A bit of a boost

We got word earlier this week that DS2 received two bursaries to go towards college.

We applied for these through the college in early July. Competition is tough and DS doesn't qualify for any special circumstances so only about 5% of the scholarships available were ones he was eligible for.

Happily, we received $1000 and $500 . Both go straight to the college  and are applied directly to his account. I definitely appreciated them.

We need to do thank you cards for them. This school offers four different rounds of scholarships throughout the school year and to not do a thank you pretty much writes off all future chances.

US money decision

Our dollar is dropping and is rumoured to not improve in health until at least after xmas.

I needed money for tuition and money for living expenses so I had to bite the bullet and borrow money on my LOC and take the hit converting Canadian dollars to US.

I went in a couple weeks ago and went through the paperwork of getting the limit of my LOC raised to $25 000. The good news is my credit score is still very high. She was surprised and impressed.

I then borrowed tappd into that LOC from $8000 to $20 000.

I then converted that $12 000 Canadian to US and took an evil hit on the exchange

Why oh why did I not convert last Aug when the dollar was at 91 cents?

I now have, counting the bit I had before, just over $10 000 US.

DS1's tuition was posted yesterday. $9400 US. We have to wait until Sept to find out how much of that will get covered by the scholarship. I am guessing I will be paying around $4500 of that.


DS went with me to the bank yesterday to convert his summer earnings to US dollars. It made the dollar exchange much more real for him, thinking of how much money, how many hours of work, disappeard to make that conversion.

Now to work on paying down that LOC

oh boy! a trojan

Coming to you from my school laptop. My home computers managed to pick up a lovely Trojan called Hiloti on Monday.  Despite every effort, I could not get it out of my system so off to the computer shop they went.

Cost per device $117.50 for removal

Gotta love viruses.

I don't even go anywhere interesting to get a virus :-)

RRSP Update

OUCH

We took a hit.

When last we spoke, my RRSP was sitting at $10 196. I was excited to have finally gotten my RRSP over that magical hump of ten grand.

Imagine my disappointment when I opened my July statement and found this balance: $9 847.

Ouch.

That's a pretty big hit. A $ 349 hit

I am attributing it to the dollar drop but would welcome other thoughts on why? I am going to ask when I go put in my next $1500 for 2015.

Goals for July - update

25 large garbage bags of stuff out of my house ( trash, recycle, donate) 26 done

46.5 KM walked or an ave of 1.5 km a day. I am still weak physically and need to get my energy levels up (21 done)

25 books donated to our library (45 done)

2 books read for school (1 done)

7 pounds lost (4 done)

use my jars for my variable expenses (so so)

my new room unpacked and organized (in progress)

find DS2 a place to live in college town (done)

snowflake $490 to meet mini goal (goal met)

Newly added:

• colonoscopy (done)
• apply for DS2's scholarships (done)
• get vehicle fixed (done)

The worst part about July, other than the immediate colitis effects was the absolute lack of energy/exhaustion. Most days I was lucky if I could get 15 min of work done without being out of breath/shaking exhausted. Not thrilled about that and not sure of the cause.

I did get things off my list and out of my house but my goodness I could have done so much more with energy.