The May long weekend in Calgary is notorious for being COLD. So hats off to those who are heading out camping this weekend, as the fire ban will keep things nice and brisk for everyone!

Check out the posts I enjoyed this week:

1. Mr. CBB had a post about “Working Towards a Debt Free Lifestyle in 8 Steps.” I think most people have debt in some shape or form, so check it out and you may find a step or two that resonates with you!

2. Liquid is “Adapting to Create Wealth.” He makes a great argument about how he favours seafood over dairy due to the costs. To be fair, he does live in Vancouver, but I did feel a twinge of guilt knowing what I spent on that hunk of cheese last week.

3. Modest Money had a post about “How You Can Start Freelancing at the End of This Article.” Check it out if you ever had the inclination of doing some freelancing on the side.

4. Gail had an article about “Bounce-back Ability.” This was a good reminder that everyone has caca thrown at them throughout life, and developing resilience is a life skill. Just reminded me of some of the things people around me have gone through and their ability to handle it. I can always appreciate the people in my life more, right?  :)

5. The big thing this week was Angelina Jolie and her decision to reduce her risk of cancer. I know this is a very controversial article, but it was definitely something that caught my eye this week. What do you think?

6. Real Penny Wise had a cool post about “Clever Uses for 25 Things You Throw Away.”

7. Check out Garth’s post “Star 3, truth 0.” There has ALWAYS been a bias between buying and renting, and he tears apart how RBC used an ad in the Star to compare the two situations. I LOVE how they compared a 1-bedroom condo out of the downtown core for the buying scenario and a 1-bedroom condo in the heart of Toronto for the renting scenario. CAUSE THAT IS THE SAME THING!  And that’s only one of the stupid things that the ad refers to. Buyer beware, as always!

The boy was especially proud of himself to find this week’s comic:

THEN he had the audacity to ask if I got it or not!

Have a great long weekend everyone, and thanks for dropping by!

Boy’s name is on the tickets, but I doubt that will be an issue.

If you want it, just message me your email address and I can email the tickets over.

Check out the trailer here! Looks pretty funny!

Let me know if you can use them!

Check out the posts I enjoyed this week:

1. Mr. CBB had a “Financially Savvy Team Budgets Cash Using The Envelope System!” I absolutely loved this!! It makes me so happy seeing someone so young so responsible and organized with their money. I would hope that this is becoming more and more common amongst the younger folk. Them darn young-uns. It’s May. I’m allowed.

2. Liquid had a great post about “Frequently Asked Questions About Being a Landlord.” The twist is that he’s a landlord to his farmland, not real estate! It was a very interesting read, and he makes owning land sound very, very appealing!

3. Modest Money had his “Top Canadian Finance Blogs 2013 Final Round” this week. Garth from the Greater Fool is smoking everyone, and I do adore him, but go vote for the other ones as well. My picks are Canadian Budget Binder and Dividend Ninja ~ just in case you weren’t sure who you wanted to vote for.

4. CF over at The Outlier Model had her “May Garden Update Part 1: SOIL!” Gardening is definitely something I am interested in, and will start learning more about this year. A community garden is a pretty cool idea, especially for those who live in condos, and I’ll have to poke around to see if Calgary has anything similar. To be fair, we also had snow last week, so growing things is probably a bit tougher over here. But there are lots who do it!

5. Glen had a post about “Do You Trust Your Partner With Money?” If you asked me this a couple years ago, it would have been an adamant “HELL NO!” but we have made a lot of progress on our communication about money and expenses, and things are much, much better now. Although, sometimes I wonder if I have TOO MUCH control over the money and spending decisions. It’s a work in progress. Check out his post and see if you see your relationship as more like Couple 1 or Couple 2.

6. For all those dividend investors out there, Ninja had a post about “Dividend Investing – Telecom, Real Estate and Energy.” There are a couple companies I never thought about, so it was a pretty interesting read! Not for my own portfolio yet; still on the ETF route.

This is what I get for asking the boy to look for a comic when he’s in the middle of video games:

Sigh.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful mother’s out there!

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

The following is my combined expected and actual household expenses for the month of April.

Notes:

-          Groceries were pretty good, even though we were away for a week. The boy has been helping me with making dinners, so I came home to a roast dinner one day, and homemade burgers another day! Unfortunately, we have also hit up a lot of fast food joints as well so will be working on improving this in May.

-          The boy ended up selling some more stuff this month, but this was offset with tickets to the CPO for the May long weekend, and a Team buy for a shooting range.  Overall, he is good for the year on this category at the moment.

