Oh Boy!!

Ok so today is Friday - I did not post yesterday for my Thursday stuff, and will not be for this week. Things happened.

On to Friday - thank goodness it's Friday today. The end of another interesting week. I took a trip back through time and through this blog to find the ghost of my formal self.

I have learned that I've been on this financial quest for three years now. I did really well my first two years but I've been floundering as of late. I should have been debt free already, and had a nice Emergency Fund built up. This is not the case. Why you may ask, when I was able to rid myself of the many cards of credit is it taking so long to get rid of this last one, and why has the debt doubled in a year and a half? I've asked myself this same question.

The answers I have found to be that somewhere along the way I stopped paying attention to myself, thinking I could do it without all the effort. Evidently this is not the case.

So, to reinstate myself on this journey, I ordered my credit rating, profile and scores to see how I was fairing. All in all it wasn't bad, but I found some interesting items on my credit profile that I did not know were even still there.

Many moons ago I had Student Loans. through two audits, great saving skills (where did these go?) and the generosity of family, I had paid them all off before interest had even been charged on any of them. These were paid off at the end of December 2003! (I graduate on Dec. 12, 2003 by the way). Paid in full and cleaned up. But they are still showing on my credit report as unknown with no rating. Weird. Anyways I called to put in the disputes on them all so that they read Paid as agreed in full, closed. At least then I won't have as many open files on my credit profile - by the way I have not missed a payment on any of these items in more than 3 years which is great, and the last time i missed was because I sent the money to the wrong card in the first place and had to straighten it out.

The second interesting thing was I had two entries showing Credit owing for the same institution, which I know I only have one card at. Needless to say I was informed that I had to contact my creditor. Doing so, I was informed that the operator needed to put me on hold because she'd never heard of this problem before. She put me on hold and when she came back after checking out my file, found the problem and assured me she'd send an update to the credit bureau right away - so things are looking better.

As for my score, it was decent, however my credit worthiness was not. Thus after sending in the disputes, and having my current creditor update the file, this should increase. And I"ll be well on my way to having even better credit (I hope)!.

Back to the issue at hand. My current credit card is about to expire. I received the shiny new card in the mail, and ya know what I did with it???

Filed it away with my files and haven't yet activated it. I also dumped my current/soon-to-be-old card in the file too. I do not carry any credit cards with me (I only had one) anymore, and have sent up a payment plan with myself to send them half of each cheque for the next 41 cheques to pay that sucker off. I'm done my herbal pills at the end of August. So I'll have a bit of a buffer in my budget coming soon.

it's time to finish this quest. I've been tired and sitting on a bench in the labyrinth, and it's time I got my slim butt up and finished running this thing! I don't want to become a rock person and live in here forever!!

So You Think You Can Finance?

Had a Gail Club meeting last night. What a great turn out and filled with great ideas!

For those of you who say Gail Vaz Oxlade has a budget binder/planner and didn't get one - tune in here I'll be doing a series from the extra planner I have!! Wasn't sure what to do with it, and decided it would be fun to track my Gail Club's progress the way we would track our individual/household progress.

So, here is the first installment. And fittingly this ties into my Waste-Not Wednesday!! why waste a perfectly good, lightly used planner that I had originally purchased and then was fortunate enough to win a signed copy from her!!

So here we go -

Gail gives us a study of ourselves right off the bat, so I'll post here the things you need to do to get real with yourself about your life. Personally lying to yourself turns into lying to others, snowballs and in the end hurts everyone - but mostly your self. So a quick, thought-provoking activity Gail starts with is called "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". this is where you take down your walls and hang up your masks.

Begin by getting paper and pen - or a journal you can keep...

Write down 5 things you do well.

Write down 5 things you do badly.

Write out your 10 most obvious habits.

Some help on this, as given by Gail: Do you pay bills on time every time? Do you insist on using coupons for items?
Are you keeping track of you money? Habits include buying a paper every morning on the way to work, smoking, drinking, coffee at a drive-thru? Having trouble finding 10? Ask your co-workers, your family, friends and anyone who knows you and they'll be glad to help you fill in the habits you have.

And lastly in this exercise, write down 5 major goals! (Own a house, have a family, own a yacht?) Write it down!!

Sounds easy eh? Well I can tell you when I first did the exercise I had a had time coming up with things that I was doing well, dong badly and were habits. You see I don't have obvious habits. I don't drink every night, I don't smoke, I don't buy coffee at all, so trips to Tim's are impromptu and irregular and infrequent really. I don't bite my nails, I try not to swear at all - at least not conventionally anyway and yes I had to call my mom, and my boyfriend and a few co-workers to find habits of mine - even they had a hard time with it...except my mom of course!!

Do you have any habits good or bad? How would you fair on this challenge?

I hear you - what's next after I've done that - it didn't take long!!!!

The next step is to figure out your budget if you haven't already. I"ll be making regular "So You Think You Can Finance" posts so stay tuned for the next one.

