Did I Make it to Under 30,000.00 on my LoC???

TD seams to continually be experiencing "higher than normal volume of calls" since I seam to always spend 20+ minutes on hold waiting to talk to an agent. As I type this I am currently on hold 9, 16, 20, 25, 28 min and counting. Honestly by the time that I talked to an agent the call only took 6 min.

This month I put in:
April 8~ $382.55
April 20~ $62.50 (GST cheque)
April 21~ $525.00
April 25~ $3.13 (lose change snowflaked)
April 26~ $4.97 (leftover from budgeted cell phone bill snowflaked)
April 27~ $1.63 (leftover from storage until bill snowflaked)
April 27~ $60.43 (slush money from bills account snowflaked)

Total paid: $1040.21

Daily interest for the month of April: $3.75
Total interest paid in April on my LoC: $112.79

This month I put: $927.42 extra into student debt

Current outstanding balance on LoC: $-30,067.67

This month I snowflaked and snowflaked trying to get my LoC down under $30,000.00, sadly I was $67.67 short of my target. But I truly don't think I could have done any more to get it further down. I am not sure if I am happy with the progress I made, since this month I put the largest amount on my LoC to date. Or sad because I did not reach my target.

When I called OSAP yesterday to sort out if they had been trying to get a hold of me, I also got some details on my OSAP. I just thought I would share them, since I thought you might be interested.

Min payment: $117.45
 of which $54.91 goes to pay the interest and $52.54 go towards paying the principle. How depressing is that! Interest is calculated daily. I  pay $1.40 daily in interest.

Rejigging the Budget for May and June

Yesterday My BF came across town to see me. We had a wonderful time and it was lovely to see him; since we haven’t seen much of each in the last 2 weeks. At one point as we were kissing I was thinking about budgets. Does that make me pathetic or what! In my defense it’s been on my mind for a while now. With April almost over and May upon us its time to structure May’s budget. 


May, will be the first month for a lot of things including changes to my budget structure. Even more so when June comes.  In June I will be on flex hours and we also have a 3 pay month. My BF’s b-day is also in June so I will need to do some budgeting for his gift. He doesn’t know it yet but I plan to get his parent’s involved. This coming Monday the cats go in for their annual checkups. Depending on how that turns out, it will dictate further changes to the budget. Last but not least Anime North is coming happening in May and I have financial obligations for the hotel cost that was booked last May, as well as food and other convention costs. Having a hard time following… so I am I. All these things have been bouncing around in my head and I haven’t managed to sort them out into a concrete budget for May or June as result. I am going to try and lay it all out a little better for you and for me.


This past week I have been aggressively snowflaking trying to get my LoC down to $30,000.00. I had an account set a side as a bill slush fund. After paying the storage until I decided to see how much was left in the account. I decided to leave $170 in the account to cover the cost of the storage until for next month and I left $12.00 to cover any bank fees, more of a slush fund really. What was left over was rolled in to my LoC. However now that the money has been put aside I don’t need to budget for the unit next month. This gives me $170 flexibility to role into my What if… fund for Anime North.


May will be the first month that I don’t have to ‘officially’ make a visa payment *yahoo*. I have rolled this money since last pay into my LoC, and will continue to do so in May and June.


I mentioned the cats are going in. If after there appointment I still have money left over in my cat fund I am debating about reducing my monthly contribution from $100 to $50 and diverting the other $50 into a house/condo/triplex fund. I am hoping that I will have enough money in my What If …fund that I won’t need to divert the money to cover my Anime North expenses. So I can start contributing to a condo fund.


In relation to June I have decided to role the 10% shift premiums into my car fund. I think this is the right thing to do. Since I am doing this, does it make sense to snowflake the left over pay from #3 into my line of credit or into my car fund as well? I think it will be about $300. Ideally I would like to put it into my line of credit because I think it will drop it to about $28,000.00 at that point. However it might just push my car fund to the finish line.


Do you see what I mean about having lots of things rolling round in my mind? The fact that until some things -happen like the vet appointment- I can’t finalize the budget is driving me nuts! Normally this stuff is sorted out the week before pay day #1.


