Debt Free Kid

I felt so alone when I began our debt free journey at the end of 2008. I was exhausted from going to work every day and the evenings felt excruciatingly long while I was at home on my own with my two year old. Up until that point I had my old friend Ebay to keep me company, but when the VISA bill came in with a balance over $20 000 and the minimum payment was $250 (which I could pay, but then not pay the hydro bill), I broke down and admitted to myself that everything had to change. A few months later we were settled into our apartment and I started dating a man I met at work. As I got to know him I became extremely self conscious about my financial situation. He came from an upper middle class family, and his parents paid for his post-secondary school tuition, up to his Master's degree. When he received scholarships for his PhD, they gave him the rest of the saved education funds to buy a house. By the time I was getting to know him, his house was sold at a profit and he was liv...

Hello! Happy New Year! Happy Easter! Like usual, I've been updating my sidebars but not any actual content with this blog. Everything is still going swimmingly, as we just keep swimming, just keep swimming, further into middle age (me), adolescence (Bean) and adult kittyhood (Baxter and Link). Bean is turning eleven at the end of this month! I know! I started this blog when he was three - although you wouldn't know I've been at it for eight years judging by the sound of crickets around here. He is very much a "tween" with his headphones on and his jeans showing his ankles since his legs are growing out of them. I was very fortunate when he was little, since his great-aunt handed down all the clothes her grandson - two years older - outgrew. But for the past couple of years this source dried up, and luckily I now make a little bit more money than I did when we were younger. We found a pair of jeans that he loved at The Children's Place and would buy three...

It took me half a year to figure out that I might run out of money before year-end. According to my spreadsheet, overspending and indulging has left me with only $1300 to cover groceries, gas, and spending money for the next five months (Aug - Dec). It shocked me to see this, since I don't feel like I live an extravagant lifestyle at all. I haven't bought any new clothes or shoes for myself in 2016, and I last had a cheap haircut in August 2015. I still haven't called the plumber in to fix the leak in the bathtub / kitchen sink either. I did move $1000 from a savings account onto the car loan back in April. And I plan to do so again in August. I really want to get rid of the car loan. Some expenses have gone up, such as house and car insurance, property taxes, and hydro but heating gas has gone down by half to make up for it. I have my 2017 spreadsheet all set up and if I stick with it properly, everything will be covered, including savings goals AND I will st...

In three years I will be 44. Bean will be 13. In three years our car will be paid off. As soon as Bean's legs are long enough, I will teach him to drive it, and we will share it until it no longer runs. I don't plan to buy another car. In three years I will owe less than $10 000 on my student loans. In three years I will owe just over $110 000 on the mortgage. In three years I will either be working full-time, or I will take the leap and reduce my work hours and practice living minimally and mindfully. In three years we will be thinking about which high school Bean will attend. Will he go into the international baccalaureate program at our local school, or will he commute to the other end of town to continue French Immersion? We will have another year to decide. In three years I will have hopefully reached my savings goal. In three years I will have struck another couple of items off my bucket list in the sidebar.

  http://play.nintendo.com/themes/holidays/nintendo-valentines-day-theme-2016/ Bean has decided that he is a geek/ nerd, and I'm having fun indulging him with comic books and watching great superhero TV shows with him. We don't have cable TV, so we wait until the shows air and then catch them online the next day.  He loves the Nintendo characters (even though I bought him an XBox last year - d'oh!) and I printed off a bunch of free Valentines from the link above for him. Tonight we are going to watch The Flash, glue the Valentines onto construction paper hearts, and make sugar cookies for his classmates. I received statements for two of my four student loans the other day, and the smallest loan was at $1650 at the end of December. I'm tempted to use part of one my savings accounts to pay the loan off completely. It's been a part of my life since I started college in 1996, and I want to see it gone. Twenty years! Currently, I'm in an assistan...

Yep, I almost did it. I almost pulled the trigger on a couple of sites today. I had stuff in the carts, but I closed the tabs before I pulled out the credit card. The first cart contained a couple of "ugly christmas sweaters" for Bean and I, and they weren't even that ugly. The one for me was pretty cute, and since it was pink and black, I could wear it year round. I knew Bean would get a kick out of the one I picked out for him. The second cart was for skincare, my most favourite thing to splurge on. I'm almost out of my $55 serum, and I saw an email for some sample primers at a great price. I needed to add only $2 more to get bonus points, so I picked out a new face wash. I scrutinized my purchases a few times, and read a couple of reviews of the primers. I needed to make sure the cosmetics company was cruelty-free. And then I clicked "x," twice. And went to heat up my ramen noodles for lunch. I also figured out how to file a dispute with amazo...

