Friday, April 30, 2010

Huge Debt Payment Month

In April I have paid:

$1300.00 on consolidation loan (see $5000 off my consolidation loan?)
$398.00 on Mastercard (this was the minimum payment - OUCH!!!)
$127.00 on Visa to pay off mother's day present
Total: $1825.00


Again, though this was not a typical month - I had 3 paycheques and the largest bonus I've gotten yet. Without those things there is no way I would have been able to pay this much.

Next month:
$600.00 to consolidation loan
$200.00 to MC
$65.00 to Visa (signed up for weightwatchers online)
Total: $865.00

Good thing next month's bonus is looking to be quite high - thank you Shelly! TTFN, Morgaine

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

April Bi-Weekly #2 - Final

So, tomorrow is payday, thank goodness! I'm all out of money! I did manage to get to the end of the pay period on less than $40 - I had $10 left which I put on the Mastercard as a "snowflake".


So, not much to report spending wise. I did put something else on credit - I joined weight watchers, but I have gotten the money for that from a co-worker all I have to do is put the payment on.

Tomorrow is my THIRD and last paycheque of the month. Its pretty well allotted 100% so I have to be extra careful not to have my credit card handy or there may be dire consequences! More on that tomorrow (or Friday, depending on how busy I am tomorrow night). TTFN, Morgaine.

Friday, April 23, 2010

April Week 3

Here are my April Week 3 numbers:


And here is the month so far:

 Not too much change. I ate out Thursday night and today for lunch. Very bad, I know! I had to buy a battery for our camera - 2 = $29.99!!! Its a "special" battery just for our camera, but I need to take pictures of jewelry to put on Etsy, so it was a must, but luckily the bf is going to reimburse me for it since he usually pays for this and who knows how many pictures each person takes anyways.

Plans for the weekend: gym tomorrow and then my mom's for dinner, Indian food for lunch and movie with friends on Sunday with a roast at home for dinner! The reimbursed money from the battery will be going towards Sunday's outing, but it will be worth it to have some fun with my friends.

Happy Weekend Everyone! TTFN, Morgaine.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

April Week 3 so far

Here's how I'm doing so far this bi-weekly period:



Not bad, except in clothing/gifts category. I'm over in this category for this month. So, there goes two of my goals for this month: no clothing, no going over any budget categories. I suppose I could have waited to purchase a few of the items that I bought, but I'm not very good at waiting! Its at least part of the reason that I'm in debt in the first place. The only good thing is that I'm not using credit to purchase these things.

I have $136 left in the bank account to go the next week and a half and I think I can do it, with some left over to boot! We don't really have anything planned for this week - we even have a week of home cooked meals planned! So, I can't imagine that this going to be a pricey two weeks.

Here's where I stand on this month's numbers so far:



Its really too bad that I didn't do a better job of not spending this month, next month will be more expensive with my bf's birthday and going to his hometown on the May 24 long weekend.

Anyways, I'm off to make my lunch for tomorrow and get ready for bed - tomorrow's Monday after all! TTFN, Morgaine.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

April Bi-Weekly Report #1

Here are my final numbers for the first two weeks in April:


And here is where I stood in my monthly numbers after 2 weeks:

Not horrible, but certainly more than I wanted to spend this month. And, of course the worse is yet to come (I spent $127 in clothes on Thursday!) I will post those numbers on Sunday.

Plans for the weekend: Saturday - my bf and I are going to the gym, probably grab lunch out (something healthy I hope!), watch "Clash of the Titans" (not sure about this one, but the bf really wants to see it and I am a Classics buff), and eat dinner at home tonight. Tomorrow, no real plans, I should clean though! Should get groceries and do laundry. Hopefully I can fit a walk in there as well. If the weather isn't too crappy!

TTFN, Morgaine.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Paycheque 2 of 3 - PLUS bonus cheque SWEET!

Just a quick post, I spent most of tonight trying to figure out the issues with my money tracking system - fixed!

