Of Course I'm Sick

I'm officially on Christmas holiday until Wednesday aaaaaand I'm sick.

Yesterday was a nice day at work, everyone was in a good mood. We had 'formal' day at the branch and stayed after we closed to enjoy some of the goodies members had been dropping off throughout the week. Lots of wine, chocolates, cheese, crackers, etc. Some of the staff that weren't working that day even stopped in for our little feast - it was nice to catch up before the holidays and to wrap up a difficult week. Difficult week with staffing because everyone, and I mean everyone, was sick. And now it's my turn.

Started Wednesday with a cough, Thursday with an even nastier cough with coughing fits, yesterday more crackling cough, and today with everything moving to my sinus'. My head feels like a stone and my lungs/chest ache. Today and tomorrow I'm taking it easy in hopes that at least my cough will be gone for Christmas. G is working evenings so the couch and Netflix's are calling my name. 

I've started entering some information into our tax software. I recieved my T4 yesterday with my last paycheque for the year. Donation receipts I had printed and kept during the year, and our Graduate Retention program number I pull from last years notice of assessments. All my 'big' information is entered and it looks like a refund. G's we will have to wait as we don't get his T4 until the very last day in February. As other information comes in I can enter it so it's ready to go in March. < /nerd rant>

- M

Gross Water

G made it in late last night after his flight was delayed. Air Canada had to find a new plane due to issues with the door on the original plane - yikes! Glad he made it home safe. I always get nervous, not the air traffic but driving home in the dark late at night. The wild life in our area has been horrible recently, even though hunters have been all around. I almost hit a buck driving to work a few days ago and someone I work with just had their car written off after hitting a deer. Only a few more days until the winter solstice though! Yay longer days :)

I spent the afternoon and evening yesterday preparing our pot-luck dish plus some holiday treats, catching up on laundry and finishing watching Mr Robot Season 3 (sooooo good!!). It's been frustrating doing laundry as our town is having issues with our water. The water itself is fine but in the winter it always turns a disgusting brownish colour. Needless to say: my whites aren't really white anymore, even with bleach, borax, etc... We have a Reverse Osmosis (RO) system installed in our house for our drinking water but the town is getting RO system that should be up and running in the Spring. Until then I haven't even wanted to take a bath because it looks like I'm bathing in sewage; not exactly relaxing, lol. Once the new treatment plant is up and running I'm treating us to new white fluffy thick towels! Until then, slightly yellowed sad towels will have to do. (And yes, I know I can get coloured towels but I prefer everything in my bathroom to be white, white, white! Easy to bleach and clean lol).

G and I have tomorrow off for medical appointments. I have a general doctors appointment in the morning and then we both see our eye doctor in the city for the afternoon. Nice to get two appointments scheduled the same day to get them out of the way. I'm not sure if my eye script will change or not, possibly just my right eye which is not as clear as the left. We will find our tomorrow regardless.

- M

Sunday Happenings and October Plans

A nice relaxing Sunday here at our house. We took our time getting out of bed, as it was extra cuddly with G not having to run off to work and the windows having been open all night thanks to the mild weather. I love mornings like todays.

G started prepping dinner right away, searing pork shoulder and making sauce for slow cooker pulled pork. It smells so delicious, I keep wanting to open the lid lol. While he was doing that I tackled cleaning up some of the deck planters. I had planted some dahlias this year so I removed those bulbs and have them drying out so they can be stored for the winter. I also have a calla lily plant indoors that has started to go dormant, so I dug those bulbs out for winter storage as well. I transplanted a geranium plant to bring indoors - so we will see if that survives. I just have a few more planters to clean up this week and (sadly) store away the patio furniture. I'm not ready to let go of autumn yet :(

October is going to be a pretty social month for G and I. He is gone to Nashville next week for a bachelor party. G booked his plane ticket for $687.17 and he owes $284.00 for his share of the hotel, which will come out of the cash he is traveling with. I have been watching the rates at work and purchased $1000 USD. Lucky for me, working at a financial institution I can buy and sell USD for a preferred rate - every little bit counts! All of those expenses have been worked into our previous months budget so his trip shouldn't derail October at all.

