Updates: Christmas Spending, General Savings Fund, Cat Fund, Car Fund, Christmas bonus and Rasis

I finally got around to updating my General Savings Fund, my Cat Fund and my Car Fund trackers on my blog.

General savings fund: $712.09

Cat Fund: $150.01

Car fund: $1,200.25

These numbers will be out of date as of this coming Thursday which is pay day.

I went Christmas shopping last weekend and got almost everyone covered. I still have my sister left and maybe stocking stuffers. I had a budget of $300 and I have $57.42 left. I had budgeted another $100 from this weeks pay but I don't think I am going to need it. So I will likely transfer that $100 in to my vacation fund. What ever is left over from my Christmas shopping will go into my car fund. Also as you might remember my Boyfriend had my wallet for over a week so as a result I still have over $40.00 left in my checkings account. So what ever is left of that will go into my TD Line of Credit for the snowflake finance. I had originally budgeted for next years Christmas fund around $1,000 but given that I will have everyone covered for around $300 (this year) I don't think I will need that much. Thus I will double the amount and then give myself a cushion of $200, this will being the number up to $800 that has to be saved for next year's Christmas Fund.

I have other news, the other day everyone in my department got letters stating our Christmas bonus and the raises we will be getting. So I will be getting a raise of $700 over the course of the year and a bonus of just over $380. Now I was surprised to find out that I am actually making 1,000 less then I thought I was. But since I have not actually worked a full year at the Bank I can't say I have felt the difference. In case you were wondering what I was going to do with the bonus money I have decided to put $300 in to my car fund and the rest after taxes in my vacation fund. It would have been more ideal to put it into my student debt but in the short term I need a car. Today it was -8C and with wind chill it felt like -13C, standing around for a bus sucked.

Plastic Crazy (credit cards)

I worked this past Saturday. It was dead so of course when your tied to a phone and desk the only thing to do is search the net. While on the net I came a cross the most stupid thing. It happened quite innocently, I was on the phone with a client who had a new visa card and wanted to know a symbol meant that was above the first four digits. The client was asking if it meant something like she was getting a new insurance. I had no idea so I googled the kind of card she had and up popped lots of pictures of her card. I clicked on one and after I finished with the client I glanced down to see the site I had lifted the picture from. Turned out to be chat forum from redtag.com which is a Canadian last minute getaway site. The topic peaked my interest so I went back to the first page.

The first post which started the forum off was a question: What do you carry in your wallet?

As I read more and more of the posts, the form developed into 'how many debt and credit cards do you keep in your wallet.' Some people posted pictures of their plastic cards lined up others just wrote them down. Now if your going to take pictures its always best to black out the personal stuff like your card number and name. A lot of people forgot to do this, talk about stupid. That's like jumping up and down and asking for identity theft or fraud to happen to you.

One thing that was really shocking was the shear number of things people kept in their wallets. One woman has 18, that's right 18 little pieces of plastic which consisted of 8 debt cards and 10 credit cards!!! I had no idea one person was allowed that many credit cards. The kicker was the same woman had 4 more at home all credit cards that she was debating about getting rid off but she hadn't decided if she could 'life with out them' no joke! Another person boasted about how he spends $3,000 a year in annual fees for his card and how it gets him in to the VIP lounges at the airports. That's a lot of money to waste of semi-conferrable chairs at an airport.

Another thing that blow me away the shear number of doubles. People who would have multiples of the same card all with different accounts. What is the point of that, can someone explain that to me? It might be because I was looking for it unknowingly but a lot of posters had visa cards from the bank that I work for. Some had multiples of the annual fee cards that we have. Which means there are people in this world with 2 identical cards that they pay $140 a year for. Don't people know that 2 of the same kinds of cards doses not give you better or more travel insurance?? o.O

This web forum was like a bad collision, terrible to look but addictive you couldn't take your eyes off of it. I was tempted to post the second question: how must is your consumer debt?

Is a piece of plastic in your wallet really worth all this?

Plan of Attack: Student Debt Part 1

When it comes to the 'Plan of attack' there are two distinct camps.

The first camp advises people to list all there debt from smallest amount to largest amount. The systematically work your way through the smallest to the largest. The idea being that if you have small success from the begging you will be more motivated to get all the debt paid down. The second reason for this approach is that the small amounts you paid can then be added to the larger debts to pay down the principle faster.

The second camp advises people to start with the debts which have the highest interest rate. The idea being that the higher the interest rate the less you are able to put into the principle and the more in the end you will end up paying to the lender to get your debt paid off.

Both methods work if you only have CREDIT CARD DEBT!!!

Student debt is very different and requires a different approach.

Not sure what I mean, let me explain. In Ontario, Canada which is were I live OSAP (National Student Loans) gives graduated students 6 months before they have to make their first payment. Interest still collects over those 6 months which is then paid in a lump sum on your first payment. In comparison when you have a student loan from a bank, in my case TD CanadaTrust (TD), the first year you are only expected to pay the interest. After the first year you are expected to play both a chunk of the principle and the monthly interest.

As for payment plan lengths National Student Loans automatically places students on a 9.5 year payment plan. As for my TD loan there is no real payment timeline, basically its when ever the loan is paid off. The thing about this is that you could take 9.5 years to pay off your National Student Loan and 10 years to pay off your Bank loan. However by the time you paid it off at this rate you would have likely paid for the original loan 2 times over. Also it hinders your ability to qualify for a mortgage when you want to buy your first home. For all the above reasons I am going to accelerate my payment plans.