Give Me Back My Five Bucks

Garmin Forerunner 405CX

gmbmfb — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:18:06 +0000

Apparently I’m not getting those hiking boots for my birthday present after all. My mom has generously decided to buy me the Garmin Forerunner 405CX, my dream GPS fitness watch. MEC is selling them for $390 CDN + 12% HST, but I’ve found it on eBay for about $350 CDN after shipping.

I have never in my life received such an expensive gift from my parents for any reason, so I feel a little spoiled and guilty. I think my mom is being generous this year because she has paid off her mortgage, doesn’t have to save up for retirement, and has a lot of disposable income.

I’m really, really excited to have this watch. It means I can track all of my workouts – including running, hiking, bicycling, and also other fitness classes too. It’s much better than my old Nike+ Plus iPod system because Garmin is so versatile. I’m especially excited to get accurate readings on our hikes.

Getting this watch means I will have to pay for my own new hiking boots, which is fine. I have some $$$ in my Travel Fund that I could use if I wanted to, but I think I’m going to try and make some extra money to pay for them. That way I don’t dip into my savings or affect my monthly budget. I’m not in a big rush to get them, but I would really like them for the October long weekend hike we have planned.

September 2010 Goals

gmbmfb — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:26:03 +0000

Hopefully I’ve accounted properly for September. The budget is quite high because we have our trip to Hawaii at the end of the month, and I have at least one trip home planned for my friend’s wedding shower & bachelorette party that I am helping to host.

My tentative budget is $600 spending for Hawaii (which includes getting my hair done and the manicure/pedicure appointment with the bride on the day of the wedding), and $200 for the wedding shower/bachelorette party. I’m really hoping I can do all of our discretionary spending in Hawaii to under $600, but for some reason I don’t think that’s going to happen. I have a feeling Hawaii is going to be much more expensive than I’m anticipating, even if we cook most of our meals in our rental condo. But here’s hoping!

September Goals:

Work out 3-4x/week. For half of the month, I have field hockey practice & a game once a week, plus boot camp class. So that’s 3 workouts a week already. I really want to get back into the habit of running in the morning. Even if it’s only for 3-5 km, at least that’d be something.
Take a spin class or go on a bicycle ride.
Make $250 in extra income.
Put $500 into Retirement Portfolio.
Climb a mountain.
Completely transition this blog and stop blogging anonymously. I’m scared and excited to do this.
Find a replacement Visa card.

August 2010 Goals: My Review

gmbmfb — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:12:22 +0000

Well, this month was a bit spendier than I originally anticipated it being. I’m still trying to adjust to being a single-income couple, and I did not budget properly for that. For example, now I have to pay for all of our groceries … and if we go out of town, instead of splitting the costs down the middle, I’m paying for everything. I don’t mind, because I know he’d do it for me if I wanted to go back to school, but it is definitely difficult to predict our monthly costs.

Also, please note that the total below obviously doesn’t reflect the $2,600 I spent on my new Macbook Pro. I didn’t put it in the budget because it didn’t actually affect my monthly costs – my monthly goals are based off of just my FT income.

August 2010 Goals:

Work out 2-3x/week. FAIL! In total, I worked out 5 times this month. Not good.
Make an additional $500 in side income. CHECK! I made $618.59. Except most of of that money was spent on my new computer.
$600 into Retirement Portfolio. CHECK!
Work on my blog and make it ready for transition (which should happen late August). CHECK! I still have a lot to do, but at least now I know what I want to change for the transition. I also went through a few older posts.
Sell my iMac computer for >$900. FAIL! I sold it for $800. Which is still good for a 4.5 year old computer I guess.
$200 into Emergency Fund. FAIL!
$250 into Savings Fund. FAIL! I suck.

Looking for a new Visa card

gmbmfb — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:57:58 +0000

I currently have a CIBC Dividends Visa card, and am looking to replace it with another Visa. Preferrably a travel rewards card, but am happy with cash back too.

