Beacon Score

I checked my Beacon Score and it's up to 811. I'm happy with that!

Financial Goals for August

After just buying a new 2010 Honda CR-V in July and having car payments for the first time in at least 6 or 7 years, my finances now need even a bit more tightening up.

I have taken on additional shifts at my part-time job - shifts I used to work but stopped a little over a year ago - and the intention is for that money to go straight to paying for the vehicle.

I've increased my grocery budget a bit from what I nornally allow each month, being $300 up from $250 and have cut back a lot on what I normally let myself spend on eating out. I need to prepare food at home and stick to it!! It's not always easy to do that when working more than 60 hours each week but I really need to try.

I would like to earn at least $150 in August from ebay or kijiji sales from things I have around the house, to put toward a car starter as I must get one put in before winter.

I STILL need to update my sidebars but with working 60+ hours each week, taking care of my own house, taking care of my dad's house out of town (since it still has not sold), finding time to fiddle with HTML code never seems to happen. *sigh* one day I will get to it.

I'd also like to lose at least 6 pounds in August as, ideally, I'd like to lose 20 and I think 6 lbs in one month should be obtainable.

August Goals:

- stick to $300 grocery budget and make 95% of meals at home
- earn minimum $150 from ebay/kijiji sales from things around the house
- lose 6 lbs

Time to get finances back in check!

Okay, I keep saying I am going to get back to blogging and then life throws a wrench into things and it doesn't happen. Well, I am now going to make it happen.

This is just going to be a short post as it's late and tomorrow is a work day but my intention is to get back to focusing more on my finances for a number of reasons, including:

- full time position pays less than previous position
- I work a tremendous amount of OT but don't get paid for it
- 11 year old car needs replacing
- dad's house has not yet sold so am supporting 2 households with taxes, insurance and utilities (while making considerably less money)

For these reasons I really need to focus on having dedicated no-spend days, reducing unnecessary spending (biggest problem there is dining out/take out), and earning more income. To that end, I am increasing my hours at my p-time job starting this week. This will be difficult given the amount of OT my full time job requires but since they don't pay me for it I have to do something. If it becomes a problem, then I will have to have a frank discussion with my boss.

Happy Easter!

I bake maybe once every year or so and only when I have to bring something to a gathering or am hosting something at my home but today I was bit by the baking bug and decided to make some cupcakes.

Easter "Robin's Egg Nest" Cupcakes:



I will be taking these (there are more of them) to the office.

Spendy, spendy, spendy!

I've had a spendy couple of weeks. I came home from a vacation in Jamaica to yet more family crisis that has really been weighing heavily on my mind these past two and a half weeks and I think that is a big contributing factor to how much I've been spending these past couple weeks.

I've been buying clothes (needed for work), make-up, earrings, a Keurig, perfume and shoes (all not needed (well, the Keurig is debatable)), and skin care (needed but did not need to buy Lancome). I think that is everything.

I bought the earrings as I was invited to a Stella & Dot show and wanted to support both the hostess and her daughter, the consultant. They are nice earrings, sterling silver and turquoise, and I know I will get a lot of wear out of them.

The clothes were definitely needed as I lost over 65lbs last year and nothing in my closet from last spring/summer fits and I can't go around in this world naked.

I have no excuse for the perfume, shoes or make-up.

The shoes have not arrived yet and if they don't fit perfectly or I don't care for them as much in person as online, I will return them and they can be returned to a store so I won't have to pay to send them back.

I am taking one item back to MAC as I don't care for the colour so may as well get my money back rather than keeping it.

I know I'm shopping out of stress due to the family situation and since I recognize it, I hope I can curb it.

A new year, a new look!

Okay, not exactly "new" since we're three months into the year, I know.

