Eating out is costing us a fortune.

We were doing great with eliminating fast food for quite awhile there, brown bagging it to work and cooking dinners at home. Unfortuntly this has taken a turn for the worst as it's becoming quite common that were eating out at least once per day.

When working with a family of 5 that can easily throw your finances out of whack as the average meal for us at any fast food place usually averages around $30 dollars. Which it doesn't take a genius to figure out that averages out to $210 a week. A huge waste of money!

We really need to realign ourselves with our goals and get back on track here.

Mint is it refreshing?

Ok let's face the fact I need a software like Mint.com! We need to get our financial and family life's back together. Is it cool and refreshing like a mint always is?

I've been trying to get a hold of the early beta realease from Mint.com for awhile now with no success then I notice SavingExplained is running a contest to win one of 5 invites into the refreshing world that is Mint.com.

Now my post isn't unique or filled with images or creative images and video's to get one attention. It's strickly a post of need. Reading the information from the Mint.com page I believe this would be nothing but a handy tool in our adventure to reduce debt and improve our finances.

Saving money on car insurance

It's always a great feeling when you save some cash. I finally received my new premium on my car insurance thanks to the job change. Now that I won't be driving 40 clicks one way to work it just saved me $30.90 a month on my insurance! My renewal comes up in November so at that point I'll look at changing my policy from monthly to an annual payment to save myself the 3% financing charge as well.

Related Post:
New Job

3 New financial goals for the future.

As promised I would lay out three new financial goals for our family to replace the 3 goals completed as of this week. Here are the two financial goals that still need to be completed:

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5) Pay back money that was withdrawn from children's account of $1000 by December 08'

Which of course moves to #1 & #4 (reason follows later) here are the following three.

1) Pay off another personal loan in the amount of $3060 by August 08' 14 months ahead of schedule.
2) Pay off car loan of $7600 by December 08' 8 months ahead of schedule.
3) Another personal loan of $5000 + interest that hasn't been paid in quite sometime I can't even imagine what the total is now, by December 10'
4) Pay back money that was withdrawn from children's account of $1000 by December 08'
5) Have an emergency savings fund of $5000 by December 10'

Now upon review I noticed I need to go back and make some adjustments to my NetworthIQ.com profile as well as my NCN profile which at the current time I can't seem to find. As my debt listed is incorrect, apperently I'm deeper than I thought that's what I get for not listing each item down on paper and going off of the top of my head. The children's account has been shuffled to the #4 spot as right now I think it's more important to get the interest baring accounts taken care of first.



Related post:
Nothing better than completing your goals
New goals for the future
NCN Network
NetworthIQ Full Review

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.

NCN Network

Pre-Warning as I am starting my new job and I have quite a bit to learn my postings might be a little irregular over the next month. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up while I continue to search for help on the debt-o-meter which I hope to feature on this blog. I have joined the NCNnetwork.com one of the grandfather and premier debt blog movement sites, as you'll be able to track my progess there as well as NetworthIQ.com and Wesabe.com

Savings Account

We have begun the process of opening up an ING savings account for our emergency savings as it was the first goal to be completed of our New Goals within the timeframe of August. I just need to mail away the check now which will be done on Monday in order to finalize setting up the account.

At first were going to only put away $50 a month but hey it's a start right. Will continue to monitor our finances and if were able to in a couple of months, probably closer to the new year will double up the amount for each month. I'm just excited to get the ball rolling and follow through with our plan of attack.

Post That Caught My Attention

You want to know what's so great about blogging? You join a community and if you have read any of my post so far you'll know I'm a huge advocate for communities you can learn so much more from many than from a few. Many bloggers feel the same way we don't view other's in our niche as competitors. That's why I'm more than willing to share when I come across a great post and today I came across SavingExplained.com post on Take A Peak Under The Hood Of My Savings

It's honestly a great post on microsavings and planning ahead for future expenses it's so simple I'm surprised I haven't read about it before. It's definitely worth a read as I highly recommend it.

Wesabe It Is!

As I spoke about before I planned on joining a social money network budgeting site by either Wesabe.com or Geezeo.com to compliment my NetworthIQ.com account. Now I should note at this time I do not currently pay 2 post if your not familiar with it, it basically means I'll write post to endorse a certain company for X amount of dollars. You can check my bank account if you wish I'm broke :)! After posting today's earlier post How Were Going To Achieve Our Goals post I received a comment from the Jason Knight CEO of Wesabe.com of the following:

Knight said...
Hi, I'm Jason Knight CEO of Wesabe. First, congratulations on deciding to get control over your money.

