Here Are The Numbers !

I am really not someone who should be blogging, but I like to keep myself accountable and be able to look back and see where I have come. I am not a writer, I am a numbers person, hence the reason I love personal finance. So lets just get straight to the numbers. Here is what my budget generally looks like every month.

Income:

Day job: $1800

Side job: $160

After taxes: $1500

Fixed Expenses: 

Rent - $200

Investments - $200 ($100 bi-weekly*) 

Car payments - $220 ($110 bi-weekly*) 

Car insurance - $187

Student loan - $150

Gym - $90

Variable Expenses:

Gas - $150

Groceries - $150

Phone - $75

Pet - $50

Charity - $25

Laundry - $10

Total: $1507

As you can see, I have a tight budget. When it comes to my income, I am paid hourly, so I always do my best to pick up extra shifts. Not only does it look good on me that I am flexible and willing to always help, but it gives me the extra income to meet my needs. I often have side things going on for a little bit of money here and there, but because they are not constant and often go straight to debt, I am not including them.

This is very basic, and no I don't include entertainment, or clothes or anything like that. Well clearly I cant afford to, and also I try to do things that are free! I really enjoy hiking and being outside (in the summer!). I spend most of my time with my sisters, which includes a lot of going to the gym (hence the $90 gym membership..I know, I know!), and going to whatever my nieces and nephews are doing at the time (soccer games, hockey games, baseball games)  

One other thing I would like to point out, savings! As you can see I have $100 bi-weekly automatically put into mutual funds. I split it between my RSP and TFSA, 50/50. I plan on using my RSP to buy my condo in 19 months (more on that later)! And I would consider my TFSA as my emergency fund, (about to be used, boo!). Something you wont see in my budget is my Employee Savings Program. I am contributing 7.5% of my pretax salary (about $55 a pay) to this savings program through my work. They match up to 6%, and it is also used to buy company stocks! As soon as I was allow to participate in this I jumped on it! So far it is great, and our company stocks were up 14% last year!!! Hope it keeps going that way! The only downfall to this savings program is that I must keep it in there for 2 full years to have it matched. I am fine with that as this will also be part of my down payment for my condo. 

Overall, it's tight, but this is the least I will ever make (I hope!) and pretty realistic, sadly.

* It has come to my attention that this may mean twice weekly, but I mean it as every two weeks (maybe a Canadian thing? maybe I'm just wrong! haha)

Welcome 2014 Goals!

Hello there! I am not a great writer, nor do I fully enjoy it. But what I do enjoy is talking about money! This gets tricking in real life, as people think its a taboo subject and when you start to talk about savings, debt or investing they always steer the conversation the other way! I understand that most people don't love talking about TFSA as much as I do, so that is where y'all come in! I wont be blogging often, as you can see it has been about a year since I last talked. My feeling is I want to post a few times a month updating my net worth and my goals! 

It's still early in 2014 so I want to set some financial goals that I can stick to! I was doing well in 2013, paying down my student debts and whatnot, but when I looked at my net worth over the year, I ended up where I started! NOT cool!!! 

Pay down student loan by $3000

This will require payments of about $250 a month, plus any extra income I can go towards it! January 1 my student loan was at $15,891.03. So for the purpose of round numbers, on December 31, 2014 my loan should be at $12,900.

Pay down all my Credit Cards

After a few poor decisions my credit cards were maxed out at $6700 on December 31. This is terrible embarrassing to me as I have been reading personal finance blogs for years and should know better then to charge a trip to BC on my credit card, and while there give myself free range to spend! Already this month I have put my bonus and extra payments towards my credit cards, so I am sitting at $5834.73. To pay this off in full by the end of the year, this will require monthly payments of $500. This is going to be difficult for the next few months, but I am hoping with a promotion at some point this year I can add my extra income towards this!

Save $5000 towards a down payment for a condo

I plan on buying a condo in about a year and a half so I need to get serious about paying down my debts and saving a down payment. I have already started to save each paycheque with the following break down: $50 into RSP Mutual Funds, $50 in TFSA Mutual Funds and 7.5% (about $55-$65) of my paycheque to a savings program through my work that matches up to 3% of my annual salary. If I just maintain this I will easily save $5000 plus my growth in all investments. 

Run 5k Head for the Hills in April 

This is a race I have run every year for the last 3 years. My sister and I train and her work always put in a team, so I tag along with that! Last year I "ran" it in over 45 mins. I had a knee injury and should have listened to my body and not tried. But I did, and paid for it. I am still careful with my knee, but know what I have to do to keep me going, so this year my goal is to run it in 40 mins. I am not a fast running by any means, and I know its a hard hilly trail, so I will be happy is I just run the whole thing! 

Anyways, those are my goals for 2014! I think I will post a net worth update at the end of the month 

Why Christmas is so expensive!

