Happy Halloween!

The most wonderful time of the year has arrived!!! This morning I wore all black and a carnival eye mask to pass out freebies downtown for work. And tonight I am off to party as a 1940s gangster. I know, I was supposed to be a paper bag princess and I was super excited until Wednesday night when my friend informed me that this girl going to the same party was dressing up like that too. I am not one to show up somewhere in the same dress as someone else and so last minute I scrounged my closet to put something together. My shoes were the inspiration of the entire outfit.
Still super cheap for me to put together and I plan on looking hot enough to melt all of the ghosts and goblins ;)

Hope everyone has a spook-tacular day.

Butterfly Kisses

Making up for Past Mistakes awarded me with a BUTTERFLY Award! Thank you so much :) I am sure you can tell based on the title of my blog that I love the butterflies. I have always felt an attraction to butterflies like most girls and then after a horrible break-up many years ago I stumbled upon two quotes that aided my decision to make the butterfly my emblem. The first quote was: If it weren't for change, we wouldn't have butterflies. I was able to see that change was a good thing. The second quote was: what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. This enlightened me to see that my break up was not the end of the world, and there was hope I would morph into something beautiful from all of the sadness. I collect butterflies or little bits of beauty in the hopes of becoming the woman I want to be -- financially, socially and emotionally.

I award this butterfly award to:
♫ Dolly Iris
and
♪ Canadian Saver

These two ladies have read my blog from almost day one and motivated me to keep writing which in turns has been aiding my finances. Thanks Ladies. ☺

Historical Returns

Today is the anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash. Interesting I noted that during this time where everyone is worried about the economy. I am not too worried about it. I know this isn't the first down and that there will be another up followed by a down as that's the way life goes. I know that people have survived all of the other downs and I am sure we will all survive this one too. And I know that as much as money makes life comfortable, it doesn't make life so there is no sense stressing about a market that is volatile.

Grumpkins

I depleted some of my emergency fund to pay all of my bills this morning. My phone bill was due and I figured while I was paying it, I would just pay the utility bill and the Internet bill at the same time. I should have paid them with my chequing account, but on Sunday I was at Wal-Mart buying bread making ingredients and then looked through their clothes and found a skirt and a couple turtle necks that I could use for work. Plus I needed some tights as it is getting cold out (PS I hate winter, yet refuse to leave Canada....). So over all I spent something like $80 on clothes and $15 on ingredients. I am happy with my purchases because I need more professional looking stuff for work. I used to work in a warehouse where there was no dresscode and I lived in jeans. Now I am in an office where jeans can only be worn on Fridays. I have made it through my first year, but last winter I was freezing as my hoodie was not really appropriate.
I bought bread making ingredients because my friend gave me her bread maker when she moved. I love it!!! My house smells awesome (baked bread is my favorite smell ever) and I have a fresh loaf of bread for peanut butter sandwiches. Yummy!
So yes, I "borrowed" some money out of my emergency fund, but plan on paying it back on November 6, with the money I would have used to pay my bills. I just don't like looking at bills. It's like they taunt me until I pay them.

PS. My last post may look blank, but its really a secret code (not really that secret) for my new BLOG background. Not sure if I really like the overall look, but I was home sick yesterday and playing around.

PPS. I miss relaxing in a cafe in Latvia drinking turkish coffee. Just randomly throwing that out there.

More reasons why I can't wait to own my own house

1) I don't have to deal with a crazy landlord anymore. The only crazy landlord will be me
2)I won't have loud neighbors downstairs that think I actually enjoy listening to their music and didn't really want to watch a show on tv (in fairness, I actually save electricity this way because some of their music is okay...but Wednesday nights for some reason is Michael Jackson night --I think she is cleaning--and it makes me want to scream!!! haha)
3)I also won't have to deal with said neighbors when they blow a fuse and need to come upstairs because the fuses are in my house (wouldn't be an issue except it is a very frequent thing --figure out which appliances can't be on together so you don't overload the circut!!)

I wish I lived...

...in the states today. Linen and Things is supposed to start liquidating their stores as early as today. Apparently the Canadian ones are doing well. I wanted couch covers as my cat has done a number on my couch with his claws. He doesn't think I understand his artistic vision. I don't. *sigh*

So....

I have used my $500 windfall to remove the Banff Hotel charge off of my credit card reconciliation spreadsheet. Yesterday I also applied my toy store pay cheque of $157 to my credit card as well as $93 from my full-time job. I was able to apply approx $750 this weekend and cleaned up a lot of little charges. Some of the charges were from cab fares back and forth to events for my full time job that I will be reimbursed for.
I worked both Sunday and Monday of this weekend at the toy store and on Monday was paid time and a half for the hours I put in (yay to holidays!). My next pay cheque from the toy store should be around $255 and this too shall be directly applied to my credit card.
On Saturday I plan on bringing all of my rolled coin, as well as leftover British money to the bank, and boosting my down payment account.
This month is looking really great financially.

I am working away in my Canadian Lit course as I am hoping to complete it by December 17, 2008. It's a tight timeline, but if I complete it I will have covered enough credits this year to be considered a full time student come tax time which should help me in the tax return department. This course should also keep me busy enough that I won't be spending copious amounts of money on entertainment in the next couple of months.