I am happy with my Amex and my Mastercard, and feel like they are on-par with the top no-fee rewards cards (Amex gets 1.25% back on travel and Mastercard gets 1% back on groceries, both with no annual fee). And I could just get rid of the Visa altogether, but I like having 1 of each card.

But the CIBC Dividends Visa card is lacking because it’s on a tiered system of up to 1% cash back.

Tier one – 0.25% rebate for net annual purchases up to $1,500
Tier two – 0.50% rebate for net annual purchases from $1,500.01 to $3,000
Tier three – 1% rebate for net annual purchases over $3,000

Boo-urns to that.

So I’ve been searching the internet, using www.rewardscanada.ca and www.creditcardsearch.ca (although it hasn’t been updated since 2008) as resources, and trying to pick the best card for my needs. Red Flag Deals is also a good resource. I’m taking the search very seriously, maybe too seriously. But a good rewards credit card is important! I’d even consider paying an annual fee if the rewards were good enough – since I use my credit cards for 99% of my purchases anyway, I might as well get as much as I can for it. But I would definitely prefer not paying an annual fee, even if it means the rewards are less. I’m looking for a Visa that will give me at least 1% back in either cash or travel rewards.

Paying everything by credit card takes a lot of discipline, especially for someone like me who used to be in credit card debt and lived maxed out for a few years. I wouldn’t recommend paying everything by CC unless you’re confident in your ability to pay the card off without fail, every month. I pay mine off at the end of every week.

How many credit cards do you have?
Also, any Visa card recommendations?

I heart Quicken

gmbmfb — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:02:07 +0000

So I’ve switched all of my expense tracking over to Quicken Home & Business. I really liked my Excel spreadsheet that I was working with, but Quicken is SO much easier to split up my business expenses and help me prepare come tax time. Plus, I already had the software from before so I didn’t have to spend any money.

And because of the switch, that means I have to figure out how to show my monthly budget reports here. Quicken has some really cool charts and stuff, but I calculate my expenses differently through Quicken than I did through my Excel spreadsheet, so the budget isn’t going to be accurate for the purposes of this blog. I think I’ll be able to figure it out tonight, and will have my August recap and September goals up for tomorrow. :)

Rain, rain, go away

gmbmfb — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:03:22 +0000

BF’s family is in town, so we haven’t had a chance to go grocery shopping yet this week. Which means I’ll have to buy my lunch today. I really wanted to get a pumpkin spiced latte on my way to work, but knew that I couldn’t justify getting a Starbucks coffee AND buy my lunch all in the same day. Boo! :(

For the coming long weekend, we’re going hiking somewhere. Even though it’s pouring rain right now, it’s supposed to clear up for the weekend. BF wants to get up to some remote areas, but I don’t want to have super long 12 hour hiking days. So we’ll see. The weekend should cost us gas and groceries. We’ll probably pick up a few dehydrated meals from MEC. They’re $5-8 each at MEC, but it’s worth it to save space/weight … so if we’re going to keep on buying them, I think I’m going to try to find them online in bulk, or at least cheaper if I can.

This week I’m also going to try to fit in 2 trips to the gym.

Less than a month until our trip to Hawaii!!! :)

Review: WildPlay Element Parks

gmbmfb — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:25:05 +0000

Cost: $40 + tax
Time: approx. 2.5 hours
Website description: Monkido tree courses are elevated obstacle courses set in a beautiful forest and securely suspended in the trees at 10 to 60 feet off the ground! Elements include a Tarzan Swing, zip lines, scramble nets and swinging logs. (picture is also from the website)

This was my first time in about 10 years doing an obstacle course, so I was really excited/nervous. I’m a bit scared of heights, so I thought this would be a really good thing for me to do. (That’s also why I like climbing mountains so much!)

Anyway, we knew WildPlay would get crazy busy during the weekend, especially on a nice day, so we reserved a spot right when they opened at 9am. We also got there 30 min. early so that we could fill out our waivers, etc. And we’re both REALLY glad we got there early because we were the only ones on the course for about half of our time there, and it was really cool and peaceful.

