Creating Families

I find my mind whirling with thoughts today. Glimpses of things I remember, I am thankful for...swirling ideas racing through my mind.

My son experienced his first US thanksgiving last month. They had the weekend off from hockey. over 80% of the team is from 3 hours or less away so they went home. A tiny handful of the boys are from Canada, including my son and another of his roommates. 

I was surprised, that day, to get a text from an unknown number. I have been getting so many of those lately. spam from all kinds of random numbers have latched onto my cell phone number. There was a photo in the message and for good or for bad, I opened it. It was a picture of DS celebrating American Thanksgiving. He was with his 2 roomies and 2 older women. A message quickly followed and it was from Nick's mom. She wanted to send me a pic of DS with his  new American grandmothers :-)

She wanted me to know how  much she enjoyed having DS at her house. She figured he would run first to the home made food, as she expected. Instead she found him for most of his first hour playing with their two cats and chatting up the grandmothers. It made me laugh and smile and cry all at once. I know how much he is missing his cats.

It was so sweet of her to take the boys in and give them family for a weekend. I think that is what they miss most of all. Regular family time.

So thank you US mom and dad and the grandmothers, for giving my son a wonderful home for Thanksgiving. For the food, the families, and the kitties.  It means the world to me.

All because of a toothbrush

I have been working, lately, at appreciating more what I have. Some days are more successful than others. I am enjoying my job far more than I have in years, despite the workload tripling. I am getting along well with my son here and my long distance one.  I still get sad more than I care for, and troubled by the expenses.

I went home from work a couple Fridays ago. I had been fighting the flu for most of the week. I had tried in vain to get supply teacher, but there were none available. 30 calls. 40 calls. nada. So I had to work Thursday when I really should have been at home. Friday I was lucky enough to find someone who hadn't been snapped up and by 9:40 I was on my way home.

I stopped at the little drug store near my house for.....flu supplies. There was only one other woman in there. The woman had a short conversation with the cashier then headed down an aisle. She appeared tired and worn down. We arrived at the register at almost the same time. 

As the cashier put my items through, I turned to see that the woman only had a toothbrush to purchase. I turned and asked the woman if I could buy it for her. I just  felt the need for  a random act of kindness. She looked at me, a little stunned, handed it to me we put through the $2.99 purchase.

The woman burst into tears and hugged me and then headed off to the parking lot to a truck pulling a small Uhaul unit.

The cashier said "What a nice thing you did.  How did you know she needed that so badly?"  Apparently during their quick conversation at the register, the woman had asked if there was a public restroom nearby.  She had spent the night in her truck, unable to afford a hotel room. She was heading two provinces over to restart her life after her husband had just left her with no home and no money.

It may have just been a toothbrush, but I think that moment gave something to both of us. A little sparkle of hope.

RRSP Update

At my  last update at the end of July, I had $8414 with an increase of $208 over the quarter.

With my current  statement, it shows a balance of $8650. This gives me an increase of $236 over the past three months. It looks like that bonds and dividends are holding steady then. I am glad for the $236 though I know when it comes time to pull those funds, there will be fees/ income tax involved. I hope it all balances out in the end.

I am concerned that I will not have an RRSP contribution this year.  I mean, should I really be contributing when I have $ on the LOC for College??

I really would miss the deductions come income tax time if I didn't.

I am starting to feel a bit like a financial loser as I can't keep on top of things. and I have 3.5 years left of college for ds1 and another round with ds2

Where the money stands

as of November 6th

Debts
Mortgage - $22 786.17

**Total Debt - $22 786.17


Savings/Planned Spending
TFSA/EF - $5000
RESP - $20 100
RRSP - $8000 
DS2's trip -$2200
Plates 2014 - $0 - insurance was due on the 26th of October
XMAS - $1400

**added to that debt is Semester 1 of college tuition, the killer fees for international students and the living expenses.  This is on the LOC.DS has been pretty good about his spending, considering he is away from home and rations what I give him with what he saved the previous year. I don't expect his saved $ to last a whole lot longer. He could only save so much while playing hockey and on the road.

Will have to call MC but...

their hold times are killing me.

I noticed 2 different occasions where using my MasterCard online would not work.

The first was in August when DS and I were heading down to the States. There was a document he needed to cross as a student that we had forgotten about. We used DS's phone and the border's wifi to access the webpage, but no  matter how many times we tried, it kept saying there was an error with my card. It wasn't specific so we didn't know what detail was off.  I thought it was the number itself...do you leave the spaces between the sets of four numbers or not. We tried both, multiple times. The agent who was helping us was saying perhaps the billing address was wrong, but we redid that as well.  Thank goodness I had a VISA as well. We popped that info in and bam! card accepted.

I meant to phone, but when I got back, school started right away and it got busy.

The second was on our trip to the US. Everything was fine paying for the trip via expedia, with my MC. When it came time to 'check in' online, we hit a glitch. Those lovely $25 fees you have to pay to check luggage. Same thing happened. No matter what I did, it said there was an error.  I used my VISA and it worked immediately.

Anyone have any experience with this??