Financial Milestones

I'm copying Michelle from Making Sense of Cents with this list but I thought it was really cool so heres mine:

Finance a dream vacation…in cash. CHECK. Well I haven't gone yet, but my trip to Portugal in July will be paid for in cash,I've already paid the flight and the rest is just spending money which I have saved. 

Pay off your student loans. CHECK I paid them off almost 4 years ago! :)

Automate paying your credit card bill in full. I sometimes pay in full, sometimes not. 

Get rid of all bad debt. Right now I just have my car which is about $6600 so it won't be much longer. 

Build an adequate emergency fund. CHECK

Make your first, and last, investment mistake. um, my investments are pretty much all RRSPs right now so I don't think any of that has been a mistake. lol. Not really sure what else to write on this one.

Develop a statement of cash flows. Is it sad that I'm not sure what the term means? If it means to know how much money I have in all my accounts, I pretty much know that at all times in my head. 

Max out a Roth & Contribute to your 401(k). We don't have that in Canada. But I contribute what I can to RRSP's, but no I don't contribute the maximum. 

Get a degree or certification that increases your earning power. I am currently working on this and will be done by spring 2013.

Take a career risk. I haven't done that yet, I'm on my 2nd pharmacy job and this one I could see myself there for a long time.

Negotiate something. CHECK (when I bought my car)

Earn your first side grand. CHECK. Accomplished that within a few months of starting my second job (its the main reason why I am gong to portugal)

Start a sub-savings account for an upcoming financial goal. CHECK I have already done this numerous times, for portugal, for exams, for emergency fund, etc etc

Set a target retirement date. Haven't done that yet. 

Monitor your credit. .....sadly I have never checked my credit. I KNOW its bad. I'll do it. I promise.

Say no to a financial salesman. CHECK. All the time.

Give just enough to make it hurt. Haven't ever really donated a lot of money

Invest $1 for every $1 you spend. No I definitely don't invest that much. 

Start a 529 College Savings Plan. Is that for your kids?? I don't have any.

Buy a house.  hopefully before I'm 30!

The Stock Market

Lately I have been feeling like I am not making my money work hard enough for me. I want to invest more and I have been thinking about starting to invest in the stock market. I already have some mutual funds but I want to invest in individual stocks.

I have been trying to do research online but I feel like the more I read the more confused I become. I need you help to pick a discount brokerage. I heard that Questrade was good but there is a $1000 minimum to open an account. I hope to find one with low fees and no minimum to open. I definitely don't have that much to begin with, I would like to start with maybe a few hundred dollars.

Help??

Taxes

Ok so it's that time of year again and once again things are not making sense. Last year, I ended up owing like $50 on my taxes. It was the first time I ever owed and I was pissed! But then I tried to think more positively, at least it was only $50 right? I guess my work was not taking off enough tax. Because I even contributed to RRSP's...when you do it online you can easily plug in numbers to see how things would change. So I found out I would of owed well over $200 dollars, and my RRSP contributions is what saved my ass. So after this, I filled out a form at work asking them to take off $15 extra tax per pay. Not a huge deal, but I figured that and my RRSPs should cover things.

Not the case. I did my taxes for this year and it says I am getting $27. What the heck is going on? lol here is the details.

- I did make an extra few hundred bucks working at another store and they didn't take off tax. This doesn't make much of a difference, I even took out that info from my tax return to see how much more of a refund I would get and it wasn't much. Ok so thats not it.

- I contributed $1125 to RRSPs. Ok so it's not a lot but it's something.

If I didn't have those RRSP's, I would, once again be owing over $200. So that means that even with the EXTRA tax taken off, they STILL didn't take off enough tax. I don't get it. I mean, isn't that admins job to make sure this is being done right? I have talked to other people from my old job and some say they have this problem too and others say they never have.

I just don't get it. I mean I'm still happy that I don't owe...but I still am going to have to pay for doing it online so after that maybe I will get $10?

I haven't started RRSPs with the new job yet, but I am going to ask in payroll about it this week. They also have a stock purchasing program as well that I might sign up for. I know this new job takes the right amount of tax off though, because I use an online payroll deduction calculator (it's government site I think) and it's always exactly right to the cent! So hopefully with this new job taking off the proper amount, and if I start RRSP's again asap, then next year I should get at least something decent. I can only cross my fingers.

