saving money Archives - Page 11 of 11

Four junk financial beliefs I struggle with on the regular

July 19, 2018

Check out my four junk financial beliefs

I got my first job as a cashier at a grocery store when I was 15 years old.

I started at $6.50 an hour, with the idea I would work 12-15 hours a week.

It didn’t work out that way.

In reality, I worked closer to 20-25 hours a week. Thanks to my tendency to always say yes, I became the go-to person supervisors called when they needed a shift filled. I spent a lot of time at the store after school and on the weekend — and that was reflected on my biweekly pay cheque.

Back then, a $350 pay cheque was a lot of money. Oh, to be young again!

More than a decade later, I look at money very differently. This is not a bad thing; it’s just the result of getting older.

But while my thoughts on money have changed, I still hold onto some junk financial beliefs. Inspired entirely by Stephany’s excellent post (you should check it out), here are some of the garbage beliefs about money I still struggle with on the regular.

Budget Update: June 2018

July 4, 2018

Our monthly budget update includes five highlights from the last month, along with three goals for the month ahead. Here's the update for June 2018.

Our monthly budget does not change much.

It is primarily fixed expenses, like rent, phone bills and car insurance, which remain the same month after month. Even the amount budgeted to our miscellaneous line (more on that here) stays the same most months.

So instead of giving a line-by-line breakdown for our monthly budget update, I do something a little different. Each month, I share five highlights from our budget, along with three goals for the month to come.

Here is the update for June 2018.

Budget Update: May 2018

June 5, 2018

Our monthly budget update includes five highlights from the last month, along with three goals for the month ahead. Here's the update for May 2018.

Our monthly budget does not change much.

Here is the update for May 2018.

5 basic money lessons I wish I learned in school

May 24, 2018

Money lessons I wish I learned in school

Considering the story behind the name of this blog, it should not surprise you to learn I love cheesy jokes.

Dad jokes, bad puns, jokes so stupid they’re funny — I’m here for it all. In a world where crude humour is increasingly the norm, cheesy jokes are refreshing.

And admit it: they can be pretty funny — especially ones that hit deep, like this one:

“I’m glad I learned about parallelograms instead of how to do taxes. It really comes in handy this parallelogram season.”

I could swap out parallelograms with any number of things I learned in grade school — how to play the recorder, the difference between a limerick and a haiku, the rules of soccer baseball. These things were useless to me then and remain useless to me now.

Meanwhile, important life skills — including those related to money management –were left largely up to me to figure out on my own.

Needless to say, the list of things I wish I had learned in school about personal finance is long.

Four reasons we aren’t rushing to buy a house

May 15, 2018

Rent, don't buy: how not owning a house helps us financially

I was sitting at the desk in the spare room, working on a project when I heard the dripping.

At first, I thought it was coming from outside, the result of snow melting near the open window. I don’t know what prompted me to look left, but I’m glad I did.

The closet wall was glistening. A cardboard box on the top shelf was soaked. And the piece of pressboard nailed to the ceiling was warped and loose on the right side.

I called Jeff in for a second opinion. He pried off the damp pressboard, peered into the tiny hole and confirmed my suspicion.

Our ceiling was leaking.

That was 8:30 p.m., on a Sunday night.

Three days, eight hours of work, and exactly zero dollars later, the dripping stopped.

And let me tell you: I have never been so happy to be a renter.