I leave you with Gail's Tip #1: This week research the accounts that pay the highest interest. Ask friends and family where their savings accounts are and what interest they are earning. Open a High Interest Savings Account and start earning more on your money! (Please note that the high interest accounts have seen a drop in rates lately but they are still way better than a regular bank savings account. Get creative, look at Credit Unions, non-conventional bank institutions - ING, PC, Canadian Tire, and find the best one out there at this time, and know that those interest rates will start going up soon!

Happy hunting!

Tell-all Tuesday!

This Tuesday, I'm not sure what I have to tell - other than the fact that I've completely blown the money for two weeks on a weekend that I didn't discipline myself on. Oh, and I really really HAVE to get a budget done for my guy. I've had enough of covering costs for him - I really need to learn to say NO!

Friday he really needed a pick-me-up so I picked him up and took him to Boston Pizza - had a lovely salmon and veggie dish, a couple of yam fries and two very small pieces of veggie pizza. He ate the rest of the pizza, the yam fries and a spinach salad - the whole bill with tip was $70 (ACK!) Fine, whatever, I've left a bit of room in my budget for something like this...then I find out, that after he decides to have the $4000 laser eye surgery procedure (what the hell happened to yes we'll save for a down payment and pay off our debt??) he has a bunch of drops he needs to take before and after and HAD to start them on Saturday. So I drive his ass to the pharmacy and get the prescription filled - we go to Subway for lunch - costs him $14. He checks his account and find he has $80 left until pay day - THURSDAY! So we spent $14 on lunch we could have waited to eat until we got home, and I'm covering his prescription money $43, until his paycheck comes in on Thursday! THEN we have to drive to London to get some kind of special dust goggles so he can work since he's a cabinet-maker and wood and dust are his life...I drop off the library books I borrowed from Western, and we head home. So now I'm up to $113 so far - I use the five bucks I had budgeted for the weekend for myself on something tasty from Tim's - and have $2.50 left from it.

Sunday I go to a friends' to visit for a while, and then to think about things - something has to give with my living situation and this financial situation that I seem to be the only one actual committed to completing. I get a dress- $80, a sandwich, drink and treat $8, and read for a while thinking about things. Freakin' expensive weekend I'm telling you. it wouldn't have been such a major deal except that I end up having another round of meds myself and have to spend $50 on my own medication. Anyone keeping score yet?

Anyways, needless to say the only thing I have left on this weeks budget is $60 - and i need gas again and still have to get to next thursday on what is left. The good news is I"ll be getting the money for his prescriptions and mine back from my employer (we pay first, they pay us back) less taxes so I've got some money coming back at the end of the month but still!!

It is time to get back on the wagon and stick to the budget!!

I'm glad I have a gail meeting tonight - at least I'll have the reinforcement I need to get back on this wagon and JUST SAY NO!!

Mask-off Monday - a little late!

Ok - sat down with myself this weekend and had intended to post yesterday but the day got away from me.

I've been trying to figure out what's going on with my weight loss, and have come to the conclusion that I've not been honest with myself. I have meetings with my coach on this and have as of late not been completely truthful on my diary entries - for example I had cookies on Sunday and Saturday that I did not write in my diary, I ate an ice cream and some chips last night. None of these things are on my list of things acceptable to eat - except if the ice cream is the no-fat frozen yogurt on the market. It was not so seriously unacceptable.

I've realized that I'm sabotaging myself on my journey. So I could be a very trim woman right now. Instead I'm still 30 pounds from my target and wondering what is going on.

So I'm adding a series of bars to my profile here to track what is happening in my life in terms of food. Many people have no spend days and no drive days to satisfy their attempt to save and clean up their carbon foot print. In addition to starting those bars I will also have to have a no-processed sugar bar and no additional fat bar. You see I get 3 servings of veggies, 3 servings of fruit a day, 2 "fats" (1 tsp. of becel, olive oil, mayo etc.) and a Free exchange (everything form pasta sauce to fat-free fudgesicle's, to applesauce, to salad dressing to fat-free mayo) so I need to actually limit myself to these on a daily basis. I will now have to track those in days as well - and update on my Mask-off Mondays! this should help - and it will be hard to knock out all the residual sugars from m y diet since I have a super huge sweet tooth...but I suppose if I substitute my sugar craving for fruit it'll be close and a more natural source of the sugars I've decided I want to eat.

Alright - goal this week is two pounds down. Time to get moving!!

FINANCE FRIDAY!!

Pay day was yesterday. I now get $10 more dollars each paycheck due to a readjustment in the amount of taxes that need to be removed from my paycheck. I really much check into this because I'm not sure why I had the adjustment...
So, put the money into the jars:

Food = $50/wk
Transportation =$40/wk
Clothing & Gifts = $12.50/wk
Entertainment = $12.50/wk
Other = $41.19/wk

Paid $766.75 to CIBC! I"ll have to adjust my side bars because though I paid this amount, I had a few items creep up that I had not properly budget for and thus they went onto the card...