Bean and I drove to New York State at the end of June for what is now our annual retreat. I paid $600 for our spots (meals and accommodation) back in May. I anticipated spending about $200 US at the gift shop, though I'm pretty sure I went over that because I brought a credit card with me. I knew from the year before that filling up the car usually meant pre-paying with cash, so two days before our departure I went to a bank branch to buy $100 US cash. It was a Saturday and there was a big line but I waited patiently and read all the ads on the screens behind the tellers heads. This bank already holds my mortgage, car loan, and two of four of my student loans, so they didn't advertise anything of interest to me. When I was waiting for the teller to process my request, I noticed a piece of paper taped to the counter that said "travel insurance." I asked the teller if my VISA included travel insurance, and was told no. So, I asked how much insurance would be for Bean ...

There are a few job postings where I work, and I'm qualified for all of them. They are all full time - 35 hours a week vs the 28 hours I am paid to work. I know from experience that this would be a net pay increase of around $550 per month, but it might jeopardize my interest relief status with the student loan centre, as well as my child care subsidy. And I will definately need the child card subsidy since I would be in the office for 1.5 more hours per day. I ultimately make the important decisions at our house, but my kid is smart and I always ask his opinion. He even helped me pick out the house I bought last fall. Today we talked about what it might be like if I worked longer hours each day. We talked about what would be better for us: more money or more time together? I reminded him that more money meant more sushi dinners (I really need to learn to make futomaki). Bean decided that more time was more important to him. We have a leisurely morning routine and our after...

I had to re-do my budget after my relationship ended and I bought a house last October. Since then I was trying to live on just my employment income and child support. I had the child tax credit and other government incentives deposited into a separate account that I haven't used in years, one that charges me $1.25 per transaction, which for me is a good spending deterrent. My intention is to save the money until November 2015 and then decide whether to put it towards a student loan, the car loan, or spend a bit on the house. I would really like to buy a dishwasher, paint the bedrooms, and start renovating the bathroom. I have to be careful with house spending though, because in five to seven years I will have to replace the roof and maybe one or more of the appliances. Our collective agreement expires June 30, and hopefully by this November we will have a new contract negotiated. If we decide to strike, then the savings account will be my personal strike fund, as the union...

I might have mentioned 100 or so times on here that I get paid only once a month. I've been working at the same institution since 2002, so I'm over it. We get paid on the 28th, but if the 28th falls on a Saturday or Sunday, then we get paid on the Friday before. The days leading up to payday are full of anticipation for me, because I look forward to seeing the amount go into my chequing account, and I love removing bits and bobs of it into my various savings accounts. Then I calculate what bills are going to be removed electronically and leave that amount in chequing, while the amount of bills that I pay manually later in the month goes into a savings account. I usually have less than $200 on the credit card that I pay before the due date. This past weekend I knew I would leave extra in the chequing, because the kid would be home and we had lots of plans. Friday morning, I didn't receive an email about the deposit, and I logged into my account about a half dozen times, ...

I get paid on the 28th of each month, and sometimes, like this past January, it feels like weeks between payday and the beginning of the next month. I have about three months worth of pay saved up so I'm never quite short on funds, but I do try to make each current pay last till the end of the month (the 30th or 31st, rather than the 28th), Since February has only 28 days (normally) it is a nice feeling to head right into March with a full paycheque. This month, to make it even sweeter, I have declared it "no spend month." This means that all non-essential spending (groceries and gas excluded of course) is to be delayed for four short weeks. And I am not allowing myself to cheat by using a credit card and paying it off next month. Half of my January pay went towards a hefty credit card bill from December spending, even though I had a christmas savings account set up. Still, it is nice to check my credit card statements and see that zero balance. Since I am single agai...

Thanks to this post on The Simple Dollar , I learned about a site called unbury.me , which gave me something to think about regarding my debt repayments. I plugged in my minimum amounts: 1) Mortgage - $862/month at 2.94% (paid bi-weekly, but there was no place to show the two months of the year where I pay $1291 - I guess I could have used $933 as the average); 2) Car - $250/month at 1.9%; 3) Student Loans - $144/month at 4% (I guessed, since there are actually four loans with different percentages - the most common one is Prime + 1.5%). The result told me that I should continue making these minimum payments until March 2021, when the car will be paid off, and that $250 can then go onto my student loan payment. In October 2024 the student loans will be gone, and the combined $250 + $144 goes onto the mortgage, paying it off by October 2030. This is pretty cool because I have decided I want the mortgage paid off in 15 years so that I can think about early retirement. October ...

