Not To Be Trusted With Knives

In addition to buying that steak, I bought a whole bunch of other stuff yesterday.  It was spend-your-Optimum-points-and-get-extra-free-money day at Shoppers Drug Mart and I had enough points to get $125 of free stuff¹. I also had a bunch of coupons for Safeway, so I went there and stocked up on all the stuff I had coupons for. Then when I got home I did some online Christmas shopping² and managed to use both a gift card that I forgot I even had until I happened to stumble upon it in my wallet while looking for something else and a coupon code that I found by the magic of Google³.  All told, I saved $184.31!!

Of all the things I bought it, though, I think this one is my favorite:

It’s a piggy bank that counts the coins you put into it so you always know how much is in the jar. My sister has a jar like this (except that hers isn’t shaped like a pig and pig-shaped piggy banks are awesome) and I thought it was so cool, and so I’ve been on the lookout for one for myself. I found this one at Shopper’s Drug Mart and since I was cashing in my Optimum points for cash, I got it for free! And now I can use it to track my coin-related savings! W00t!

1. Ordinarily, the points I had would have only gotten me $85 worth of free stuff, but because it was the special spend-your-points day, I got an extra $40. [↩]
2. Would you believe I only have two more people to buy presents for and it’s only Dec 5?! [↩]
3. Anytime I buy anything online I always Google to see if there is an available coupon code for the website I’m buying from. I’d saved tons of money this way. [↩]

Hey, remember that time I said that a government agency wants to give me bucketloads of money so that I can get an MBA and that I needed to write the GMAT and then apply to the program and then hopefully I’d actually get in so I can have the aforementioned bucketloads of money? Yeah, that all happened. Schools starts for me in January.

Now, before you all going telling me (again) that I’m a Crazyface McGee, it’s merely an intensive 28-month, part-time program that I’ll do while still working full-time and that costs $41K+. You may now all call me crazy. But only half crazy, really, because of the aforementioned bucketloads of money.

Not the actual pile of money I’ll be getting. Mine will be Canadian.

After the crushing level of student debt I incurred to get my first three degrees, I swore I’d never borrow another penny for education again, but when I found out about the scholarship to do an MBA, it was really too good of an opportunity to pass up. Especially given that I actually won the scholarship!

I just found out about my offer of admission last week, celebrated on Friday with a fine wine and a three-year-old cheese, both of which I picked up in Oregon in the summer and have been saving for just such a momentous occasion, and paid my tuition fee deposit yesterday. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what this time commitment will mean for my life and a lot of planning of how I’ll get myself organized to juggle my life, work, and school, but the reality of the situation is really starting to sink in now. Expect some think-y blog postings about such topics over the next little while – please bear with me! Or, you know, tell me I’m crazy.

Image Credit: Posted by docwonder on Flickr.

Tags: academia, book learnin', finances, MBA, Nerdery, school, student debt, student loans, studenthood, Teaching & Learning

So, apparently there is more to life than a 10-day long, world record breaking hockey game. I know it’s hard to believe, but while I was confined to The Compound for 10 days, life went on in the outside world. And one thing that happened while I was gone was that some payments for my student loans, which I’d set up before I left, went through. Some payments that mean I have only $17,829.59 ((considering I started with $72K in 2007, I think that’s pretty good!)) left to pay!

This means that I have already met my goal of cutting my student loans in half – from $40,000 to $20,000 – by the end of 2011 – and it’s only September!

You don’t happen to have $17,829.59 lying around that you want to give me, do you?

Two of the items on my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days are:

56. save $500 in coins

57. deposit that $500 worth of coins into my 40th birthday savings account

I hit a bit of a snag in this plan in that when I moved last year, I moved into a place with no laundry facilities, so I had to start going to the dreaded laundromat, meaning that I needed my loonies and quarters for laundry. When you take loonies and quarters out of the mix, it really becomes difficult to save up much in the way of coins! But I decided to roll up all the dimes, nickels and pennies that I had in my coin jar, just to see what I had:

That’s $65 worth of coinage, which, while not $500, isn’t too terrible.

The next step was to deposit this money into my 40th birthday savings account. But, as we all know, I decided to divert my 40th birthday savings account money into my dreaded students loans in my valiant attempt to be able to throw a “my student loan debt is all paid off” party by the end of next summer. So that $65 went to student loan paying-off-ness.

$65 closer to freedom.

Tags: 101 in 1001, cash, coins, finances, money, moolah, rolled coins, student debt, student loan payments, student loans

As you may have seen my complain about from time to time here on NTBTWK, I wracked up a crazy amount of student debt while going through school. $71,504 to be exact. Now, when you consider that I was in post-secondary education for 11 years, it’s not actually that much – a mere $6,500 per year on average¹ or $5,500 per letter I get to put after my name. And, as you’ve also seen me talk about here from time to time, I’m paying off my student loans as aggressively as I can, while still trying to have some sort of balance in my life². I’m making sacrifices – not doing nearly as much travel as I would like, and renting a place in Surrey, where it’s much cheaper than Vancouver – as I’m putting the money I’m not spending on those things towards my student loans instead. The sooner I get them paid off, the sooner I don’t have to make giant student loan payments every month. Short-term pain for long-term gain, right?