Sweet Money

Today I logged into my bank account online before going out to pick up a few things. I noticed I had a deposit of $52 in my account from "Canada Pro". So I am thinking...ok the next GST is not until October and the next HST is not until December...so what is this??? It always freaks me out when I get unexpected money from a company because I think what if they realize its a mistake and they take it back?!

So I googled it. Like I always do when I want to know the answer to something, I google. And I figured it out. It is a new thing called the Ontario Sales Tax Credit. There was a small blurb about trying to give us some relief on all the sales tax we pay. Ok whatever. It's for single people that made under $20,000 last yr and for couples under $25,000. I actually made more but with my RSP contributions it put my taxable income under $20,000 so I guess thats why. So the schedule for this payment is August 2010, November 2010, February 2011 and May 2011. So it will go like this:

• Oct 2010 - GST
• Nov 2010 - Sales tax credit
• Dec 2010 - HST
• Jan 2011 - GST
• Feb 2011 - Sales tax credit
• Apr 2011- GST
  
• May 2011 - Sales tax credit
• Jun 2011 - HST
• July 2011- GST
• Oct 2011- GST
  

This is as far as I know because I don't know if the sales tax credit is only for those 4 payments or if it keeps going after that. This is definitely a nice little surprise I must say. It seems like we are being taxed to death in Ontario but I do appreciate these little things.

2010 Goals

I have finally decided what my goals for 2010 will be. I did a lot of thinking about these and I didn't want to have too many because I felt like I would overwhelm myself. So I came up with 3 and they are pretty simple.

1. Take better care of myself.
Instead of saying I am going to exercise X amount of times or lose X amount of pounds I came up with the idea of simply taking care of myself, mentally and physically. Recently I posted about how I am slowly starting to feel comfortable in my own skin, and this ties into that. I need to show myself that I love myself enough to take care of ME. So what does this mean exactly? It means I will try really hard to think about the foods I am eating and whether or not it's really good for me. When I have a craving for fast food, I will stop myself and think of what's best for ME. When I have free time and I am bored, I will try to motivate myself to go out and go for a walk, or put on John Mayer and do some yoga (atleast the poses that I remember). Of course this also means I am not going into super crazy diet mode and denying myself all the time, because that is going to backfire. I just need to learn to moderate myself better. I also plan to do some research about how to find meat that comes from farms that are feeding the animals organic foods/treating them better.

2. I will not pay full price for a single book!
( The exception is if it is a gift for somebody else, or if I received a gift card as a gift.)
I came up with this idea because I am an avid reader. At work we put all our breaks together so I am on break for anywhere from 45 mins to an hour. It does not take me an hour to eat, so I need to have a book to read. Having a book to read also prevents me from eating more! lol. So naturally, I go through a lot of books. So I will be mostly buying books from the used book store where you can also bring books in for store credit. So this rarely results in actually having to pay anything. I will also buy used books from Goodwill or Value Village. And if I have to have something that's brand new that I cannot find used I will buy only from Amazon where the books are SO much less money, and then it will be mostly with gift cards from Swagbucks.

3. Pay down my car to $9000.00
I calculated that after all my regular car payments at the end of the year I will owe about $9500 and change. I am going to try to pay down that extra $500 to make it $9000 even. This works out to be only about $47 extra a month so I hope I can do it! I used a free debt reduction calculator online and calculated that I will be cutting 11 months off my term and save me $330 in interest. ( This is using my current interest rate of course, which is variable so yes this can change and probably will) .

Another thing I wanted to mention is that if nothing changes with regards to my financial situation, by the end of the year I will have a fully funded $3000 emergency fund! That was the amount I decided awhile ago that would be about 3 months living expenses if I was to lose my job. So I am pretty stoked about that as well!

Unexpected Income

Have you guys ever heard of E-crater? It's a website where you can sell things, kind of like Etsy, only with this site it doesn't have to be homemade stuff. Unlike Ebay, there is no fees to the seller so it is super easy.

A few months ago I put up some makeup items that I had laying around not using. Well I just sold two things today! When I checked my email this morning I had an email saying I had a payment in my paypal account. It was pretty exciting, because this is my first customer!

So after shipping I am about $15.00 richer today!

