Zero Money to Hero Money

Charts

admin — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:49:42 +0000

Charts and spreadsheets are always fun, especially when you’re a nerd, work at a software development company and love math. They’re not fun when you realize how much money you spend. I’ve been using google spreadsheets since they came out to budget etc, recently (november 1st) I started tracking all of my spending and my grocery purchases. Here’s a couple of charts that from the data:

I’m an idiot…

admin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:44:20 +0000

Went to futureshop this weekend, bought an xBox, RockBand 2, 1 year online subscription, and a warranty.. the damage $700. I guess I have to give up going out and drinking for the next 3 months, at least I’ll have something fun to do! I’m somewhat ashamed that I went out and did this. Oh well.

Grocery Problem?

admin — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:20:35 +0000

I’ve been keeping track since last week of my grocery spending, I’ve hit up the grocery store a couple of times. Saturday I bought some steaks, Monday I bought some chicken, and today I bought more steaks. Along with the steak, comes expensive cheese. In just over 1 week I’ve spent $25 on cheese, and over $75 on meats (including deli meats). I am entertaining my parents this evening (making tenderloins) for 4 people (parents + myself + girlfriend) so that’s about $25 of the meats, so I guess that’s a little more than I would purchase in a 2 week period. I have a feeling by next paycheque I’ll have spent close to $250 on groceries, instead of $100 like I had budgetted. Maybe I should cut back on the delicious cheeses and expensive steaks and limit myself to once a month..

Keeping track of the Groceries

admin — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:36:34 +0000

I’ve decided to start up yet another spreadsheet thanks to the idea I got from a post by Always the Planner who got the idea from a post by Counting My Pennies on keeping track of the money you spend on groceries.. but with a twist. Rather than just keep track of how much is spent in total, it’s broken down into smaller subjects, fruits/vegetables/juices/etc. I tend to eat a lot of the same things, and while I budget myself a certain amount for groceries every pay cheque, I think I almost always go over.

My new spreadsheet in Google docs has a running total for each category in 1 column, and each column after that is for each date. Pretty simple. It will be interesting to see in a few weeks where I spend my money, and if I conciously change what I purchase because of this. I bring my lunch to work everyday, and eat it after I hit the gym at lunch hour, so I need a lot of little snacks to keep me energized and to prevent me from hitting up the vending machine, hence the seeds, nuts, berries, yogurts and puddings. Here’s this weeks grocery trip:

berries $5.00
bread $3.29
cheese $4.69
coffee/tea/hot choc $4.39
cottage cheese $3.39
deli meats $10.97
eggs $2.79
fruit $1.79
juice $0.00
junk food $0.00
meats $6.80
pudding $0.00
salad $3.49
seeds/nuts $8.28
vegetables $4.84
yogurt $4.99
Total $64.71

house value.. gone up!

admin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:15:32 +0000

Well this is great, my builder updated their website today, and my condo unit is now selling for $10,000 more than what I had paid for it originally 10 months ago. The base price without any upgrades is now $189,900, that’s a 5.3% increase in value in less than a year, now I’m not sure I could re-coup that much money if I decided to sell today, and I don’t know how much higher my property will be valued at as time goes on, but it was still nice to see. They have 5 more full buildings to build, which will house about 40 units total, once that’s complete, they’re out of land. I guess this is pretty good, they don’t have that much land near where I live to build more houses, so its proximity to downtown (5 mins by car, 10 by bus) is pretty good for value. The only reason it’s not worth more, is probably due to its proximity to the ghetto, or lower income housing. Ah well, good first property.

I get paid on Friday, which means I’ll have double the amount I need for each bill/payment sitting in my bank accounts. While it’s a nice cushion, I think I’m going to take everything out except for my travel/rrsp/emergency fund, and apply it to debt. I’m thinking of paying off my 0% couch loan, and moving those payments over onto my LOC. It sort of makes no sense because I don’t have any interest on the couch loan, and have until september to pay it off. But I feel that if I start having less payments I’ll be a lot happier and easier to manage. So I’ll be tackling the couch loan this week, the LOC will be next, followed by the Home Theatre Loan, then the Car Loan.

