New Blogs to Follow

I added a few blogs I follow to the link list on the left, all well-written women-authored endeavours. Go girls!

Girl Makes Cents
Another blogger trying to get outta debt. Go girl!

Give Me Back My Five Bucks
I love the way she writes and find I can relate to her well.

The Quest to Be Financially Abundant
Digging herself out of debt and onto financial freedom.

The Financial Catastrophizer
A blogger from the west looking to think positively about her finances.

The Asian Pear
Another blogger I just love to read. Entertaining and encouraging, and she loves food. Bonus!

The Well-Heeled Blog
Personal finance nerd, shoe lover, and tango dancer, her articles are always informative and entertaining to read.

Update: November Goals

How did I do for November goals last month? Not too bad. Not amazing either. Here’s the November Goals post.

My goals were
- Make 50% of my Christmas gifts by November 30th.
- Decrease debt by $1000.
- Come under budget this month.
- Save money into tax account for small business.

Here’s how I did:

- Make 50% of my Christmas gifts by November 30th.
Nope, did not make half of my gifts. I still have about 80% to go!

- Decrease debt by $1000.
This might have been an ambitious goal. I reduced my total debt by $724.31 and my credit card debt by $526.78.

- Come under budget this month.
I did come under budget, but I haven’t formatted my budget to a way that allows me to share the exact numbers. I promise I will be setting this up for the new year so you can see where my money goes.

- Save money into tax account for small business.
Saved $627.97 into a tax account for my business taxes once I get around to doing them. I will be adding $150 to that this week.

I think I can improve upon my goals from November as well as add a couple small financial goals to them for December. Primarily my goals will centre around Christmas spending and travel since our families are both out of town.

Ex-student off hook for 50K in loans

What the heck?! Maybe I should try this!

RBC Gives Up 50K In Loans

Student Loan Debt in Ontario

So, not included in my huge credit card debt is my student loan debt. The reason I don’t include it is because the interest on it is tax deductible, and it is not a high priority for me to pay off. Plus, the total amount of debt to my name would be so large I think it would scare some of you off. Ha! It scares me when I see it.

When I first graduated and OSAP (the Ontario Student Assistance Program – but more like the Ontario Student Ass-whooping Program) contacted me after my six month ‘grace’ period to start repaying my loans, I was making a measly $11/hr and commuting. Needless to say, an additional $300/mth payment was just not going to work. I extended my due date and got a lower monthly payment. Easy peasy.

Looking into my student loans is something I allow myself to do once a year because the principal takes forever to go down. It is depressing. This week I logged in and checked it out. The National Student Loan Service Centre actually improved their website immensely. It is very easy to use, and has some really useful calculators that allow you to punch in how much you want to pay per month and it divides the payment amongst your loans, showing you your months left to D-day. Or when you will be free of your student loan debt. Cool.

While playing around with the numbers, I realized if I could contribute an extra $288 per month to my student loans I would be free of them in less than 5 years. Hey, that actually fits into a foreseeable future financial plan. Not bad. But, since at this point in time my financial focus is on repaying my high interest credit card debt that keeps me up at night, I will revisit this topic again in a year’s time.

In the meantime though, I changed my monthly payments to bi-weekly. I had no idea that was even an option, but it was easy to do with a quick call to the NSLSC and no paperwork was required. Sweet! See you later student loan.

Check out Free Ebook: Thriving on Less – Simplifying in a Tough Economy

Just got a message that this e-book is available for download FOR FREE. It is by Leo Babauta, author of The Power of Less. There are also a couple of podcasts on this website too, for those that enjoy that sort of thing.

I haven’t read this yet, but I intend to and will try to write any comments or thoughts I have.

Enjoy!

Free Ebook: Thriving on Less – Simplifying in a Tough Economy 

November Goals

I’ve got to post an update on my No Spend Month for October and where I failed to keep to those goals, or where I succeeded, but I’ll have to do that once I tally everything up. I just haven’t had enough free minutes to do it yet.

In the meantime, I thought I would post a few goals I have for this month. Most are financial, since I’m trying to keep this blog directed in that realm of my life.

November Financial Goals:

- Make 50% of my Christmas gifts by November 30th.
- Decrease debt by $1000.
- Come under budget this month.
- Save money into tax account for small business.

There are only four goals, but I think I can reach them all. I’ve included making my Christmas gifts under financial goals because it really is a financial goal for me. By making my Christmas gifts, I am keeping out of the malls and stores and will be saving overall on my Christmas spending. I’ve gotten a bit sentimental in the last little while and making everyone individualized gifts really means something to me. I want my loved ones to have something thoughtful and useful as their gift this year. This season is about giving, and for me it is about giving time to our loved ones as well. Being together and cherishing the memories will be my focus for Christmas this year instead of the material items. Handmade gifts will hopefully have more meaning to everyone on my list.

This post got a little sidetracked from ‘financial goals’ to ‘Christmas’ but hey, there are only 50 days left!

New Computer

Jenn at her Paying Myself is talking about getting a new computer. This reminded me I will be due for a new one soon too.

I’ve currently got an old Mac at home, and lurrrrrve it! But, the cost of a new Mac is simply out of my budget when you can get a perfectly good PC laptop for a LOT less. Like $700 less. $700 is a good chunk of change towards paying down debt. $700 is a lot of extra cash to save up just for a pretty Mac.