This has motivated me a little bit, I also had some clothes in a box that I am no longer wearing/never worn that I was planning to put on the site as well, I think I am going to start that process today!

I have thought about just putting stuff on kijiji or craigslist, I know it would be easier, but I just don't really like the idea of having strangers coming over to pick up stuff or even meeting people somewhere. Especially because of my job, because I work in a pharmacy and we have a lot of regular customers that live around me. So they would recognize me and I just don't really feel comfortable with that, especially if there happened to be some kind of problem with the sale or anything.

Employer Sponsored RSP's started..

I recently discovered that my employer actually has an RSP plan. I got the forms atleast one or two months ago and finally handed them in this past week. Today was payday and it was my first contribution.

Basically if you are a full time employee and have been there atleast a year you get your contributions matched 25% up to a maximum of like $600 yearly I think. It's not that much but hey it's still free money. I've decided to deduct $50 from each pay. Half of it is going to the company's stocks and half is going to another fund which I can't remember the name of. Basically I looked at the rates of return and picked one that had a high rate of return.

Anyways the deductions are pre-tax which is great because my paycheck is really not that much lower!! So I am really on my way to retirement savings now, and the best part is I don't really have to think about it now because its all automatic :)

Tax season

So...in the past few years, I've gotten used to getting like huge sums of money on my tax return. Basically if you're student or like really low income, the government loves you. Last year I got over $1000. This year..well not so much..about $150. At first I thought it was a mistake, but it's not. I did it online, and on paper, and it's right.

On my last tax return, I was able to get some benefit for people that made under $13, 000. I didn't even really know about that, cause when you do it online it just automatically claims any benefits/deductions for you, you don't really have to think about it. Well this year I made well over that, since I am now full time with a sort of half decent income, lol.

I also claimed a few months of rent on my last return, from before I moved in with my parents. I do pay my parents rent, but if I claimed that, then they would have to claim it as income on their return, which they don't want to do, so I just didn't claim it.

Since I made a deposit to an RSP account, I was able to put that on there, but I don't think it really made any difference, I only deposited $500.

So yeah..this is why I am getting less this year. It is making me reconsider my trip, because I was hoping to put a huge chunk of cash to my OSAP and get that paid off really soon. I'm not really sure what to do now. I think I am going to continue to put money aside for this trip, and I will make the decision in about 3-4 months if I'm going to do it. If I don't end up going on the trip, I might just use that money I had put aside to buy a car, or maybe just leave it there and save it for a trip next year. Who knows?? *sigh* I have some thinking to do...

YAY interest

Ok, this is really not a big deal, but today I got my first interest payments in my ING accounts. $1.51 total between my savings accounts! Its really not much but I've never earned that much interest in 1 day before, and I'm excited to see those interest payments get higher as I add more money to the accounts. YAY for saving :)

Getting Financially Organized

One of my goals for this month was to get all my savings organized. Basically I just had one large sum of money in one account, and I needed to get it organized into an Emergency fund, RSP, etc.

First I had to decide how much I wanted to designate for an Emergency Fund. I needed 3 months bare minimum living expenses. I pay my parents $200 rent a month, my minimum student loan payment is $115 and my cell phone is $67 a month. This is $382, but I decided on $500 a month to have some extra money for whatever. If I really did lost my job, I don't think my parents would make me pay rent anyways until I found a new one.

Whenever I do move out of my parents house, I will begin to put more into the emergency fund to account for a higher living expense. Same with if I get a car.

I also put $500 into an RSP Investment savings account. Just in time to claim it on my 2008 tax return (which is another story btw).

Then I opened a second savings account, basically for the rest of my savings which doesnt really have a designated use so it will just be like fun savings, basically I think this will pretty much become a car savings fund.

Then I also put $100 into a mutal fund account. The ING Streetwise Mutual fund has investments from 4 stock and bond market indexes which are: canadian bonds (DEX universal bond index), canadian stocks (S&P/TSX 60), US stocks (S&P 500) , and international stocks (MSCI EAFE). I am still getting educated about mutual funds, so I didn't want to invest too much yet. I just thought I would throw in $100 and see what happens to it! LOL

So at the beginning of the month I had $2793.95

Here's where it went:
Emergency Fund: $1500
RSP: $500
Fun Savings: $600
Mutual Fund: $100

I left the other 93.95 in there to keep for my trip savings. So now I have 2 savings accounts with my regular bank, and 2 with ING. The two at my regular bank are going to be a portugal fund and a holding tank. Basically the holding tank will be the place where I keep my rent money, student loan money until it actually gets paid. I like to keep my rent money in a seperate account until I actually pay the rent to keep from spending it. I also put aside money from each paycheck for my student loan, and make one large payment once a month.