$500 windfall

Last March, for my birthday, A handed me a card with the note that he would pay for one of my courses. Yesterday evening (being as I just started my two new courses), I received an email with a $500 bank transfer. Right away I applied this to my credit card. He also emailed me $44 for his Alberta Health Care this month and I transferred that to my down payment account.
Today, I am baking for the United Way bake sale taking place at work on Tuesday. I am super excited to spend an afternoon with friends decorating Halloween cupcakes and making peanut butter cookies. Bakerella is our inspiration (although I do believe she needs to venture away from the cake pops. I get it, you're amazing and make cute cake pops. Move on!) and you should check her blog out sometime at www.bakerella.com
I am too lazy to link right now.

TGI A Long weekend!!!

It's Thanksgiving. The time of year where the great Turkey is honoured and celebrated. I hate turkey. I think all bird is pretty gross actually. I look forward to this time of year because it means a long weekend (woohoo!!!) and usually a good deal of pumpkin pie.
I am working at the toy store on Sunday and Monday. On Monday I should be getting paid time and a half. All of this money is going to my credit card which was used to pay for my two courses in school I just started and needs to be taken down again. I can't wait till school is over and my credit card is paid off. And I don't have to work part-time anymore.
A and I are talking about moving in together in April when my lease is up. That would mean I would be cutting my expenses all in half. Right now I pay $1200 a month in rent and about $200 in bills (less in summer, more in winter). If A and I move in together, I would have about $700 extra a month to put towards debt, my downpayment, my emergency fund and paying for school. The issue is, A and I tried living together before and he couldn't handle that I was always around (I lived there!!! Where was I supposed to go?) and we decided to live seperately again. He says that this time he is ready. I think I am not so sure I am anymore. It makes financial sense, but there is a sense he may not be ready again and I can't go through life with an open door policy (does that even make sense?). I am also hoping that my dad's carrot of a loaned downpayment comes through....
I love living on my own. I want to blast Madonna and dance around...no one stops me. I want quiet while I read, I don't turn anything on. I guess I will see how I feel in February or March. Sometimes I think i would like him to move in now. Other times I wonder if our arrangement now is the best one. But like his mom stated, eventually we will probably have to live together (you know, when we marry and have babies...)

Anyway, hope you all enjoy your weekend of the bird.

WOW!!!

I received my marks back yesterday evening for my research paper and my final grade. Even though my research paper was 3 pages short (it was supposed to be between 10-12 pages, but I handed in 7 --and not even because there was a total of half a sentence on page 7), I received 94%!!! WooHoo!!! The feedback I received was that it was well written, the research integrated nicely and a good use of all 7 of my research sources. So, although I thought for sure I bombed my final exam from lack of preparing and wrote my paper the last minute (And I am talking last minute as everything had to be submitted September 30th and I emailed that paper on 11:20pm September 30th), I pulled off an A- in the course!! The sad thing is, this really didn't teach me anything except that I can get things done in the final hour and pull off great grades. I wonder if I had bombed everything if I would force myself to prepare better next time...
So it's the final quarter of the year. Overall I feel that I have had a pretty great year. I have finished three courses for school, was able to travel to Latvia and England, and have gained more control of my finances although I can still better myself in that department. The final quarter I have started on two more courses for school and I have been working on my last quarter financial plan today.

Dear Canadian Government

Thank you for depositing my GST cheque today and pimping out my account. I feel like Xhibit has placed an LCD screen in my mud flaps. You rock like the shamrock.

~Arual

October's Goals

A new month, a new slate and no more worrying about Child Development! And October contains my favorite holiday (Halloween :))! I have decided to go as the paper bag princess this year. I had to analyze this story for my Children's Literature course two summers ago and have a new found respect for it. I also found a paper leaf bag for fall clean up that will be long enough to cover me like a dress. Some soot and some messed up hair and a tiara and I should be good to go. I am considering photocopying images from the story to decoupage onto my "dress" just in case there are people out there who have no idea who the paper bag princess is (and if you don't --shame on you. Go read some Robert Munsch, I also recommend Mud Puddle and Mortimer).
So my goals for this month are not too crazy as I learned my lesson last month when I had two melt downs due to school stress.
1)Pay off Banff Hotel Charge ($484.88)
2)Finish up Literature of the Americas course (aka my English Essay that I have procrastinated on)
3)Create a study Schedule for the two courses that I started yesterday
4)No Spending Ts (I stole this from Frugal Dreamer)
5) Read first 2 books of each course (4 books total, but I am almost done the first one)

The last goal may be the hardest to complete, but I figure that as long as I plug away at it, it's not entirely impossible. I read on the bus and before bed now anyway. It may as well be school reading. I thought I could finish these two courses in 3 months, but I don't want the stress I felt in September to happen in December (with Christmas that month too!), so I have decided to try and finish one for sure in 3 months and the other I will give myself a little more time. That means I will only receive 18 credits this year instead of the 21 I want. The nice thing is that one of the courses doesn't have any exams --just two papers. That takes away the stress of scheduling exams!