Posted by Sheryl on March 29, 2012
This is a guest post from Sheryl in Ontario, who is 40 years old with a grown daughter, and is trying to rebuild her retirement dream just 20 years too late for early retirement.
That small stash of cash I have had for emergencies? Gone. The line of credit I had set up for emergencies? Used. March has not been kind to me. My boyfriend’s father passed away (it was expected) so we had to go out of town for the funeral. Fortunately, I have family with whom we could spend the night, so expenses were kept to a minimum, mainly gas and about $20 for food on the road.
While we were away, I got into a fender bender with my van. The van is 15 years old, and knowing that insurance companies will only pay up to the value of the car in repairs, I didn’t have collision coverage. (By the way, I’ve been driving for 24 years, and other than a small collision 2 months after I got my license, this is my first accident.) This has cost me about $2,500 (including hiring someone to fight my ticket, don’t want my insurance to go up, so I think it will be worth it). I also finalized my taxes, and I owe approximately $1,800. ( I know what I did wrong last year, but didn’t think a few “small” amounts would add up so fast, lesson learned). On top of that, 2 of my closet inserts collapsed this month, not too much expense, but time and stress when I didn’t need it (patching walls, cleaning up smashed nail polish bottles out of my carpet).
Getting towards the end of the month, I noticed myself getting into my old way of thinking. “Things have already been so bad, and expensive, why not just make this a really bad month and start fresh next month being REALLY good with my money”. The old me would then go and do a big grocery shop, and then look to see if anything was coming up to being replaced (those sheets/towels/jeans are wearing thin, I better replace them), and buy anything I’d been putting off until things were “better”. Of course all the stress of having a bad time would result in more eating at restaurants, and perhaps other leisure activities to numb the stress. I caught myself wanting to do this, but did not follow through. OK, maybe one extra food shopping trip that was less than $20 for non-essentials. It got me thinking about why I fell into this trap though.
I work in the accounting department of a car dealership, and every month I produce a financial statement. Years ago, when the store wasn’t doing well, when we were having a bad month, we would put expenses that normally would get accrued, or that we knew would be coming up (repairs to the building etc) all into that bad month, and start fresh the next month. Over the course of the year, it would show that we had one or two disastrous months, but the other months looked great. It was all mind games for the owner (I was instructed to do that by the managers, a lot of politics at the time). I was learning this at the same time I was learning how to look after my own finances, and applied the same principle. It’s similar to being on a weight loss diet, eating a piece of cake, and deciding that the day is already blown, so I may as well have fish & chips for dinner, and go back to behaving tomorrow.
Unfortunately, I have found that my personal finance cannot be approached in the same manner. I can use averages of months as a guide, but I have to look at the big picture too. Using a setback as an easy excuse to relax my self discipline is not going to get me where I want to be in 5 or 10 years.
I’m proud that I figured out why I used to do that, and that I can change how I think now. The financial damage in March has been controlled, and I think April (and possibly May) will be a “spend nothing” month to get as much of this paid back as I can.
What bad habits have you changed, or are changing with your financial behavior?
Posted by Dave on March 13, 2012
This is a guest post by Dave, who is also looking to retire no later than 45, but unlike Tim has no kids and doesn’t want any. Dave is from Ontario and is working towards his CGA certification.
This week is just one of those weeks for me that is going to cost a bit of money to get through. I am in need of three service people in order to look after the stuff I own. In the first case, I need to get my brakes checked as well as my winter tires switched to summer (since I think winter is done here in Ontario now). Secondly, for one reason or another my main computer decided it didn’t want to start. This sounds like a “rich person problem”, that I have to do things like my homework and write this post on my second computer, but that’s the case. Finally, there is a small leak somewhere above my kitchen that I need to call a plumber about before my bathtub upstairs ends up on top of my stove downstairs.
All three of these repair and maintenance tasks I could probably figure out for myself, either by reading books or watching you tube videos (which I have found to be an excellent resource in most home improvement or mechanical problems in the past). My issue right now is that I don’t really have the time to figure out the problem and fix it. I need to get my tires changed anyways, so I might as well get the brakes checked while they already have the tires off. I found a University kid on Kijiji who said he could diagnose any computer problem for $20. Finally, I think it would just be easier to get a plumber in to check the pipe, as I have minimal experience in plumbing and I would prefer that the job was done correctly.
One solution to these issues is to have less stuff – get rid of the car, and the computer, and get a house that I can maintain on my own (which I think is an excellent argument for a Tiny House). This reduction would automatically reduce maintenance costs and would probably allow us to live someplace smaller.
A second option would be to make the time to fix these (seemingly) simple things. Right now I have school (finishing up my CGA courses) and a full time job, leaving just enough time to hang out with my wife and see the odd friend once in a while. I am hoping that in retirement the gain in time will allow me to do some of this stuff myself.
For now though, the tradeoff seems reasonable – I try to fix the really simple stuff that won’t take too long and outsource the rest. I try to find dependable people for the things that need it like the plumbing and my car (I’m not too worried about my computer problem, hence the Kijiji search for “cheap computer repairs”) or make do without or attempt repairs on my own.
What do you outsource? Do you think if you had more time, you’d do more of your own repairs or home improvement?
Posted by Sheryl on March 7, 2012
This is a guest post from Sheryl (a.k.a Cdn Gwen) in Ontario, who is 40 years old with a grown daughter, and is trying to rebuild her retirement dream just 20 years too late for early retirement.
One area I’m still guilty of overspending compulsive spending is groceries. I think that in my past, I could justify “retail therapy” if it was something that would benefit my family, and not go to waste. Effectively what I’ve done is tricked myself into thinking I’ve tamed the spending beast. The more I’ve been watching what I spend money on, the more I feel I’m getting this under control, and I know I can only fight one big beast at a time.
I feel I’m ready to set a small challenge to myself. In my food stock, I have several odd ingredients that have accumulated from different sources. Sometimes I see a recipe I’d like to try (and then don’t get to it ) that has a random thing in it that I have to purchase (and if I see it on sale, I’ll buy two, such as coconut milk or curry paste), or a friend will be clearing out her cupboard and offer me things she hasn’t used and doesn’t think she will (four graham crumb crusts), or my daughter, the vegan, will come for dinner and bring sauces which we will use only half of and leave them here (black bean and garlic sauce, tapenade, mushroom stir fry oil), or my boyfriend will go shopping and buy something he thought was something else (frozen Chinese steam buns instead of wontons). Time to use these up.
My challenge for myself for the month of March is to use all all the odd foods in my pantry. Some will just be a matter of making sure I use them (Chinese steam buns, stir fry sauces), others I’ll have to make an effort to make something with (graham cracker crusts = cheesecake = not good for my weight loss challenge at work, but at least my boyfriend loves cheesecake). The biggest challenge I see is finding a use for the coconut milk and the tapenade.
Anyone have any suggestions how to use these items? What are your odd foods in your food stock?
