Definitely not a good start to the morning!

I am so frustrated right now, one because I was woke up at 7 a.m. by a raving lunatic by the name of my wife yelling at me where's the money! So here's the deal I get home last night from work at about 12:30 in the morning and the house was dark everyone asleep so I decide to have a bite to eat and a beer. I hear her voice come from the bedroom all sweet sounding, clearly not asleep can I have some money for the States tomorrow?

She's going to finish up the back to school shopping and I already gave her $100 U.S. and she asked if she could get another $100 earlier in the week just in case. So I said fine but remember the initial budget was $300 and that she already spent $210 on back to school last time she went to the States.

So I grabbed a $100 and placed it next to my wallet. In her sweet sounding voice can I have some more? Uh no that's $200 US for you it should be more than enough, to make a long story short this went on for about 15 minutes till I finally said no this time I'm putting my foot down that's it your not taking anymore!

So back to the raving lunatic this morning 7 a.m. where's the money? She's checking our bank account online there's only $116 left in our account what happened to the rest of the money? I reply back half asleep I don't know your the one that makes all the cash withdraws that I can't track you can see everything I spend it's right there in detail. She replies back with while I checked your wallet and there's no cash in there so where did it all go, we still need to pay the babysitter $180.

Oh ok she's not worried about the finances she's trying to grab more money to take with her to the States, so this is where the argument gets into full swing because somehow everytime were without money it's all my fault. Which of course is on a bi-weekly basis and I'm so sick of having the finger pointed at me. I always use the debit card so everything is documented as to my purchases which usually is a case of beer and a tank of gas I'm such a bigger spender on myself. Everything else goes to the bills.

Now if you've been reading my blog you'll remember the post earlier this week Nothing better than completing your goals about how finally I was getting out from behind the financial black ball. So you might be asking what happened with that, while basically it's starting to fall apart apparently I put the horse before the carriage.

I haven't been completely honest as I was embarrassed to admit 2 weeks ago I went back to the 2nd Paycheck Advance place that I got out of, read Victory against payday advance . I thought no big deal I knew I was going to get paid out my vacation pay from my former employer, I would get the money and be back out of it and the other one as well in two weeks.

While granted that hasn't happened now, I did reduce the amount significantly but I'm still stuck with the two of them. And the $1000 that was to go to repay the loan of $1200 while now it's down to $900 and I still have to pay the sitter the $180 which is clearly not in our bank account as well as we still need groceries for the week. So that $1000 payment is quickly starting to dwindle down! What a great way to start my morning off as well as my financial week!

If the raving lunatic and myself can't start working as a team here nothing is ever going to change as we've been going through this for the last 7 years. It's really time for it all to stop.

Nothing better than completing your goals!

So I have an exciting update to our short term goals that I listed in the post titled New goals for future. Our short term goals at that point in time was:

1) Set up an emergency savings account by the end of August 07' with direct withdraw.
2) Pay off a personal loan in the amount of $1200 by October 07'
3) Get out of paycheck advances by October 07'
4) Pay off another personal loan in the amount of $3060 by August 08'
5) Pay back money that was withdrawn from children's account of $1000 by December 08'

As far as #1 on this list goes I'm still waiting for ING to cash the check to link my accounts together, but it should be completed by the end of the month. Goal completed.

2) I have $1000 of the $1200 in hand and will complete the transaction with the remaining $200 within the next two weeks. Goal completed.

3) This will be completed as of this Friday I will be finally free and clear from all paycheck advance establishments.

Now you might be asking how did you pull this off so quickly did you rob a bank? No changing jobs became a blessing in disguise not only from the savings of my time of travel each day to and from work and wear and tear on my truck.

My past employer released me earlier then my resignation letter was for, yet will pay me out till the date of notice. Bonus as I called my new employer and they had me start yesterday, job is going great by the way. So I'll overlap my paychecks by one week. Second I pulled my deferred profit sharing from my old employer which between the extra week of pay and my DPS gave me a great jump start ahead in our finances.

Now coming into extra money wasn't exactly the way I planned to achieve these goals but hey I'll take it anyway I can, as it's 3 goals down with 2 to go from current. And as I stated when I wrote the post New goals for future I will replace these 3 completed goals with 3 new financial goals tomorrow, so stay tuned as more is to come.

Victory against Payday Advance

One down and one to go. Pulled my CSB's out approx. 2 weeks ago and received the check yesterday for $900 and took care of my largest payday advance of $895 what a feeling, when she asked if I wanted to reborrow and finally getting the chance to say no thank you. One to go for $375 but I feel much more confident that I will take care of it now that I rid myself of the $895 one. Fastest way to throw your finances into a downward spiral get a paycheck advance.

Payday Advances

Want to hear one of the worst things you can get yourself involved in financially! Payday advances and yes I’m speaking from experience to the tune of approx. $600 a month in interest alone! Did I fall for their great commercials of everyone needs some help sometimes or easy way to get money before payday, no absolutely not. Unfortunately we all fall behind every now and then but if you have any other way either family, credit card or even friends that could loan you the money till payday you’ll be that much further ahead.

Here’s how the routine works you simply fall behind say $100 you need for gas to get to work for the week, you walk into one of these very friendly places with no credit check needed. Provide them some references, pay stub, bill from home, a check and your bank statement and they’ll be more than happy to loan you the money till your next payday at a cost of anywhere from $15 for two weeks up to as much as $45 depending on which company, some will even be kind enough to give you there branded debit card to which they will charge you for the card as well as charge you a couple extra bucks just to ensure that it will cover the convenience charge when you go to the bank machine to withdraw your much needed money.

Now most people will look and go hey no big deal an extra $15-$45 bucks to get the cash I need now, no problem. Here’s the problem they tell you if you need to (which they already know you will) get another advance all you’ll need is you most current pay stub and another bank statement, now your sitting there now going ya right this is a one time deal I won’t be back! Guess what your paycheck rolls around next time and your short that extra $145 oh man I have the mortgage to pay, car loan, hydro and the phone bill came in. Guess who’s coming back you’ll find that somehow it just keeps mounting and mounting and before you know it, it seems like there is no way out unless you can somehow get some large lump sum of extra cash.

Really the only way out is either a lump sum or to gradually work down the debt which can be very difficult if you’re overextended. There simply there to take advantage as it’s basically a legal form of loan sharking to which the Government of Canada states that the interest cannot exceed 60%. Many have found their way around this by claiming broker fees for finding the money, charging you for the card mentioned earlier, even charging you a debit fee for when you come back to pay the money you owe if you use your debit card to pay off the debt. Of significant note there currently is a pending class action lawsuit facing Money Mart in several provinces.

I would highly suggest if there is anyway possible that you can make it to your payday without taking an advance from one of these places it most certainly is the way to go. Sometimes as was in our case you have no other alternative, try to pay it off as quickly as possible otherwise you find yourself digging deeper and deeper in debt.