PS: I just got off the phone with OSAP and I got my updated balance. My outstanding balance is $-9,838.14 that's a decrease of $572.  If I wasn't so focused on my LoC, I could easily have it paid off. But come September my LoC payments are going to jump through the roof!! Next year I am going to make it my New Years resolution to have it paid off by the end of the year. I am going to update my side bar now!

Dilemma Dilemma

Yesterday was a really busy day for me. I had an alumni hockey game last night which was wonderful, except I am really really out of shape! Also at work we started our shift biding. Basically every 3 months our shifts change. This new shift bid comes into effect in June and goes till the end of August (the whole of summer). What I was looking for was something that had weekends off and was done before 8pm. The options were all late shifts ending 11, 11:30 or 12am. And you didn’t even get a weekend off. So it would be random days like Tuesday and Sunday off or Wedsnday and Friday off. The only shift that sorta met my desired criteria was a shift that was 12-8pm but you had Tuesday and Sunday off. Instead I opted for what is called ‘flex’ The idea is that you do what ever needs to be filled, the shift constantly changes every 2 weeks and it could be day shifts, afternoon shifts, night shifts or weekend shifts. However there is the change of getting weekends off. Also by taking a flex shift you get an extra 10% pay premium. This really works out to be a couple hundred bucks a month. But will be roughly an extra $600 during those 3 months. Now this is the dilemma. Do I take that extra money and put it into my LoC or do I put it into my car fund. I really want to put it into my Line of Credit. But I think I am going to have to put it into my car fund. I have been neglecting it for quit a while to focus on my LoC. But my mom really can’t continue to drive me and come August she spends most of the month at the cottage anyways, so we won’t be able to drive me to work. If I end up with 6 am shifts one week I need to have away to get to work as public transit doesn't start that early were I am.


What do you think? LoC or car fund?

Weekly money Check-Up

As always thanks to MMP...




1. The most I’ ve spent this last week was on  Paying bills. Wow I am not sure if I am happy with this or not.

2. Today I am thankful for my mom. As much as she drives me crazy and she does, she is still letting me live rent free which is a huge factor in me being able to chunk at my debt.


3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was I played in the mother daughter hockey game that my old league puts on. I was the mom because my mom can't skate.


4. I will consider this week a success if I write out all the vol. dates for my Duke of Ed book.


5. My favourite TV show growing up was Blossom, save by the bell, boy meets world, Recess, ect... there are so many good shows to just have one!


*~*~*~
I have just done a lot of snow flaking and I hope I haven't over snowflaked. I hope everything clears in time for it to impact my line of credit. I am really excited about seeing how well I did this month. 

Fighting the Consumeristic Monster Inside of Me!

When my parents split my mom moved next door to a divorced mom and her 3 kids Michelle (oldest), Heather and Scotty (youngest). I went to the same high school as the two eldest and latter Scotty joined us. A couple years ago Michelle got married and bought the house form her mom. Than last year their dad died. Heather has recently bought a house with her long term boy friend, she's currently 25 turning 26 late this year. Because their dad died before he could draw on the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP), Scotty who is still in school gets the benefit of the unused money, as he's still seen as a dependent. He has decided that he will use the money to finance his first car. His GF who is moving in with him next door to me just bought/leasing a brand new Mazda 2. It's a cute car and in my favourite colour. Yesterday I was seriously envious of her for having it.

The strange thing is that most every post I have ever read written by someone older than me, when asked about the stupidest financial mistake they made, will say financing a new car right out of university. If this is the case I feel one should take the advice and not make the same mistake.  Second, one of the few things my parents did teach me about money was that cars are a diminishing asset and not worth always buying brand new. Now I know all this but yesterday my rational side wasn't working.

This morning the first thing I did while still in bed was price out a Mazda 2.  Than I priced out the Toyota Yarus just as a comparison. Even with $5,000 it would still have cost $15,000-16,000 to buy it straight up. I think this is when my rational side woke up because I thought to myself... ya know $20,000 is a lot of money to spend on a car, I could use that as a down payment on a house. After that I closed the window and got out of bed.

The thing is I still think its a 'sexy' car and of course green is a colour weakness for me, so part of me, I would say craves to be behind the wheel.

