Debt Free Kid

I just updated the side bars and I noticed - unless I made an error previously - that my student loan balance is going UP instead of DOWN. I have read about this happening to other people, but because I have diligently applied and been accepted for the Repayment Assistance program every six months, I thought my balance was actually going down. This puts the pressure on me to shift my fast-track payment from the car loan to the student loans. This is starting to feel right, because the student loans are old, so old, from 1996 - 2005 and I don't want to deal with them anymore. I am making an extra $20 a month car payment and now I am going to increase the student loan payments. I haven't increased the mortgage payment yet. The big news is that I started a full-time job in August, and I saw my first, full, real paycheque on Oct. 28. I saw an increase of $588 in my take-home pay, which is nothing to sneeze at, but our expenses for before and after-school care will increase dr...

So far not off to a great start. I misread a letter from the student loan company and was $4 short for one of my payments. I started off the new year with a $45 NSF fee in my "no-fee" account. It was a really stupid mistake, since the line of credit they granted me is sitting there unused, and I could have transferred an extra amount from there just in case ... could have, should have. The mistake will eventually be forgotten, but not my grudge against that bank. I have already pulled almost all of my money from it to use another no-fee bank that is serving me much better. It felt great to end 2015 with all my bills paid, thanks to the "Xmas Saving" account I set up, where I deposit a small amount each month to cover December (extra) spending. However, I forgot to leave a little bit in there to visit a friend before New Year's, and ended up having a larger than expected credit card bill to pay in January. So I'm playing a bit of catch-up this month and not...

One morning last week, I woke up with a little giddy feeling, sort of like it might be my birthday*, or christmas morning, but it wasn't. It was Friday the 13th I think, but that had nothing to do with the feeling. I was excited because the night before I received an email from Tangerine** telling me that I'm pre-approved for their new cash-back credit card. As soon as I saw the email on my phone, I went over to the laptop and logged in to accept my acceptance. I was pre-approved for $14 000 but I was able to change it to $7500. I chose this amount because when the new card arrives I will cancel two other credit cards worth $10 000 combined. We are sometimes told to keep our oldest credit card opened for good credit history, but now that I have a mortgage and car loan in place, I'm not too worried about what my credit rating looks like. I hopefully will not be opening too many more credit products after this. I'm excited for this card to show up. Not only will i...

How did I pay off $20 000 in 2.5 years? - Started tracking my spending (I use Excel). - Took advantage of balance transfers to lower-interest cards and line of credit. - Moved into a small apartment, shared a bedroom with my son (the first year). - Stopped buying coffee and a muffin each morning, and a cola each afternoon. - Stopped shopping online and in stores for clothes and other distractions. - Used a subsidized food box program once a month. - Kept my appointments with social services for a child care subsidy. Also kept to their guidelines to keep the subsidy. - Bought used car. Tried to keep up with repairs, but when it became too costly, parked it and took the bus. - Let my sweetheart at the time pay for my outings (as a feminist, this was really hard for me, but it was the only way I could do anything that cost anything). Why didn't I start riding a bike to work? - I don't know how to ride a bike. - But if I did know how, I would have to put my son in one ...

I'm supposed to be on my way to the big city right now with Bean to meet up with my mom's family for xmas dinner, but I got a call today saying that my Gramma is sick, and we are postponing to maybe next weekend. She is the reason why we get together so we meet at a restaurant near her condo. Since everyone has to drive in, and one of my cousins is also sick, and another cousin spent christmas with her baby son at Sick Kids Hospital, we will wait to get together. I spent the morning organizing all my photo files from 2014, which I will transfer over to two separate external hard drives. I also cleaned up my desktop on my laptop. I'm trying to catch up on Feedly, but am almost three weeks behind again on blogs. Maybe I need to go through and delete a bunch, but I don't really want to. I get a lot of ideas reading other people's blogs, but I rarely come here to flesh them out. I have been meaning to write about my solo home-buying adventure for weeks, but I'm ...

