College Tuition

There is no real pretty way to put it. The college LOC took another hit. The bill came and I didn't have quite enough saved for that so back to the LOC I went.  Borrowing money is bad enough but when you have that darn conversion between Canadian and US money, it hurts even more.

$4500 US cost me $5380 Canadian. 

Then I had the fees of doing the conversion, the fees of sending a wire to my son's account, the fee has to pay on his end and the fee to mail the tuition part to the US. Love fees, said no one ever.

My total amount owing will go up again. A step forward and four back. He has only a year and a half of college left so at least I have the comfort of knowing I am more than halfway there.

Where the money stands

as of January 6th

Debt
Mortgage - $14 686.01
College LOC - $12 745

Total Debt - $27 431.01



Savings/Planned Spending
TFSA/EF - $8200
RRSP - $13 473
Back to School 2017 - $50
XMAS 2017 - $500
Plates 2017 - $800

Aspirations for 2017

I envisioned writing this post full of inspiration, optimism and perhaps a bit of Baileys.  Instead I am writing this hopped up on Vicks vapo rub, Nyquil and Neo citron.

There should be some sort of warning on one of those products saying "do not make resolutions while  under the influence of cold meds' :-)

I would like to blame DS2 for this massive head and chest cold, but he had flu, so unless this is some sort of weird hybrid, he is blameless in this.

I haven't done much the past two days besides vicks up, med up, and watch Star Trek TNG Season 1 (ok and 2) on Netflix.

My aspirations for 2017 are more for the living. Hoping for health. and happiness. and movement. and new experiences. or if not new, then meaningful experiences. I think this little picture sums it up perfectly.

So. the goals.

The money ones write themselves. They are the same ones I have had for the past few years. I have met these goals 95% of the time.


1) Summer 2017 - $1000
This lets me enjoy my time off, knowing there is money there for camping, and other things that may come my way
2) Back to School - $500
Just me...so this goes for my professional fees, some back to school clothes and maybe something for my classroom. This will come purely from my change jar. It will be interesting to see how long it takes me to meet this goal.
3) Christmas - $1500
So nice to have this money saved and not be terrified of Christmas bills
4) Vehicle Plates - $2200
This is for both the boys' vehicles.  For DS2, this should be the last time I have to do this. Once he is done school and working, this bill will be his, so in a couple years this won't be part of my planned spending. DS1 it should be the last time too. His renews in September 2017 and by 2018 he will be graduated college and ...........doing something. somewhere.  It will be really nice to reallocate this somewhere else in the future.


5) College LOC
ok I said last year that I wanted to get it under $10 000. and if I hadn't had to add to it for tuition bills, I would have met the goal.  So I guess I have two options:

a) save as much college $ as possible so I don't have to add to the LOC
or
b) add to it for tuition if that is the way things roll but but get it back down to under 13 where it currently is.

6) TFSA - $1000

7) RRSP - $1500

365 days

Good morning everyone. I found this on the facebook page of one of my friends. She is someone who absolutely lives life to the fullest. I have no idea how she does it on her salary, as a single mom, with two kids, but she does it. 

I know January 1 is just a flip of a calendar. The same could be said of ... say..... November 1, but it doesn't spark that same fresh start like January 1 does.  It always has for me. 

I am glad for the reboot.

Below is a Christmas gift to myself. I found it on amazon for $12.99 and ordered it. Happily it arrived just in time for the new year. I looked at a lot of different books/journals like this. It's hard to tell just from online. I opted for this one as one of the reviews mentioned it as something to leave behind for your children.

I always struggled with journals as I thought, how can I be honest if one day, when I am gone, my kids will read this?   This one I can write and reflect with the express purpose of getting to know myself and allowing my kids, down the road, to perhaps get to know another side of me. I like that it is not a dated journal. I was never able to keep up with the 'diary' format, and then I would feel guilty at all those empty pages. This one I can fill it at random, anywhere through, at any time. Ideally, daily would be great, but there would be no glaring blank pages if I missed a day, or 12.


This time next year: 365 days of exploration - Cynthia Scher

It has self reflection prompts such as

• what is your family heritage? Do you feel an affinity to it?
• What is one thing you really love to do? When did you last do it? If it's been awhile, why?

Here is a pic I took of one of the pages

I like the novel approach to getting to know myself better and to reflect a bit more.

all about the change :-)

Ok this made me giggle. A good start to 2017