Raise and Semi-Annual Bonus! SWEET!!!

So, I get to work today and on my desk is a letter from HR, I got a raise! Ok, a very little one, but considering I'm on contract, I never even contemplated getting a raise. Its 1.48% which equals from $38,000 to $38,562 or from $20.88 an hour to $21.19, so starting June 10th, I will have to adjust my budget again to reflect the new numbers.

But, even BETTER is that I'm getting a semi-annual bonus of $1200!!! Plus my regular monthly bonus - which should be around $300 - its ALL going on the consolidation loan. I can't wait to post the new balance of the loan and my net worth. I'm so excited!!!

On another front, this weekend is the bf's birthday weekend and its going to be a bit costly, methinks. But, considering he usually pays for the fun stuff, I definitely think I should have no problem spending some money on him for a change. I'll post the numbers after the weekend.

I did make a charge on my Visa yesterday - going to see author Roddy Doyle (author of the novel that was adopted into one of my favourite movies of all time "The Committments"). The ticket is $30 - which I paid off the credit card right away - back to zero lickety split! LOVE IT!!! I'm feeling really good about my ability to keep this credit card at zero.

Anyways, just watching the clock tick down until this week is over and on to the weekend! Indian food and MacGruber await! TTFN, Morgaine.

Bi-Weekly Report May 13-26

Ok, so here are my mid-month May numbers:

Again, I fiddled around with the numbers to make it work. I think, I'm really just going to worry about the monthly numbers - and of course, not spend more money than I have. Here, for example, you can see I had $386.33 left over for my variable expenses (after fixed expenses, debt repayment and savings are taken out) but I spent $353.98 so even though I techinally went over my bi-weekly expenses allotment, I didn't spend more money than I have. Phew!

Payday is tomorrow, and its looking that starting tomorrow, its going to be a very expensive weekend! Tomorrow is a work "night out" (i.e. drinking on a patio), apparently the office manager is paying??? But then I still have to eat out for dinner because I'm going to see a friend's school play (my friend is a teacher) right after, also, have to pay for the tickets for that. Friday = eating out again. Saturday = eating out and movie, since its bf's birthday weekend, I'm paying for all that! And, of course his present! $100 for a new suitcase for our trip to Alberta in July. Once this weekend is over, I'm hoping to take it really easy money (and food!) wise. Since we went up north this weekend, we didn't get any groceries. So, I've eaten out a LOT this week, and will continue until Sunday - when we get more groceries. At least, there are some healthier food choices in the local food courts :)

I'll write more about the "damage" of this weekend when its all over. TTFN, Morgaine.

Declined.

Just heard back from the bank, I was declined for the consolidation loan. Their reasoning: they think its too risky for them to take on my debt.

I'll admit that I'm disappointed but was kind of expecting it. It was a shot in the dark, after all. I still wonder why they made me go to all that trouble just to be declined. CIBC is weird, I guess. Oh well, I just gotta keep trudging on and try again in November.

I'm done work for today, happy long weekend (again)! TTFN, Morgaine.

Happy Long Weekend!

I probably won't be posting this week's numbers until maybe Monday or Tuesday. But I do have a few updates. 1) I sent away for my credit report from Equifax - they have on file that I had lost my wallet so they can't verify me over the internet, I had to fax them 2 pieces of government ID to get my report. Once received, I will go about "fixing" it. The rep from CIBC said that my student loan isn't showing as paid off and closed, and of course the verifying the ID part is annoying and this is from 2003!!! I'm hoping to get this notice taken off.

Another update, apparently my RSP isn't doing as well as I thought. I thought I had $3700 but I only have $3000!!! Apparently one of my mutual funds have taken a bit of a hit. So, again its a good thing that I've increased my contributions from $50 to $100 bi-weekly. At least when my funds are down, I can buy more units for less and hopefully those more units will be worth more soon!

So, plans for the weekend are we are going up north to bf's home town. We usually don't spend a lot when we're there, except that T has to rent a car since we don't own one currently. On the plus side, T now has a CC that pays for his rental insurance (that used to be an extra $150 a weekend!!!) so the biggest expense is usually food, we pretty well eat out all 3 meals for the 3 days! Although, considering I am on weight watchers, I may at least take my Special K cereal with me so I have at least one meal covered. This weekend shouldn't end up costing me much more than $50.

I spoke with the bank rep again yesterday, still no word either way about my loan, so I guess I have to hold my breath a little longer. If I don't hear anything by Wednesday next week, I'll call again.

I hope everyone has an amazing long weekend!!! TTFN, Morgaine.

Declined?

So, I went into the bank yesterday to speak to a rep about the possibility of a consolidation loan (one that is not at 29.9%!!!) We went over everything, he told me how much interest (10% fixed for 5 years) and the payments ($203 bi-weekly) and the insurance, etc then he sent it through and it came back . . . declined! All that work for declined? Seems really strange to me. I had applied for a consolidation loan with another bank 6 months ago and they declined me right away. We didn't go through all the paperwork and hoopla wasting my time and the reps just to be declined. Anyways, the reason I put a question mark at the end of declined, is that the rep thought that I should have been approved (apparently my debt service ratio just squeaked in under 40%) so he's going to send a note to the underwriters and see if that helps. He said he'd give me a call in the next two business days to tell me either way.

If I'm not approved, I'll just keep going the way that I have and try again in 6 months. By then I hope to have both the citi and mastercard down quite a bit and my credit score should improve. The rep yesterday said that my credit score was pretty good, so it seems that it has improved since I had checked it in January and it was pretty low - although he did say to call and get my student loan to show as paid in full and closed because its not showing that way on my credit report. So, I may even be able to get a better interest rate than 10% from the bank in 6 months, BUT I will still be paying the exhorbitant rate at citi for the next 6 months.