I wonder if I had graduated without any student debt would I be as finically conscious as I am today. Truefully I don't think I would be. I still crave a place of my own and my own set of wheels to get me from point A to B, despite my lack funds.

Weekly Spending Recap April 18-24, 2011

April 18 (Monday)
No Spend Day

April 19 (Tuesday)
$117.45 OSAP *budgeted already for

April 20 (Wednesday)
No Spend Day

April 21 (Thursday)
No Spend Day

April 22 (Friday)
No Spend Day

April 23 (Saturday)
No Spend Day

April 24 (Sunday)
No Spend Day

~*~*~
I have a few large cheques that are flouting around waiting to be cashed from my chequing account. However since its a holiday and the banks take time to clear these things normally they have not been processed. As such I have been terrified to spend any money for fear of over spending and mistakenly bouncing the cheques. I really want the cheques to clear through my account because I have a few snowflakes to process. But I can only do it when the cheques have cleared. So I know how much I have left to snowflake and to prevent me from over snowfaking. I hate writing cheques and having direct deposits go through my account. I don't like having my money on someone else's time table.

In case you were wondering: It would seam that two movies later and we are back to being best of friends. Its no wonder I hated roller-coasters has a kid, I live on one. Any ways I don't expect it to change anytime soon so we will have to wait out the ride until it comes to an end and I can get off. 

Thank You a Hundred Times Over!!

Well I was right, stupid me for telling her I was out of visa debt, because it came back to haunt me this morning when she throw it back in my face. And when I told her I was working hard to get out of her hair since she clearly felt I was a ball and chain around her neck she was silent. Silence from her is the most telling of answers.

Last November she made a promise to me that if I could save $2,000 she would double the amount for a car. Well I hit that by December and she has never come through with her promise. When I told her I had hit the target her response to me was she didn’t have the money”. She said “I’ll just have to continue to drive you to work until you can save more.” I wasn’t happy about it since I would have preferred she just not make the promise but I didn’t say anything. That January in the Boxing Day sales she went out and put a large flat screen TV on her credit car because it “had the lowest limit and was a small one.” Don’t ask me to justify / explain the reasoning, because I truly can’t. The irony to the whole thing is that she doesn’t like going to watch TV on it because it’s in the basement and the basement is cold and cluttered. Even more illogical was yesterday listening to her talk bout going to IKEA to buy bookcases to “change the way we have it done in the basement.” In the car today I didn’t mention anything about the bookcases; instead I told her if she was feeling so poor she should cut cable, or sell 1 of her 3 homes. She lashed out at me over cable and said “why should I compromise my life style!!”

Look the point if this little rant is not to say I have better money skills than my mom, though I think, she thinks, I think that way (did you follow that?). The point really is to say thank you!!! You have become my financial family. It’s becoming more and more clear that I can’t talk to my own family about this stuff; since I seam to get such hostility. I know my mom resents me with streaks of jealousy, she’ll never come out and say it; her behaviour is more telling than her words.

Thank you so much for cheering me along in this process of being debt free ASAP!!!

Oh To Be Debt Free

Today I paid my cell phone bill at $95.03, I budgeted $100 so the $4.97 was snowflaked into my line of credit. I have also snowflaked $25 which was originally allotted for my visa card.

 I think I made a mistake today. I told my mom I was no longer in consumer debt aka I had paid of my visa, she was surprised but she wasn't happy for me. No if you can believe it, she was resentful!! And I know that in one of our many arguments she will toss it at me. I made sure that when I told her a friend was around so that she couldn't make snide comments, though it didn't really stop her form one or two. I don't know what divorce does to woman (yes generalized I know) but she feels my sister and I are balls rapped around her neck holding her back. Last night she told Em (my sister) and I that she was kicking us out. I already know she resents the fact I went to university, I have already had that tossed at me. One of the reason's I am working so  hard to get out of debt is so that I can move out. I no longer want to be her excuse for why she hasn't got her life in order.

Any ways on to happier news, yesterday was pay day. The following is how I broke it up.