I had a quick look at your goals and interestingly they map pretty closely to the most popular goals on our site. Paying off debt and saving an emergency fund are our members top priority.

I hope you will try out our service and connect with the thousands of people who share your goals and are actively working on achieving them.

If you have any questions about Wesabe please don't hesitate to contact me between 12-4pm PST 800.511.8544

Due to this I feel no other reason not to join Wesabe.com as I believe it shows how much he stands behind his site and the customer service that comes with it. In this day and age of the internet I think we've lost this personal touch so when someone comes out like Jason Knight has it only makes me sure that I've made the right choice and can only support his site that much more. Tomorrow after work I will finish setting up my account and you'll be able to find me under workingcanuck on Wesabe.com and thank you Jason for helping me make up my mind.

How Were Going To Achieve Our Goals

Day 3 and so far you've seen our Old Goals that were written several years ago that were forgotten about as well as our New Goals for the Future which we will follow right here on this blog. Now I know people are saying wait you have old goals which you didn't follow through on and forgot about, how do you plan on attacking your new goals and improve your personal finances. Quite simply I've come up with a plan of attack, here are the tools I'll put into place to ensure that we follow through with these goals:

1) Creation of this blog creates accountability to ourselves, everything is out in the open for all to see. In other words I'm calling myself out and knowing that if I get off the beaten track that the readers will have a field day calling me out on why am I not saving for this or your spending to much money on that. Much like the social money networking sites. I'm hoping that you guys will help us stay on track on eliminating debt and putting our money to work for ourselves.

2) As many of you are already aware I'm already part of the community at NetWorthIQ.com which is a great site at tracking your net worth but for budgeting I'm going to join the community at either Wesabe.com or Geezeo.com which were two of the sites I talked about in my Talking Money over the Net post awhile back about social money networking. As this will hold us even more accountable, as well as the ability to use others experiences to hold us much more in line with our goals. I'll let you know which one of these sites I join in a future posting as I haven't yet decided.

3) Finding other ways of bringing extra money into the house. This one is tougher due to the fact that I am on salary I don't get the opportunity to work more hours in order to bring in more income. So we have two choices either live below our means or bringing in extra money, preferably I would rather bring in extra money as Christmas is on the horizon and I want to attack these debts rather aggressively. So I'll look at opportunities such as Ebay, Craigslist and a second job.

So there we have it the ways that I plan on attacking our debts and hopefully at the same time improve our personal finances and do some investing in our future.

Part 1 Old Goals
Part 2 New Goals for the Future

New Goals For The Future

As promised here is my new list of goals. I decided to break it down into both short term (under 5 years) and long term (5 years +) to keep myself motivated. As one goal is completed a new one will be implemented to ensure constant progress. Drum roll please:

Short Term Goals:

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'

Long Term Goals:

1) Our wedding by 2012
2) Mortgage paid off by the time I turn 45
3) Net worth of $500,000 by the time I turn 50

So that's the goals that have been set, some are more achievable than other's as some of them will make us stretch financially to achieve. If anyone knows where I can get one of those bar meters to place on my blog, so everyone can follow along with our progress it would be greatly appreciated. Tomorrow I will post on how I plan on us achieving our goals.

Part 1 Old Goals

Old Goals

It's funny today I picked up an older book I had by The Motley Fool flipping through I came across some old notes that I recorded in the pages. Including old goals I written for myself some accomplished some not. They are as follows:

1) New Home by the end of 2007 (I must have picked up the book a couple of months prior to purchasing my home as I purchased my home in 2002)

2) Getting Out of Debt by the end of 2007 (Still a work in progress)

3) Wedding by Sept. 2004 (We live common-law does that count lol? We have to finance our wedding ourselves and even though were planning to keep it under $10,000 luckily my I already call her my wife is very understanding and agree's that other things need to be taken care of first)

4) New Car by the end of 2004 (By new car I didn't actual mean new car I would never desire to own a brand new car, but I did pick up my truck in 2004)

5) Start a Business by the end of 2010 (Actually I did start a business back 2 years ago that I decided I wasn't going to quit my job prior to my own business being successful. Unfortuntly between the time and money commetments it wasn't in the cards at that time and only lasted just under a year I will give it another shot though sometime in the future)

So that's the five goals I had written down approx. 5-6 years ago I think that for tomorrows post I will follow this up with New Goals that I will set for myself.

Every little bit counts when it comes to managing your money

Today I was going through some of the blogs I read often and came across The Simple Dollar post on Six Habits I've Given Up In Order To Save Money and it inspired me to write my own saving techniques that my family has implemented in order to save a little extra cash.