Please keep your fingers crossed for me! TTFN, Morgaine.

May - Paycheque 1

May is going to be a busy month! Let's see: bf's birthday, going up north, baby shower, nice weather = bars with patios! I'm budgeting about $100 for bf's birthday present - he wants a new piece of luggage for our trip to Alberta in the summer - and about $50 for his birthday dinner (for himself and I). Around $25 for baby shower gift (splitting it with a friend!) and about $10 for the ingredients for spinach dip (my friend that is having the baby LOVES my spinach dip ;)) This weekend we already got a pizza $5 was my share, and we're going out tomorrow night to a pub with a patio. The trip up north shouldn't cost much as this is to visit the bf's family and friends, he mostly pays - I'll budget about $50 for food and entertainment. Hopefully these things won't break the bank!

Here's where the money stands as of right now:

Oh, and I may be able to get a consolidation loan at a bank, I spoke to a representative and they needed to verify my income and ID before saying if I would be approved - but why make me go through that if they were just going to decline me??? Anyways, it would be a huge relief to not pay 29.9% interest!!!

I've got a money group meeting on Sunday - anyone who lives in the T.O. area and would be interested in joining a money group - email me at morganofthefairies@hotmail.com

TTFN, Morgaine

April wasn't as bad as I thought!

Ok, try as I might, I just can't seem to fight the clothing bug! So, I've rejigged the budget numbers (yet again) because I just don't spend as much money on entertainment and food as I thought - and more on clothes and gifts then I wished I did!

So, here's the breakdown of April - with new budget numbers (ok, so it seems that I rejigged it to come in balanced in the clothing and gifts category, and I guess that would be correct, but I still spend way under what I projected that I was going to in every other category - so there!) Oh, and keeping in mind that it was a 3 paycheque month!

And here is my goal budget for May:

This is the budget that I'm going to try STICK TO from now on. I think its the most reflective of what I do spend my money on while not going crazy - by that I mean still paying off a lot of debt and meeting my fixed expenses payments and saving. Speaking of saving - I increased my bi-weekly RSP contribution to $100 (up from $50). With the bonuses I've been getting, I'm a little worried that I may have to pay tax next year - ouch! So, I'm going to try and offset this a bit by increasing RSP. By next February I should be able to see if I need to make a larger lump sum to offset taxes by the RSP deadline.

Tomorrow's payday! Huzzah! (I almost didn't make it - $14.16 left in the account today - whew!) TTFN, Morgaine.

Surveys

Since I started reading PF blogs I decided to start participating in online surveys. So, its been about a year and I've gotten:

$50USD from global test market
$50USD from opinion outpost (although I don't get surveys from them anymore for some reason???)
$50CDN from Angus Reid (just got it today!!!)
Two free boxes of coffee for my dolce gusto coffee maker from Ipsos
$10CDN on amazon from Ipsos

Not bad and I'm more than half way to getting another $50 from GTM, its not too much work but it also takes a long time to get up to the amount of money to cash out. I'm also with survey winnings and toluna but I found those surveys are few and far between (and the points to reward ratios are not that great). So I don't do all their surveys anyways. Oh, and swagbucks - I'm sorry but not really worth my time as far as I can see. Instead of using swagbucks to search I have the airmiles toolbar at home and since the bf and I want to use airmiles for our honeymoon I have to collect as many as I can!

If you're looking to make a few extra snowflakes for debt repayment/saving then its not a bad way to make a few extra dollars without too much effort. Now to deposit my Angus Reid cheque! TTFN, Morgaine.

Emergency Fund

I'm thinking of changing my goal for my Emergency Fund. Right now I have the goal set to $3000 which I think will be a good "end goal" and I'm thinking to change it for $1000 for 2010 and then concentrate on debt repayment/other savings (i.e. Gift fund). I also really want to hit my $5000 goal in my RSP for this year then $10,000 next year so that I have my $10,000 to put in for a house (I know that I can take $20K out of my RSP for first time homebuyers, but I think that will take waaaaay too long). Also, my aunt has offered to lend us $10K for a down payment as well, so that would be $30K altogether for a downpayment which would be 10% of a $300K home which I think is pretty good.

I'm updating my bars accordingly. I'm also not blogging as often because I'm broke and therefore, don't have much to write about! TTFN, Morgaine.

End of April - Beginning May

So my last April pay spills into the first two weeks of May, so here's my "End of APril 0 Beginning "May" budgt:

As you can see, there is already a shortage. Because I had to put an extra payment on my Mastercard to make up the $398 minumum payment (OUCH again!!!) and the payment to make up the $1300 payment to my consolidation loan. I basically have $93.85 in cash instaead if the $225 I usually budget myself for my variable expenses. So, I'm making this my challenge: make it to the next paycheque putting as little as possible on the credit card - it will be almost impossible to amke it through without putting anything on, and I already have - I put dinner with my mom on it on Friday (hence the $55 in the food categiorty in the credit colunm). Again I've allocated $0 for clothing and gifts- I will be spending enough on gifts by the end of May though, bf's birthday is on the 28th - at least Mother's Day ais over as far as the gift is concerned. Oh, and there is the May 24 weekend - going up north to bf's hometown - but I usually don't spend much there at all.

So, I'm not really going to give myself anymore challenges for now, I think this will be enough of a challenge - at least for the first two weeks. TTFN, Morgaine.