This n that

I would highly recommend not getting into an accident outside of your home country. The paperwork is ridiculous. I had to send in tax forms to prove he files taxes here. The college had to send papers to prove he goes to school there. Forms of declaration up the wazoo. questionnaires.

Don't even get me started on the phone interviews. It took 7 business days of calling 6-8 times a day before we got the agent LIVE instead of her voice mail.  "I tried to call you at 11 AM yesterday!!!" she said indignantly. "yes, " I reply, and as I said in my message I left, "I teach then and can't leave 37 math students for a 20 min phone call"

Each time I called and got her voicemail, I gave her a window of when I could be reached. She never called during those times.

Same thing with DS. He's in class. He has practice. So he would call in the morning and leave her a window of time each day when he had 30 min for the phone call. She would call while he was in class.

I recognize we are not her only clients, but ...

So we are not yet done dealing with all of this.  No end in sight.

Murphy - sigh

At least I trained him well. When I got the call last night at 10:30 he started with "mom, I am ok"

The vehicle wasn't. Nor the deer.

 

I get the joys of figuring out how insurance will work between Canada and the US.

 

I know this is going to cost me $$$$

Where the money stands

as of September 6

Debt
Mortgage - $19 775.03
College LOC - $17 349

Total Debt - $37 124.03 (down 1460.75)



Savings/Planned Spending
TFSA/EF - $7100
RESP - $10 400
RRSP - $9 847 + $1500 (no update balance from them yet)
Plates - $1100 (goal met)
XMAS -500

I went to the bank just before school started and added my $1500 to my RRSP. Usually that doesn't happen until November or December. Feels rather odd to be done this ahead of time :-)

I took money out of the RESP for DS2's college tuition. There is enough there is enough there for $5000 each.   I have to be diligent and save as much as I can to get them through their years, and hope they visit their mother in the home when it is all said and done.

Grocery/household budget

When DS1 left last fall, I took $40 out of our grocery/household budget to reallocate to his college budget. There were weeks when we noticed that $40 was gone and weeks where it was less noticeable.

Now with DS2 gone, in THEORY, we should need less for the budget again.  I have DS2's budget already set. If we are only feeding two people, there should be a bit of surplus.   I haven't really noticed it yet but it's early.

Over the summer, I debated how I wanted to tweak the budget or IF I wanted to tweak it.

I remembered that last Christmas I found myself on a big shopping trip before DS1 came home from the States, and that I wanted to tuck some money away so I was ready for that purchase.  I decided I wanted to save $200 towards extra Christmas food shopping.

So, here is what I think I am going to do. When I take out my weekly jar allowance, I will automatically put $20 of it in a Christmas jar. 10 weeks of this and I will have my extra money.

IF there happens to be money left at the end of each week in this jar, that will become my snowflakes for the LOC.

So new mini goal: $200 extra dollars for Christmas.


It's a rainy, dreary day here. Homemade stew being created and bread in the bread machine.

Catching up this n that

DS2 is fine, mostly. He is content where he lives and has a full fridge and pantry. We probably spent $500 getting him set up with things for his place and his pantry and fridge. I had this money tucked away so it wasn't a hardship.  I shudder to think what it would have cost if his place had been unfurnished.

He is excited about the classes he is taking so that is a plus. Not all college kids can  say that. He had two days off this week because they were all taking a first aid/cpr course and he actually has his papers for the full course two levels higher. Thank goodness I sent that paperwork with him. It worked out well that he was off, as his migraines have started to come back.  He still has to get his books and get his wifi set up.

It has been silent on the DS1 front. They had fitness testing all week and started classes so I am hoping that is all that it is. His scholarship $ was put against his tuition today so I stopped at the bank for the US draft and I will get to the post office tomorrow to mail it down.

As for me, work has been exhausting! Seriously.... I fell asleep last night by 7. I am attributing it to being unwell most of the summer and unable to walk regularly.  I am hoping that is all it is. I have been wearing my fitbit and walking anywhere between 9000 and 15000 steps a day. Bigger school

I need to get in this weekend and get organized. There is no time in the day to do it. I have 37 kids in one of my math classes and some can't do 2 x 3. yikes!

It's supposed to rain this weekend so I anticipate some baking, some Netflix and some kitty time, besides the housework.