Before you’re allowed in the course, someone there goes through a 15 min. introductory/safety lesson, where you learn how to get in your harness, hook up your carabiners to the safety lines and zip line device. You’re always attached to a safety line, so even if you fall during the course, you won’t plunge to your death, obviously. :)

There are 4 different stages to the obstacle course, each stage getting progressively harder. Our guide said only about 80% of people attempt the last stage because it’s quite a bit harder than the 3rd stage. Also, there was a really wide variety of obstacles, so you were never bored. The first two levels were fun, and not hard. But the last two levels were actually kind of hard to do physically. My arms are sore today as a result! I was impressed at the difficulty level and was glad that it was challenging. There was also a good number of zip lines.

Also, there are guides on the ground to watch you and make sure you’re not doing anything stupid. But to also help if you’re stuck in a certain place on the course. They were also good for encouragement during the hardest stage.

We both agreed that it was DEFINITELY worth the $40+ admission, and that we were looking forward to trying out their other locations as well in the future.

Spending Recap: August 23-29, 2010

gmbmfb — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:14:08 +0000

Monday 23rd
$14.21 farm market
$14.64 butcher
$16.59 bakery

Tuesday 24th
$10.32 ice cream (whoops!)

Wednesday 25th
No Spend Day!

Thursday 26th
$36.17 gas
$16.29 groceries
$11.51 nail polish stuff for friend’s wedding

Friday 27th
$13.75 ferry
$18.37 dinner for BF and I
$5.41 snacks for ferry

Saturday 28th
+$182.94 pay cheque from old PT job
$48.07 groceries
$52.80 hair cut
$11.24 coffee & pastry for sister and I
$12 bubble tea for cousin and I

Sunday 29th
+$50 sister owed me money
$44.79 WildPlay ropes course
$3.98 Starbucks
$17.65 lunch
$13.75 ferry
$41.65 gas

TOTAL: $170.25

Weekends home are always a budget buster. There are always way too many people to see who want to do fun things because I’m rarely ever home. So I really try to limit the amount of pricey things I do when I’m home.

This weekend home was especially spendy because my sister and I wanted to do our annual sister’s road trip, and of course that ropes course that I did. Review of that coming soon!

So my HUGE saving grace was that I got a random pay cheque for $182.94 in the mail at my parents house from my old PT job. I *think* it’s all of my unpaid vacation time that I had accrued. That itself pretty much paid for my entire trip home, which is awesome. And my sister gave me $50 that she owed me from a while ago.

Because of my found money, I ended the week pretty much on par with my regular spending habits. I could have cut out a lot of dining out, but BF and I were trying a new grocery shopping method and clearly it didn’t work. We’re trying to do one big shop of $120-140 every 2 weeks, and a smaller shop during the in-between week (small shop was on Monday 23rd). Next time we will know to buy more food during the in-between week, because we pretty much ran out of food by Thursday.

Hiking: new boots needed

gmbmfb — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:10:00 +0000

Usually my mom gives me $200 in birthday money every year. And this year, I already know that I will spend the money on a new pair of hiking boots. As you know, I have an amazing $500+ pair that I bought last year, but those are specifically for mountaineering. For the rest of my hiking trips, I need something that’s a little less heavy duty. The boots I currently have I’ve been wearing for almost 3 years. I love them, but they need to be replaced. Plus, they were really meant for day hiking without a heavy pack – kind of a beginner’s boot. So I need something a tiny bit beefier.

My heart is with La Sportiva boots, so I will probably stick with that brand. In fact, I really like the looks of the Cypress model. I think it would be perfect for what I need. My plan is try to out the boots at MEC and then when BF and I go to Seattle in October, I’ll see if REI or any other store has them cheaper.

Happy Friday!

gmbmfb — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:02:42 +0000

I just locked myself out of my PC Financial Mastercard account three times in a row, prompting 3 separate calls to Customer Service.

Gotta love Fridays!