For me: my best friend and I have a girls city trip planned. We will be staying one night at a hotel, which should work out to be about $82 for my share after taxes. Any shopping I do will come out of my own personal spending account, which I've been saving for this very trip. The meals out, however, will come out of our family budget (I'm estimating $200.00 for drinks and food). I'm really looking forward to this! We've had it planned for a while but it was difficult nailing down a weekend that worked for both of us during the summer. This is going to be one last alcohol-related-hurrah for her before she and her husband start trying for baby #2, so I really want her to enjoy herself. :) & me too of course!

My reading/blog writing nook in our basement
With our new addition to the indoor plant club  <3

The rest of the day we don't really have much planned. G is editing some of our Europe photos right now while I write this and I might help sort thru and flag some of our favourites. We get a photo book printed every year and our Europe trip alone has over 7000 photos - we've since decided this trip should be it's own book for good reasons, lol. Have a good Sunday !

- M 

Catching Up: The Job

Hi! Remember me?

I have so much stuff to write about but never had the time (or made the time) to update. Now that the cold weather has arrived (we had a major snow storm this week: see photo of me on our back deck) and yard work is pretty much off my schedule (see photo of potatoes) I'm making more time to get back to writing.

October 6th: Almost at the top of my boots!

One of the piles of potatoes 

One of the first major things to happen was I got a full time maternity-leave position at my work! I was hired back in July and the term will be until December 2017. As soon as the job was posted I got a call from my manager (I was at home that day) letting me know and if I wanted more information to call the other manager as he was hoping I would apply. I had a conversation with him and officially put my name in for consideration. Now, this is a very familiar story for me so I didn't get my hopes up about the job but sure enough a few days after the posting closed I had an offer! Which I didn't take. Nope, instead I countered for more pay. Now let me tell you, this was my first time ever countering an employment offer before and I was SO nervous. I did my research though, had reasons to back up my offer, went into the meeting with a level head: and got my raise! Technically they came in lower than what I wanted (but I went in high & knowing what my tipping point was). Also they tried to tell me this new salary would start in 3 months after my 'training' period but I flat out told them "No". The manager filled that awkward empty silence with a "Okay, it'll start right away."

I told G later that night when I got home from work that I didn't even know who I was: confident, but relaxed and at ease. But he made me realize it's because I wasn't desperate for this job. Yeah, I wanted it - it's a step up from what I was doing before and in an entirely new department - but we put ourselves in a position where financially we don't need my income. I don't feel that stress anymore.

Not needing my new income for our budget is awesome because I'm able to throw 100% of it at our car debt! Car debt???? Oh... I'll explain that in the next post.

- M

Bad Month

It’s been a weird month - hence me being quiet on my blog. This happened to me last time we moved, things are new and exciting the first few weeks. I’m busy organizing and cleaning, really motivated. Then things around the house start to settle and depression settles in aswell. This is obviously something I need to get better at handling because G’s job requires us to move in the future, that’s a fact. This time was better than last, I will say. I remember G coming home from work and I would start crying for no reason, I would sleep all day, and online shop like no tomorrow. This time the sadness just sort of drained all the energy from me - I felt completely unmotivated. Looking back on the last month I can’t even remember what I did to make time pass, it’s really weird how days can just get away from you when you are walking in a haze.

 

This last week is the first all month I’ve felt somewhat like my old self again. I’ve been exercising, doing yoga twice a day (morning stretching session and relaxing session after my workout in the evening), starting my vegetable garden, eating better again and paying attention to our finances (still debt free even after this blip!). I’m hoping this motivation continues to get stronger but I’m not trying to rush it either. I’ve got time these days (lots of time) and I want to make sure I recover properly without any ‘quick fixes’. One day at a time, things will get back to a normal. <3

- M 

Job Crazy: Read at Your Own Risk

Yesterday was the last day the job I applied for was accepting resumes. I’m hoping to hear anything (good or bad) by next week. This waiting is killing me and I’m starting to make theories I don’t think are entirely rational lol.

I was working on a project with the HR Manager - I’m a teller but also help with marketing for the company (yay finding a way to use my University Art Degree) - and she forwarded me a email with some information I needed. This email was from the manager at the branch I applied at… Not only was the information I needed in the email but also something I could be looking into waaaaaaay too much.

See the Credit Union I work for buys us all corporate wear about twice a year and the spring shirts were going around to the different branches for sizing. The manager had all the sizes in the email for the employees and asked the HR manager “Should I be ordering an extra? If so, what size?” Now, if they were still accepting resumes (this was earlier in the week) and hadn’t done interviews yet how would they know the size? And further more, it wouldn’t be the HR Manager who would be doing the interviews because she told me herself it was all going to be done by the branch manager so she would have never seen any other candidates to even guess their size. Hmmmmmmmmmm. 

