Debt Free Kid

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...

Yesterday I posted about my recent experience purchasing - and using - travel insurance. The bank did not give me a policy number at the time of purchase, and the overseeing insurance company did not receive the paperwork in a timely manner because of the holiday on July 1st. Something that made me smirk during the whole ordeal, was that I did have a policy number for the cat. Yeah. A couple of days before we left, I called the number on his collar tag to make sure his microchip was programmed with our current address. During the call, the nice representative managed to sell me an annual pet insurance policy for $20. I thought it was a good idea, mostly because I had a student staying at our house while we were away, and I wanted to minimize the effects of any emergency our adventure-loving kitten might encounter out in the wild. So when the NY hospital asked me for the policy number for Bean's "broken" arm, I checked my phone and found the pet insurance policy number...

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 ...

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, ...

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...