April's Monthly Goals

Paying Myself does monthly goals at the beginning of each month and then at the end does a goal round up. So I am going to steal borrow her idea.  Starting this month I am going to set monthly goals to help me progress through my yearly goals and just to get things done in a timely manner. And just like Paying Myself first I am going to split the goals up in to two groups: Professional and Personal

                                    Professional 


1) Have read the full text book for my LLQP
2) Have done notes for all parts of the LLQP
3) Have done all the multiple choice questions in the Q&A book

                                       Personal


1) Pay off visa card with tax return
2) Make charitable contribution
3) Write cheque to ING to link accounts
4) Get Rez project sighed by prof for Duke of Ed
5) Get vol. signed for Duke of Ed
6) Getting my line of credit under -30,000.000

I think that is ambitious enough for this month. I would love to add more things but I am afraid to over do it.

Weekly Money Check-Up

Once again thank you to MMP...

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on Korean BBQ, which was $20, unless you count paying bills and then it would be $400 on my Line of credit.

2. Today I feel impatient about money. My tax return hasn't come in despite asking it to be direct deposit and getting my stuff to the accountant 2 weeks ago, and I know the accountant has done them because I got my copy in the mail.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was I went to see my sister play hockey it as the quarter finals. It was a great game had us on edge the whole time!

4. I will consider this week a success if  I can get last week's 2 book cases catalogued, It will be an even greater success if I can get 4 done!

5. The last time I had a good nap was likely kindergarten or when I was last really sick. I don't nap otherwise I can't sleep the next night. The only time my body takes naps is when I am so sick my body decides to take a time out.

Weekly spend Recap March 21-27, 2011

March 21 (Monday)

 No Spend Day

March 22 (Tuesday)

 $2.50 cookie at Future Bakery 

March 23 (Wednesday)

 No Spend Day

March 24 (Thursday)

 No Spend Day

March 25 (Friday)

 $20.00 Korean BBQ

March 26 (Saturday)
$45.00 taxi ride to work (just found the receipt as it was put on visa :( 

$7.05 Tim's breakfast and lunch 

 $7.55 Go ticket to Whitby

$12.50 TTC tokens

March 27 (Sunday)

 No Spend Day


I ran to the bank on Saturday after work and snowflaked $8.53 and I deposited another $25.00 in to my visa bill. When my tax return comes in I am going to wipe out my visa debt!!! I am so excited about the prospect. when that happens I will redo my budget again so as to reassign the extra $50 I will have. I have the updated amount on my line of credit with out the $400 I put into it Friday night. So according to the bank my line of credit is currently $-31,275.25. I will update the side bar to reflect the number but not the green line. I only my green bars once a month. Only a couple of more days until  then but hopefully my $400 will show on there system by then. 

Bi-weekly Pay, Fund Allotment and Playing with Money

It was payday this last Thursday. I didn’t however move money around until yesterday.  As it turns out I was in over draft again by $0.11 and because I always have my Work Bank Account at zero they dipped into over draft again. What this all means is next month I will be paying over draft on overdraft… ARGGGG!!! I fell like such a (fill in blank). It bothers me because I have never had nor neared overdraft. In my mind when the bank balance says zero then that’s it. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Also in those rare occasions where I want on the read with Scotia I never got charged over draft interest. So I now have had to leave $2 in the account so as to stop these charges once and for all.

I made sure that I walked into the bank and withdraw the money that was left in my account AFTER ING had taken the money out. I use to do email money transfers as we are allowed 2 free, on one month billing cycle. I thought I had been ok that I hadn’t gone over the 2 transfers. However it has been indicated to me that I did which is how my account ended up in the negative.  Another reason I was given because I called in twice to find out how the charge happened; was that the ING stuff comes out of my account at 12am the day I picked and my pay comes in at 4ish in the morning. So hopefully by resetting my ING money to come out the day after I get paid this will stop the over draft interest as well.  Than on Fridays I will be whipping my account out at a branch and walking it over to Scotia. The hope is that all this will brake the gross cycle of over draft interest I have been paying. After all I worked hard for those 11 cents!!

My last month’s bill for Rogers was way over budget due to the stuff with Cuba, coming in at $155.83, thus $55.83 over. So I have had to play around with the numbers again. I had $28.00 left over from last pay. This was snowflaked into my bills account to help cover this cost. I had $25 (in cash) left over from the cost of my licence renewal that I was going to put into my car fund. This will go into my visa account and my allotted $25 from this pay for my visa will be rolled into my Rogers bill to cover the excess cost of the cell phone bill. This means that I will have $54.00 extra for this bill.