So there is my savings for you? Any thoughts?

My Childhood from a Financial Perspective..

I thought that I would continue the trend that FB started on her blog Fabulously Broke in the City and discuss my childhood from a financial perspective.

As a kid, I would say that my family was not poor, by any means, but we were not exactly "well off" either. My dad worked in the automotive industry, which was a good thing back then. Once I was born my mom decided to be a stay at home mom, so we lived off one income for a long time. My parents moved to a small town after I was born, not wanting to raise their kids in the city. My dad continued to keep his job in the city so he was a commuter.

I'm not sure exactly how much my dad made per year, I would guess somewhere in the $40-$50K range. My family was not like other kids families I thought, we didn't go to florida on march break or any kind of trip like that, but I was was able to go on those extended school trips to camp in grade 6 and a grad trip to the states in grade 12. My parents paid for those.

If my parents had any huge money problems, I didn't really know about them. If I wanted a new toy or gadget, and my mom didnt have the money, she would frequently say to me "I dont have the money for that." Yet I remember wondering, from a young age, if she didnt have money to buy me a new toy, how did she have money for cigarettes? LOL I used to ask her this a lot.

I got my first job at 15 at a restaurant. When I was 16 I got a cell phone for my birthday. My parents paid the initial fee for the phone/set up etc, but I paid my own monthly bills. Since I had my own job I started paying for my own clothes, going out etc. My mom might give me money here and there for new clothes when school started and new school supplies, but other that that I paid for all my own clothes.

When I was in grade 11 I got a job that actually paid minimum wage (the restuarant job paid less than minimum which is tradition) and had more hours. This is when I started saving for college. I did not save that much, maybe like $1500.

When I went to college, my first year tuition was paid for by money that my grandparents had put away for me when I was born. My parents agreed to pay my rent for my first year. So when I got to school, I basically started living off of this small amount that I had saved. This of course didnt last that long. I ended up getting a part time job around October of that year. I hated it! I found it difficult to juggle work and school. I actually lost weight because I had to walk a bit of a hike to school, and to work as well. On days when I had school AND work, I did a lot of walking and not too much eating, which is why I lost weight that first year. Anyways..I ended up quitting that job. I didnt know what I was going to do for money, but after one day when I got up at 6:30 for my 8am class, having worked until 11:30 the night before, and telling myself I needed more sleep, I skipped class. This was a bit of a sign to me that I could not handle it. Yes, I could of just requested less hours or something..but I just quit.

After I quit I learned about this thing called a bursary! LOL Basically, you get this form from school, fill it out listing your income/expenses, and if they think you need money you could get up to $1000 free! So I ended up getting $800 and I basically lived off that from January until April. (with my parents still paying my rent).

For my second year I applied for OSAP (student loan program in Ontario). I also ended up getting a part time job in my second year. This job paid more than minimum wage, and the hours were a bit more desirable. I got this job after Christmas in my 2nd yr and kept that job until the summer time. After we were done school for good, I got a place with my best friend from college, and that lasted about 6 months. Eventually we both just felt we were not in a good place financially and it would be in our best interests to move back in with our parents.

That was about 2 years ago and I still live with my parents. This has worked out well for me so far, aside from the whole being annoyed with my family from time to time. My parents asked me to pay rent to help out a bit so I pay $200 a month. This is a good bargain considering a one bedroom around here goes for around $800 average. I don't really have to buy my own food or anything, but I do buy some groceries from time to time that I intend to use for my meals at work. I get a ride to work every day, which I have to admit I am spoiled in that sense. But my work is really close to my house so its not like its a huge chore.

Since I work full time and pay a low rent, I am able to pay down my student loan in a more aggresive manner. My student loan and my cell phone are the only bills I have, since I do not have a car. I do not have any credit card debt. When I first moved back in with my family, I wasnt really looking forward to it. But now I am glad that I did, because I am so close to being debt free.

