Income Tax In!!

I got the mail today and I received my new mastercard. It includes the pay pass and the chip. It's pretty cool haha. Also in the mail was my income tax cheque!

Grand total of $2037!!!! How sweet is that? So I went to the bank to deposit the cheque. I was hoping the bank would still be open so that I could withdraw a large chunk of that cheque but it was closed so I had to go to the machine and they would only let me withdraw $1000.

That money is going toward my E-fund. If I have time tomorrow I will withdraw another $500 and totally fund it. I also transferred another $75 to Christmas/Gifts, $100 to TFSA, and $250 to Travel. I also want to take BF for supper this weekend. He has paid for a lot of dates lately. Annnnnd that will pretty much take care of my entire income tax return. Sure easy to get rid of money, but I feel it's going to responsible places. April has been a great month so far!

Now to update those side bars!

My Family Loan Plan

My plan is to pay off my family loan. Then I want to save up $2000 in my regular bank account. That way I have the required $1500 to avoid bank fees, and I have a bit of leeway room in case. I also like to transfer my savings money a few days before paydays because it takes a few days to transfer to ING. I also have $2000 which will serve as my emergency fund if I need it. I am not ready to get rid of my regular bank account so I think this works out well. Hopefully I will get the family loan paid off and the regular bank account up to $2000 by New Years. $500 more went to the Family Loan tonight. YAY!

Therefore, my TFSA that I'm working on will no longer need to serve as my emergency fund and will instead be a planned spending account. I'm thinking car, wedding, house. My car hit 200,000km yesterday and as much as I hope to see it hit 300,000km I will try to prepare for not making it.

Cause of Car Problems

It was the brake line. Apparently there was a leak and so I ran out of brake fluid, Jason you were right! The one line had a visible hole in it, and the other was wet meaning it likely had a small not visible leak. So it was a bit of a process to get it fixed. My dad went to get it checked but now it's done and working again. Yay! They also fixed the holes in the exhaust. Total damage is $300. I know my dad won't ask for the money, he wouldn't even tell me what it was. I had to get it out of my mom today. I will pay him back soon. Instead of taking it out of my TFSA (E-fund) which is very minimal already, I'm going to make a smaller contribution to my family loan next month.

Low Paycheque Month

The past little while I have not been getting very much work. As a result my next paycheque is going to be very low (under $200 kind of low). I received the paystub yesterday but get paid on Friday. Thankfully I have been getting work this and last week and so my next paycheque will be typical. This makes me realize the importance of an emergency fund, and hope to get it started in early January.

I am glad the majority of my Christmas shopping is done now, I am going to mail out my Christmas packages today after I wrap them, and hopefully pick up a few of the final things I need to buy. So the final touches won't cost too much (under $75 including mail).

I talked to my boss at the rec centre I work at sometiems and she asked if I wanted to work over the Christmas holidays. I said yes, and now I will be working 8 days. It would be nice to have some time off during the break but I expect January to be another slow teaching month so it will help to get my 2010 goals started!

Potential 2010 Budget

So I have been thinking about this for a while (well past couple of weeks at least).

I want to have a variable budget with regards to LIFE expenses. However with semi-fixed expenses/savings this is what I want to try to have each month:

$100 for Transportation
$600 to my Family Loan
$200 to TFSA
$50 for Gifts
$50 to E-fund

Transportation would cover gas and hopefully small repairs.
Family Loan is the loan my family gave after I graduated to help reduce interest costs. Contributing at this amount would take me to about June to get it paid off. Anything left over would also go here.
TFSA was started this month and would be "planned spending" but for something at a much later date (i.e. wedding, car)
Gifts is for birthdays and Christmas throughout the year
E-fund is low right now because I live at home and have relatively little expenses so an emergency is not very likely to occur but I still want to get one started to help for when I do move out.

You may be thinking that I should be contributing to an RRSP as well. I have thought about this, and I think for me it's more important to pay off my debt before contributing to retirement. Especially since I have a low income. I will start contributing to an RRSP once I get the family loan paid off. I have a budget for this as well. After loan is paid off I was thinking: $400 to TFSA, $250 to RRSP, $50 to gifts and $100 to E-fund.

*Also I should mention this is for typical paycheque months, some months I will not even make this amount and I will try to cut personal expenses as much as I can to make these payments but may not always happen. Other months I will try to go above these goals as well when I have better paycheque months :)

Any advice is welcome!! What do you think?