I just need to stop and ~chill; I’m not being myself. One of my coworkers said “It’s good to be nervous, that means you really want it and aren’t expecting anyone to hand it to you”. And that’s the thing, I really want this job. To have a transfer where not only G gets to have a job in the speciality he wants to be in but for me to transfer within the same company (which is very small mind you): that doesn’t happen often. 

I know, I knew what I was getting into when G joined the RCMP. I was there when he signed the paperwork. The lady said “You understand the RCMP can send you anywhere in Canada?” “Yes” “Think about it, have you seen a map of Canada? Anywhere.” Yes that means anywhere for him but it also means anywhere for me as his wife. G has never put the pressure for me to work, I put that pressure on myself. I’m being my own worst enemy right now... 

Deep breaths and get it together (my mantra this weekend).

- M

Happenings

So with the realities of moving getting closer and closer, a few weeks ago I had checked out the "Joy of Less" by Francine Jay from our local library. Even though I spent the entire year decluttering our house, I know there is always room for improvement. What I liked about this book is it didn't just focus on decluttering techniques but the mindset behind why we feel the need to keep certain items. Francine was also keen on reminder the reader that minimalism isn't going to be the same for everyone: minimalism is about what is enough for you. That might sound simple enough to understand but I found it extremely helpful to remember when dealing with G's items. Even though we live in the same house, our ideas of enough are different which is okay. I'm getting better at not being so uptight, lol. 

So after being inspired by the book, I went thru my items a few more times. Most of these items were clothes but I was able to fill another entire box for donation. Funny, how many times I've gone thru my closet and yet have still kept items I'm uncomfortable in and never wear. Those were the items I got rid of this week. 

This week the weather was absolutely beautiful here - it actually felt like spring! I got to wear a lot of the skirts and dresses I love but can't wear when it's -30C outside. Felt good to dress up a little and still be able to walk to work. The cold weather is supposed to return next week but at least winter will feel a bit shorter.

The no spend week has gone very well! Decluttering has helped with that since as I toss more things away, my desire to spend goes waaaay down. There was only one hiccup. On Wednesday G was subpoenaed to court (in a different town) on his day off and needed to buy lunch. He put in 8 hours of overtime so a $15 meal was okay in my eyes. We didn't met our goals of a no spend but it turned into a really low spending week instead. I'm still happy. :) 

- M

Update

- House on the market
- Last bit of donations (and by bit I mean 4 trash bags and 13 boxes) picked up this week
- The house feel so much nicer now
- Finances are on track, still debt free and topped up our emergency fund plus some
- Christmas shopping done, feels good to spoil those who we are close too. So many have given us so much over the years this is the first Christmas we don't have any debt and can truly give
- I am on fire with my food budget these last few months
- Sold $50 worth of random items today on the local buy and sell - meaning even more stuff gone from the house
- My life is full of reading policies after policies, this is our first proper government move and we are entitled (according to these policies) to different things. I want to make sure we understand everything and what certain things mean for G's taxes
- Lots and lots of meetings
- Enjoying this oddly warm December while it last, definitely making my walk to work more enjoyable

Although everything is pretty overwhelming right now I'm remaining positive and remembering to take things one step at a time. Breath ~

- M

Update: Raise, Transfer, Vacation & Surgery

Things have gotten a tiny bit busy around here (nervous laughter)… and I’m really surprised how well I’m handling everything. I’m not sure where I'm going with this post so I’m just going to start, sorry in advance if things get a bit jumpy.