This week I turn 40 years old. Last week I became a house owner. I am sore, grumpy, and slightly overwhelmed, but I am also proud and ecstatic. I had two goals to reach by my 40th birthday: 1) to get married; 2) to buy a house. I reached goal # 2 with a week to spare. I have modified goal # 1 to read: 1) to find a suitable life partner in my 40s; 2) or not. So, Partner (ex) informed me that he found another place to live about a week into September. I realized quickly that I had three choices: 1) Keep our rental house and sublet one of the bedrooms (Rent = $1250 + $320 utilities + $57 internet); 2) Move into another rental, hopefully in the same neighbourhood; 3) Cash in $8500 RRSP account and buy a house of our own. First I went to Kijiji and searched the "room wanted" ads. There were a few single women who had teaching contracts who were looking for a room. I thought this would be ideal; but since Partner (ex) dropped the bomb a week into September, thes...

I cleaned out my TFSA and put it on my MasterCard. I am so close to paying it off I can taste it. I will probably move another $400 from my LOC to bring the MC balance down to $1500. Then it's the waiting game for my tax return which will go right on there as well, hopefully paying it off. I'm not putting anything into my RRSP this year. I want this debt gone. After fifteen months sharing a one-bedroom, Bean and I are moving into a two-bedroom on March 1st. We're staying in the same building, just moving down to the ground floor. I'll be paying about $150 a month for the extra bedroom plus a small backyard behind our apartment. Plus the super said they would give us a basic cable account for free for one year. I will have to sign another one year lease, which I think is BS considering I just finished one with them. Seriously, Karissa

A couple of weeks ago I decided to pilfer my TFSA in 2010, and apply the $1130 or so to my $3500 credit card balance. I want this card paid OFF, ASAP. I know I'll be losing out on compound interest but I think I'm making the right decision. I will continue to snowflake back into it with each paycheque, but I probably won't get it back up to $1000 by the end of 2010. That's ok, because I desperately want to have the CC and LOC paid off in 2011. I have my 2010 budget spreadsheet all ready to go, with all the modifications I could think of based on spending in 2009. Reaching the final column of the 2009 spreadsheet has been a relief, and a real achievement, because I made through the entire year tracking my expenses and debt payments. Here's a bit of a postmortem: After-tax income, including pay, child tax credit, child support, GST rebates, and gifts and miscellaneous sales $35 841 Rent and Food $11 496 Debt re-payments, including interest charges $8209 Car, including...

I went $67 over-budget in April, but I'm not kicking myself for it, because I earmarked ALL of my income tax refund to RRSP savings and debt repayments. As well it was Bean's third birthday on the 30th, and I forgot to budget for it. I bought his main birthday gift - a Little Tykes easel - last November and had it stored in my dad's basement until Easter. The party itself cost me a few bucks, for cupcake mix (I made 40 cupcakes, 24 went to his friends at daycare) and muffin tins, loot bags for Bean and his friend Gloria, juice and snacks, and a round of bowling for the main event. We had a lot of fun. There was also my Overspend Weekend , which could have been worse. My mom came to visit this past weekend and I spent some unbudgeted funds from my May budget because when we are together we like to shop. I took it easy though, and bought only a few tank tops and a pair of jean shorts at a heavily discounted price, a brand-new wallet at a second-hand shop, and some liquid lau...

So much is going on in my little life, and I have to start somewhere, so here's a list: - union issues bumped my good friend and co-worker out of our adjoining offices, so I'm dealing with the change of missing what was and getting used to what is - I'm thinking of taking a summer school course in first-year accounting, which can lead into a degree in Business, if I decide to go that route - the Bean is beautiful and challenging, just like life should be Finances: March spending was about the same as previous months, with a little overspending in the food/house category, and underspending in car fuel/oil. Debt payments are excitingly moving along (as you can see in the sidebars). I received my income tax refund today of $1687.49. I put $860 into an RRSP account, bringing it up to $2500 or so. I put $300 on my line of credit and $500 on my credit card. Financially I'm feeling good. As for the rest of it, I'm feeling a little low lately, which is why I'm having a ...