My Company Stock contribution was dropped .I would like in the future to make the full 10% which is $136.93. However I really can’t at this point, so I have dropped it down to 6% which is $82.16 a pay. My Bank only matches up to 50% of your contribution up to 6% which means that they will match 3% of my 6% contribution. You are allowed to put up to 10% but the Bank only matches up to 6%.

I have also added my Emergency fund to my direct withdrawals with ING. Starting this last pay ING will now take of $50 bi-weekly off my pay, $25 for my retirement fund and $25 for my emergency fund.

Last but not least, I have $7.28 that I am carrying around with me until I can get to a TD bank. This money will be snowflaked into my Line of credit.

Bi-weekly pay and fund allotment:

               Amount (after stock contribution): $1, 011.73

TD Line of Credit: $400

OSAP:  $0

Visa: $25

Retirement fund: $25

Emergency fund: $25

Christmas fund: $40

Storage Unit: $85

Vet bills Fund: $100 (50 for last pay and 50 from this pay)

Cell phone: $100 (50 for last pay and 50 from this pay)

Car Fund: $100.00

Spending money: $75

Bills paid to date for this month:

TD Line of credit: $700

OSAP: $300

Visa Card: $25.00

Cell phone: $155.83

Pay Day and Other things

Today is pay day... I was so looking forward today. Except everything is messed up again! My work bank charged me over draft interest of $0.11 and I can't get a straight answer out of them for why!! Basically what I am going to have to do to stop the over draft charges is leave at least 2$ in the account. This is completely upsetting and I feel a complete waste of $2.

The night before pay day I had 28.00 left in my account I snow flaked this into my bills account. When I got back from Cuba my Rogers' bill for this month was 180.00+ however they messed up on my account and charged me for the travel pack but didn't actually put it into effect until after I got back. So after 4 calls I got it dropped to just over $155. In an effort not to completely kill my budget for this month I have put the extra money a side to pay for the phone bill.

I have decided to let sleeping giants lie and have not paid any bills or done anything with the money in my account until tomorrow.  So expect an update on funds, debt and bills tomorrow.

Who am I, fill in the blank

Ninja had a fill in the blank paragraph that I thought was interesting so I have decided to take part. Enjoy!




Hi, my name is CommonCents. I currently work at A National Canadian Bank and make around 35,700.00 per year. I really find my job repetitive and currently boring. The scariest thing to me about personal finance is debt. If I had a financial do-over I would go back and budget my student money better or save a little more. One thing most people don’t know about me is I would rather spent time alone then with other people. I think that cats and insects is/are the coolest thing since sliced bread. When I fart, it smells like swage and sounds like nothing (silent but deadly). Twenty years from now, I think America will be in bad shape because if its governmental system. The most non-mortgage debt I’ve ever had was $49,058.75 and today I have $32,431.73 amount of debt. If I won $10,000 dollars right now, I would go out and buy a car and put the rest into my Line of Credit. Okay, enough of this silly paragraph, it’s time I go back the TV so I can continue to watch the news.


Now  for you.....


Hi, my name is blank. I currently work at blank and make around blank per year. I really blank my job. The scariest thing to me about personal finance is blank. If I had a financial do-over I would go back and blank. One thing most people don’t know about me is blank. I think that blank is/are the coolest thing since sliced bread. When I fart, it smells like blank and sounds like blank. Twenty years from now, I think America will be blank. The most non-mortgage debt I’ve ever had was blank and today I have blank amount of debt. If I won blank dollars right now, I would go out and blank. Okay, enough of this silly paragraph, it’s time I go blank so I can blank.

Weekly money Check-Up

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on money at the arcade.

2. Today I feel frustrated towards money.  I read Fabulously Broke's posting about net worth and calculated that I should only be $-17.850.00 in the whole. And I am definitely no were near that number. Frankly I would be happy to be at 0 in my net worth. At least it would mean that I was either debt free or hand enough cash to balance out my debt. I am frustrated because I want to be able to provide my sister an alternative option and I can't... not in my financial situation. 

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was I went salsa dancing and had a wonderful time.

4. I will consider this week a success if I got to see my friend which i have blown off twice for family emergencies and if I can get 2 shelfs catalogued... ideally I would like 4 done but that might not be realistic.

5. Today I am thankful for my sister being ok... I know I can't always understand God's decisions but last night he answered my prayers in a most interesting manor. Now if only He could help me straiten out my dad's attitude. 

Today has been a very hard day and I am not really interested in talking about it, so thank you to MPP for having this weekly questionnaire I definitely needed it to fill the void today.