We had an amazing time in Vegas, more so then I thought we would! We stayed at The Signature at the MGM and felt like royalty. I was so comfortable and there was a Jacuzzi tub – which was needed after walking up and down the Strip all day. The first day we got there we rented a car from the airport and drove to Red Rock Canyon where we hiked until evening. Other things we did: helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon & hike on Eagle Point. As someone who lives in very flat Saskatchewan seeing something like the Grand Canyon really takes my breath away. I’m surprised how well I did riding the helicopter but I think I was so distracted by the view to get nervous, lol. The tour we choose had us land at the bottom of the canyon for pictures and a quick picnic of snacks and champagne then flew to the top of the canyon for two hours of exploring. We could have gone on that glass walkway but we decided to spend the whole time up at Eagle Point and hike to the top – which I’m definitely glad we did. G also went on an air combat school flight, which was expensive but he really enjoyed it. I also shopped, a lot. I had been saving all my personal spending money, birthday money, etc for this trip and haven’t bought any clothes since back in the Spring. All the money I had saved up was converted to USD so it really forced me to make sure what I was buying was something I really loved and fit good. When I came home and started putting everything away in my closet I told myself it was going to be one-in-one-out, it actually ended up being more like one-in-two-out. The pile of donations keeps growing. Back to Vegas talk – we did gamble. We had a specific amount set aside that was our gamble money – and the rule was: once it was gone we don't gamble anymore. Turns out luck was on our side and with a nice 0, 00 split bet on Roulette we ended up leaving Vegas having doubled our money! Definitely glad we set limits though, we would watch some of the higher betting tables and I died a little inside… But what brought back to life by the food. More specifically the avocadoes, they were so fresh! By the time they make it to our grocery store up here (if they can even get them in) they really just cannot compare. We went to some fancier restaurants, some cheap ones, sometimes even cooking at the hotel (there was a kitchen in the hotel room), and we went to one buffet. The food and helicopter tour were definitely my favorites. We also did a couple of shows: one Cirque du Soleil, Penn and Teller (we got to meet them after the show too! So cool) and then had tickets to see the Red Bull Air Races (can you tell my husband likes planes? lol). Then the last day we rented a car again and drove out to the Houver Dam – what an amazing thing to see in real life. We had a really really fun time and we would definitely go again.

Giant drop right below my feet

My very unfortunate sunburn...  

We were happy to get home to our dog though. The day after we got back from our vacation, I went straight back to work and G took Mocha to the vet for her surgery. Everything went extremely well, even while healing she’s had no complications. The first few nights were hard for me. I would get upset and question if we did the right thing or not but as the days went on and she was taken off her pain medication she become more and more like herself. She even went into her toy bin the other day and got a few toys out for us to play with her, she hadn’t done that in such a long time! The vet called about two weeks afterwards and said that the lab results came back on her eyes and one eye lens had completely burst, which would have been extremely painful and that the other eye the retina was becoming detached and they same thing would have happened eventually. That news made me feel a lot better about the surgery. Around Hallowe’en I called her my Franken-puppy. <3

Recovery <3

Now for the big news! Last week G got his transfer notice, we had a hunch it was coming but I didn’t expect it this soon or for things to happen so fast! I’m really glad I’ve spent the summer declutter and organizing. I think it’s definitely going to make this progress go a lot smoother. Today we signed up with the relocation company so I’ve spent a good portion of the day reading their different help guides. We will have an actual meeting with our representative soon, I told G it was really important to me that I be there, so we will have to work it around my work schedule and his. We are really pleased with the town we got transferred too, although I’ll miss this one. I’m going to write a more detailed post once we get more information – as we literarily just found out that it got finalized. I’m excited and nervous all at the same time! This will be our first transfer and I’ve heard some horror stories from some of the other force spouses. I’m just going to try to keep a level head and make sure I understand everything related to this entire process. I’m going to be the annoying girl asking a million questions, lol. I’m sure our rep is going to love me :P

Gabe got his yearly salary raise, even though he is way over that amount as it stands right now with all the overtime he works. Nice though because at the new posting there may not be as much overtime. Oh! And we finally got his LaRonge expenses paid out today. $1300ish deposited into our account. Yay! Only took since July…

Okay, expect more random posts in the future. My mind is going a mile a minute with everything going on.

- M

PS: We are still going to be in Saskatchewan - so I won't have to change my blog name, haha

Quote

"If you make a habit of buying things you do not need, you will soon be selling things you do"

I seen this quote on Reddit tonight. It really speaks to me, especially after all the decluttering I have done this year.

- M

Parents Visit & Vacation Talk

Sorry I haven’t been writing these last few weeks. Things were kind of busy around here while preparing for my parents visits. I haven’t seen them in over two years so I’m sure you understand me wanting to spend some quality time with them, lol. They were here for a week, and since they drove all the way from Southern Ontario we didn’t really do much except relax and play cards. G and I cooked a homemade meal plus desert every single night. My mom doesn’t really cook all that much at home so I wanted to spoil them/show off (i.e. make them proud: which btw my mom commented saying these were some of the best meals she's had -- score!). That being said – our food budget is about 3x more this month, lol. I’m going to be happy if it we keep under $800. This is one of those moments I really don’t care though – I’m glad to feed my family good food and have nice memories & we can afford it. We ended up only spending $260 on groceries last month so we are sort of balancing out.

