Friday, October 29, 2010

Weekly Wrap

Heart Beat:

Dear Daughter continues to improve. She had a friend over today and they worked on school assignments all day. Now she is relaxing with yet another Harry Potter book.  The pain is more manageable and she is sleeping better: she said to me yesterday that all she can do is keep telling the truth to whoever asks about the accident. While waiting is hard it's not nearly as hard when we're doing it together.

Financial Beat:

It's a wrap! The end of another loooonnnng week and for me, the end of the month. I get paid on the last day of the month and if it falls on the weekend then I get paid on the Friday prior making today - PAYDAY! Gee, it seems like it just was payday last week but it's been two weeks! Wow, time flies even when you're NOT spending money - what a concept!

I met my goals for this month - I paid down the line of credit by $1000 (plus the interest) and saved almost 30% of my income - $1400 (split between TFSA, Emergency and RSPs).  My Christmas/Birthday account doesn't get a weekly/monthly deposit as it was an afterthought and didn't make it into my original budget so it is the recipient of any extra money I can squeeze out of my misc., food and gas budgets. The past two weeks I didn't use any of my gas budget ($150) as DD and DP (dear partner) fed the car so that $$ went into the Christmas account.  I also slip spare change and whatever else I can wring out of an already squeezed dry budget into the Crofters Lane Jar as well as any snowflakes that come my way.

Today I spent just $88 of my next $250 for food as we are very well stocked and spent only $15 on gas for the rental. I'm not going to put much gas in it at a time as I don't know when I'll be returning it. No more news from the insurance company so the state of limbo continues. I'm a lot calmer about it all today - it's out of my control for now so will just have faith that it will all unfold as it should. I have appreciated the support and advice from you all.

November will be a "mystery month" for now as we wait to hear about the car. It will have some sort of impact on the budget and I will likely have to rework the numbers somewhat. To what extent remains a "mystery"! Just one more challenge to meet with humour and perseverence:)  The good news is that I don't pay property tax in Nov. and Dec. being on a ten month payment plan so that will be another $304 going into the Christmas fund which will almost bring me to my goal so YAY! for Christmas:) Other goal for November - start my 10 lb. weight loss goal - GO ME!

8 comments:

  1. I'm so glad your daughter is doing better! That can be so scary.

    GREAT job on a very successful month!! It's amazing when we are mindful of our spending. I was able to throw $500.00 into savings this month through careful spending, and I had money left in my envelopes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Time flies no matter what you do with it. It's so great to hear your daughter is doing so well. 30% savings is pretty amazing. I thought I was doing fairly well getting 20% of our income into savings. Hope the car hunting finds you something you like.
    Hugs

    ReplyDelete
  3. So glad to hear your daughter is doing well!

    Love the Pumpkin Patch Picture!

    Congratulations on doing so well on your October budget! You are in control of your money and it shows.
    I hope November has no BIG financial surprises for you and all goes well with the Insurance company.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow Wow Wow on all counts 30% thats amazing, and by the sounds of it you still have money which you can add to that.

    Glad you are feeling less stressed by a situation which is really beyond your control, and that DD is feeling better.

    ReplyDelete
  5. so very happy to hear that your daughter is doing better & also very happy to hear that you did well on all of your goals this month! yippee!!!!

    lets hope for great things in November

    ReplyDelete
  6. I had payday Thurs - it's set up like yours but for some reason ours deposits at the bank a day early! but I set down to do the dave ramsey cash flow plan and ran out of money! oh well better do some tweaking though this month will change since I'm going out of town Monday for close to a week and working most of the following week so I'll spend on gas but not groceries so that part of the budget will be left over. I need to get over this all or nothing mentality with money and weight and learn to be flexible!
    Susanna

    ReplyDelete
  7. Susanna: when it comes to money (and weight) it is setting yourself up for failure to think "all or nothing" because it takes so many tiny steps and the ability to get satisfaction out of seemily NOTHING sometimes to keep us going. I think that's why so many of us blog about it - having a sense of community helps provide the encouragement we need to keep going as it would be so much easier to just say to hell with it. Ya gotta just keep plugging away and know that somewhere down the line (read - far off distant future!) we will be able to see the difference we have made - by counting the pennies AND calories. Some days it seems particularly painful but reading those comments everyday DOES make an incredible difference. But it's not for everyone - it's all about comfort level for sure. (And I'm doing better with the pennies than with the eating - I guess we can't have it all)...or can we?

    ReplyDelete
  8. reading these blogs does help! and I know I have a problem with all or nothing..not sure how I got that way but I did!
    I plan on doing my cashflow thingy this next week when I'm off work and at my parents'..I was crusinga long totally motivated until I hit a BIG assignment LOL! but I'll get through it. but the all or nothing now - it's like my next step in that program is to start paying off the car..I'm ready but oops forgot about christmas! so now I need to start with christmas stuff and the'big' project I was about to do will ahve to wait! but christmas is important to me so it's just a small blip in the road.
    I just wish I'd been born with a terrific metabolism I could keep through life and frugal genes LOL!

    Susanna

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your comment - it means a lot to me that you read my post and are leaving a comment - you just made my day!