she would look into it with the lady, today who was still in the office. Still I go no direct answer as to when I would see it come off my pay. I explained to her that I wanted to know as soon as possible because I had set it for 10% and I needed to adjust my budget to factor in the difference in pay. The major problem is that I don't know what my take home pay is before all the shift premiums and such are added since it doesn't show up on my pay stub.  All I get is an after tax figure taking into consideration the shift premiums  and after deductions. Another problem is that I had set my company stock contribution to 10% and I am not sure now if that is a good allocation of my income, when the company only matches 50% up to 6%.  However I didn't want to play with anything until I knew how it would affect my pay. She completely understood and because yesterday she had escalated my call she told me that I would hear back from the person who processes the paperwork by the end of the week. You see I am not on the top of the list for processing, I am sure of this. Basically how it works is if the deductions don't show up on your pay stub the week before pay day than you have to wait until the next pay cycle.

The good news in less then 1h after I had made the call I got an email from the lady who processes the applications to say that she had processed mine and that I should see my first  deduction on my March 10th pay. YAHOO for being a nag!! Yesterday I was being told it might take so long that I wouldn't see the deductions until my last pay of the month, now I have it in writing that it should be starting on the first pay! I am hoping that my budget for this month will not have to be adjusted again to accommodate the deductions. Hopefully my pay stub will be up tomorrow and I will know.

I am so excited this will help put me on my path to completing #3 of my financial goals for 2011: Invest 6% of my income into company stock. 


As for the Tide hating part. My sister did a load of laundry and put a heap of the Tide Active Lift stuff in which is a dark blue colour. Well its stained my cloths!!! So now I am redoing the load in the hope that it will wash the gross blue out of my cloths. Please someone explain to me what is the point spending money on detergent that destroys cloths. O.o  Not only is it one of the most expensive brands on the market, the dark blue dies are bad for the environment. I have instructed mom that we will no longer be using Tide in the house and since it has done the same to a bunch of her white towels she feels the same. I am now going to be a strong advocator for a NO TIDE HOUSE HOLD!!!

No Spend Feb

While many of my friends on the PF blogging community were on a no spend February I decided to do a no book buying month. This went well given the fact that I did not spend any money on books this month.  I think I will continue this trend For March, only this time no New books bought in March. However if I want to get Second hand books that is ok.

I am feeing ok towards money today. It felt good to know that I put almost $500 into my extra money fund for student debt. I am not where I want to be but I feel I am slowly picking up steam. It's a bit worrying to know that we are almost 1/4 through this year.