Weekly Spending Recap Dec 26-31 2010

December 26
No Spend Day

December 27
No Spend Day


December 28
No Spend Day

December 29
No Spend Day

December 30
$20. 34 (dry cleaning my coat a waitress decorated with guacamole *grumble, grumble*)
$200 TD Student loan
$117.26 General Saving (sent to car fund)
$50 Cat fund
$150 vacation fund
$425 Car fund

December 31
$1.32 change from last weeks cat food put into Cat fund
$50 from friend put into car fund


I meant to blog about an encounter I had at the bank yesterday but forgot, so here it is:

Yesterday at lunch I went down to the bank to take money out to pay my Duke of Ed fees and to pay for bus tickets when I next run out. The teller said to me "why don't you have a visa card with us." I was completely shocked I felt like I was being told off for not taking on debt!!  I told her because I didn't want one, but I said it in a question-like and defensive tone. She then launched in to how "as an employee I get preferred rates and 50% off annual fees."  I felt guilted into telling her that I would think about it.  Before I tossed my stuff into my bag and speed walked back to my desk.

First off  NO I WILL NOT THINK ABOUT IT!!! She is right I would get discounted rates at 11.99% and the annual fees are 50% off but my goal is to reduce debt not acquire more. While she was not to know that, what really bothered me was the way she asked me. The delivery was the same accusing, snotty- look down your noise attitude you would use when judging a person as being beneath you or telling someone to pick up after their dog. Also if it wasn't for the fact i am not by nature a pushover and I acutely aware of my financial situation I would have likely caved under her glare. Maybe in the past this process has worked for her but what a shitty thing for a bank to do to a customer: "welcome to our bank, let me help you get into debt!!"

Bi-weekly finances and funds

Today is pay day. Pay days are fun because well you get paid ;P

I walked in to my bank and the Ally cheque hasn't gone through. I'm telling you its so frustrating. I almost wish I hadn't sent the cheque in. I think the Gods were stickin it to me today. I told you it would be boring and quiet at work today and I was wrong. It was so busy today that it wasn't until 10 min. before lunch did I realize that I needed to sort out my budget to take money out of my account.

With out any further ado:

TD Line of credit: 200.00

General Savings: 117.26

Cat fund: 50.00

Vacation Fund: 150.00

Car Fund: 425.00

Transit: 48.00 (2 sheets of tickets)

Duke of Ed fees: 30.00

Spending money: 80.00

My friend gave me back 50.00 he owed me from a while back. I have decided to put the money into my car fund.

I snowflaked 30.00 from my last pay into my TD line of credit.  I am not sure if this is an exact figure of what was left from my last pay but I think it is about right.

I have decided to move the general savings into my car fund. I haven't deposited the amount form my friend yet so I am not including it into my updated fund tracker.

Money in Money out….

Ally, Credit card, New friends, Max, boy friend

Today I called Ally to check on the status of my cheque because every time I check my accounts the money is still sitting in the account. Having money in my account unnerves me, I feel as though it might trigger impulse buying. I am not by nature bad for impulse buying but it's never good to tempt the 'pulse.' The other annoying thing is that I can't snowflake what ever is left in my account. I have no idea what will be left over, if cashing cheques have service fees and such like that. I just don't want to end up with a NSF charge because I haven't left myself wiggle room.

Pay day is tomorrow and I have made up the budget. There are a few things with it that still need some tweaking which I will do while I'm sitting at my desk bored tomorrow.

I was reading GMBMFB and she had a blog list up of the "Top 10 Realest Personal Finance Bloggers" one of them is Paying Myself. I thought I would check out her blog. I browsed through it and found a post about Debt and her reasoning for focusing on savings and not her debt.  Point 3 is " I want to learn a lesson (or two or three). Basically she said that by having the debt on her credit card it discourages her from using up the little room she would have by putting more then her minimum payment on her credit card. When I read this I felt like OMG there is another person in the world who has the same thing as I do. I completely get where she is coming from. And she understands cat vet bills  :) So I have decided to add her to my blog role ...a new friend ... or a PF blogger creeper lol

For those that were wondering Max is doing much better. His sneezing has significantly reduced and I still have $53 in the Cat fund. He's feeling better and I have money in the bank still. I fell really good about it knowing that I will be able to afford what ever comes up with the cats in the future because of my Cat fund. I feel more in control and that's always a good feeling.