LoC~ $525
OSAP~$ 0
Visa~ $0
Retirement fund~ $25
Emergency fund~ $25
Christmas fund~ $40
Storage until~ $85*
Vet bills fund~ $50
Cat food~ $20
Condo fund~ $5
Cell phone~ $50
Company Stock~ $82.16
Car fund~ $117.73

* = currently sitting in holding account until I pay the bill

I have decided after the cats have gone to the vet's and I know how much it cost and what's left in my vet bills account I am going to play with the numbers again. I want to start putting $50 a month into my condo fund. I know its not a lot but anything is better than nothing.

Flippin the Stats Around

There are been a lot of talk among the blogging community about the Personal Financing Conference going down this October. It’s been really interesting to read the different points of views form bloggers who are and aren’t going. Myself I am not going. I can’t justify the cost, not that I have looked into it. but I live in Ontario that’s a two plane tickets and hotel costs and food and and… enough said. Ninja isn’t going despite him being debt free and having must more cash than I. But I suspect that given his current long distance relationship his vacation days will be spend going to see Girl Ninja, and really who could blame him for that!! 


Yesterday the TD bank of Canada released a survey that they did on savings and debt in Canada. There were a couple things I found interesting about this survey, first it’s very much out of date since it was conducted in the first week of December 2010. If you put that aside though and look at the data I don’t think it’s as bad as the bank is reporting it to be.  For example 38% of people reported that they had no savings at all, flip that number and you get 62% of Canadians reported that they have some form of savings. Look some savings is better than no savings, even $1,000 is better than nothing. It’s clear that 62% of Canadians surveyed are getting the message.


When asked why respondents were not saving enough they said they were paying down debt (credit card, car loans ect.). Only 12% of Canadians who were surveyed said “they shopped beyond their means.” This means a whopping 88% of Canadians were making better choices with their disposable money. No mater what that 88% is doing with their money as long as they have stopped adding to their debt total they are in a much better position financially. Yes I think savings is a very important thing to have, this is why despite all the issues I have had with ING I haven’t stopped my automatic withdrawals for my emergency fund. However the problem here, is that people who commission these surveys often forget the dollar only stretches so thin. I am sure that if it was in everyone’s power we would all be debt free and have 6-12 months away for emergencies. However this is just not the case. It is also a lot harder to climb out of the finical whole than it is to get into it.


Debt isn’t a new concept; it’s just become more accessible in the last 40 years.


Some debts are fun when you are acquiring them, but non are fun when you set about retiring them. Ogden Nash


The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower becomes the lender’s slave. 
Proverbs 22:7

I have GOOD NEWS!!!

Today I went to the TD bank to finally deposit my GST cheque in to my line of credit, a whopping $62.50.  This is not my good news per say thought at the end of the month when I find out how much I have been able to put on to my line of credit it will definitely boost the number. NO the good news is I also asked what my balance was on my credit card. Guess what the number was... wait for it... ZERO!!!

That's right I am now CONSUMER DEBT FREE!!!!!!!

YAHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

***jump up and down***

I am so excited, my friend drove me to the bank and I told him first. But besides him you my friends  are the second people I have told.

I haven't bothered to tell my mom or my BF... I want to saver the moment with people who will understand  how I feel. This means that there will be extra money this month I can put into my line of credit!! Snowball here I come!!




I had so much more I wanted to blog about today but I am to excited so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Weekly Money Check-Up

As all ways thanks to MPP...


1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on  a gift for a friend from EB games.
2. Today I am thankful that I have my health.
3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was went to see my sister win champion hockey game and after I went salsa dancing.
4. I will consider this week a success if I catch up in my LLQP readings
5. This Easter I am working and spending time with my dad and step mom.




PS: I Just realized that I miss last weeks Weekly Money Check up! Not sure how it happened but I will answer her last and always changing question:  My signature accessory is: currently and has been for going on 2 years has been my silver and black leather now silk cord necklace. Mine is the one on the far right in the picture. Before this I would have said my watch which strangely I  don't ware anymore. 

