The Birthday and the Bank Account

May 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment

May 8th was my 22nd  birthday and while I was in Calgary for the actual day I still had tons of fun celebrating it.

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Maybe a little too much fun! 

On my actual birthday (Wednesday) a couple of my Calgary girlfriends and I went out for dinner at a fantastic little place on 17th!

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The Friday to follow consisted of driving back to Edmonton to celebrate in style at one of the best restaurants in Edmonton and then more good times at the condo (decorated by my beautiful cousin) and then out on the town to finish celebrating!

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I had a perfect weekend, so much food and so much fun. We finished Sunday off with a huge Mother’s Day brunch and trip to my favourite bakery and coffee shop!

Thank you to everyone who helped me celebrate! I really am loving being 22! 

Filed Under: Life, Spending Tagged With:

Day Zero #72, #79 & #88

May 20, 2013 by 2 Comments

Only 19 more days to go and I have about 8 goals left to achieve, which I’m working really hard towards! It will be a stretch but I really want to acheive them all. I had to change a goal which I’ll explain later but for now let’s focus on what else I’ve achieved!

#72 Buy a bike

I planned to buy a bike with my tax refund this year, but I was actually really fortunate and my parents bought be a bike for my 22nd birthday! I’m so thankful and I absolutely love my bike! I’ve taken it for a couple rides in Calgary but I don’t have the lock I want so I haven’t been able to take it anywhere that I will have to leave it! It’s fantastic though, I can’t wait for sunny summer days where I will ride my bike to a park to picnic and bathe in the sunshine.

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#79 – Take a ballroom dancing class

This was a fun one! A friend of mine had a birthday at a place in downtown Edmonton that offered salsa dancing lessons! Boyfriend and I had fun learning how to salsa dance together, he’s pretty good! He actually got mad at me for talking while the instructor was teaching haha!

#88 – Plant a herb garden

Screen Shot 2013-05-19 at 8.14.49 PMRoomie and I are obsessed with plants. We have both purchased an obscene amount of herbs from the greenhouse and we water them and obsess over cooking with them, it’s wonderful! Currently I have basil, parsley, dill, lemongrass, lavendar and cilatnro growing! It’s so nice to have garden fresh herbs to cook with instead of those freeze-dried ones from the store!

So with less than 20 days to go here’s what I have left to achieve”

  • Finish 1 DIY project
  • Run 2km without stopping
  • Save $5,000 for my RRSP
  • Go to a used book store and buy/sell
  • Read 33 books
  • Attend 30 yoga classes
  • Stop biting my nails’
  • Make a cookbook

Wish me luck!

Filed Under: Goals Tagged With:

On loving my boyfriend more than anything

May 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Seriously you guys, he’s great, like so great.

This month presented itself with some serious cash flow problems. Serious as in the last time I was paid was April 11th and won’t be paid again till May 30th.

THAT’S LIKE 2 MONTHS! frick.

In that time I needes to come up with a damage deposit and first months rent for my place in Calgary as well as my utilities and April rent for the condo in Edmonton. fickfrickfrickfrickfrick.

Oh and did I mention I need to pay for the New York trip, and we booked our tickets to Hawaii for next Reading Week?

Rather than having me dip into my Emergency Fund (that’s what their here for!) boyfriend is letting me pay a part of what I owe him late. He paid for everything in New York because he has an american credit card that doesn’t charge him the extra 2% when abroad! 

One of the reasons we decided not to dip into my Emergency Fund is because it’s in my TFSA and we both don’t want it eating up my contribution room this early in the year.

Anyways, I do feel guilty and of course I’m going to pay him, I just really need to get paid first! But seriously you guys, he’s really great.

Cheers to having a partner that is awesome!

Love you hunny!

Filed Under: Couples Finance Tagged With:

Financial Milestone: 3 Month Emergency Fund

May 17, 2013 by 4 Comments

I finally did it!

After 29 long months of making baby contributions to my Emergency fund I hit the three-month worth of living expenses mark!

(also day zero #33)

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Looking back:

When I started my Emergency Fund I started it with $25. That’s it. 29 months later there is over $3,000. I’m feeling pretty accomplished right now, excuse me while I pat myself on the back. 

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I’m a student how did I do it?

While some months it was tough I made an effort to contribute each and every month. When I was working full-time and living at home it was a lot easier to make larger contributions, but once I moved out and headed back to school things became a lot more challenging.

I averaged it out and I made about $100 worth of contributions each month, hence why it took me almost 30 months. 

Make it a priority:

While going out with your friends is fun, and buying pretty dresses makes you feel great, there is something to be said for feeling financially secure. I’ve skipped out on some pretty dresses, said no to some trips and I have a 3-month emergency fund to show for it and for that I’m pretty pleased. I even think personal-finance guru Gail Vaz Oxlade would be impressed with me! 

Invest it: 

Just incase you (Neslon) thought I had all of it sitting in cash, fret not 83% of it is invested. Once you have started accumulating a decent balance in your Emergency fund (for me it was anything over $500) I would suggest investing it. Since you don’t want to see huge drops in your money I would suggest sticking to lower risk investments such as bond index funds. Mutual funds and index funds are easy to sell and make a good little return on your EF.

So that’s how I did it! How about you, what’s your Emergency Fund look like?

Filed Under: Goals, Saving Tagged With: ,