Net Worth and Cat Fund Story

Recently a lot of PF bloggers have been posting there updated net worth. At first I thought there was no point in even tracking mine. As there is no hope of finding myself miraculously  out of the red. But I thought and thought about it, until I caved. So here it is:

Net worth as of December 2010 from August 2010

Debts(D)/savings(S)	August 2010	December 2010
OSAP (D)	-13,058.00	-10, 058.00
TD Line of Credit (D)	-34,380.01	-32,685.15
Sundry Debt (D)	-727.41	0
General Savings (S)	0	727.99
Cat fund (S)	0	39.91
Car fund (S)	0	2512.79
Vacation fund (S)	0	461.57
Christmas fund (S)	0	0
Mutual funds (S)	1,011.29	1,086.48
Chequings account	0	40.64
TOTAL:	-46,832.12	-37,873.77
Difference:		8,958.35

Not too shabby I would say, actually the numbers shocked me a bit.

I worked today. I got he strangest question over the phone. A client called and said that her and her husband had been away on a ski trip and while the were a way they had paid to have there cat bored at a Country Cat Spa. As it turned out they picked the cat up and it was very sick with something that they had used on the cat, an allergic reaction to the shampoo for instance. Now she had not paid for the Cat Spa on her visa card. But what she wanted to know was did her visa card medical insurance cover them for the vet bills!!  I explained that no her visa travel medical insurance would not cover the vet bills. I told her it might be worth taking the cat Spa to small claims court. But What I really wanted to say was "maybe its about time to start a Cat Fund!!!" I bit my tongue ;P

Weekly Spending Recap Jan. 1-8th 2010

January 1
No Spend Day

January 2
No Spend Day

January 3
No Spend Day

January 4
No Spend Day

January 5
20.00 Duke of Ed fees (budgeted for 30.00)
6.78 Carlson Cards

January 6
No Spend Day

January 7
No Spend Day

January 8
$7.65 Taco Bell  ( I know a guilty pleasure that I haven't had in a long time)
Deposited $35 into TD line of Credit (25 xmas money + 10 from Duke of Ed budget)

My First Snowflake of the year!!!!  I am so excited, though when I added it to my 15,000 goal tracker it didn't even register... that was depressing. Still I have it written underneath my snowflake jar.

OSAP

You will notice on the right had side I have moved my counter up 3,000 for OSAP pay back. The reason that I did this was that when I got the letter in the mail It gave me an up to date figure of what I still owed. Instead of just added to the counter I ended up putting the new figure in as the original OSAP amount. At first I thought well its no big deal and left it the way it was. But then I thought wait a minute I was diligent enough to make sure I didn't blow my summer OSAP money and send it back to them instead. I think I deserve the satisfaction of knowing its  at least 3,000 less than it originally was.  So there you have it the reason I have moved the counter up 3,000.

I am still not sure about the Rogers bill, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Ally, Rogers bill, 2011 Goals

Today I called Ally again to make sure that my account has been officially cancelled. As it stands I'm done with them. It has been cancelled for good, good bye!!!!!!

One of my 2011 Goals was to get cut my phone bill in 1/2 preferably by January. Now my monthly bill with taxes in and no long distance charge is $93.85,  that means that my bill has to be dropped to $46.93 a month.  Today I called Rogers and the 'best' package that they could give me was the Student 40+  this is what it includes:

                   ~200 weekday minutes
                   ~100 MB
                   ~My 10  Canada wide
                   TOTAL: $47.94  taxes and fees included

Now this does not include unlimited incoming minutes which is an extra $10.00 a month. If I added this feature my TOTAL would become: $ 59.24 taxes and fees included

However if I did this I would not be under $46.93. The other MAJOR down side is that they want me to resign a 3 year contract. This makes me feel completely uncomfortable. My current contract ends at the latest October 2011 and  I contract free, this is something that I would ideally like. The reality is that I want to be able to look at other options and if I lock myself in for another 3 years as of Jan 2011 I will be stuck until Jan 2014 with Rogers. The other down side is that I want to go away to Japan in a few years for a year or more beings unable to get out of a contract would be very problematic.

If I don't change my plan though I will be pay assuming no long distance charges until October 2011 my overall phone cost will be $938.50 ($93.85 x 10 months).