Weekly Spending Recap April 11-17, 2011

April 11 (Monday)
No Spend Day

April 12 (Tuesday)
No Sped Day

April 13 (Wednesday)
No Spend Day

April 14 (Thursday)
No Spend Day

April 15 (Friday)
$25.00 bus tickets

April 16 (Saturday)
No Spend Day

April 17 (Sunday)
$39.54 EB Games (friend's gift)

$4.17 Bday card @ Shoppers

$7.55 GO train ticket

~*~*~
I meant to write a post about this on Saturday but forgot and than I guess was lazy... I am not sure what happened. So I called Rogers to talk about my phone bill and how much it would cost me to buy myself out. As it turns out it would cost me $150 with taxes ($20 X # of months left in contract = cost to buy myself out of contract. I also looked at the cost of resigning and getting a new phone which i need if I am going to take advantage of even 1/2 the features that my plan offers. However I will not sign a 3 year contract and really its way to expensive to pay for it all up front. Basically I don't have $500 siting around to do any of the above things because I am not willing to lock myself in for 3 years. So I have decided to hold tight and wait until my contract comes up for renewal so at that point I can save up some money to by the phone that I want out right or at least a second hand phone out right and than just sign up for a 1 year plan.

The good news out of all this is that after talking to her the lady was very accommodating and agreed to nock $15. 50 off the rest of my bills until my contact comes up for renewal.  This will being my bill down from about $95.03 to roughly $78.89. I am so excited about this. The money I save I am going to roll in to my student debt. Every Cent Counts!!

Currently because I haven't written the cheques to my account and the charity I contribute I have a lot of money sitting in my chequing account! This always makes me nervous and I feel like I will spend it and not leave enough for the cheques to clear. So my goal tonight before I go to bed is to write them and post them. Hopefully the money will leave my account before Friday when pay day is or it will completely mess my banking and bills stuff up.

Tax Return and Visa Card Update

I have noticed that I don't have very exciting titles for my posts.  But to be honest I really can't come up with anything exciting. I will endeavour to change this. Any ways I deposited my Tax return today and walked the $850.20 over to TD to pay off my visa card. Or I thought I was paying it off in full. Turns out I was $14.95 short. So when I got home today I made a bill payment from Scotia to TD visa for $14.95. As such I can't say I am consumer debt free yet... sigh how depressing. In the mean time I am actually going to go through my old visa bills to find out when the last time my bill would have come in with a Zero balance. I don't think I have ever had one; it would be interesting to see.

I moved $450 into my car fund which brings it up to $3,361.80. I also moved $50.00 into my retirement fund, I have no idea what it's at. Last I moved $98.73 into my What if... fund, which brings it up to $108.73. I may have to dip into it to get my friend a bday gift and card. I'm not so happy about this but I can't not show up to her place empty handed. And this is what the fund is for in the end. Example: What if... [INSERT FRIENDS NAME] birth day comes up and I have no spare cash.

After I finish this post and updating my side bars, I have to sit down and start writing cheques out to my account and to the charity I sponsor a child from.

I have been mulling over stuff with my line of credit and I think it is going to be really tight this month. I really want to get it under $30,000.00 but I don't know if I can do it or not. Cross fingers!!! It will depend on what's left in my bills account after I pay all my bills this month. Last month I had it all predicted so when I was updating my net worth before the bill came in there was no surprises. This month is going to be different.  

More Banking Woes

On Tuesday I went into the bank to discover that my Company Bank had over drafted my account again by $8 (5 fee for every NSF change).  It was after work just before they were going to close and she the teller said she would reverse the charges. Apparently since I had a staff account it shouldn't have charged me. Wednesday I went a gain into the bank and blasted the teller and branch manager about why this was happening. Any ways they said they would do it and in fact it had nothing to do with my account being staff but that the branch could reverse the  charges as a courtesy. But it would take 24h to reverse the charges. At lunch I went down stars to deposit my GST cheque in my Company Account so as to protect myself from any other charges. I got the same teller and i apologized profusely because it was unfair of me to blast her the way  I did. After I deposited my GST cheque and left i looked at my receipt and my account was back to  normal. I guess 24h turns into 4h when you make a fuss.

In other news after work tonight I am finally going to get to a  Scotia bank to deposit my Tax Return cheque. I am so excited!