Especially when there are ideas around the interweb on how to run MacOSx on a PC! Yes. You heard right. Some snooping around found me these useful tidbits of info from Lifehacker:

Install OSX on your Hackintosh PC – No Hacking Required
Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800

Now, whether or not I do this is another question, but it is interesting.

Me, I’ll probably still get the Mac because I can use all my previously purchased Mac software on it. But will I buy it brand spanking new? Likely not.

Menu Planning

Menu Planning – it seems to be a popular thing to do. Do you do it? I don’t.

But maybe I should start?

The few things I would need to overcome:

1. Our schedules are not regular. Like, at all. Hubby is away several days a week. We are often not at home on the weekends on sporadic events at friends places, etc, usually only planned at the last minute.

2. When hubby’s away, I rarely eat meat. But when he’s home, he works from home and will cook the meals, often on a ‘whatever-he-feels-like-having’ plan with frequent trips to the grocer with ‘pick-up-what-he’s-missing-for-his-meal’ lists.

I think it would be hard to follow any sort of ‘plan’ I make up on a weekly basis if hubby was throwing it all away when he decided he wanted to make a big roast on Thursday that week. What would I do with my fresh channa curry ingredients since we’d be out all weekend and not have a chance to make it? Would it all go to waste?

What works for you?

Maybe I will try it out for two weeks and see how things go. Maybe hubby will be convinced its a good idea once we get into the routine. I’m just afraid it will impeded his ‘creativity’ in the kitchen – he’s an AWESOME cook and I love when he whips us up an amazing dish. Mmmmm… hungry now!

A phenomenon in the blogosphere is ‘Menu Plan Monday‘. Every Monday I started to see posts titled Menu Plan Monday. I just thought everyone planned their menus for the week that day because the flyers came out and we knew what was on sale, or for some other unknown to me reason. I just did a search on my Swagbucks, and found out that I guess it is actually something that was organized by Laura at ‘I’m an Organizing Junkie‘. Here’s her menu plan for this week.

I’ll keep you posted on our Menu Planning progress. I’d love to hear how you plan out your weeks meals and grocery shopping. For our grocery shopping, we have a list we post on the fridge of our most commonly purchased items, organized in order by their appearance in the grocery store. When we notice we are out of an item, we check it off the list to make sure we pick it up next time we are out. It works really well for making sure we always have our staples in the house. Things like flour, eggs, butter, coffee…

Major Fail: My Car Loan

One thing I haven’t addressed on this blog, and I think its because I’ve been focused on my credit card debt reduction plan, is my car loan.

Last year, I was just about finished paying off my previous car loan. The car was a 2002 sedan, and in great shape albeit minus a few things that went wrong frequently but nothing major – mostly just squeaks and vibrations. It did however have higher mileage on it since my job involved a lot of driving. On a whim, and really, it was a whim, I decided I wanted a new car.

MAJOR FAIL.

Yes, insert all the reasons why this is so wrong here. And yes, insert the typical reason so many people are in debt here. Ugh. I’m a textbook case. Believe me.

It was my anger of my debt that started my search for a new car. I wanted to sell off the old one and buy an old clunker for cash. But, a shiny new car was just so much more appealing to my shallow, ‘money-doesn’t-matter’ side and since I hadn’t reached the stage where I HATED MY DEBT, it was easy to get convinced. My monthly payments would be the same! My mileage would be better in a newer, more efficient car! This one was more utilitarian because I could fit more in the trunk! … and so on with the excuses.

Now, I would give anything to go back and slap myself. What was I thinking?!?

My new (used) car loan is at an 8.9% interest rate! But I don’t know enough about car loans – can you even re-negotiate the rate? I just took what the dealer gave me (just to add to the MAJOR FAIL). My budget works for the payment, but I know I am overpaying in interest in the long run. It would be pretty sweet to not have that car payment and just be stuffing that cash into a high interest savings account for when my old clunker broke down. No such luck now.

Am I going to trade in the new shiny one? Unlikely. I really like having a reliable car. *sigh* But the question remains… SHOULD I?

Is this something I should think about once I’ve got my credit card debt under control? I just don’t know what to do about it. Sometimes it does keep me up at night.

Christmas Craft Ideas

I’ve been obsessed with crafty blogs lately. I will start adding the ones I follow to the sidebar for anyone that might be interested in what I read.

There are a ton of things on my ‘to-make’ list, especially since I decided to make this a Handmade Christmas. This means I am making ALL of the gifts I will be giving this year. As a result, everyone will be getting more thoughtful and heartfelt gifts. But since I am the ever-practical person, I can’t just make people ‘crap’. If I am making them a gift, it must be useful and appropriate for the receiver.

Here are some amazing and useful crafts I’ve got on my list so far:

Chequebook Covers

Camera Straps

Decorative Jars (for another gift I’m making, but won’t post it yet!)

Here are some I plan to make just for myself:
Renewed Filing Cabinet

And these are things I could make to have on hand for things like housewarming gifts and hostess gifts:
Crochet Dish Scrubbers

Cork Trivet

What are some of your thrifty craft ideas?