Well, I did some number crunching on the weekend and I think I have a plan in place that means that I can have my student loans paid off by the end of next summer! When I first started paying off my loans, the loans were set up such that it would take me 9.5 years to pay off. That was April 2007, which means I was scheduled to have them paid off by October 2016! A combination of falling interest rates and me putting extra money that I have made towards the loans sure looks like it’s paying off!

At the moment, I have $24,000 left to pay. I currently pay $1,400 per month, meaning that I’ll pay $16,800 in a year. This, of course, leaves $7,200, plus all the interest on my balance³, unaccounted for, if I wanted to have my student loans paid off in a year. Fortunately, I have a some contract work that I’m doing and I figure that I can put all of the after-tax amount I make onto my students loans. But even that isn’t quite enough, so I’ve decided to do something drastic.

Ages ago, I started saving for a trip for my 40th birthday. Every two weeks, ~$25 is automatically transferred into a separate account that I’ve been using to save up for this trip. The idea, of course, is that you don’t really even notice $25 missing and then all this money piles up. Well, I can verify that such a system works, as I really have mostly forgotten that that money was sitting there. Until, that is, I realized how close I was to being within a year of my student loan freedom date, and then, all of the sudden, I noticed this $2,700 sitting in my birthday trip account that looked like something that I could really put to better use. I mean, I’m still a good 5.5 years away from my 40th birthday – that’s plenty of time to save! So I made the executive decision that I will take that $2,700 and I will give it to the student loan peeps and I will be that much closer to having this student loan monkey off my back. And then we will party.

Image Credit: Posted by vipez on Flickr.

1. And that’s pretty much tuition fees and books most years. Jobs and scholarships were added into the mix so I could do things like eat food and not be homeless. [↩]
2. Some money to student loans, some money for laser eye surgery. Some money to student loans, some money for braces. [↩]
3. Interest on my student loans is currently 5.5%, except for a small chunk that is 4.5% [↩]

Tags: debt, finances, plan, student debt, student loan payments, student loans, ugh

So, I made a really big lump sum payment on my student loans this month. Combining my tax return along with the amount of money I made from teaching two courses (after I used some of it to pay for my braces) meant I could make a $9,000 payment on my student loans. $9,000! Making the amount that I currently owe on my student loans a mere $26,500!

This puts me well within reach of achieving my goal of cutting my student loans in half by the end of 2011 compared to the end of 2010 – i.e., reaching the $20,000 mark (compared to the $40,000 I owed at the end of 2010). Also, since I got a raise, I upped my monthly payments to $1300/month.

Man, when I finally get these suckers paid off I am going to throw one hell of a kickass party!

Tags: finances, student loan payments, student loans, ugh

Just discovered this mostly written blog posting that I wrote on January 3rd, but appear to never have posted. Because I am awesome like that. Anyway, I don’t care that it’s fully a month after Christmas – I’m posting it anyway!  Plus, I added pictures that I hadn’t even taken back when I original wrote it and then I also tweaked the writing, so that’s something.

So I was totally spoiled, as usual, this Christmas. But many of this year’s presents seemed to have a theme: fitness! It started with my trip to Ottawa, where Sarah & Dave gave me a gift card to the Running Room to put towards a new pair of running shoes. This was well thought out as (a) it circumvents the shoe-buying ban of 2010, should I happen to have found a good Boxing Week sale and want to get a pair before year’s end, (b) I’ll need new running shoes since the ones I have now won’t last me ’til the half marathon I plan to do in May, and (c) it prevented me from having to fit a gift in my luggage.

The trend continued on Christmas Day, when I received:

Shameless photo of my heart rate monitor¹

This awesome watch/heart rate monitor was from my parents. My chiropractor, who is also a runner himself, said that to get serious about running, I really should be monitoring my heart rate during training². Combine that with the fact that my watch fell apart³ and a watch + heart rate monitor was a super duper gift.

Also in the above shameless photo is a running top I received from my Uncle Harry & Aunt Arlene. Harry & Arlene are big into biking, so they got me that top and a matching yellow triathelon jacket – great for layering when I’m training in the cold rainy weather, or wearing separately when it’s a bit warmer. Also, the bright yellow colour and reflective stripes on the jacket are perfect for running in the dark , since I generally do my runs after work and the sun sets awfully early in January.

Then, to round out my Christmas of Fitness, my sister and her bf gave me money to pay for hot yoga! They know that I really, really love my hot yoga, but also that I was having a hard time justifying spending money on it when I already spend so much on playing hockey and running⁴.  My parents then added to the pot of hot yoga money for my birthday. So my plan now is to do hot yoga once or twice a week⁵ and then I’ll need to find some extra money once my Christmas/birthday money runs out.

