So much financial stuff to do

I feel like paying off our cc is just a small piece of our financial puzzle. There are so many other things to consider…

• Should we focus on paying off the student loans or put money towards some short-term savings for emergencies, paying off next year’s taxes and/or going on maternity leave?
  
• Should we take advantage of a large tax return to not only purchase some furniture items but to do things such as have the yard fenced? Or should we put some money away for the reasons outlined in the first item?
  
• How much should I be putting away in to RRSPs before and after my company matching kicks in?
  
• When should we start my daughter’s RESP? How much should we contribute per month and/or year?

Do you watch every penny you spend?

I don’t. Except for the 3 or 4 months last summer that we tracked every penny that we spent, we are pretty easy going with our spending. I know that we waste a lot of money - especially when it comes to eating out. We both buy our lunches multiple times a week and we get take out or go out for dinner at least once a week. This isn’t cheap. And we basically buy what we want for groceries each week. I do keep an eye out for items on sale and use coupons when I can. But we buy expensive meats and treats and don’t bat an eye.

At the same time, I find that I can be cheap about things. I hate to pay full price for anything. I love a great deal. And I certainly don’t shop at expensive clothing or shoe stores unless I have to. But chasing sales can cause overspending too. If I see things on sale I think I should buy them. And then you end up spending more than you would have if the item(s) had not been on sale.

It’s all a constant struggle between trying to stay within a budget or at least spend less than you make and not living on bread and water. And when there are sales, do you buy for the future or wait until a particular event is approaching before you buy something?

How quickly can you spend money?

I just posted that we paid off our cc (with a small balance left on one card - $370 – that I’ll be paying off tonight) and then we ran out on Saturday and bought a new computer! Not even 24 hours of having a $0 balance before we charged something new on the card.

Our computer was really old and probably would have died pretty soon. This was one item on our list of need to buy items with the tax refund I am anticipating. We probably should have waited until we had the refund in our grubby little hands but we were both impatient (wonder how we got in this mess? :) ) and saw a pretty good deal. My husband is a techy guy in his job and I’m at an ok level compared to most users so we didn’t want a basic level computer. We have a lot of pics, videos, etc. that will take up a fair amount of hard drive space and we wanted a good processor and significant memory to run our applications, etc. So, with the CPU, a 22 inch monitor, 2 year warranty plan, some video software I wanted to get and taxes, the total came to over $2,000. Yeah, I know, not cheap. But hopefully this will last us a little while and provide us with the speed/space we need. I have cash to put towards it until I submit my taxes (still waiting on the necessary receipts, forms, etc.) that will bring the balance owing down by the time I get my refund. I'm hoping we'll only owe around $1,000 by that time.

It's paid off!!!

Last night the final payment was made on our 0% interest cc with a balance of $9381 (I paid $1000 on it earlier this week). We now have less than $400 to pay on our Visa that we charged the down payment on our new car that we are leasing. I know, it's probably not the smartest financial move to lease a car but it makes sense for us at the moment.


Now that we are so close to being cc free, we need to stay that way. We'll still use our ccs to pay for items but then pay them off that month. That way we'll get the rewards. I guess we should think about closing some of the cc's though. Here are our current cc's with their credit limits:



Visa - $13,000

MC 1 - $22,000

MC 2 - $22,000

MC 3 - $11,700

Amex - $11,700

Store 1 - $2,500

Store 2 - $700

Total - $83,600

I’m addicted to my finances

Since we decided to focus on our finance issues last spring I’ve been pretty diligent in keeping track of our finances. I started this blog, visit others blogs and financial forums regularly, created a budget, tracked our expenditures, moved cc debt around to low interest (or no interest) ccs, and paid as much spare cash as we could on our cc debt. I had a period of time in the fall where I wasn’t as diligent as I had been in tracking everything or writing in my blog but I was still monitoring the situation. But now I have a renewed interest in our finances - to a point of being a bit obsessive about it. I am excited that we now have the cash to pay off our cc debt, focus on student loan debt and make some furniture/home improvement purchases. I find myself thinking about it constantly and going in and playing with the spreadsheet every chance I get.

Once we pay off those ccs over the next week, then I’ll be focusing on the other things… including filing my taxes that will net me a large return (I expect). And although my co. isn’t going to match my RRSP contributions until I’ve been here for 6 months, I’m going to contribute on my own in anticipation of A. needing the contributions to offset what I’ll owe in taxes next year and B. saving for my retirement. We also have to open an RESP for my daughter, save some of the tax refund for taxes next year, have some short term savings available for emergencies, etc.

There are still lots to do and think about so I’m a bit addicted to it. But it’s all good addiction, right?!?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I just wanted to say Happy Valentine’s Day to all. My husband and I decided that we wouldn’t buy each other anything (other than a card) for this Valentine’s Day. I did buy my daughter a few little toys and we are getting take-out for dinner. But otherwise, it will be a cheap holiday for us. I’ll have other holidays and special events to spend money on in the near future, I guarantee it. :)

Credit Card Debt Free

Within the next couple of weeks we will be cc debt free. We currently owe over $10k in cc debt but with my layoff severance being paid out this Friday and through emptying our savings account and a few other cash items, we’ll pay off the cc debt. It’s an exciting prospect – I haven’t been cc debt free in many years. In fact, I can’t even remember when I didn’t have a balance on my cc. I’m sure I did at one point in my 20+ years since I’ve owned credit cards.

You would think that I would be beside myself with joy but I’m having very mixed feelings. Don’t get me wrong… when I purely think about not having a balance on any of my many credit cards, it’s a feeling of true elation and joy. But where my feelings are not so positive is when I think about what else I could be doing with the money – spend, spend, spend AND when I think that although it is an honest way to pay off the cc balance, it came about without the sweat and tears I expected. And I almost feel like I’m cheating. We have been pretty diligent the past 6 months or so working on our finances. We moved all cc balances to a 0% interest credit card (moving to 19.99% next month), started tracking our expenses, made a budget and paid as much as possible on those cards. And we made some headway. But it would have taken us a lot longer (I had calculated about another 22 months) if we stayed on our same course.

But then I get excited again when I think that we can focus on paying off my husband’s student loans much more quickly than we thought. AND I am taking some of my tax refund, etc. to make purchases of a few key furniture type items that we need. So, overall, it’s been a blessing to receive this severance payout and to be paying off over $10,000 in debt. WOW!!!

Back Again

I know I've been gone awhile. A lot has happened since my last update. I was laid off on December 11th and found a new job starting on January 11th. My new job has the exact same salary as my last job with good benefits and due to the law here to be given 60 days notice after layoff I just received my final pay from my old company on Friday. So I had a week or 2 where I was double paid. And on this Friday, I will be paid out my severance. And then on Feb. 22nd, I'll be paid a bonus for my service last year. We've decided to deplete most of our savings, use some of my severance and pay off all cc debt - approx. 13k. We should have used our savings to reduce our cc debt before but we were saving it in case I went on mat leave again. We've now seen the light.

Here is my plan:

CC Debt $13,000

Cash -$1,500
Savings -$5,300
Severance -$7,200

Remaining -$1,000

So, we'll have an extra $1,000 to spare towards some purchases we want to make. And with the remaining amount of my severance that I rolled in to RRSPs, the bonus that I rolled in to RRSPs, my regular RRSPs contributions for 2007 and child care expenses that I can claim, I'm expecting quite a large tax refund. We need to purchase some furniture items that we will use the tax refund on. But we'll need to put some $$ away towards the tax amount I'll be owing in 2009.

It's so much to think about. Now I have to update my charts. I always have problems updating them and making them appear on my site.