I’m still contemplating selling my car, which I really really like, to pay off the car loan, and purchase an older car for a 1/4 the price instead. Maybe after this winter

Trips are expensive..

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:46:56 +0000

Well I updated my little side bar, that extra $850 I made doing webdesign before I left on my trip.. I spent on my trip. I went about $1000 over my estimated budget, in 1 week, it didn’t help that we went out for fancy dinners, I lost my wallet, and some of the transportation we used was fairly expensive. I’m not all that worried, I wish I had been more responsible, but now I’ll just have to work some more freelance and put that money aside.

I updated my goal slider on the right hand side, basically I’m going to keep up with my automagic payments to everything, on pay-day, and hopefully get some extra income to throw at the LOC. After my next paycheque, I should have a good surplus in all of my accounts, basically 1 paycheque worth of emergency funds money, that I’ll transfer over to that account. I’m not sure if it’s better to take that saved money and pay down my LOC, or to keep it in savings, and just pay down my LOC as I go.

I also have the 2 loans or 0% financing for the couch and the home theatre. Currently I’m paying the HT down 4 months ahead of schedule, ideally I’d like to have it paid off in 1 year, even though it is at 0% for the full 36 months. The couch I’m hoping to pay off by April.

My first real mortgage payment went thru last week as well, while I was on vacation. $713 semi-monthly, puts me at right around 15 years to pay it off. I was originally putting $550 down, but the bank made a mistake and wrote 550 for bi-weekly, even though I have signed papers saying it was 550 semi-monthly. So when I went in to change it, they had to make it $585 semi-monthly to have the same term, I decided to just move it up to $600, the extra $113 is for property taxes. All these bills are expensive! But I’m keeping good track and staying on top of them.

Mortgage Rates down.. woohoo.. bills up boo

admin — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:19:45 +0000

So I’ve been in my place for almost a month now, and haven’t really had any bills except for the water tank. I’m expecting a big one for Hydro (about $300) due to their initial deposit that you must make when opening a new account, and I have no idea what to expect for enbridge gas, I haven’t even turned on the furnace yet, it seems to stay at a comfortable 72 (I have it programmed to keep the temp at 62) without me doing anything. I’m sure they’ll over estimate, and I’ll pay through the nose and build up a sweet little credit. I have my online banking so automated I can just press snooze and make sure I don’t blow through cash. I have $300 a month being put aside for utilities (hydro and gas) with this month being a triple paycheque month, I should have $450 before anything is due, and that will hopefully allow me a surplus, or to at least break even.

I have another payment since last time, I decided I didn’t want to wait on a home theatre, so I purchased the entire thing on credit.. stupid I know. So right now I’m sitting on the following debt:

$2,000 in a line of credit at 8%
$1,050 on a citi finacial mastercard at 0% until sept 2009 - couch
$3,600 on a desjardins visa at 0% for 3 years with $100 monthly installments due - TV
$12,500 at about 7% for a car loan, for my car that I estimate to be worth about $15-16,000
Mortgage for $169,600 at 3.74%

stupidly I’ve spread myself pretty thin, and feel like a bit of an idiot. Luckily this month I’ve already made $1100 in extra income, and it’s a 3 paycheque month. I have $850 due from the $1100 still, and I’m hoping to recoupe that this week. Saturday I leave for Vancouver for 1 week, and already have $600 set aside for spending money, the hotel is paid for one night, concert tickets as well, and the girlfriend has arranged for us to meet friends with cars

I’m still not sure what to do with that $850, plus any extra income I should be getting. I guess the smart thing to do would be pay down the line of credit. However I’m tempted to swallow the little bit of interest that I’m paying, and put it all towards the couch loan, and have that paid off entirely, then move my payments from that over to the line of credit. I think I would feel safer paying off less things rather than more things on a monthly basis.