1. note that this isn’t even how you actual wear the heart rate monitor – you wear it below the chest, not above. But I figured a picture where my breasts look not half bad would be much better than a photo exposing my flabby abs [↩]
2. plus, you know, all the running books say that. And all the cool kids are doing it [↩]
3. same thing as happened to this one happened again to my new one [↩]
4. running itself is free, but shoes and races fees do start to add up [↩]
5. can’t really do much more than that when I’m playing hockey twice a week and running 3-4 days a week [↩]

Tags: better late than never, Christmas, Christmas 2010, gifts, sports

Since the shoe buying ban of 2010 is now over, I am free to yet again indulge in my love of new footwear. And since it was today is Bething Day – the Bethmas equivalent to Boxing Day – it was only appropriate for me to take advantage of the awesome Bething Day sales.  Thus, I give you my new boots:

Now I just have to figure out what I’m going to wear them with to my Bethmas extravaganza on Saturday!

Tags: birthday, photos, rampant consumerism, rampant narcissism, shoes

So I got this letter from my credit card company yesterday:

Click photo to embiggenate

Since I’m so awesome at paying my credit card off every month, they want to up my credit limit. Now, based on new laws, they can’t just jack up the limit without you noticing anymore; they have to ask your permission and if you don’t respond, they have to take that as a “no, don’t increase my credit limit” – both of which are definitely a good things. But what I find troubling is that if I fill out this form and sign it, it would be my “approval to accept this credit limit increase offer.” This credit limit increase of an unspecified amount!

I’m assuming that their argument would be that they need the updated information on my income to know how much they are going to increase my credit limit by, but if that’s the case, then I think they should ask for that information first and then tell me how much they want to up my credit limit before asking me to consent to the increase. I mean, I thought that the point of the law requiring credit card companies to ask people’s permission before upping their credit limit was to prevent credit card companies from increasing limits beyond what people can really afford without their knowledge. To me, asking for my approval to “accept” a credit limit increase of some unspecified amount does not fit within the spirit of this law.

Am I off-base on this?

Tags: credit cards, credit limits, finances

I think I’m in love with hot yoga. I mean, it’s only been four days since I started, so we are still in that “honeymoon phase” and maybe I’m willing to overlook hot yoga’s short comings, like how I have to get up at 5 a.m. to be there for the 6 a.m. practice, which is the most convenient one because I can do it before wrok. But seriously, four days in and I feel like I can already feel a difference in my muscle tone¹. It’s also helped me to see which of my muscles are tightest and need the most stretchy goodness and I seriously need the work on balance!  Plus, I absolutely love the heat – you are just dripping with sweat throughout and by the end of the practice, your clothes are soaked right through, just as much as if you’d jumped into a pool! Also, there’s the mental benefits of yoga, like just taking the time to still the mind.  Oh yes, hot yoga has everything!

Except, of course, that while my 30 days for $30 Groupon was a good deal, the cost of hot yoga is rather unaffordable. The usual price for 30 days of hot yoga at the place I’m going to (Westcoast Hot Yoga in Surrey) is $150. If you sign up for a whole year, you can get it for $980. That’s not chump change. I already spend about that much on hockey in a year and it’s hard to justify doubling my exercise budget!  Especially knowing that I wouldn’t be able to keep up a yoga-every-single-day habit, as I’ll want to get back to running after this little 30 days of yoga reprieve and I do play hockey one or two times per week. This got me thinking about Darren’s recent post on Groupon – and I quote:

“Buying Groupon deals provides a way for middle-class people to scratch an upper-class itch.”

Since I’ve been going to the before work practice, I’ve been bringing my clothes and makeup to the yoga studio so that I can shower and get ready for work there², and in doing so I’ve been chatting with the others who stick around to get ready for work³. So far I’ve chatted with – and I’m not making this up – a doctor, a lawyer, and a wealth manager. Seriously.

So, while I love my hot yoga so far, I think I’m in it for a good time, not a long time. After my 30 days are up, I’ll probably switch to just doing yoga at home, where it is a nice and free⁴, and maybe just pop into a hot yoga session once in a while as a treat. You know, to scratch that upper class itch.

1. of course, I may just be delirious from all the dehydration and exhaustion [↩]
2. side benefit to early morning yoga: it’s made me become way more organized – ensuring I have my lunch and other necessities for the day packed and ready to head out the door. I even planned out my outfits for every day this week on the weekend so I wouldn’t have to think about it when I’m packing my yoga bag [↩]
3. a lot people just head home to shower, but for me it’s more convenient to do it at the studio and head right in to work [↩]
4. and my living room is big enough to be a yoga studio anyway! [↩]

Tags: exercise, Groupon, health, hot yoga, physical activity, rampant consumerism, yoga