So I've been pretty much off sick with the flu all week. That was unpleasant :/ I did go back to work yesterday to try and get caught up on some work but missing 3 days meant I fell WAY behind on everything. I'm seriously contemplating going in on Sunday to get some uninterrupted work time. We'll see though because I also need to start my course if I want to write my exam before March 31st.

This week I got paid which is always fun. There's still a week left in this month and I already know I'm going to be way over in the grocery section. I talked about it with the bf yesterday and for the month of February I'm going to try something different. Instead of shopping at the Sobeys by our house I'm going to head over to one of the cheaper stores, either the No Frills or Food Basics and see if that makes any difference. The interesting thing, in January we have my bfs bday so we buy some more expensive food for a meal. In February we have both Valentines Day and my birthday.

In the mail yesterday I also got my renewal notice from Costco. My membership is due in March and for the last 2 years I've paid for the Executive Membership. Up until about a year ago we would shop at Costco on a weekly basis and most of my groceries would come from there. I've slowly changed my habits though and don't spend as much at Costco anymore so this year I will downgrade back to the regular membership. One of the advantages of the Executive one is that you get some cash back. I got my voucher and it's for $55 so that's enough to cover the lesser membership. Yay!

TGIF!

I wasn't sure I would make it through this week, it was SO BUSY! I had to deal with the fact that I was off last week, so lots of catching up, plus starting a new job which the previous person left virtually undone for the last 2 months. Everything needs to be done 5 minutes ago! I love this kind of hectic work environment though so no complaints from me!

My workouts have taken a back seat this week which is disappointing but such is life. I'll get back into it tomorrow. I was planning on getting some studying done this weekend but forgot my school books at work... totally accidentally, I swear! Normally I'd be able to go in and get them but this weekend they're doing some kind of power shut-down and I won't have access to the building. This'll give me PLENTY of time to work out! And get some cleaning done!

Money-wise this was a mostly good week. Fridays are usually the 1x/week I buy lunch since a group of us meet to catch up. This week work treated us so I had to pay for nothing! That money will get transferred to savings at the end of the month.

The only bad thing was running out of dog food for both dogs this month. We normally have it timed so that I only have to get 1 bag/month but in December I never got around to it, so it looks like my budget is taking the hit this month but in reality I had money leftover from the last. And you can bet that next month I still won't need food but I'll buy a bag anyway to stay on track!

Here's what my tracking looks like so far, 1 week into the month.

The Bell bill was way high but I called them to have it lowered, it should hopefully be under $300 for next month. The rest of the bills come towards the end of the month so they'll be covered by the second pay I get this month.

Tomorrow I'll be going to Costco to pick up a couple of items in the grocery department. Also, while I'm there I'll be asking for a credit. The weekend before last I bought an Everlast package for the Wii at a cost of $38.XX and this week they have it at $8 off! I want my credit! Had I known I would have just waited to purchase it, but Costco is usually really good about crediting you back.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

2010 Monthly Budget

I've finally finished my 2010 Monthly Budget.

First, we have the breakdown of my monthly income, this is for months with only 2 pays.

In our household, my bf Jeff pays the mortgage, and I pay all of the bills. Every 2 weeks I transfer him my half for the mortgage. Every 2 weeks he transfers me $180 to cover his half of the bills. He also pays for half the groceries and dog food. In december I got an incrimental raise at work, I have yet to figure out what the actual dollar amount of it is though since at that time I had also capped out my EI & CPP. I made this budget based on my old salary and anything above that will get transferred to my TFSA.

I do have quite a bit of money left over which is good. I originally didn't set up a Clothing category as I currently use the money is my slush fund for that, I have more than enough clothes as it is already, I don't want to encourage myself to purchase any more.

I'm thinking about setting up a running category to pay for running clothes, shoes, race fees and such.

My bank account is currently set up so that everytime I pay for something via ineract $0.50 gets transferred into my TFSA so I need to keep about $20 flexible for that, but I think I'm going to look into paying extra towards the mortgage.

I'm going to try this out as is for a couple of months and see how it goes. I may have forgotten something but this is basically the same budget I started using last year so I think I'm on track. And if anything, I'm trying to cut my expenses and bills, not increase them!

At then end of the month I'll recap with actuals and see how well I did.

Santa`s current location is Egypt!

It's currently 4pm and I still have 4 hours to kill before going over to my uncle's house for reveillon so I figured I'd drop by and post.

December 23rd was pay day so a bunch of money got transferred into my various ING accounts.

$25 - New Laptop Account
$75 - House Account
$75 - New Car Account
$50 - Slush Account
$30 - Presents Account
$5 - Medical Account (I get reimbursed 80% so this is to cover the difference)
$25 - Non-Registered Mutual Fund
$75 - RRSP
$125 - Canada Savings Bonds
$50 - TFSA aka Emergency fund.

Since I maxed out my CPP & EI a couple of pays ago, I've been transferring the extra to various accounts and this pay period it was an extra $121.97 which I put into my TFSA.

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Today was an unofficial half day at work so I went in to get a few things done before being off for all of next week! Since our group does a whole thing with Santa and his elf everyone brings in their kids so it was a lot of fun to hang out with all of them and share in their Christmas excitement!

I sat with them and watched Santa arrive and then take a seat and start calling up each child to give them a gift. To my surprise my name got called out to go and get a gift! My father works for the same group and he'd slipped in a gift for me as a joke, lol! So I got to go and and get my picture taken with Santa :D

After all of that excitement I went up to my dad's office and had a couple of glasses of wine with his staff. They had a table full of food & desserts so that was a fun time also! We ended up leaving around 12:30 and I came home and immediately took a quick nap! I didn't get very much sleep though so now I'm slowly drinking a cafe mocha to get some caffeine in my veins!

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Lastly I have a quick health update, apparently the ENT specialist saw my scans and wants to see me sooner rather than later, so I was able to get an appointment to do that at the end of January. I'm not sure if I should be worried or not since I was initially told it could take much longer to get an appt but until I hear anything I'm not even going to stress about it. It's not like I can do anything to change my situation.

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I am so excited for Christmas!! As soon as my bf finishes wrapping up my presents we're going to watch the 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Christmas Special` I`ve been wanting to see it for so long I hope he`s done wrapping soon!!