One nice thing my parents did was let us purchase USD at par! We bought $300 US for $300 CAD. I just did a quick calculation in Google and that would have cost us $400 CAD!! Ouch… Also the day they left G found a note from my mom that said, “Enjoy a nice dinner in Vegas” with a $100 bill tucked under. They had to hide it because they know we wouldn’t have taken it if they handed it to us, lol. Our vacation account is a little over $800, not that much considering our vacation is a month away but we are still owed the expenses from G’s La Ronge trip ($1366) which was approved a month ago – I’m hoping that comes in soon. Also this is all our ‘fun’ money, the hotel has been paid for so its really about how lavish or frugal we want our trip to be. We will be putting away as much as possible this month and next as we would rather have a surplus in our vacation savings account than a balance on our credit cards; but that’s really a no brainer. ;)

- M

30 by 30 at 25!

Yesterday was my 25^th birthday. My plans were unfortunately canceled when G’s eight-hour shift turned into a marathon 23.5-hour shift… so needless to say I had quite a bit of time on my hands. It was actually kind of nice. I had a mini spa day after taking my time cleaning the house and just relaxed! I finished reading Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam, worked on our August budget and of course had quite a few phone calls from family. “I can’t believe you’re 25! I remember when you were just a baby.” “God, I feel so old.” “So close to 30!” That last one got me thinking. Thirty… still 5 years away but so adult sounding, lol. I remembered a blogpost that Bridget over at Money After Graduation wrote which talked about 30 milestones to strive for by the time you are 30 so I thought I would see how we were doing. It definitely got me thinking about our short and long term goals, also about how far we have come in such a short amount of time.

1. Financially independent of your parents.

Check! My husband and I haven’t accepted any help from either of our parents since we moved from Ontario to Saskatchewan nearly 3 years ago. G’s parents gifted us the down payment on our house because we didn’t have the cash to purchase it (and the town we moved too didn’t have anywhere to rent). That was the lowest point in my life, having to ask for that money because we weren’t prepared… I definitely never want to do that again. My mom actually offered last week to help us with Mocha’s surgery if we didn’t have the money available but I let her know we did have savings and will just take it from there.

2. Debt free.

Not yet. Still working on paying off our car, $9500 left! I really really want this gone before the end of the year. After that, we will just have our mortgage, which is below 100k.

3. Out of overdraft.

Check! We’ve never been ‘overdraft junkies’ though even though we had it on our accounts.

4. Established good credit history.

Check! I don’t know my credit score but I know thru pulling my credit report I have never had a late payment J

5. Have $25,000+ saved for retirement.

I currently have around $13,500 in my retirement accounts and G has about $20,000. There is no doubt I will have reached this goal just in my own personal accounts by the time I am 30. In fact if we stay on the track we are now with our automatic payments, not adding anything extra like tax refunds or growth within the funds itself, we are looking at being north of $120,000 this time in 5 years. Talk about progress!

6. Started an investment portfolio.

Check! Just mutual funds at the moment though but I am hoping to change this soon enough. I’ve been doing a lot of research about EFT’s and how that all works with a brokerage – once I feel more comfortable and confident I will make the switch. Definitely a goal to strive for before turning 30.

7. Established an emergency fund.

Half check? Technically we have an emergency fund, just at the moment it only has $3000 instead of the $5000 we normally keep. At least it’s established though!

8. Properly insured.

Check! I was actually going over this the other day. Very pleased with the amount of insurance we both have.

9. Maximizing employer benefits.

Check! This is actually one of my goals this year and I’m using it all up slowly but surely. This reminds me I need to make an appointment to see the eye doctor soon. *mental note

10. In the habit of tracking your spending.

CHECK! This is actually a big check for us. We’ve been tracking our spending on an Excel spreadsheet that G made for us at the beginning of last year. A couple times a week I take a few moments to balance our chequing account to our spreadsheet and then update our budget. This is a habit now and takes hardly any effort to plug in the numbers. I actually couldn’t imagine not doing this now.