Tax Return, GST and Banking Woes

I have become a bad case of what not have happen when dealing with Banks, Gail would be so disappointed in me. Today after work I went to the ATM to see if my $50 deposit had gone through OK, only to find my account was in the negatives again. If screaming in a work environment was considered OK, trust me my friends in Australia would have heard me!! Any ways I walked in to the bank branch before it closed to talk to a teller about this. I explained that I had already talked to ING about over drafting my account but that I had deposited $50 into the account to being it back up to a balance of $2. She told me that for every overdraft transaction the bank charged me $5 because my account was 'mistakenly' not treated as a staff account. I don't know why this is the case... I haven't been fired... and trust me when I leave the Company Bank this account with be Closed, CLOSED. The Teller told me she should reverse the charges tomorrow, since it was the end of the day. Now I will have to go down tomorrow at lunch to make sure the charges have been reversed, so that I don't have further issues with over draft charges. Honestly this is becoming one bad nightmare!!!

My GST cheque came in the mail last week ($62.50) it will go to my Line of Credit, when I get to the bank hopefully tomorrow.

My tax return finally came in on Monday. The total came to $2,178.23.

This is how I have decided to brake the money down.

$852.20 to wipe out my Consumer debt (Visa card debt)
$490 for Child Sponsorship renewal
$237.30 to my accountant for doing my taxes
$450.00 towards my Car Fund
$50.00 towards Retirement Fund
$98.73 towards What if ...Fund which will go towards my Anime North 2011 weekend

So tell me what do you think?? Any suggestions?? I am not going to get to the bank until after work tomorrow so any feedback is welcome!

weekly Spending Recap April 4-10, 2011

April 4 (Monday)
No Spend Day


April 5 (Tuesday)
No Spend Day

April 6 (Wednesday)
No Spend Day

April 7 (Thursday)
No Spend Day

April 8 (Friday)
No Spend Day

April 9 (Saturday)
No Spend Day

April 10 (Sunday)
$3 on Keno ticket to brake a $20 bill
$8.50 GO train ticket
$6.00 Hot dog and drink


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I mentioned the other day that ING hadn't taken the money out of my account. So I called them to ask them not to. The Rep I talked to told me that she wouldn't but well she did. Thus resulting in my Company Account being over drawn by $48. I freaked out when I found out yesterday. I am trying to put an end to these over draft charges and I am now going to have another month of them. So today in the poring rain I walked to the nearest Scotia ATM to take out 50 and than walked to the nearest Company Bank to deposit it in my account over drafted account. I am so frustrated with this whole situation.

I called my Company Bank about having overdraft protection put on my account. However the min amount I would have to have is $500 and they would have to pull a hard credit check. First off I don't need $500 of over draft protection I only need $50. And I really don't need the hit on my credit bureau. I have way to  may strikes against it as it is.  I just can't afford to have another one on it.

bi-weekly finances, funds and relationship issues

As promised I am going to post my bi-weekly funds allocation. And just as I was about to write the first word I realized there was still a lot of money sitting in my checking account because I haven't actually moved any money around since I got home. The last few hours I have been going through a roller coaster of emotions and now I am just emotional zapped and don't even feel like talking about it or blogging, let alone doing any banking. However I have responsibilities so I just did the transfers. When I got home I was so ready to just rant about everything that had happened but my sister was home so she became my sound board. Now I am just drained and mellow.  Also for some reason when I last called in to ING to switch around the date my automatic withdrawals were to come out of my account they skipped the automatic withdrawal for this pay. So as a result I just cleared my Company Account and didn't even realize until I finished trans the money around and still have $119.00 left in my account instead of the $75 I was expecting.  A quick call to ING to find out what was going on and after trans of amounts to my back up Fund accounts and the issue has been sorted out. Only somehow I short changed my Retirement Fund by $6.00. And I have no idea how I did it!! So I have reduced my spending money by $5 to help make up the short fall, I will put the other $1 back at the end of the pay cycle.

                                                                 Pay: $1,098.89
TD line of credit~ $382.55
OSAP~ $117.45*
Visa~ $25*
Retirement fund~ $24
Emergency Fund~ $25
Christmas fund~ $40
Storage unit~$85*
Cat fund~ $50
Cat food fund~$20
Condo fund~ $5
Cell phone~ $50*
Company stock~$82.16
Spending money~ $70

* = money siting in bill account until the time comes to pay the bill.

