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!
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Wow we got about one foot of snow over the weekend! Here come the days of waking up early to brush off the car. Although I look forward to sledding and tubing!
Friday we went to the Festival of the Lights in town. We got some free hot chocolate, gingerbread cookies, and s'mores, and made a couple of donations to the local toy drive. Then watched some fireworks and the lights go up in town.
The local Santa Claus Parade was yesterday and it was snowing pretty hard the entire time! We had to continually brush the snow off our hats and shoulders to keep it from piling up too much haha. It made the parade more fun! Then we put up the tree and some Christmas decorations. It's much more festive here now.
Now I encourage you to make a donation to your local food and/or toy drive. Even some time spared to help sort food and wrap toys if you cannot afford the donation. Anything you can do at this time is greatly appreciated by those less fortunate.
Friday we went to the Festival of the Lights in town. We got some free hot chocolate, gingerbread cookies, and s'mores, and made a couple of donations to the local toy drive. Then watched some fireworks and the lights go up in town.
The local Santa Claus Parade was yesterday and it was snowing pretty hard the entire time! We had to continually brush the snow off our hats and shoulders to keep it from piling up too much haha. It made the parade more fun! Then we put up the tree and some Christmas decorations. It's much more festive here now.
Now I encourage you to make a donation to your local food and/or toy drive. Even some time spared to help sort food and wrap toys if you cannot afford the donation. Anything you can do at this time is greatly appreciated by those less fortunate.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
26 Questions
I stole this from Saving4Later and Frugal Dreamer. Thought it would be fun to do for a weekend post.
Last Movie I Saw In A Movie Theater? Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in 3D
What Book Are You Reading? Currently nothing, but I made a list of books I want to borrow from the library this week
Favorite Board Game? There are people that hate board games?!? I love them, my favourite is Cranium or Things.
Favorite Magazine? Chickadee, or Professionally Speaking ;)
Favorite Smells? Homemade bread
Favorite Sounds? Laughing babies, cracks me up everytime
Worst Feeling In The World? Someone close to you passing away
First Thing You Think of When You Wake? Is it time already?
Favorite Fast Food Place? Subway
Future Child’s Name? Boy: Jaiden Girl: Kayln
Finish This Statement—“If I Had a Lot of Money,” I'd pay off my debts and go on vacation :)
Do You Drive Fast? I go with the flow usually
Do You Sleep With a Stuffed Animal? No, but I still have several
Storms—cool or scary? Cool, unless I'm driving in them
What Was Your First Car? Toyota Tercel
Favorite Drink? Water, and then chocolate milk
Finish This Statement—“If I Had the Time, I Would…” Finish my sewing
Do You Eat the Stems on Broccoli? Sometimes, but I prefer the florets
If You could Dye your Hair Any Other Color, What Would It Be? Maybe dark brown
Favorite Sport to Watch? Hockey, Go Leafs Go
What’s Under Your Bed? Carpet? Storage, mostly school stuff
Would You Like to Be Born As Yourself Again? Yes!
Morning Person or Night Owl? Night Owl, trying to change it
Over Easy or Sunny Side Up? Mmmmm I'll take them anyway, I love eggs. But I guess over-easy.
Favorite Place to Relax? On the beach at the lake, or in bed.
Favorite Ice Cream Flavor? Chocolate peanut butter cup.
Last Movie I Saw In A Movie Theater? Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in 3D
What Book Are You Reading? Currently nothing, but I made a list of books I want to borrow from the library this week
Favorite Board Game? There are people that hate board games?!? I love them, my favourite is Cranium or Things.
Favorite Magazine? Chickadee, or Professionally Speaking ;)
Favorite Smells? Homemade bread
Favorite Sounds? Laughing babies, cracks me up everytime
Worst Feeling In The World? Someone close to you passing away
First Thing You Think of When You Wake? Is it time already?
