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.

Budgeting is Just Planing in Disguise

As I mentioned yesterday I have been doing a lot budgeting to make sure that I pay bills before I leave for Cuba and any bills that I can hold off paying until after I get back. Its been a balancing act and my calculator has never been out of reach. Its funny while I don't use it at work I always being it with me, I actually start making my bi-weekly budgets at my desk. Any ways I digress...

The key to a successful budget is the planing part. Take for example the cat litter I bought yesterday for almost $15.00 for 22kg (trust me I gritted my teeth about it). Normally cat litter at Cosco cost me $7.49 and when they have the coupons I get $2 off so it only costs me $5.49. Now we normally always pick up 2 boxes of about 18kg each (we have 3 cats its a necessity). When we we get down to 1 box we stick it on the list and get more. Some how the system got derailed and when I mentioned we were on the last box it did NOT get put on the list.  As a result when mom went out shopping on Saturday she didn't get cat litter. So yesterday I had to go to Zellers last minute to get it. We were in desperate need and one litter box down without it... never a good thing in our house. Mom having spent all her money yesterday couldn't afford to pick it up.  So I paied for it.  Now don't get me wrong I am not complaining about paying for it, what galls me is OVER PAYING!! For the cost of two boxes at Cosco I paid the same amount for one at Zellers and I got less bang for my buck!! Instead of spending 15.00 on 36kg of cat litter I spend 15.00 and only got 22kg. This is where the planing comes in, had it been put on the list mom would have known we were out. But even if she wasn't able to pay for it, I would have, but at Cosco. Worse thing  about this whole situation is we will still have to get more litter in a week or two.

Lesson Learned: great budgeting and saving money comes down to planning!!

Thanks for listening...

Yesterday I had a slight freak out over money. I confess I lost my cool. But I am better now after I wrote my post I had a light bulb go off and so I might be able to fit it all in. My friend has agreed that dinning on the cheep is cool and we are crashing on a friend's floor. This means that although the budget will be super tight I might just be able to squeak by unscathed, God willing of course. I will let you know when the final numbers are all crunched when pay day roles around. I just want to say thank you for listening.  I talked to my mom about it and her advice was live a little and only pay your min. on your line a credit if necessary.  Advice that I found not nearly as helpful as I am sure she meant it to be.

Also I have been thinking about reopening my Ally account or signing up for a ING account. I don't like the accessibly of my 'retirement fund'/ my 10% fund. On weak moments its hard to think about retirement when I am only 24 years old.  Its just very easy to consider using the money for other things. But I have not completely looked in to ING. Nor do I want to make another rash decision about it.


Lesson learned: Emergency fund of any size is necessary and will in future be worked into budget.

When Life Gets in the Way and Specific Funds Explanation

I have mentioned in a few of my last posts about "when life gets in the way" and that I would explain my reasons for splitting up my Savings into two different funds (general savings and Specific funds). I have also mentioned before about the importance of putting 10% your savings away or paying yourself first. You will also notice that I do not have an emergency fund.

The general savings fund is the place I put 10% of my income. Its strictly for savings or investing. That is I have not completely decided what to do with it. So until I make the decision, it will sit as my general savings fund, collecting 10% of my income every pay.

The first Specific fund is my car fund. Basically I spend up to 5h each day on buses and walking to and from work, were by car its 15-25 min. So I want a car so I can take the extra 4h I would save and put it towards time for a second job which is one of my goals for next year.

Now the Cat fund is a little bit more complex and has a story behind it. Two years ago this month a cat acquired me.

When I was going to university the lady who lived upstairs of me rescued animals. All animals she was not discriminating. But at the time she was focused on local stray cats. I worked while at university in the campus safety and student safety DPTM so I knew many of the first year Rez. kids. A couple first year friends of mine told me they had spotted a cat living in Chaplain North Quad which is one of the court yards that make up Chaplain College. My friends asked me if they were able to catch the cat would I be willing to foster it until they could find a home for it. I said of course and latter that week when they caught it they brought it to my place. I came back home for the Friday and Saturday to see a movie with a friend. While at home in Toronto I picked up a flee collar for the cat from a local pet store and when I got home I put it on him.

The next morning I woke up with large brown insects crawling across my chest. I had no idea what they were at the time and where they came from. But as I stripped my bed I found more crawling in and among my sheets. It didn't take long for me to isolate the source- the cat. It cost me $200 for the emergency vet on call visit, to fine out that the cat was covered in Ticks. By the time I had completely de-ticked him I had taken off over 500 ticks. I made the decision that day that if i was shelling out $200 then the cat was officially 'bought.' What followed was monthly vet visits for a variety of different things, to the point where I stated to joke about him being my thousand dollar kitty.

We surpassed the thousand dollar mark this last October when Salem (my cat) ate a piece of string and it got rapped around his tongue causing him to toss up anything he tried to eat or drink. He spent 2 nights in the vet hospital. The vet first quoted me at $1150 and it ended up coming to $750. I had $250 from the reimbursement of dental expenses I get back though my insurance and I slashed my budget to squeeze out another $250, my mom was nice enough to cover the rest. But I realized then that I needed to have a Cat Fund to make sure that if anything else like this again happened I was finically prepared. Especially now that I have another car Max and there are always yearly vet check ups.

So that's the story behind the Cat fund. I have it set for $2500 but basically I will just let it grow and grow until a situation arises where I need to dip into it. Every pay cheque I put in $50.