For anyone wondering where I have been for the last couple of days I was away on a romantic couple of days for my boyfriend. He treated me to a lovely trip to Niagara falls. He budgeted to spend $500 in spending cash and I am happy to report we didn't spend that much. I made a conscious effort to not let him. Of course had he known he would have been very pissed with me. He wouldn't let me pay for a single thing. Which was great for my budget because I had not planed for such an adventure. However I felt terrible about it because despite his effort to keep me in the dark I know exactly what the room cost on top of all the things he paid for while there.

Our conversation on the way home was about personal finances and money. This is a great thing because for a while I was fretting about the fact, I didn't feel we could have a conversation about money.
He told me that if him and I ever got our own place together that he would just hand it to me. To make sure it was put in all the right places as long as he was given money to do stuff with. I don't know how I feel about this. But I will tell you its a step in the right direction.  I want him to learn soon rather then later about the benefits of saving good chunks of his pay.

Tomorrow I will post my bi-weekly budget.

When Life Gets in the Way Episode II

On Christmas eve I noticed that Max (cat #2) was sneezing a lot. I don't know if you have ever seen a cat sneeze but it is really cute. However when boxing day evening rolled around he had become a lot worse and he was being very ani-social. That night we decided that he had to go to the vets. So first thing we did on the 27th was take him into the vet's office. You will notice that my Cat fund has dropped to $53. This is because the vet bill cost me $146.92. I am so glad that I started this fund, though I wish I had had more of a buffer within it.  In March both cats are going in for annual physicals. This will be min.  of $150 for each cat, likely a lot more for Max because he is likely very out of date for his shots.

To night since Christmas is completely over and I do not need to get anymore gifts I transferred the $100 from my Christmas fund into my vacation fund. My vacation fund now sits at $311.52.

I checked my chequeings account and it is currently at $455.13 which means that Ally have not taken out the cheque that I wrote them. This is a problem for me as tomorrow is pay day and I have no idea how much will be left in my account to snowflake the money. I am going to have to call them tomorrow as having money in this account completely messes up the system.

Weekly Spending Recap Dec 20-25, 2010

Monday 20
No Spend day

Tuesday 21
No Spend day

Wednesday 22
Went Salsa dancing after work. A friend ended up paying for my food and drink. I brought a 15% coupon off though.
No Spend day

Thursday 23
No Spend day

Friday 24
No Spend day

** The only thing I have spent money on this week was bus tickets that I had bought a couple of weeks back. I am using them up to get to and from work. Do you think I should count the tickets in my daily spend journal. Given that the money is already allocated and the tickets have been bought ahead of time? And in future do you think I should include the tickets?

Marry Christmas and THANK YOU!!

I don't think I will get another change to say this. So to everyone who follows my blog or pops on once in a while, THANK YOU!!!!! Thank you for welcoming me in to the PF blog world and for being excepting and supportive. It means so much to me to know that there are people who are willing to talk openly about finances when my family won't. Thank you for letting me vent and make mistakes, while helping to guide me with your kind words. Because of YOU I have been able to make small but significant steps to being DEBT FREE.

          THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

To my friends in warm claimants enjoy the beaches and sun. To my friends who share the cold with me, bring on the snow.

A MARRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!!!!

Ally, income and student debt

On Monday I mentioned that  I had finally got around to sending in my cheque in to Ally. The lady at Ally said that they would have it processed in a few days and taken out of my account a few days after that.  I checked it today and the money hasn't been removed yet. This scares me. I hate having money or rather large sums of money in my chequeings account. I don't keep large sums in my account to prevent theft and also to prevent impulsive buying. I wish they would  hurry up. Last time I sent them a cheque they had returned it to me within 3 business days.  Mind you maybe the reason its taking so taking is because its actually being processed this time around.  Who knows... its a wait and see kind of thing.

The other day I was on the Globe and Mail site and one of the articles said that to pay down student debt you had to use the rule of 10.  Basically grads need to be making 10,000 more then their student debt to have it paid off in 10 years at a rate of 10% a year. Now according to this assessment I am making  30,000 less then I should be a year. How depressing is that, especially because I do not want to be paying off student debt for 10 years.

Yesterday a friend of mine and I were talking about getting part-time second jobs. I really want to do this because I need the income to reach my debt repayment goal in the new year. However I mentioned this to my boyfriend and he was less then pleased. I think he thinks if I got a second job that the little time we get together will end up decreasing further. I don't want this to be the case and I intend to make sure that this isn't the case. But how do I get him on board. I don't want him to think that his concerns aren't valued but truth be told I am going to get a second job.