House closed, moved in

admin — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:56:03 +0000

So yesterday I got the keys to my first house, and I’m officially back to broke. I’ve started up my automatic banking transactions and it’s pretty exciting to get everything set up and going so that I don’t have to worry about too much. My mortgage payments are going to be $550 twice a month, giving me about 16 years until it’s paid off. I’m using a variable rate mortgage which is currently at 3.99% (Prime - 0.76%), if you’re out getting a mortgage, I highly advise getting 2 mortgage brokers, letting them get you quotes, then a month or two later, telling each of them that you have another broker, and that their rate is better. I went from getting Prime-0.6% to Prime-0.76%. Neither of them were pleased, and I’m sure it cut into their commission, but it worked out great for me

So for automated bills I have the following that I already know about:

$550 mortgage 1st and 15th
$125 property taxes 1st and 15th
$96 condo fees 1st
$135 camera lease 1st
$300 RRSP 1st and 15th

I also have to get my car loan in order, and that should be a couple hundred per paycheque as well. Fun times! I’m glad I don’t have any credit card or student loan debts to deal with! And I’m really happy my first month where mortgages are due, I have 3 paycheques instead of 2. I opted for the semi-monthly payments on the mortgage, because the company I work for was bought by another company who is switching us from bi-weekly pay, to semi-monthly pay cheques in the new year. I personally hate the semi-monthly pay cheques, but I have a feeling it will make sorting out bills a lot easier. Maybe I’ll post some photos once I get my place all sorted out.

5 days till closing..

admin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:58:48 +0000

I’m 5 days away to owning my first condo, I managed to scrape together $28,000 to put down and pay for my lawyers fees. Not quite the 15 or 20% that I was hoping for, but it’s still pretty good. The place (a 2 floor condo, just outside of downtown Ottawa) I purchased cost just over $190,000, I have my mortgage sorted out so that it’s affordable and should be paid off in just over 15 years. My goals going forward are to increase the payments to get it to a state where it will be paid off in less than 15 years, and eventually in under 10 years from the purchase date. Mortgage rates are holding strong, so my first interest will be at just 3.99% which is great!

My spending has gotten out of control though, it’s hard not to go and buy everything you think you need, not to mention all the extras you completely forgot about. I purchased a new bed, bedding and matress on the weekend, basically blew half my paycheque in one afternoon. I also started seeing a new girl in July who is now my girlfriend, and have been spending like crazy as we head out on too many adventures. I also know that coming up in the next month or two, I’m going to have a lot of expenses. I have a trip to Vancouver that I’ve already paid for, and have some money set aside for. But I also need a lot of stuff around the house.

Tuesday I hand over the remaining $18,000 to my lawyer, and get the keys on wednesday. Can’t wait.

Goals:

- October get back on track with a real budget, and using my planned accounts

- Contribute $300 to my RRSP each pay cheque

- Start building out my accounts with money (emergency, expected expenses, savings etc)

Mortgages.. finally got mine sorted out

admin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:38:01 +0000

So with the purchase of a new house comes the need to borrow a boat load of money and pay tons of interest over a set period of time. When I originally signed the agreement to purchase my home I needed to be pre-approved for a mortgage, the builder (Richcraft) suggested that I use this broker from TD who is affiliated with that site and could give a 120 day guaranteed rate. So I contacted him, and set everything up. 4 months or so passed and I still had about 7 months to go till I moved in, so I started investigating other brokers who deal with more than one bank. I found another broker and got her to get me some rates.

After doing a lot of research I decided to go with a variable rate 5 year mortgage. I was quote at prime - 0.6%. Here’s where (at least I think so) my intelligence kicked in, about 2 weeks ago I let both brokers know that I had another broker, and told both of them that the other one was going to get me prime - 0.75% . Not wanting to lose the work they put into me, they both went to work trying to beat that rate, the original guy who works solely with TD ended up on top with prime -0.76% while the other could only muster up a prime - 0.7%.

So this week I’m going in to sign my variable rate mortgage with prime -0.76%, I’m pretty happy I managed to get an extra 0.16% off my interest. It all adds up in the long run!