Posted by Canadian Dream on June 25, 2010
So last night was a nightmare to get home from work. It took me an hour and a half when it is normally 20 minutes. Why? We had such a heavy rainfall most of the underpasses flooded and could not be passed. I’ve lived in Regina for most of my life and I can honestly say I don’t recall this EVER happening before.
Heck, even the creek by my house looks close to overflowing, but the good news is my basement is still dry, but my teleposts need to be adjusted since all this extra water is expanding all the clay in the area and causing my basement floor to heave up a bit more than usual.
Yet what got me thinking about all of this mess was the fact how utterly unprepared most people are for an disaster. What happens when the power goes out and doesn’t come back on? How would you cook something or what would you eat? Do you have any drinking water? Could you keep warm?
In my case I’m not completely screwed. I do have a fireplace to provide some heat in a disaster and I do keep some water set aside along with a camping stove and some fuel. We also have some canned food. Not huge amounts of anything, but enough to get buy for a couple of days if required.
Of course the personal finance side you would also ask: do you know what your insurance will cover? Or won’t cover? In my case I’ve ready to go, mostly, our coverage is up for renewal right away and my premiums are increasing a fair bit to cover the higher value of rebuilding the house if required. I might complain a bit, but in the end I’ll shut up and pay because it’s cheaper than rebuilding my house by myself. Also I do get a claims free discount and I’ve increased my deductible to help keep my yearly cost down.
So how would you do if a disaster strikes? Could you survive the short term? Do you have insurance?
Posted by Canadian Dream on June 24, 2010
Due to an odd set of circumstances my wife has actually agreed to one of my crazy social experiments in spending. So starting in July for two weeks we plan to buy just $25 of food and live off that for two weeks (or just $0.45 per person per day). Are we crazy? Have I lost my mind?
No, instead I want to test a theory that food is a huge blind spot for a lot of people. We often assume we can’t cut back on our spending for a short while, for example if you get laid off. So I want to test a theory that with minimal money and what we happen to have around the house we should be able to each just fine for two weeks. Also I do enjoy the challenge of trying to cook with what every happens to be in the fridge. This just happens to be the extreme version of that.
Yet of course there are going to be a few ground rules in this experiment:
- This does not affect my wife’s daycare food (lunch or snacks during the week). That comes from a different pool of money and my wife is required to meet certain standards so those meals can’t be touched. Besides the entire month is planned out in advance for the daycare.
- I can use anything that happens to be in the house as of right now. I can’t go stock up before hand to make this easier on myself.
- My pre-paid orders at the farmer’s market don’t count towards that $25. I have already paid for those months ago. Also it isn’t much food and a limited selection since the season has just started. I can’t just eat salad for two weeks (beside the boys don’t like salad).
- We can’t eat out any more than normal. I can’t line up invites to eat at other people’s houses to escape this.
- If we have company I can’t exceed the budget. They will have to eat what ever I’m cooking.
I’ll keep you all updated with a couple of posts on this experiment during July. So stay tuned. How about you, have you ever managed to eat really cheap for a short while? If so, any advice for me while we do this?
Posted by Canadian Dream on June 23, 2010
If you have been reading my Twitter feed you already know this, but for everyone else: my boss said yes to my proposal to drop down to 80% time starting in July. The paperwork is signed and now making its way through the maze called HR. The plan is for me to have every Friday off, so I’ll have a permanent long weekend (if the six month trial works out fine). If things go well my first Friday off will be on July 2, just in time to make a four day weekend. 
I’m full of mixed emotions at the moment about the decision. On one hand I’m happy and the other I’m a bit shocked. I asked to reduce my hours, but in some respects I didn’t really think they would let me do it. After all it’s very unusual to have a guy in their early thirties ask to work part time. I’m not being sexist here, but it is true. There are a couple of woman I know who have done this at my company or perhaps a person close to retirement, but not a young guy with kids.
The other feeling I’m wresting with is being prepared to let go of my dream of retirement at 45. I haven’t done the math yet, but I’m sure this decision will cost me a fair bit of time on the other end. I’m happy to have more time now, but I’m a little unsure about how I’ll adjust to working longer. I’ve been working towards this dream for a long time and to have to potentially let go of it will be hard.
So how much will this cost me? On the surface you would just take my salary and times it by 20% to get a figure of around $15,000 to $16,000, but the really isn’t correct. Since I pay no longer pay income tax, CPP or EI on the that income, my reduction in after tax pay should be closer to $8500 a year. Which if you work it out means I’m buying my time back for almost half of what my salary pays me an hour. Overall I think I’m getting a steal of a deal on that front.
I’m waiting to get my actual numbers from HR to start modeling the fall out of this decision, but being the numbers geek that I am I did some preliminary modeling. The most obviously short term effect is it is likely impossible to meet my mortgage reduction goal for this year. I just can’t make that short fall up, but I will still try to get my mortgage as close to $78,000 as I can. In the longer term I’ve estimated it will take about an extra 6 months to pay off my mortgage. So rather than it being done by mid-2012 I’ve been pushed back that to late 2012 or very early 2013. Overall a modest impact.
Overall I think the choice will be worth it. I’m so looking forward to my summer now with my board work done until late August. So perhaps all of this goes to show, you never know what you can do until you ask. So how about you? Would you give up 20% of your pay for more time at some point in your career?