Coffee: Every blog that writes about personal finance, debt, savings or investing they all seem to list this and for good merit. As you figure my average day with Tim Hortons consist of 2 XL black coffees at a cost of $3.16 a day or $1150.00 a year! By making coffee at home equals significant savings as a can of coffee $8 and filters at $3 last me about a month it drops my coffee habit down to approx. $132 a year a savings of $1018! Now granted I haven't actually tallied exactly how many cans and filters I go through in a year but even if you placed it at the high end maybe your hitting $300 in which case your still saving $850 a year. No wonder a Tim Hortons Franchise goes for upwards of $400,000!

Driving Habits: It's funny you hear all the time about how slowing down saves you gas mileage but it's hard when you travel the same route everyday you just want to get from point a to point b as quick as possible. Here's what I found out though by reducing my speeding habits from 100 clicks down to 90 clicks and setting it on cruise control my tank of gas went from on avg. 500 clicks over 600 clicks a savings of roughly $3 a tank but when you do as much driving as I do in a year it translates to approx. $750 a year not to mention an additional trip to and from work before filling back up and less chances of speeding tickets always a good thing.

Hydro: We replaced all our traditional light bulbs with fluorescents about 3 years ago, over that time we had to replace I believe 2 bulbs as opposed to changing light bulbs on average every 5 months or so. Also we found when we first did it, it reduced our bill by approx. $25 a month or $300 a year.

Auto Insurance: I decided to do some calling around earlier this year to see if any other Insurance companies could beat my current rate of $122 a month. A friend recommended PC Financial Insurance my rate dropped from the $122 a month to $96 a month a savings of $26 a month or $312 a year.

Snacks: With brown bagging it to work and with the kids in school we were lucky enough to come across a Vachon Outlet Store. Vachon carries numerous snack products from themselves as well as Hostess. For example last week I picked up a box of 20 Hostess Cupcakes for $3.60 where if I went to the supermarket a box of I believe it's 6 would have costed I think $3.95 it's been awhile since I checked the price so I could be wrong, but I do know that 20 cupcakes at $3.60 is a steal anyway you look at it. The savings in this area are hard to measure I would assume it would be in the ballpark of $30-$40 a month or a couple of hundred bucks a year.

Clothing: As stated before I do work in retail so luckily I have my employee discount as well as a mall discount for the other retailers in the mall. Also we pick up quite a bit from the local thrift stores, yard sales in town and working in trade with our sisters for their kids clothes for ours, thank god for big families. If you don't work in retail the one thing that really hasn't caught attention in Canada the same as it has in the States is Outlet shopping, most Canadians don't believe that there are big saving in the Outlet Centers speaking from first hand experience most Outlet Centers you walk into the majority of the stores in the center are actual company outlets stores with average saving of 30% or more off of the suggested retail price. Unfortunately there are quite a few retailers at the same time which can lead you into believing that none of the stores are outlets. You just have to search through the stores to discover which are outlets and which are retailers.

These are just some of the more significant ways that we use to save money in our family.

Back to School Shopping

It's that time again, time for back to school shopping get ready to pull out those wallets and purses and watch your money go bye bye. They say that the average back to school shopping cost approx. $300 per child in my case that's $900! That's just a little less then my family spends at Christmas time there is no way I'm spending $900 on back to school. Here's how I plan to save on those expenses this year, first of all I'm lucky that I work in retail, in my own store I can save thanks to my employee discount 40% off of shoes and clothing. Considering I'm going to need to purchase 6 pairs of shoes at an average cost of $40 that's a savings of $96 dollars, clothing luckily their closets are pretty well stocked so there wont be much spent in that area. Maybe a couple pairs of jeans.

My mother lives in the States so I've asked her to pick up the school supplies over there then I'll reimburse her. The saving on school supplies in the States is insane so far she's brought over two full bags of pencils, markers and binders at a total cost of $15 it helps through that she has a incredible knack at finding items on sale. As far as backpacks go luckily my daughter is old enough that she'll take one from my store, but the boys on the other hand both want the novelty backpacks so will hit Wal-Mart for those at a decent price. Hopefully we can keep it below $300 for all the kids to get ready for back to school. Man how the summer flew by!

Favorite Websites for Savings

Sorry folks for not writting the last two days things are getting kinda hectic at work and I'm stuck working from open to close as a result. It should ease up shortly. I decided due to time constraints I would just submit a short quick post listing one of my favorite websites out there for Canadians redflagdeals.com if your not already familiar with this site I highly suggest it as you'll find coupons, deals and my fav the forums. Lots of info to gather and I plan to implement a favorite website and blogs into my site shortly listing some of my other favorites..