pennies

Been stealing the pennies off my husband’s side table at the end of each day.

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Whatever it takes to add to the piggy bank right?

countin up the change

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.

no rollerblades for me

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.

will work for money

I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to think of (legal) ways to make some extra cash.  Can’t get a night job because the man and I commute to work together to save on us getting a bus pass for him.  And there aren’t any weekend only jobs that I can think of to do.   Doing something from home is my best bet, but what is out there that doesn’t involve telemarketing or door to door sales?

monday again

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?

tickers

Still haven’t balanced my cheque book.  No excuse today.  I just didn’t bother to get to it last night.

I have, however, taken some time today to put some tickers in my sidebar to help encourage motivate me to save money and pay down my debt.

Must Watch Big Brother 9

Wow, so I’m like 3 epsisodes behind on Big Brother 9 so I figured I’d watch them and get them out of the way…so….yeah.

brokrastination

So as you can clearly see by the lack of financials on this blog, I didn’t get around to balancing my cheque book over the weekend.  This is one of the best tactics I have of avoiding dealing with my financial situation.

I’m going to coin the phrase ‘brokrastination’ as in, broke-procrastination.

Brokrastination:  def: doing the other things, really, just about any other thing you’ve been procrastinating about in order to put off what you should be doing today to get out of debt.

I use Quicken on my home computer (have been for many, many years now) to keep track of my income and spending, and to help me to forecast my budget and payments going into the future, not so much to pay down debt, but to make sure that the bills I pay won’t put me into overdraft.

So tonight my brokrastination tactic will be to go to the old house to finish packing up our junk and take a bunch of stuff to our storage locker.  Yes, to facilitate my brokrastination I have to deal with my moving-avoidance packing-procrastination.

I’ve got some serious issues here.

moneymoneymoneymunneah………money!

A little more about me and my money situation.

Long story short, I spend more money than I make. Always have, and, I suspect, always will.

I have a student loan, a bank loan, multiple credit cards, and a car I can’t afford.

I got married 7 months ago and we had a great wedding that my mom helped us pay for, but we still spent way beyond our means. On budget, but waaaay beyond our means.

That’s the bad news.

Here’s the part where I tell you it’s not all my fault.

It actually isn’t.

I got laid off ‘packaged’ out of my job 11 months ago. When the ‘package’ ran out and I still couldn’t find a job in my field (overqualified for entry level work, under qualified for what the market was looking for at the time), I went on (un)employment insurance. I quickly discovered that panhandlers make more money than what you get from the government so I lowered my sights, changed my career path, and 4 months ago got a job in a different field that I love, that I’m great at, but that pays way less than what I was making before.

Therein lies the problem. Our bills, everything that we could afford on my old salary, suddenly became unaffordable on my new salary.

So, after cashing in some (not all) of my RRSP’s to keep us afloat for a while, the man and I finally made a hard decision. To save money on rent so that we can use that money to pay bills, pay down our debt, and save money to buy a home of our own, we have moved in with my mom.

Thankfully there is enough space here that it isn’t too cramped, but let me tell you it’s crazyweird staying in my teenage bedroom with my husband. It’s a strange mix of feeling like a kid again, and feeling like I’ve failed as a grownup.

In any case, here I am. Almost broke and hating every second of it. If I can just stay the course and work really hard to get us out of this hole, our lives will be better for it.

That’s the plan anyways. And we all know that life sometimes has other plans for us than the ones we make for ourselves.

virgo

Having structure in our lives is essential for peace of mind and success when dealing with material matters. It is as important as rails for a train. Saturn is making sure you stay on those rails. Be systematic and organized now. It will ensure your success.

The Toronto Star