Photo Credit

So my family never does anything big for Christmas. A typical Christmas for me is Christmas Eve at my Mom's house, decorating the tree, playing games and just enjoying our time together. Christmas Day we wake up nice and early to do gifts with my Mom, Sister and myself. It is still like when I was a child, the tree is filled with gifts! The only difference is I tend to load it up myself. I buy my mom all the things she needs but can't afford throughout the year. This usually includes clothes, household supplies and a few extra things. It adds up quickly, usually amounting to around $300 - $500 for my mom alone, but she worked very hard to give us everything we needed while we were kids, so I think its only fair I treat her back.

Then we spend some time at my Dad's apartment where ALL my sisters and their family meet to spend the afternoon together. This is where it really adds up! I have 3 sisters, 2 brother-in-laws, 4 nieces, 1 nephew (boys are always out numbered in my family), my Dad, and my Step-mom. Now with 13 of us squeezed into my dads little living room! It is quick a hectic and costly day! I try to set a $50 limit for each person, going over on some (like my dad) and under for others (babies are cheaper to buy for). This costs me around $600 for these family members.

Then after all that is done, it is back to my Mom's for turkey dinner! This marks the end of the Holiday Season for me! It's back to work on Boxing day!

On top of that I have a few friends I buy for, and try to Bake or something for my coworkers. All in all my Christmas Budget is usually around $1200!!

I know, I know, I am trying to save and pay down debt, I should cut back, but Christmas is the only time of year we exchange gifts, we usually don't do birthdays for the adults, and just small gifts for the kids. This is one of the only times a year where we are ALL together, so I don't worry about the money I can earn by picking up a few extras shifts

There are few things I think are more important then being debt free, but to me family is more important than money. 

Net Worth, November 2012

I figure a good place for me to start on my journey out of debt, is to evaluate my net worth. As this is my first Net Worth post, this will be the base for all other changes. So lets dive right in!

Debt:  

Student Loan: -$18,696 After graduating from a 3 year college program in business, and working hard through the summer, I have managed to get it under $20,000! This may not seem like a lot, but just 7 months ago (April) I walked out of that school with over $25,000 in debt. So in the last 7 months, I have paid off almost $7000 in student loans, with the help of a $2,450 government grant.


Credit Card #1: -$1,143  This is so high because I decided I was going to try to put all my expenses on my credit card, then pay it off at the end of the month. Theoretically a good idea to help me build up my credit, but I found I just overspent, and it went up way to high, way to fast. This should be mostly paid off by the end of the month.

Credit Card #2: +$35 I know, I know.. a credit card in the positive?! Well, what happened was It was fully paid off (yay me!) and I used my reward points to earn $50 cash back, which was applied directly to my card, therefore making it positive!

Assets:  

Cash:  +230 This is my daily account, so it changes all the time.

TFSA: +$150 I recently opened a TFSA with ING Direct to start putting money away for a new car and a house. My car is old, a 2002 Neon with 175,000 km. I figure it will last me hopefully another year to year and a half. I do a lot of driving though, with my family being 1-2 hours away. This will be changing though, as I am moving home as of January, but in the mean time, I have increased my daily commute to about 2 hours round trip. When I opened this account, I deposited $100, and got the $50 referral bonus, which was a nice increase!

RRSP: +$100 I recently opened this, as a way to start saving for a house. I have been putting $25 ever 2 weeks, I figure this is better then nothing. This account is with Scotiabank, but I do plan on switching all my accounts to ING Direct in the near future. I don't want to be paying $50 a month anymore!!

Overall Net Worth: -$19,324

So due to my large student loan, and little savings, I have a negative net worth! I am been working hard and putting any dime I have towards my loan, to get rid of it once and for all! 

Who is Miss Moneyholic?

I am a 22 year old recent graduate, with a boat load of debt! Thankfully, I have mostly learned from other peoples mistakes, and primarily only have a student loan. All credit card debt could be paid off the month of if need be. Now that being said.. I am about to quit my 2 jobs, pick up and move home!

I was living in Toronto with my boyfriend, worked a office day job to get my career started, and served at night, to help pay down the debt. I have a car, and worked mostly every day, same goes for the boyfriend. He had his full time, and part job he worked to pay down his debt. Therefore, with both of us working days and nights, and going weeks without seeing each other. eventually, I couldn't take it, I was very lonely, and started to miss my family A LOT! So I decided to break up with my boyfriend, quit both my full time, and part time jobs and move back in with the Daddyo!

So that brings us to today, I am in limbo. I have yet to give in my resignation to either jobs, as I am trying to wait out until Christmas. Although I did tell my supervisor, just because he has been so good to me, and I felt out of respect he should know. I am currently staying with a friend out of the city, making my commute about an hour each way every day. I am going to be staying with her until shortly before Christmas, where I will then be moving back into my Dad's apartment, where I lived before I moved away to college.

My plan is to find a full time day job, with the help of my sisters, and a part time serving job. The same set up I had in Toronto. The bonus of living with my Dad, is while I am there, I am hopefully going to be living rent free, meaning all that money can be put towards my debt. If all works out as planned, I will be debt free by next Christmas! Now I am not saying this will be easy, but with a lot of hard work, and the benefit of serving in a high tourist area during the summer,  I will make this happen!

So for now, I am doing my best to stay afloat during this holiday season, and just make it to 2013!