Anyways, awesome news today - I got my bonus cheque! $353.61 which is the highest bonus I've gotten so far ($501 before they took off taxes - boourns!). It went directly towards my consolidation loan and I also made my "normal" $300 payment and of course $500 from my first paycheque = $1153.61 so far this month on my loan (almost a whole paycheque!) I've decided to just put the extra $146.39 on at the end of the month to equal the $1300 payment I wanted to make this month (see post: "$5000 Off my Consolidation Loan?" on March 29/10). I could put the "normal" $300 but I also want to put $100 on my mastercard to offset some of the interest from last month.

So now my consolidation loan sits at . . . drumroll . . . wait for it . . . $9,989.81!!! Under $10K = AWESOME!!! At the end of the month with my $146.39 the balance will be: $9843.42, so exciting :)

So now both large debts (consolidation loan and mastercard) are under $10K each, my total debt is $19,864.85 - under $20K!!! And, my net worth is now -$15,600.77 that's a POSITIVE difference of $3,469.68 since the beginning of the year. I'm quite happy with this progress. I LOVE my bonuses!

On the negative side - I broke my "no clothing" challenge again. This time MUCH worse than I did last month. I bought a new gym bag, a new laptop bag ($9.99 half price because I bought the gym bag at a BOGO sale), a new pair of jeans (I'll write more about this on my fitness blog Fit for Thirty), two new pairs of work pants (a total steal $11.99 for one and $14.99 for the other), and a sweater. Other than the sweater, those pieces had been on my "want" list for a while. I'll post about that at another time. Total $127.64! BTW, I wore the shirt that made me lose my challenge last month today and its awesome! I buy a lot of clothes, but I do wear 99% of what I buy.

So, my "quick" post turned out not to be so quick. I'll post all the numbers tomorrow.

TTFN, Morgaine.

P.S. Congrats to Krystal @ GimmeBackMyFiveBucks for landing an awesome new job!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Paycheque 1

Sorry about not posting in about a week - the program I use to track my money (Ascendo Money - if anyone is curious) gave me some weird totals when I tried to sync my blackberry. All is fixed now - except on my blackberry, it still has funny numbers.  I'm going to try and get into contact with customer support and see if I can get that fixed.

Anyways, after spending pretty well all of my money in the first weekend, I lived off of $40 for 2 weeks, in fact, I still have $10 left with only one day until payday!

So, since I only have $10 left and I don't think I'll be spending it tomorrow, I can post my numbers and feel ok with it.

Here's the Bi-Weekly Budget #1

And here's the monthly numbers (again, keep in mind that since it is a 3 paycheque month, that the numbers are inflated).


I really gotta stop blowing all my money in the first weekend and try and budget my money out to last me two weeks!

Still no clothes or jewelry spending this month (other than reposting listing on Etsy at $10).

Wish me luck! TTFN, Morgaine.

Friday, April 2, 2010

April 2010 - Paycheque 1 of 3 - Whoohoo!

Here's my monthly budget for April 2010 - accounting for the extra paycheque, of course!


And here's my Bi-weekly #1 Budget


I also rejigged the numbers here because I wanted to pay off the visa (again) and make the extra payment to the consolodation loan and my emergency/travel fund (that I withdrew from to pay off my student loan in February - another $100 and it will be back to where it was, plus another $100 at the end of the month and its back to where it would be if I hadn't withdrawn).

April Goals:
  • Pay off $1300 (or more depending on bonus) to consolidation loan
  • No money spent on clothes
  • No (more) money spent on credit*
  • Stay on budget in every category - monthly budget
*For the no money spent on credit goal, I had already put $117 on my Visa this month for a mother's day gift (going to an ice skating show, my Mom LOVES ice skating),  BUT its already been paid off! So, no more money spent on credit and I feel that I'm doing OK. Oh, and I had to put this on my credit card because I bought the tickets online and they only take credit cards.

I have updated my bars and I'm very happy to see that since October 2009 (when I started tracking) my Net Worth has increased by $2583.06!!! And $1434.54 just since the beginning of last month!!! All the money I have spent paying off debt is finally making a dent. :)

HAPPY EASTER (to those that celebrate). TTFN, Morgaine.