11. Done with impulse purchases.

It’s difficult for me to say with this one because I live in a small town where I can’t really impulse spend, so I’m not 100% sure if the shopping bug is out of me yet. I guess I am able to say I have become a lot more conscious of what I choose to purchase. Decluttering and organizing my house has definitely opened my eyes to the amount of stuff we had accumulated mindlessly.

12. Willing to spend where it counts.

Check! This actually hits very close to home at this moment in my life. Last week our dog Mocha had surgery to have a mass cell tumor removed from her leg. Today we got a call from the vet saying all the test results came back and they were successful in removing all the cancer from her leg and it was non-aggressive. Giving her a chance at a longer happier life is priceless to my husband and I. We are very far from our families and have no children – she is our family and we would do anything for her. <3  

13. In the habit of regularly checking your credit report.

Check! Once a year for both G and I. It’s free so why not!

14. On top or ahead of all your monthly bills.

Check! We actually have notifications set up in our family iCalendar that sends us alerts a few days before bills automatically debited from our account will come thru or when a statement will be available online for us to look at. Works great for us and we are both notified, thus both know what is going on.

15. At least one big splurge you saved up for and paid in full with cash.

Last year we purchased a new roof for our house but I wouldn’t really consider that a ‘splurge’, haha. This year I guess our vacation will be the biggest splurge we’ve treated ourselves too in a while. We’ve paid for the hotel, flights and a few different activities all in cash and currently saving for the extra shopping and food money.

16. An understanding of personal income taxes and how to minimize what you pay.

Last year was the first year we did our own tax refunds so there is a lot of room for improvement. The CRA website is very useful and explains things very well but the problem is you need to know exactly what your looking for – which is easier said than done.

17. Diligently saving for a big purchase.

Check! We’ve been saving for a vacation we are taking later this year and it’s been fun to see this account grow.

18. A clear direction of your career.

This one is difficult for me because of my husband’s career. We never know where we might get asked to go next but we both understood that going into this. So I’m not sure how to answer this question at this moment.

19. A profitable side income.

Negative, although G builds furniture on the side and has sold a few of his pieces. I let him use that money to purchase equipment though as it’s a hobby for him.

20. A positive, growing net worth.

One thing I haven’t shared on this blog is our networth but I have been tracking it month by month and I am happy to report there is a significant jump each month! J

21. A BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) for your finances.

I want to be mortgage free by the time I am 40 while at the same time not sacrificing our investment contributions. How cool would it be not to have a mortgage payment!? It's my biggest long term goal I have at the moment.

22. An understanding and a plan of how your money will deliver the lifestyle you want.

This is something we both need to work on. I only somewhat understand G’s pension plan and what it means for income in the future is still confusing to me. How much will it bring us each year? How much extra do we need to save? RRSP or TFSA? How much will we need to live on when we retire? All these questions are 20 years + in the future, and it’s confusing.

23. So over measuring your finances against that of your friends.

I still do this. However, I have realized that not everyone is going to be in the same circumstances thus trying to measure each other up really gets you no where. There are so many different factors in everyone’s budgets (or non-budgets). Reading personal finance blogs has actually helped me put this into perspective.

24. Less consumption-oriented.

Working on this one. I am getting better though.

25. A healthy relationship with credit cards.

Check! I wish I had this checked about 5 years ago but I’m glad to report our credit cards are paid in full each month. We use them for all of our purchases (gimmie dem points) but keep our spending in line.

26. A regular contribution to charity.

No, we really need to work on this. It’s embarrassing and selfish to say we don’t.

27. If you’re part of a couple, a healthy way of sharing money with your partner.

Check! Money talks for G and I never result in a fight nor are they stressful. All our accounts are joints (besides registered investments obviously) so we are both aware what is going on at all times.

28. A commitment to putting free or cheap before convenient.

Kind of but could still use some work, living in a small town there isn’t that much convenience…

29. Done paying unnecessary fees.

No. We still have our main chequing account with a major bank ($13.95 a month) and I need to do something with our high fee mutual funds. This needs work.

30. An understanding and appreciation for the reality that money is only a tool of exchange, and not worth obsessing over.

No but I’m getting better and relaxing a lot more. I will write a separate post about this soon because I’ll need to do some explaining, lol.

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Not too bad for 25! Three years ago I wouldn't have been able to 'check' anything. We were living beyond our means and on credit cards. I'm so glad we are not there anymore...

- M