We have been in the house less than three weeks and we are ecstatic. Bean's new favourite word is "Newhouse." On the weekend I noticed the tray under the hot water tank is full of water, and slowly starting to leak onto the concrete basement floor. I put newspapers around it, and they dried, and Baxter (the kitten) decided to take them skating around. The basement seems to be his domain, because his litter box is down there. I called the utilities company, and they are sending a plumber this afternoon to replace the tank. Before the old one is removed, I will have to sign a five-year contract for the new tank. I balked at the commitment. The rental is $12.35 (10.93 + HST) per month on my hydro bill. In five years the cost of the rental will be over $3200, if the price does not increase. I could probably have three tanks purchased and installed for that price, but then I would be on the hook for all the repairs. I spoke to the plumber, and he assured me that rentin...

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...

Time seems to speed up when you have a kid, and even more so during the summer. I am already solidifying plans for the first week of September when the students arrive back at the university. We took our holidays right away, leaving for New York state two days after grade two ended for Bean. I had paid for the retreat with my income tax refund back in March, so we needed U.S. cash only for gas and meals along the way. We decided to leave a day early and break the trip up into two parts, with the first night spent in a pretty cheap motel across the border. I think that was Bean's favourite part of the trip, because he loves hotel swimming pools! I was quite impressed with the scenery along the way south: what a beautiful part of the country! Once we arrived at our retreat, we parked the car for the entire week. Meals were covered, and were deliciously vegan. We have decided to go vegetarian since our return, which coincides with the need to bring our grocery bill down to $75 a w...

This morning Bean had a very serious look on his face as he told me that he wished he had kept a friend's birthday gift for himself. As I noticed the hurt look I thought of the friend mentioned, and realized that the gift purchased and given was BACK IN DECEMBER. 2013. It was a Lego set of a type that Bean has recently become quite fanatical about, especially since there is a tie-in cartoon of the Lego series now on Netflix. He has been watching it every day when we get home from work and day camp, while I am making dinner. I try not to get annoyed but I can't help it. The friend who received the toy in question is the kid who seems to have everything. I really like his mom and I always wonder how she gets by as a single mom, with two kids, a mortgage, and under-employment. Every time my kid gets excited about a new toy trend it is because this kid, and a couple of others, brought the toy to school and made it the next big thing. All of these kids have single moms, and I don...

For a couple of years I have been telling Bean that his first job will be a paper route. Most semi-responsible people I have encountered started their employment history this way, so it seems like a good thing to do. Kind of like what working at McDonalds was when I was much younger (except now anyone under 18 rarely gets to work in food services, since adults moved into that sector when the good jobs disappeared). I even bought him a wagon for xmas in 2012 to encourage him, and figured we would have a route by his 7th birthday. However by that date I didn't think he was ready and would find it more of a curse than a blessing. Also I'm still a bit hesitant because as kids, my sister had a route but pawned it off on me (without pay!) so I know how much work can be involved. And I never knew how low the pay is! The route I have a lead on is for "the free paper" in our town. We will deliver to 27 houses on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and the pay is $22 for ...

Sometimes a mama has just got to vent. I took a holiday day off yesterday to chaperone my son's class to the local pioneer village. We had not yet gone and were looking forward to it. The teacher gave me a list of five students for my group. I sat with two of them at the back of the school bus going there, while my son sat two seats up with the other two kids. When we got there we had free time for about 45 minutes, so we set out to tour the village. The kids were pretty good at first, but one of them kept complaining that he had already been there three times, and another kid, who had also been there before, was begging to go to the playground. For the first kid I tried to be nice while I asked him why he bothered coming on the trip, and for the second kid I made some kind of compromise that we would get to the playground after lunch. They ran around and tested me a bit, but I stayed cheerful. At lunch we noticed a snack bar, and I mentioned to another mom that I might want a ...

My kid turned eight years old a couple of weeks ago. I booked him an amazing party at the local laser tag place for under $400. He invited eleven friends, and they all showed up! He got a lot of Lego, which he was thrilled with. I got him a new two-wheel bike, because his old one was getting too small. I also bought him new soccer cleats and shin guards, but I would have bought them regardless of his birthday. It was an expensive weekend! Spending on my kid now has its own category in my spreadsheet. I track all the expenses in their own categories (daycare/camps; sports; RESP; life insurance - something I would not purchase now but I bought the policy when I was less informed, and it is universal life, so I keep paying for it - only $24 a month; misc - includes birthday party and more frivolous expenses like tiny shopping sprees). I add up all the amounts and apply it against the amount of child support I get each month. If there are any funds leftover they go into his savings accou...