So I called the bank today to cash in some of my RRSPs.  After the giant chunk of tax was taken out, I now have enough money to get my chequing account out of overdraft (it’s just over -$600) and pay off my student loan (finally!!) which is $1991.12.

That will save me $237.82 per month (my monthly student loan payment) and will save me about $100 in student loan interest this year.

Now I’ll have to wait until I get home from work today to figure out which credit card I can pay off with the remaining RRSP money.

Not that I count random mystery shops as a job, but when you do something for money, that counts as a job right?

Anyways, so now I have my full time admin job with a salary and benefits, I have my occasional mystery shop job where I make tiny amounts of cash in exchange for my evaluation of my shopping experiences (free movies too so far, a good deal).

And now, I’ll be working nights and weekends (hopefully only a few days a week) to help a friend of the man at his appliance store.  He runs his own business but the only thing that’s working well is the fact that he fixes, refurbishes and sells appliances.  The woman running his office doesn’t even seem qualified to run a deep fryer.  so with my amazing organizational skills I have agreed to help him organize his office, files, finances etc. so that he doesn’t go out of business because his bills didn’t get paid.  I mean, the poor guy doesn’t even know how much money he’s bringing in, never mind how much money is going out.

In any case he’s willing to pay me cash, and I can name my price.

I start on Tuesday.

Apparently my insurance company owed me some money from when I cancelled my renter’s appartment insurance (now that mom’s home insurance covers all our crap).

Got a cheque in the mail for $45.99.  Have put it towards my Sims game and my new closet.  (That’s right, games before clothes.  I’ve got my priorities straight).

I’ve signed up to be a secret shopper.  So far I have earned $5 and gotten 2 free movie rentals.

(of course i won’t get reimbursed for them until next month sometime, but something is better than nothing)

So it’s official.  I’m broke.

Here’s how it went down.

Got around to talking to the man this morning about cashing in my RRSP’s ($12,000 minus the taxes we’d have to pay on the withdrawal) to pay down a couple of our high interest credit cards (Mappins for wedding & engagement rings – aprox $5000, Sears for honeymoon – $6000).  Called the bank today to see if I could cash in my RRSP’s and spoke with a lady who suggested instead that since I’m past my probation period at my new job, that I might qualify to renegotiate my bank loan to consolidate the rest of my debt into one payment.  Spoke with a specialist who crunched the numbers and (no surprise) it’s not going to happen.  He said that I’d have to pay down aprox $20,000 of my debt in order to qualify for another consolidation loan.  Never mind that my current bank loan is $20 grand and if I could pay that much money off, I wouldn’t need a consolidation loan, but whatever.

So now we’re back to square one.  I’m waiting for the phone banking lady to call me back to see if I can cash my RRSP’s in over the phone, or if they are locked in and I’ll have to beg them to let me try to cash them in in person.

I’m going to cash in all the pennies and coins in my piggy bank (yes, I literally have a pink plastic pig I put my pennies and other assorted change and foreign currency in) and see how much I have.  I’d like to buy a copy of  The Sims 2: Free Time, but I’m going to put it in the bank towards my new closet system instead because I’m a good girl.

At least not any time soon.  The rack in my closet collapsed about a week after we moved into my mom’s so my clothes have been in a heap in my closet, trapped between a wire basket system and the upper bar which is still hanging on by one side.  I have no where else to hang my clothes.  I’ve been dealing with it up to now, but with the money situation as it is (in overdraft by about $400) I guess I should be saving my money for a new closet hanging system instead of a new pair of rollerblades.

Such is life.

I finally got around to balancing my cheque book on Saturday and it’s worse than as bad as I thought.  I’ll post totals later, but basically we’ve got just enough to pay our bills for the next few months (actually not, we’ll be in overdraft several times) and in 3 or 4 months we’ll be back in the black again (I need to try to stay positive).  Still have to constantly remind the man how broke we are.  He’s got a bad habit of buying things on ebay with his ‘spare change’ and then is put out when I tell him that we don’t have enough money to buy gas for the car.  What’s up with that?