Favorite Fast Food Place? Subway
Future Child’s Name? Boy: Jaiden Girl: Kayln
Finish This Statement—“If I Had a Lot of Money,” I'd pay off my debts and go on vacation :)
Do You Drive Fast? I go with the flow usually
Do You Sleep With a Stuffed Animal? No, but I still have several
Storms—cool or scary? Cool, unless I'm driving in them
What Was Your First Car? Toyota Tercel
Favorite Drink? Water, and then chocolate milk
Finish This Statement—“If I Had the Time, I Would…” Finish my sewing
Do You Eat the Stems on Broccoli? Sometimes, but I prefer the florets
If You could Dye your Hair Any Other Color, What Would It Be? Maybe dark brown
Favorite Sport to Watch? Hockey, Go Leafs Go
What’s Under Your Bed? Carpet? Storage, mostly school stuff
Would You Like to Be Born As Yourself Again? Yes!
Morning Person or Night Owl? Night Owl, trying to change it
Over Easy or Sunny Side Up? Mmmmm I'll take them anyway, I love eggs. But I guess over-easy.
Favorite Place to Relax? On the beach at the lake, or in bed.
Favorite Ice Cream Flavor? Chocolate peanut butter cup.
Friday, December 4, 2009
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?
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?
Labels:
E-Fund,
Family Loan,
Planned Spending,
RRSP,
Saving Money,
TFSA
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Starting to Save!
I have changed my budget around and what I want to do is start saving. I recently started a new ING account. I now have $100 in savings in a TFSA, and they gave me a free $25 for a regular savings account. Woohoo! My Orange Key is 34362383S1 in case anyone would like to sign up (means $25 for you and me for free)! You just need to have a minimum of $100 deposit. More info here.
I feel like I'm late to this savings game and don't know very much about it (particularly the RRSP savings). I realize it can make a big difference to your future though. If anyone can give me some advice on how to set up RRSPs that would be great!!
My original goal of paying back the $5000 to my family by the end of February is going to be delayed (they are fine with this, said to take all the time I need/want). I would like to give them $3000 by the end of February and then the remaining $2000 by the end of May or so. All the while putting some extra money into savings (will go more into detail about what this means later, after some more research as well). I'm glad I am going to start doing this because there is a lot to save for!!
I feel like I'm late to this savings game and don't know very much about it (particularly the RRSP savings). I realize it can make a big difference to your future though. If anyone can give me some advice on how to set up RRSPs that would be great!!
My original goal of paying back the $5000 to my family by the end of February is going to be delayed (they are fine with this, said to take all the time I need/want). I would like to give them $3000 by the end of February and then the remaining $2000 by the end of May or so. All the while putting some extra money into savings (will go more into detail about what this means later, after some more research as well). I'm glad I am going to start doing this because there is a lot to save for!!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Link Love
This weekend I added several more blogs that I enjoy...
The Asian Pear
I have just started reading this blog but I enjoy it. She is from Toronto (close to home) and I think she is really cool. She talks about a little bit of everything: personal finance, clothes, good food, family, weight loss etc.
The Financial Catastophizer
A Canadian PF blog! She is relatively new to the blog scene and describes herself as a married DINK (dual income, no kids).
Canadian Savings
I’m into Canadian PF bloggers eh? He is going to be a millionaire soon. He talks about things we need to know about, insurance, savings, retirement, etc. Very informative.
Punch Debt in The Face
He’s a ninja from the states and okay at first I joined this one just for the pictures. Funny and creative, but the content is really great as well :)
Give Me Back My Five Bucks
She talks a lot about life and some personal things as well. Again another Canadian. I also like the fact that she often has multiple posts in a day.
Check them out :)
The Asian Pear
I have just started reading this blog but I enjoy it. She is from Toronto (close to home) and I think she is really cool. She talks about a little bit of everything: personal finance, clothes, good food, family, weight loss etc.
The Financial Catastophizer
A Canadian PF blog! She is relatively new to the blog scene and describes herself as a married DINK (dual income, no kids).
Canadian Savings
I’m into Canadian PF bloggers eh? He is going to be a millionaire soon. He talks about things we need to know about, insurance, savings, retirement, etc. Very informative.
Punch Debt in The Face
He’s a ninja from the states and okay at first I joined this one just for the pictures. Funny and creative, but the content is really great as well :)
Give Me Back My Five Bucks
She talks a lot about life and some personal things as well. Again another Canadian. I also like the fact that she often has multiple posts in a day.