On a side note my GST cheque came in for $62.50, so when I am next at the bank I will deposit it into my line of credit.

UPDATE: I didn't feel like finishing the post last night so I went to bed. Sorry for the tartyness.

Letting the Jones Keep up with Themselves

Today is pay day. But I haven't done anything with my accounts because ING isn't taking money out of my account unit tomorrow.  I will hold off that post until tomorrow.  In the mean time I want to chat about something else. There is a girl I work with, actually we were in the same training class, she also works one day a week (Saturday) at the Old Navy as an assistant manager. Now I know her base pay at work because we do the same thing and get paid the same thing.

She just graduated university and had $38,000 in OSAP debt. I know this because she told me. She moved home after graduating but has not been enjoying it since her parents refused to give her her room back, so she is sharing a bed with her sister. As a result she decided about a month ago that she wanted to move out. I remember having the conversations about it with her. She was looking at apartments for about $1200 and than renting condos at $1300. I remember recommending she take the apartments so that she could put the extra $100 into a condo fund of her own. She snidely  remarked that she had enough money stashed away that she could buy her own but was not ready for the responsibility. I remember walking away from the conversation feeling hurt and jealous. After all I wasn't sure on our income it was even possible to pay that kind of rent, but I knew there was no way I could with my debt hanging over my head. In the end she decided to go for the condo at $1300 a month. She is moving in next month and is very excited about it.

Today we were talking about it and she was asking me about Lines of Credits.  She had 'good news to tell me' apparently OSAP has approved her a 6 months loan free period. So she doesn't have to pay OSAP again until September.  She was so excited to tell me. She has also been approved for a 5,000 personal line of credit and was asking me if she max it out how much her monthly payments would be.


Suddenly I am not feeling jealous of her any more...

Life Before Pay day

I started a post earlier about how frustrating my mom makes me when it comes to money. However in between starting it and finishing it I went to see my sister play her semi-final hockey game. My sister's team won the game but I swear I almost had a heart attack 5 times. It was a close game. And while I am still frustrated with things and the post will likely still be relevant later down the road, its not necessary right now.

If you remember my latest Weekly Spending Recap I had a lot of No Spend Days. I have a confession, the reason for so many of them and for the number I will have this week is because My chequing account has a ZERO balance. As a result there will be no snowflaking this pay because there is nothing left of this pay. At first I was really worried about how I would get through a week with no money. But the truth is, I still have all my savings in tact and I have survived the experience. I was very open with my friends that going out and spending money was not an option and for the most part they understood, some better than others.

I am looking forward to pay day because I want to dump money into my line of credit. But more than anything I am looking forward to my tax return. Today on the bus ride home I realized that with my tax return I have the potential of reducing my debt and bumping up my savings by a total of $2500. This is the most exciting prospect and I am anxious to get started. So bring on the savings and the debt reduction, my sleeves are rolled up, ready to go!!

Weekly Money Check-Up

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on cat food. Besides that it was on bus tickets. I think its been a good week.

2. Today I am thankful that I have a job. Yes I would love to make more than I do, but I am still in a lot better place than many other people on this continent. 

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was salsa dancing. I enjoy it and its good exercise. 

4. I will consider this week a success if I get to page#100 read in my LLPQ book and all the notes for those 100 pages done. 

5.  The last dream I had was about my riding nomination. A retired Prime Minister  was at the meeting and asking why the riding was nominating an unknown instead of my dad. And as a result my dad who was not running in the nomination actually won it... ya I know politics are clearly dominating my mind. 

*****I am about to rant a bit so if your not interested just skip this part****

Today I test drove a car. Now its not a new car nor was it an expensive car. It was a second hand Toyota echo 3 door hatchback. I made the mistake of telling my BF about it. The conversation mushroomed into how I 'spend my money' or rather the fact that I am putting about 1/2 my pay into student debt. He thinks I should stop doing that and redirecting the money to my car fund.  What he doesn't get is that I have until September until my payments for my line of credit will more than double. The faster I can get the line of credit down the faster I can AFFORD to even have a car. Because begin able to buy it is only one part of being about to AFFORD the car, there is gas and insurance and maintenance.  If my min. payment for my line of credit is $500 plus I will have my OSAP payment there is NO WAY I will be able to afford the insurance and gas for a car. 