I also paid my Telus bill early - it's usually around $50 a month depending on how much I talked...so I'm pretty sure I gave them too much by paying $52 to them yesterday, but It's paid for June so I won't have to worry about it when it comes in on the 17th.

This leaves enough in the bank to cover my $200 transfer to ING, and $30 for Life insurance that come out on the 15th. Next payday is the 18th of June, which will cover Car Insurance, ING Transfer and RRSP contribution, as well as the rest of the variables for the month.

It's time to get in the habit of seeing a small bank statement with only my automatic transfers listed.

Note: after my best-friend's wedding on the 26th I can freeze my credit card literally...they need the card to verify my check-in at the hotel for the night of the wedding, but I will be paying cash for the stay.

(woohoo - first friday post!)

Hmm.

I've been reading a bunch of really great blogs lately and I've learned something...I need to be more structured with my thoughts and actions! I started this blog a long time ago to help me implement The Secret into my life. I was able to work through some issues in the Love-Life area, got out some things on my chest and managed to narrow down what I truly truly wanted to find in a Life Partner. I'm happy to say that it will be three years in three weeks and things couldn't be better!!

I then moved my focus to my finances. things were going great for a while, but instead of sticking with it until it was done and moving onto another part of my life, I muddied the waters by trying to tackle my Health and my Finances at the SAME TIME!

Debt like weight is a giant yo-yo. and I've been plateaued in my weight loss journey about a year - which is the same time that I've been plateaued in my journey to be financially free. Hmm.

So here's what I cam up with. I've read some really great blogs by people who are disciplined in their goal and structured in their thinking. They use tags and labels, they have update days and speak out days and quirky little themes that run through their blogging that helps them structure what they are doing in life - and makes the reader become a follower of the blog, and use those tips and tricks in their own life.

Since I'm working on my weight and my debt at the same time, I need to get properly focused, and disciplined to complete both goals. One will be faster than the other, but both are equally important to me in my life at the moment.

So what to do?

The environment is a big thing for me, and living a more frugal life will aid in my financial and indirectly my weight loss goals. So to structure myself I will have to get myself some theme days to channel my efforts and structure my thoughts to really getting these goals attained! Right then...

Mask-off Mondays - The truthful bites I've actually eaten in a week
Tell-All Tuesdays - Getting real with the gory truths of my finances
Waste-Not Wednesdays - When I take a look at my life and find ways to waste-not - and update on how my no-spend days and no-drive days are going
Trim-down Thursdays - a look at my weight loss each week, where I can improve what I'm doing and what I'm at in terms of loss
Finance Fridays - where I detail what I've spent on my jars, what I've paid off that week if anything, if I've saved any money etc.

That should do it....of course I'll have other things to say that won't fit into these categories - so I reserve the right to double post when I need to vent, or when somethign great has happened, or when I've done somethign pretyt cool on a weekend or whatever.

I think this will help me channel my energy into getting these goals DONE! (Labels and everything else will come...)

Earth 2100

I was feeling tired last night, and thus did not want to do much other than lounge and relax. Since it is Tuesday and NCIS is into reruns, there wasn't a whole lot on TV that interested me. That was, until we flipped to ABC last night and EARTH 2100 came on. For two hours I watched with intrigue a program developed to help the "Average Joe" understand that our (by our in this case it is specifically geared to American's, but also very relevant to Canadians) lifestyle is majorly killing the earth.

The ideas presented came form some pretty interesting sources - The Author of The World Without Us, some local scientists from the university of Waterloo and The University of Western Ontario also were featured. I found it quite an interesting look at what could happen on Earth over the next 90 years or so. it was very enlightening, but I fear that most of the message will be lost on our american friends.

Especially since in order to help slow down the degradation and mass extinction of earth, it means giving up our lifestyle as we currently know it - and coming to terms with the fact that China and India want a chance to develop economically the way Canada and the US have done for Centuries. An interesting projection summit from 2015 with China and India showed that they will not make concessions to change their polluting ways because it is increasing their economy, "the way the States for down for years!"

I think this is a very interesting program from a very interesting view, of what might happen if things continue the way they are going. Head to abc.com and look up Earth 2100 - or just google Earth 2100. Read some of the things that these people are saying and determine in your own life what you can change.

Just a thought.

A new month

June is here. I have paid off my car loan - and received in the mail a letter stating I'm done and that I should call the dealer and insurance company and see if I get anything back on the disability insurance I took out with my car loan.

I am now working on paying off my Credit Card Disaster. That's right. It's a disaster. Time to get out from under their evil hold on me, and start moving my life forward.

Goals for the rest of the year are posted as a new feature on my side board.

The one goal I want to plan and accomplish for this month is a way to make extra money to pay off this credit card mess and get myself some house savings in the mean time.

I am still a Mary consultant - and I have not ben very active as of late, so perhaps to earn more money I could start with a great big SALE!! I have a bunch of product left that I can put on sale to both clean out my store to start fresh and generate the remaining payments for my credit card - part of the problem was that I didn't manage myself correctly with my business...

Ok - so goal for June - HAVE BIG MARY KAY SALE!!