One of my goals for 2009-10 is to save up a couple thousand dollars and muster up the courage to start making investments. Alternate plans are to risk a little bit of my RRSP savings (to take advantage of the tax shelter), or to invest in a self-directed RESP (to take advantage of government incentives, such as the CESG ). I currently deposit about $40 a month into a group plan. Canadian Capitalist has blogged several times about investing with TD-Canada Trust, which has turned my attention back to old TD bank. If the Toronto-Dominion Bank had a facebook profile, I would Friend them in the spirit of nostalgia. We were friendly back in the nineties, but broke up when I moved onto bigger and better things near the turn of the century. Half a lifetime ago, when I was sixteen, my roommate Dee (who was a couple of years younger than I am now), told me to get my butt over to the bank and tell them I wanted to invest in mutual funds. I had learned a little bit about compound interest in my g...

Dear PC Financial, For several years now, at your recommendation, I have been depositing $50 a month into an Interest Plus RRSP account. I have not moved the funds into investments, because I was not aware of this option, and you have never promoted it to me. Fine. At the end of 2008 I decided to change my strategy and deposit schedule for this account. I cancelled my automatic payments, with the intention of depositing weekly. I did not make a deposit in September and made only one $10 deposit in October. In November I make three weekly deposits of $10, $10, and $12. In December I made two deposits of $15 and $48. This brings my 2008 deposit total to January to August (@$50/month) $400 October $10 November $32 December $63 With a combined total of $505. This past weekend I was going to file my taxes. I pulled out all my little slips of paper, and noticed for the first time that my 2008 RSP statement has a total of $453.02. What is up with the .02? I have been on hold for about fifteen...

Inspired by recent posts by Saver Queen and Fabulously Broke in the City , I spent a few hours the other day contemplating moving some or all of my Emergency Fund (EF) into my RRSP account. Canadians have until March 2nd to contribute to an RRSP and use it towards our 2008 tax return. I logged into Ufile.ca and played around with some of the numbers. I found that I can add only $500 more to my RRSP without making an over-contribution. That $500 will also give me an extra $40 in my refund. It hardly seems worth it for the $40, but it might be worth it for my future. $500 compounded with the almost $5000 I currently have invested might make a difference to my retirement ( FB - I need one of your fancy equations to figure it out :)). Transferring $500 from my EF still leaves me with $500 for emergencies, and I will be able to bring it back up to $1000 when I get my refund in April. Any thoughts on this? Comments and suggestions are always very much appreciated :) Seriously, Karissa

I finalized all the tracking for my January spending, and I'm pleased to report that I am right on target. I way overspent in a couple of categories, but made up for it with spending shortfalls in other categories. Here's a brief: Rent $0 (paid first and last in December) Food/House (budgeted $200) $150.68 Apt./Car insurance $96 (on target) Car gas/oil (budgeted $70) $152.31 - way over, due to an oil change and two trips to the big city (an extra 600 kms) Phone (budgeted $90) $121.05 - way over, because I wasn't watching my daytime minutes over the xmas holidays RESP (budgeted $40) $39.20 (on target) Life insurance (budgeted $49) $48.73 (on target) Misc. spending (budgeted $100) $310.10 (sickeningly over budget, but the Kiva loan is in there) Line of credit (budgeted $500) $500 Credit card (budgeted $100) $48.57 - under budget, but I used $47 to top up my RRSP account Emergency Fund TFSA (budgeted $800 from rent not spent) $1000 - proudly over budget! Total spent...

My budget is in place (in Excel anyways) and so far it looks pretty good. I'm saving an average of $350 in rent and bills thanks to the smart decision to move to the apartment. I have also canceled my internet cable (hello to the kind person who is currently supplying the wireless network, when I find out who you are I will make you some banana bread), which saves me another $35 a month. My Emergency Fund is almost complete and I have made arrangements to "pay myself first" by deducting 10% of my gross pay each month and transferring it to an ING-type account. The transfer is made only once a month because, well, have I ever mentioned that I get paid only once a month? Yeah. I have my $20 a week set aside for personal spending, and 20% of that goes to my version of titheing: $2 to my self-help group and another $2 to the offering plate at the UU church. I aim to be able to offer more to each once my savings account is established and I can skim a percentage from that acco...