On top of this on Sunday I had friend ask me why I was not willing to go out to lunch/dinner with him. He didn't seam to understand why I was not willing to dip into my car fund to spend $20-40 on dinner. 

I AM SO SICK OF HAVING TO JUSTIFY HOW I CHOSE TO SPEND MY MONEY!!!!!!!!!

First I don't think I am bad with money, I mean I am not perfect but I don't think I am terrible with it. EVERY ONE knew that when I graduated from Uni. I was moving home to pay off student debt. And if that means giving up a few nights out with friends and a slower savings account than  I am completely OK with this. Frankly I do not think I have to justify my choices since it's MY MONEY!!!

Than my BF had the gal to suggest that if I couldn't 'afford' the car that I should just get a higher paying job!!  Excuse me 10 days after I had handed in my last paper I was sitting in training class. Yes I could have waited 6 months until I had the 'ideal' job but who would have paid the bills for those 6 months.  He wasn't offering!! I have worked my but off to pay off (sundry debt) and pay down (Line of Credit) debt.  Yes a larger paycheque would be wonderful. But I don't live in lala land; I am a realist and I took the first job offered. 

Thanks for listening....

Weekly Spending Re-cap March 28-April 3, 2011

I don't know if its possible, but while at work today I was reading my own blog (work has been slow) and I discovered that I am my 10th follower!! How weird is it that when I get to the double digests its because of me... its rather anti-climatic.


March 28 (Monday)
No Spend Day

March 29 (Tuesday)
$48.58  Cat food

March 30 (Wednesday)
$24.00 bus tickets
$14.51 gas for mom's car

March 31 (Thursday)
$11.95 bank fees

April 1 (Friday)
No Spend Day

April 2 (Saturday)
No Spend Day

April 3 (Sunday)
No Spend Day

Blog List Update

First thank you so much to Jolie @Shaking The Money Tree for the link love.

 I too have recently added a couple different blogs to my list. When I first started to add blogs to the list I remember thinking I will only add blogs that are in my similar situation. However I have realized how very uncool that is and how restricting it was. The whole point of this blog is to share and learn from other people as I try to keep myself on track with money. So don't worry I have so changed my ways as you can see! I have met many interesting and wonderful people. Some I don't follow exactly I seam to blog stalk like  Big City... Beer Budget.  I can openly confess that I am jealous of her, she is exactly were I want to be in my life and I am very impatient about it.

Others have been following me and I was completely oblivious to the fact that they had a blog. This is the case with Eboo @My Life Journey. I feel like such a loser for not even realizing. Thank goodness this was corrected this morning when I was blog stalking someone else and noticed that she had a blog on her list by Eboo.

Then there is Jane @ Life Doesn't Begin at  Retirement-Life Begins Today!   I can relate to bits of her life story a lot more then I would care to admit,  just yet at least.

And last but not least was a couple of sisters who commented on one of my posts and I thought... humm wonder who this is and I checked them out. They are great, with each other as support and blogging together, they will be a great addition to my blogging world. So check Sarah and Jenny out @Digging Out of Debt, One Spoonful at a Time.

Together we will take the next exit...

Line of Credit Update

Did you know that "there are two credit cards for every person in the United States" and that's no joke, not according to my Weird Facts App on my ipod.

I called TD yesterday to get an update on my Line of credit. But they hadn't added the interest so it wasn't a completely accurate amount. So as I write this preamble I am on hold waiting to get the exact figure.

This month I put in:
 March 14~ $300
March 28~ $8.53
March 28~ $400.00

Total paid: $708.53

Daily interest for the month of March: $3.86
Total interest paid in March on my LoC: $119.84

Current outstanding balance on LoC: $-30,995.09

This month I put: $891.08 extra into student debt
Math brake down: 182.55 (extra into OSAP) + 708. 53 (LoC) = $891.08

Now that I have the updated number time to update the side bars.