-          Fees are trickling in for our Ultimate spring league, so the working out expenditure will normalized in the next few weeks.

This is the expected May spending plan. As always, these numbers are fluid, and I fully expect them to change as the year goes on.

Notes:

-          We spent a weekend in April (a couple days before it snowed again while we were playing ultimate!) swapping out our winter tires for our summer tires, and my dad noticed that 2 of boy’s tires are pretty bare. It’ll probably be about a grand to get a new set, so the budget now accounts for this, and will continue reflecting it for a couple of months to accumulate the proper amount.

Thanks for reading!

It’s been 3 weeks at the job and so far so good! I’m excited to go to work, they got me my own calculator so I leave my other one at home now (what can I say? I usually have my calculator with me ), and they’re doing their best to give me a variety of work to keep me interested. That being said, I realize that I am still in the honeymoon phase, and the upcoming months are going to be challenging with lots of projects on the horizon.

We had our first bbq of the season last weekend! I still think that the best steaks are not found in a restaurant. Not that I’m biased or anything.

Here’s what I’ve been reading this week:

1. Mr. CBB had a cool recipe about making a “Cheesy Crock-Pot Lasagna.” Definitely something I would never have thought of, and looks pretty tasty!

2. Liquid is planing on “Raising Twenty Five Thousand Dollars in 3 Months.” He found another farmland that he bought at an auction last month and now he is going to have to figure out how to come up with the rest of the down payment. I wonder if he’s considering partners yet. Definitely much more ballsy than me!

3. Modest Money had a post about “5 Ways I’ve Wasted Money on Entertainment – Giveaway.” I’ve definitely spent lots of money on all the types of entertainments on his list, but I’m probably worst at the dining out category. Don’t forget to enter for your chance to win a TV as well!

4. Glen had an interesting post about “Can You Have Too Much Money?” Even though I was not in the position of having “too much money,” I was able to do some of the things on his list during my sabbatical. I think it is always good to have a bucket list of things you want to do so you don’t let life pass you by too fast!

5. Mark had a great post about “Should I implement the Smith Manoeuvre?” Definitely a more advanced concept, but who wouldn’t like to be able to convert mortgage debt into a tax deduction like our friends in the US?

6. Avrom was kind enough to share his slides and notes from his “Take Control of your Financial Future Seminar.” Check it out!

7. CF had a great post about “I Am An Introvert.” I am definitely an introvert as well, but a lot of people may translate this as being shy and anti-social. Which, depending on the situation, isn’t true. I can definitely be social, but it isn’t something that creates energy for me. If that even makes sense. Anyways, its an interesting idea, thinking about how certain activities can either be creating energy for you, or draining energy.

I think the boy is trying to tell me something is missing from my grocery list:

Have a great weekend!

Thanks for reading.

I haven’t made any trades in a bit as I am anxiously waiting for Ninja’s prediction of the market pullback in May! Just kidding! I have been swamped at work, so I will have to figure out if I want to set up my trades automatically or not. I manually made all of my trades in the past, but that may have to change with the new work schedule.

So this is what my investment portfolio currently looks like:

TFSA – Stocks (CRS, SLF), ETFs (VTI, XSB, XBB)

RRSP – ETFs (XBB, XSP, XIN, VEU, VTI)

Non-registered investment account – ETFs (XIC)

My target allocation is:

Canadian equities: 30%

US equities: 25%

International equities: 25%

Canadian bonds: 20%

My current allocation is:

Canadian equities: 27%

US equities: 22%

International equities: 19%

Canadian bonds: 18%

Cash: 14%

Notes:

- My investment income is automatically set to reinvest in more shares, except for the Vanguard ones because RBC does not offer DRIP for them. In March, that resulted in 10 more shares of XIC and 1 more share of XBB for me.

- I moved my SLF shares from my investment account to my TFSA account which affected my TFSA contribution room for 2013. I will have to figure out how much room I have left and will make the contribution in the next few months.

How did your March end up? Yes, I realize it is a bit late.

Did you make any moves in your own portfolio?

Thanks for reading!

Work has been great! 2 weeks down, and lots of information has been thrown at me, and I’m trying to absorb as much as I can. Unfortunately, the blog is taking the back seat so I will have to start writing over the weekend as the week days are pretty busy. I definitely need to start looking at my portfolios again as well!

As always, there were some greats posts this week; I keep up with them on my commute to work. I’m not sure how long the data on my phone is going to last at this rate!