I feel that I am doing pretty good compared to other people my age that I know. I had a lot less student loan debt to start with, since I only got it for one year of school. Most people I knew came out of school with atleast $20,000 in debt. I have a good amount of money in savings, and I plan on starting an RRSP within the next few months. I am hoping to live on my own within the next 2 years. I am also hoping to get a better paying job within that time as well, and I also plan to get a car within a year from now.

So that is pretty much my financial story. I wouldnt say that I was handed everything like some other kids, but I didnt have to save every penny for school either. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. My parents are now in worse financial shape than ever (my dad worked in the automotive industry, remember?..so yeah). Now more than ever I am determined to be smart with my money and save for the future, because as much as I love my parents, I don't want to end up in the same financial shape as them.

Take note of my now positive net worth!

Well guys, I am now in the plus signs! After the last OSAP payment I just made, along with a few more hundred dollars in savings, I am now at a net worth of $256.00! As excited as I was for this day to come, it really doesn't feel like that big of a deal now that it's happened. Although I must admit, now that I am at a positive net worth I really don't ever want to go back into negatives. This might be something to think about when I decide its time to get a car...but that's not something I will be doing anytime soon. Anyways, just thought I would give you guys an update! Hopefully this is going to be a good year financially :)

Got a raise!

I just got a $0.75 per hour raise at work :) This raise is actually long overdue, so it's great to finally see it. A good way to start the new year. I'm sure not exactly how much more I will take home per month, but it works out to be approximately $108 more per month, before taxes. After a few more paychecks I will have a better idea.

Oh and I finally got my cheques in the mail. So I am ready to make my inital deposit to my ING account. Then I can start thinking more seriously about retirement savings. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it all, trying to figure out what types of investment vehicles I want to use. Now I just have to find that piece of paper where I wrote down my client ID number and such...

Another raise and spending less!

Well, I'm going to get another raise! I finished this course at work, which included me passing a test that seemed to take forever (luckily I got to try as many times as needed!) so I will be getting a $0.75 raise! Its not that much, but every little bit helps right?

I have also really cut down on spending money on breaks at work. I used to buy my lunch/dinner every day...like Subway or pizza. On the weekend I bought two bags of those Skillet Sensations, its like a frozen dinner that you can just throw on the frying pan and cook or you can also microwave it. One bag is like 2-3 servings. So I have been taking that each day. Then I would buy something small at work like a chocolate bar and maybe some juice or something. So I haven't eliminated the spending, but it's been cut down which is not bad. I also bought a little notebook at the dollar store so I can really keep track of my spending, I especially wanted it for tim hortons or starbucks purchases where u dont usually get a receipt. This way I can write it down right away so I dont forget!

I was never totally irresponsible with my money, but lately I am finding that I am almost the complete opposite. I was at the mall and there was a few things I wanted but I talked myself ouf of buying them, and now that I am home, I almost wish I did buy them! Such as a really nice necklace at Aldo, and some new tights (for wearing like underneath a long sweater or something). I find that I am doing that a lot lately. I see something that I want, and I will talk myself out of buying it, even if it's not really expensive, then when I get home I want it! I think next week on a day off I am going back to the mall for some of those items!

Does anyone else find themself doing that lately?

Glad I Have Benefits

I have had benefits through my job for about 4 months now, and just recently I have had to spend a bit more than usual on prescriptions. I am really glad that I have these benefits! Even though I have to pay for them up front, I get 90% back. And last time I sent in a claim I got the money within 2 weeks, which was faster than I thought it would come.

I went to the doctor a few weeks ago to discuss the trouble I am having sleeping since I cant seem to shut my mind off when I go to bed. I got a prescription for a sleeping pill, and then just last week I had to get an antibiotic for an infection. Along with my usual prescription for birth control, it added up a bit!

Heres the totals
sleeping pills - $14.06
antibiotic- $9.92
birth control - $44.10 ( for 3 months)
(i already dont pay dispensing fee as part of employee disount)

total: $68.08

I will get 90% back which means I should get a check for approx. $61.00 within 2 weeks :)

Not that this was a huuuge amount to put out but I am glad I will be getting most of it back.

