When 2010 started, saving money was not on my radar. I had one mission – retire my line of credit/consumer debt. Early in the year, I struggled with whether or not to put all my eggs in my debt basket, or to put the odd bit into longer term savings. The recommendation for savings is [...]
Archive for December, 2010
30 Dec
Where the money went in 2010: Part 3 – Life
Life is an awfully big piece of my pie. Good thing I like pie. The Life slice of one’s financial pie is to include everything from groceries and entertainment, to medical. It is, in fact, supposed to be everything that isn’t housing, transportation, debt repayment or savings. Perhaps we have too much life ’round here? [...]
29 Dec
Where the money went 2010: Part 2 – Transportation
I’m a single mom who doesn’t own a car. Don’t think for a minute that I don’t have any transportation expenses. According to Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s guidelines, transportation should be about 15% of your expenditures. This year, I spent $4049 on transportation, or about 4%. Considering that I over shot housing by about 8% this year, [...]
28 Dec
Where the money went in 2010: Part 1 – Housing
I’m particularly excited to do a calendar year end wrap up, where my personal finances are concerned. If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ll know I’ve tracked my expenditures for years, but what I haven’t done consistently is actually budgeted (and followed it), nor have I kept with it for a full twelve [...]
22 Dec
Merry Christmas to you!
As this week wears on, it’s clear to me that life won’t get much less busy, and regardless of any other event – Santa comes Friday night. I’m really very excited. The shopping is done. I didn’t manage to stay within my budget for Christmas shopping, but frankly I didn’t budget enough. Having said that, [...]
17 Dec
Must be December!
Friends, I apologize for my sporadic posts this month. It doesn’t seem to matter how organized or together I think I am, when December arrives, it all goes out the window! The story of the last couple weeks in Ontario is SNOW! Lots of it! Here in Toronto, there really hasn’t been that much, but [...]
13 Dec
Christmas & Costco
I really missed being here last week! Thanks for your well wishes about my youngest. She is on the mend, and thankfully has only a little cough lingering. The common cold, around here, can turn into something far worse. We had a couple of sleepless nights with fevers, but that’s over now. I’m thankful that [...]
8 Dec
Still here!
Just wanted to post a quick update. Sorry for my absence this week. The youngest has a touch of a bug, which has meant a few sleepless nights. My normal blogging time (early morning) has been used to catch up on a few hours of sleep in order to push ahead with the full-time and [...]
3 Dec
…and lead me not into temptation
My inbox has become an evil sorcerer. Every day I get close to a half a dozen invitations to “save” or to get in on a special “one day only” deal. Is there more of this than I remember, or did I just accept it as part of living before? For the past ten days [...]
1 Dec
November’s Report Card: A
Black is the new black. Meaning “in the black” rather than red when it comes to reporting in on my progress at the end of each month. I’m pleased to report that I’ve finished the month on the north side of zero, by a smidge over $200. I can credit some good fortune rather than [...]
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