I've changed the look of my blog and have somewhat changed the way I am thinking about my finances going forward. I recently took a fairly significant pay cut to get away from a very toxic environment, which meant I needed to re-think my spending and saving plans for this year (and beyond). I haven't fully thought it through and will be meeting with my financial advisor in early April to figure it all out but at this point my intention is to put enough away to be comfortable in retirement but not at the expense of enjoying life now.

I want to do considerably more travel than I have been in the past couple years. Deaths in the family and other family and work commitments have not allowed me to travel as much as I would have liked to lately and that is something I really want to focus on again.

Once I sit down and have some concrete figures in mind, I will change my sidebars.

I need to get back to posting

Life has been so very crazy and stressful and messed up this year.

My dad passed away at the very end of May and I spent until the end of July packing up his life from his house and then renovating it to sell it. It's been a very expensive year with funeral costs and renovation costs and all the other costs associated with the house as it has not sold yet.

It has been an extremely emotional year (couple years actually as my sister passed away unexpectedly two years ago) and I really am completely emotionally drained. I've lost a lot of weight over these past 6 months and am down 3, almost 4, dress sizes.

I want to start posting again as I've noticed the amount I've been spending on food (groceries and eating out) this month has been way too high and I need to get that back in check. I really have not done much other unnecessary spending over this past year as I have simply been too busy.

I've been at this job now for 9 months and I have had three different bosses (I report directly to the President) and that has brought a lot of challenges and stress on top of everything else I have been dealing with in my personal life during this same time.

I made some updates to my sidebars and added one as my planned retirement savings for 2009 have been exceeded by 73%. What I owe on my HELOC has increased due to funeral costs and the above house expenses. As soon as the house sells, my financial picture will be much different, so while I do have the LOC debt, I am in the process of selling an asset that far exceeds it so I'm not bothering with that bar right now.

I don't know if anyone has kept me on their blog roll since it has been so long since I've posted, but I appreciate anyone who is still reading.

I am such a dunce!

A couple weeks ago I could not sleep (which is the case most nights) so was up shredding a bunch of old bank statements and other papers. I came across an unopened envelope from the bank and inside was an RSP receipt from 2006 for close to $6,000. How on earth did I miss submitting that with my taxes??? I called CRA the next day and then immediately re-submitted my 2006 taxes online. I checked today and they have been re-assessed and $1,987 will be deposited in my account on Apr. 30th.

No time to be spending money

Life has been so busy lately with putting in 11 - 16 hour days most days at my new job and then spending 2 - 3 hours each night at the hospital with my dad (now that he has been moved to a hospital here in the city) that I really have had no time to spend any money on "stuff". I've also had absolutely no time at all for myself or to get anything done around my house.

I have spent a lot on gas over the past 5 weeks when my dad was in the other hospital as it was 3 hours round trip and I was driving out there regularly, so my gas budget is completely overspent.

I am getting his house ready to sell and the first painting quote has come in at $2,600 - OUCH!! I also ordered new appliances at $1,776. I will use either my EF or my LOC for these expenses until the house sells. There will be other costs associated with getting the house ready to sell like purchasing new light fixtures, etc.

It's all so exhausting.

Been away awhile

I have been away for a bit dealing with some very serious family matters.

My dad has had cancer for some time and two weeks ago last Friday he lost the use of his legs as the cancer has caused so much damage to his spine. These past two weeks have been an incredibly stressful time. The day before my dad lost the use of his legs, I accepted a new job and I started that job the following week (a week ago Thursday). It has been a crazy time and a very bad time to be starting a new position. This new job is so busy that I put in somewhere between 15 and 20 hours of overtime this past week and I've only been with this company a week so far. While, I'm happy to be at this new place and I think it will be a good position, it is not a good time in my life to be putting in 20 hours of overtime per week when my dad only has a short time left with us and the time he has left will be spent in a hospital bed.

I've slept very little in the past three weeks as I was stressed out about accepting the new job and resigning from the other one and then this happened with my dad and I've not really slept since. I've also been fighting a bad cold, which finally now seems to be close to gone.