My First Speeding Ticket

This past weekend I got my first speeding ticket! I am actually pretty lucky because I was going pretty fast ( 30 km/h over the limit) but because I have a perfect record they knocked it down and it only ended up being $40. So I was really not too concerned about a $40 ticket. And the cool part is you can now pay them online, so I put it on my Visa and I paid the Visa off already so thats all over now.

On the plus side, I got a 25 cent raise. woo hoo! Not really a big deal but I guess every little bit helps right? I am soon going to be getting another raise once I finish a course at work. The only bad part is the raise didn't start until just recently so on my paycheck there is only 1 day at my new rate but oh well, its only 25 cents. Another sucky part about this paycheck is that I had to take a day off to go to the doctor so theres 1 day worth of pay gone, so this one is a bit lower than normal.

So what's the biggest speeding ticket you've ever gotten? Leave me comments I want to hear about them!

Just a few notes..

Two good things happened for me financially this week. They are not huge, but every little bit helps right?

1. I got my GST cheque deposited into my account. I totally forgot it was coming so it was a welcome surprise. Thats $67.00 that I added to my savings account which brings my savings up to $1587.

2. I got a raise. Well everyone at my work did. We all got a "cost of living raise" of 33 cents an hour. BIG DEAL. It really wont make a HUGE difference but it will help a little bit. Considering I didn't see this coming and wasn't expecting a raise anytime soon since I just got one in March, it was also a welcome surprise!

Some more sites I have found..

Well my weekend turned out to be pretty good money wise! My mom and I decided to go to the casino and I came home $70 richer! That was pretty sweet and then I did my tax return online and it told me Im getting over $1000 back! So I was pretty excited about that! Now I just have to think carefully about what to do with the money. I know i am putting the majority of it to my student loan debt, but I plan to keep a few hundred for myself, what I will do with that portion is not yet determined. Anyways the reason I am posting today is to tell you about more sites I found.

In the process of going through random blogs to find ones that I liked I found this really cool site! Basically it reviews all the PTC sites out there. There is a "boycott list" which lists the sites that have been found not to pay, and if you click on the "BeenPaid.com seal of approval program" it lists many sites that have been proven to pay. There is soooo many sites to choose from.

Here is the site:
http://www.gptboycott.com/paying/

After looking through it i joined a site called WBAdvertising. So far this site has been great. In the first day I earned 29 cents just from clicking banners. This is a lot to get from one site in one day. I think there was like over 200 banners to click. I hope there is that many every day! Click the banner below to go to the site:




I also found a few other cool sites. One is called Netwinner. Basically you get to play games for free and win points and once you have so many points you can redeem them for gift cards. There is two games: Banko and Moneywheel. Banko is just like Bingo and you get 10 free cards per day. Moneywheel is like a wheel of numbers and u pick 5 numbers (or do a quick pick and the computer randomly picks for you) and then you spin the wheel and see if you win points. In this game you get 100 free spins per day.

Click here to join Netwinner:http://www.netwinner.com/signupCode/hklover



Another site I found is Winzy. It is similar to Moola. Each time you use the search engine you get points and sometimes a random game will come up where you can spin to win more points. You can also go to the arcade and play games where you can bet points to win points. You get 250 points for each person you refer, and each point you have is one entry into the monthly sweepstakes to win $1000! You can redeem points for gift cards just like in Netwinner!
Heres my link!
http://www.winzy.com/munchkin86


I have a few other sites in mind but I think I will save those for another post. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!

Moola!

Hello Bloggers!!

I am really excited to tell you about this website I have stumbled upon. Its called Moola!
It is based on the principle that one penny doubled 30 times ends up to be over 10 million dollars!! Can you believe that??

When you join you get a free penny. You have a chance win money by playing games against other people. These games are really simple and addicting!! The site also has its own search engine, and when you use it you get to spin the booster wheel to win money! The amounts you can win go from 1 cent to 9000 dollars. The more you use the search engine the more chances you get to spin the wheel (up to 4 times a day) but its at random times so you never know when you will get to spin it.

Another way you can make money from this site is by getting cash back on your online purchses!

I joined this site just 2 nights ago and the first night I played the games for hours! You can even go to the forum and see peoples proof of payment.

They say you can only join the site by being invited by a member. I have 100 invites to give away so if you would like one please click on the link to the right that says "Get a moola invite" and it will prompt you to enter your email to get my invite! Happy Gaming! ♥