1. Mr. CBB had a great post titled “Is Budget Failure Your Own Fault?” The “Why Budgets Fail?” section was particularly interesting to me, as I definitely hear a lot of that when I work with clients with their own budgets. As always, the Grocery Game Challenge was particularly interesting as he was quite a bit over-budget, but got a lot of great deals in the process. How do you balance between keeping your budget and taking advantage of great deals?

2. Liquid had an interesting post about “Not All Wealth Is Created Equal,” where you can see how the net worth of households have changed based on whether or not you are in the lower 93% of the population, or part of the wealthiest 7% of the population. The biggest difference between the two? The percentage of their household assets in the markets vs. in their own home.

3. Jeremy is getting closer and closer to home ownership with his post titled “Getting My First Home Mortgage.” I always assumed that mortgage brokers would give you the best rate, but he shows how he negotiated a great rate by using both the broker and his bank.

4. Mark showed us how his dividends are doing in his “March 2013 Dividend Income Update.” He is doing great, as always! And it is comforting to know that I’m not the only one who feels like the weeks are all becoming a blur as it is passing by so quickly.

5. CF and Brian were pretty excited with “Hey, We Got New Tenants!” Check out the post to see how much money they spent during the transition and what things they spent it on to transition their place between the old tenants to the new tenants.

6. Mr. Money Mustache had a post about “Curing your Clown-Like Car Habit” that I really enjoyed this week. I was just about ready to get the boy to drop me off downtown but the salad example made me decide against it, and instead I took Calgary Transit. I have also looked at the possibility of biking to work this summer, but I will need to figure out routes and storage.

As always, this week’s comic is courtesy of the boy:

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for reading!

Even though I have behind on my writing, I definitely have continued on with my reading, and there have been some interesting stuff this week:

1. Mr. CBB had a post about how a musician paid off $100,000 in debt in 17 months! What an inspiring story! I know there have been some who have reached out to me who have yet to fully “commit” to paying off their own debt, and I recommend that they should read this one!

2. Liquid had a post about “Financial Freedom in 10 years.” I love how his goal is to be financially free at 35, but based on his analysis, he can hit this target IN 5 YEARS! Crazy stuff!

3. Jeremy continued his Blogging Series with “Blog Advertising Part II – Advertiser Tricks.” Even with a small blog like mine, I have been getting the free guest posting requests. I am thrilled when they are from personal blogs, but a lot are from ‘financial websites’ who promise great links. I always feel a little guilty saying no, but am glad I stuck to my guns after reading this post. Check it out if you are starting up, or currently running your own blog.

4. Mark had an interesting “Reader Question – What stocks have paid dividends for generations?” There are definitely lots of familiar names on the list (I do own many of them through my ETF holdings) but it is interesting to see the list of companies, especially for those who are focused on developing a dividend-paying portfolio.

5. CF had a post about “Finding a Way to Say No.” This one hit a little closer to home, not because I am in a similar situation, but that I can see the potential of being asked for money in the future by family members. And being the endless disappointment, of course. Must be an Asian thing.

This week’s comic is courtesy of the boy (I apologize, I know its a little hard to see):

I wonder if it is his subtle way of telling me there is a new game that he wants.

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

So most of you know that I went to Vietnam for a month in February/March. Even though my parents and grandparents came from there, I have never been, and it is crazy going to a place where you understand what everyone is saying, even though they aren’t speaking English. It feels like home; the language, the food, the people ~ everything is so familiar. But it is still very strange and foreign as well. I put a lot of time into planning and customizing the trip, and we had tons of new experiences, including riding and feeding an elephant in Dalat, eating exotic fruits right off the trees down in the Mekong region, and visiting a crocodile farm, where we learned that you can change the sex of the egg by the temperature you keep it at! I rode on the back of a motorcycle for the first time, swam at night in Halong Bay (it gets pretty darn chilly!), and even carried a 25lb snake. I haven’t even touched a snake before this trip because it creeped me out!  And the food! I miss it the most; the seafood was so fresh, the variety was amazing, and everything was so cheap! I’m still working on the pictures (we ended up with around 2,000 pictures), but here are a few (cruise ship in Halong Bay, dawn in Nha Trang, apparently a puffer fish? on the beach at Nha Trang, and the crocodile farm in Can Tho):

It was a trip that has been on my bucket list for awhile, and I was thrilled that I was able to share it with my some of my family members. Maybe next time I will share it with the rest of my family and the boy! But I will be honest; by the end of it, I had a huge craving for a hunk of good old Alberta beef!