The other option is to buy myself out of my contract at $20.00 x the number of months left in my contract which would be 10, thus $200. I can't afford to do this until March because I don't have the spare cash. So at that point it would be $160 + (93.85 x 2)=  $347.70.

I just don't know what to pick or what to do. This is why I am posting, I need your help, I need your advice. Any suggestions???? Please....

Ally, Bank fees and Cat fund, OSAP

Yesterday I got a call from Ally for a status update on my account. It turns out that they have disqualified my cheque because I did not write out "five cents." So they decided the the dollar amount was different form the numerical number on the cheque. For 5 cents I have spent the last 3 months  trying to send them money. The first time I had an issue I called them and asked very specifically how they wanted the check written out and I was told that I had written it correctly. Clearly I have been lied to. So I have decided to cancel my account. Let me explain why:

1) the reason that I opened the account was for the wrong reason.

Explanation: when I decided on my 10% fund it was to replace the fact that I had not signed up for the Defined Contribution retirement option at work. So this money was to be invested into retirement plans of some sort. However I have moved the money around for my car fund last month and then decided to convert it to a down payment fund for a house. This is why I opened up the Ally account. The major reason for this is that I had no idea how to invest for retirement. But I have been reading lots of books on the topic and I decided how I will plan for my retirement. As a result there is no need for this fund and I would have been using the money for the wrong reasons. As much as I really really want my own place until my debt has been reduced there is not a hope in hell of that happening.

On December 31 my bank took money out of my account for bank fees $9.95. I am not all that happy about that but I agreed to it so say-lave. 

I had to get more cat medication $64.43 today. This brings my cat fund down to $39.91. I booked the cats, both of them in for vet aptms in April. This will be around  $150 each plus $30 for stool sample testing. God willing I hope to have enough money to cover this from my cat fund but at the rate I am going through it, who knows. Sigh. 

My first of many letters form OSAP came in today. Over the last 6 months of 'free period' from Sept. 1 -Feb 1 I will have accumulated $308.46 of interest. This can be paid in a lump sum with my first payment  or it can be added to my overall total. Ideally I would rather pay it upfront but given that it is due at the end of February I do not think I will be able to do that.  As such I opted to add it to my overall student debt balance. In September I put in lump sum amount of $3,000 which was summer OSAP I had left over.  This brings my overall OSAP down to $10, 410.46 (including the $308.46). This amount of money is stretched out over a 114 month repayment period. My monthly payments to OSAP starting in February will be $117.45.

It would would be ideal to be able to put pay more them the min. monthly payment. And this is my over all goal. But I have decided that my goal of $15,000 debt reduction will be focused on my line of credit. For 2 reasons: 1) when the first real payment comes through I will be paying interest  + principle and if I don't focus on bring the principle down the payment will be painfully high. 2) I get a tax credit for the interest in my OSAP which for now I will need to bring my into a lower tax bracket to max my income return.  I can make lump payments to OSAP at any time so when I have my TD line at a manageable amount I will increase my payments to OSAP.  

A Kick Start to Accomplishing 2011 Goals

Today I decided to kick off the process of the 2011 New Years resolutions. The first thing that I did was create a tracker for my Christmas 2011 fund. The second thing I did was create another tracker for my extra 15,000.  On the 30th I called TD to ask what my line of credit balance was. The lady was unable to tell me as the interest was not to be added up till 4pm on the 30th. So at 4:10 on the 30th I called up and the next personal I talked to also was not able to give me an accurate figure for the same reason. Finally today I called and got an up to date figure. My line of credit stands at $32, 915.15. This number however does not take into consideration the $230 (200 normal instalment + 30 from snowflaking) I put into it on the 31st. As such the exact figure should be 32, 685.15. I won't update the tracker though until I get a statement in the mail.

In other news it looks like the cold has jumped from on kitty to the next. Max started with it and now it looks like it has made its way to Salem

2011 Goals/ New Years Resolutions

                     Financial 

1) Pay off $15,000 of Student debt (not including minimum payments)

2) Get a second job (preferably by March)

3) Invest 6% of my income into company stock

4) Create and fund Christmas fund 2011 to the amount of $800  

5) cut cell phone bill in half (preferably by the end of January)

6) Order my credit score

                                            Personal

1) Read 50 books I already own

2) Get my Gold Duke of Ed Award

3) Catalogue and count books

4)Finish/ start Europe/UK scrap book

5)Find a way to put $100 into Shirli's visa card 

6) get my knee sorted out