Check them out :)
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Cheap, Delicious Food
I worked today yay! Okay only a half day but still. I have had almost no work in two weeks, it's been terrible. My next paycheque is going to be so small! Anyway when I came home I was hungry and decided to make eggs.
Eggs are wonderful....and oh so cheap for their delicious goodness. As I was making them it brought me back to my university days. Oh the memories... I would eat cheap. I went out for food about once a semester, unless someone else was buying (thanks parents and boyfriend). I went grocery shopping once a week or less, and it was probably $20 on average each grocery trip.
Water is my favourite drink so I never bought juice, pop, tea etc. My roommates and I would split the cost of milk (taking turns buying 4L bags). It's pretty amazing how much you can save just by drinking tap water. For breakfast I would generally have Cheerios (mega pack lasted forever).
Lunches were sandwiches or bagels with cream cheese if I was at school, and often egg salad. There are those lovely protein filled eggs again :)
Supper, I pretty much became vegetarian during school. Meat is expensive!! You can get good protein from eggs anyway :) I would often have spaghetti (sometimes with meat sauce). Hamburger meat was fairly inexpensive (I sometimes made a big batch of spaghetti sauce and then froze into individual portions). I had frozen vegetables, salads, rice, potatoes, and eggs! I liked things that were quick to make but also not terribly expensive. When a parent would come once or twice a year and offer to buy groceries I took full advantage and stocked up on meats. I would then go home and individually wrap them so I could easily take one out in the morning for a meal.
Snacks are key while in school! How else are you going to write a 10 page essay? I liked apples, a bag of apples was pretty cheap, as were tangerines (mmmm). I like fresh veggies but would sometimes have a waste. So I would usually only buy one or two vegetables at a time (only celery and broccoli) and not get any more until they were finished. Also cutting the whole thing up when I got it made me more likely to eat it (already perpared, and made good study snacks). I also bought a lot of cookies haha because those make good study snacks as well. Sometimes I would bake them as well, but those never lasted as long in a house of girls.
But with so many different ways to make eggs, they were likely my favourite "cheap" food (likely under $1 per meal). So quick and easy to make as well! What is your favourite inexpensive food?
Get Cracking!
Eggs are wonderful....and oh so cheap for their delicious goodness. As I was making them it brought me back to my university days. Oh the memories... I would eat cheap. I went out for food about once a semester, unless someone else was buying (thanks parents and boyfriend). I went grocery shopping once a week or less, and it was probably $20 on average each grocery trip.
Water is my favourite drink so I never bought juice, pop, tea etc. My roommates and I would split the cost of milk (taking turns buying 4L bags). It's pretty amazing how much you can save just by drinking tap water. For breakfast I would generally have Cheerios (mega pack lasted forever).
Lunches were sandwiches or bagels with cream cheese if I was at school, and often egg salad. There are those lovely protein filled eggs again :)
Supper, I pretty much became vegetarian during school. Meat is expensive!! You can get good protein from eggs anyway :) I would often have spaghetti (sometimes with meat sauce). Hamburger meat was fairly inexpensive (I sometimes made a big batch of spaghetti sauce and then froze into individual portions). I had frozen vegetables, salads, rice, potatoes, and eggs! I liked things that were quick to make but also not terribly expensive. When a parent would come once or twice a year and offer to buy groceries I took full advantage and stocked up on meats. I would then go home and individually wrap them so I could easily take one out in the morning for a meal.
Snacks are key while in school! How else are you going to write a 10 page essay? I liked apples, a bag of apples was pretty cheap, as were tangerines (mmmm). I like fresh veggies but would sometimes have a waste. So I would usually only buy one or two vegetables at a time (only celery and broccoli) and not get any more until they were finished. Also cutting the whole thing up when I got it made me more likely to eat it (already perpared, and made good study snacks). I also bought a lot of cookies haha because those make good study snacks as well. Sometimes I would bake them as well, but those never lasted as long in a house of girls.
But with so many different ways to make eggs, they were likely my favourite "cheap" food (likely under $1 per meal). So quick and easy to make as well! What is your favourite inexpensive food?
Get Cracking!
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