So I was back for about a week before I headed out to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic with the boy and 6 of our friends. This is the 4th time I have been to Punta Cana (albeit different resorts), and it did not disappoint! If you are looking for lots of sun, amazing beaches with soft white sand, blue water, and great food, this is the place to be!

There were a lot of beautiful sunrises, a great pool area, and lots of waves in the ocean (boy got owned by that one!)

Even though all the traveling was a blast, I am definitely glad to be home!

So, if anyone is keeping track, it has been about 2.5 years since I left the workplace. I did a lot of traveling, did some photography, and started up this blog. Even so, I was starting to miss the corporate world, especially when I would talk to my old co-workers and hear about their new, exciting career paths beyond the consulting world. So last fall, I started looking to see where I wanted to head next. I called up my network and met up with a lot of them to chat and see what their opinions about career paths and how the job market was looking. I knew I wanted to try an Oil and Gas company (hey, it is Calgary after all!) and I wanted the company to be on both Alberta’s Top 60 Employers and Canada’s Top 100 Employers lists. I also wanted to leverage my previous experience, and didn’t want to start from scratch. Not asking for much, hey? And no, mom, I did not spend all my money traveling and needed a job when I returned! But I was definitely ready for a new challenge. So admist all the traveling, I started talking to an integrated Canadian energy company about a position that met all my previous listed requirements. I talked to them before I left for Vietnam, a few days after I returned, and they called me with an offer the night before I was scheduled to leave for Dominican. I negotiated (of course!) and they called me with their final offer as I was walking into the airport, which I accepted by email. I know a couple friends asked me about my work plans on the trip, but I didn’t want to share the news until I let my family know first. Anyways, I ended my 2.5 year sabbatical as I started working again yesterday. And boy, you don’t know what the “Mondays” feel like until you start working again after 2.5 years! But it has been great so far, super busy, and I will apologize (again!) in advance if the blog remains a little quiet as I transition back into the corporate world.

Things are always changing, right?

Thanks for reading!

Boy, it has been awhile since I have done an update! As much as I love traveling, I am actually pretty happy to be home at the moment; 5 out of the past 6 weeks away from home is a bit much for me, but it was a blast! We traveled with a different group of friends this time to the Dominican Republic, so I got the chance to learn more about each of them. Sometimes, a little TOO much information was shared. Lots of sun, sand, and WAY TOO MUCH FOOD. They also all know what it is like to wake up before dawn to save beach chairs!! You’re welcome, by the way!

The following is my combined expected and actual household expenses for the month of March.

Notes:

-          Groceries look like they were decent this month, but remember it was just for one. The dining out expenditure was also for one, so the boy definitely needs to work on meal planning and cooking! I have brought up the suggestion of him doing a post on frugal meals, but I’d settle with him just cooking every once in awhile.

-           My phone plan should remain consistent until August when the contract expires; I will probably start researching alternatives closer to that date.

-          More car maintenance charges this month! Registration was up for renewal, so we renewed it for 2 years to save $10 overall.

-          The vacation charges going through were definitely not reflective of what I have spent in the past few months.

-          The entertainment expenditure looks weird because boy has been going through his VAST collection of video games and consoles and managed to sell some stuff off. As agreed, the proceeds will be used towards new games. Unfortunately.

-          We prepaid for our Ultimate spring league, so the working out expenditure will be high until fees are collected from our team.

This is the expected April spending plan. As always, these numbers are fluid, and I fully expect them to change as the year goes on.

Notes:

-          When I get tired, I apparently like to organize. I have been going through my closet and purging clothes and boy has been doing the same. 4 bags of clothing donated and counting! The increase in the clothing budget is to account for replacing boy’s clothes as a lot of his clothes look terrible as they are too big. It is getting to the point where friends and family members are noticing it as well.

-          Vacation savings are being accounted through the savings number right now; this is something I have done before and am unsure if I want to change it right now. It does make the budget look really weird though.

So we heard back from Westjet; if you are not familiar with the situation, the boy’s luggage was sent to Mexico on his business trip to Vancouver, so he had to front $350 for a new suit and personal supplies for his meetings. Westjet is only willing to reimburse $250, but with some negotiations, they offered either $250 cash or $450 travel credit, which has to be used within the year and is non-transferable. $250 isn’t enough to cover the money fronted, but at least we would get some money back on the initial cost. The $450 travel credit is higher, but that requires you to travel within the next year. It means that you will be out the $350 for the initial expense, and it will also cost money for the trip that you would take with the credit. So… what would you choose?

Thanks for reading!