July Goals

Well here we are a third through the month and I have finally gotten around to posting my summer goals. I have had them jotted down on one of my many little notepads.

They are quiet goals - reflective of my diminished health conditions. Most times I am at peace with that. Most times :-)

• clean out 'the paperwork' bin.  Summer is when I like to go through and get rid of the previous  year's documents... bills, statements, insurance forms etc. Keeping what is needed and shredding what is no longer necessary. It's amazing how much paper that tub can hold, but it has proven invaluable. More than once I have needed something from there and it makes me so happy to be able to find it.

• Read Read Read Read. I need to rediscover the joy of losing myself in a book, preferably while sitting outside at my little patio and getting some sunshine. Some will be for personal pleasure. Some will be YA books that I can recommend to my students. Some will be professional development books.

• Walk Walk Walk. Ok I don't do well in heat and we are in the middle of a long heat stretch. That means I need to get my butt out of bed earlier so I can walk before the heat comes. My walks are short....the longest is 30 min or just under 2K. Those are always risky colitis walks. But heck even if I can get out for a 2 x 2 (two blocks down, 2 over, return home) a couple times  a day, it is something. I need the walks for so many reasons..health...weight...forcing myself to leave my 'safe zone'.  I will admit to being 'lame' and using pokemon go app to encourage that. Noooo I don't go battle and such but the walking 'hatches' eggs and it is oddly motivating for me. Rather like my Nike walk app but, animated. If it gets me moving, then I'm game. Hatching four 5K eggs a week means I am walking 20K a week at least. That's not impossible.

• Fitbit 10, 000 Steps. This piggybacks off the above bullet. I have no problem getting that many steps during a work day, but summer doesn't provide that for me, so I have to provide it for myself

• My computer room. I rarely use the room anymore. I use my laptop instead. I am surprised that desktop hasn't died yet. That room is a storage room for all things now that the boys are not around to pit in down there. I could probably get rid of 20 bags of stuff just from that room, and it's 4 x 8 feet, with a closet. DH needs a place to study for his next waterworks course he has to take for work and it's cool down there. A good motivator.

• Make a tentative money plan for the rest of 2017. I have some money goals left. I have college for DS1. I have a trip down to see DS in October. And of course I have the ever mountain college LOC to hack and whittle away at.  I know that as soon as I make a plan, Murphy will wander by to dip his finger in the plans and swirl away, but if I don't plan, it's hard to make goals.

• Lose 6 lbs. I started off this summer 20 lbs lighter than last July 1. Of course that was a super high for me. I figured I would use the 'loss' to springboard a push to lose a bit. I have college gear I bought with my son's team on it and as it is his last year there, it would be nice to fit it before he is done :-)  

• Delve into Ancestry. I splurged for a one month membership with international access. This will give me a chance to peek at the usually inaccessible sources that pop up, usually from USA or UK. A good part of my family on my dad's side moved to Canada from Upstate New York and I have found some great pics of the ancestors. On my paternal grandfather's side, thanks to the work of a genealogist, we can trace to Bern Switzerland in the early 1300s. It's pretty darn cool. I find it amazing how the surname as evolved over the years. Some of it, in part, due to poor spelling of the census takers throughout the years. 

You will notice there aren't any traditional summer activities on here. No go here, do this, celebrate that. no camping.   Have to regain my strength first.

Big dental summer

I certainly feel like I spent a  lot of time at the dentist this summer. Between myself and DS1 we were there six times. And the kitty went twice (to a different dentist lol )

DS needed 2 wisdom teeth pulled out, a couple fillings and some serious scaling and cleaning. He hadn't been to the dentist is years. Bad mother for sure.  All the staff there found him so funny and so charming. Said he made their summer. I am assuming it wasn't just financially lol

I went for my check up and cleaning and had to go back for 2 fillings. I also have trouble with a tooth that was filled then root canalled and now needs a crown. I am waiting on word from our health plans to see how much is covered.

DS is 21 so he had been phased out of our health plans. We had to provide documentation to both health plans. I had to pay each visit outright. The dentist office then sent off the claim directly to DH's (has to go through his first) and then I sent the balance off to mine. We are just starting to get those second cheques from my provider.

It did prompt me to sign up for online claims and direct deposit refunds so that was a good thing.

Between DS, myself and the kitty, I plopped down $2461 on my VISA. Can't wait for those last couple copays to come back and get that card back to zero where it belongs.

AWOL

It all started with report cards...that magical mystical time where I disappear to the school for hours marking things, most of which I had to beg to get handed in.  Then we had 2 nights of parent teacher interviews. Then I turtled for a whole weekend, exhausted and slept and slept with small doses of Netflix.

In the meantime.... my VISA was hacked.  I had been about to log in to check the balance. DH had taken my vehicle in to the shop for some very expensive repairs that had something to do with the spark plug kit and all it's wires. Honestly, my SUV had heard that my tax refund was in and thought it would spend a little of it. But I digress.... So I am about to log in when the house phone rings. It is one of those robot calls along the lines of "This is VISA's security department". I hung up before they finished. I get one of those a week from 'BMO'.

I log in and my balance is exactly what it should be. It isn't until I expand the details when I see that there is an interesting charge for $1.79 US at some service station in Barlow, Ohio. The change was made and then immediately voided. A test charge.

Well I'll be darned, that might have been an actual call from VISA. I phone and go through all the motions of getting the card cancelled. I had two charges that had been put on it and I wanted to be sure they would go through if I cancelled it.  I had also prepaid the vehicle repairs on it and wanted to be sure that payment would go through. They assured me they would.  That was on the 25th. I am still waiting for my new VISA to come. I assume that when it does and I activate it, I will see all those things go through when I check in online.

I use this VISA for very few things. The same things each month, pretty much. Netflix. WW when I was on it. Amazon if I shop there. The shop where I got my repairs done (not each month but a trusted source) They all get immediately paid off. It makes me wonder at what point it was compromised, if they were all known places.

I had to explain to my  husband what a test charge was. He thought that since it was refunded at the vendor that my card wasn't really hacked.

Waiting for all the money pieces to fall together.

Money is whipping in and out of my accounts like crazy and to be honest, I will be happy when both boys are settled in to school. Then I know the tuitions are paid and I can get back to whatever my new budget will be.

DS2's tuition was paid yesterday. The RESP money is in, so as soon as it shows up on my MasterCard, I can take care of that.

DS1's tuition is still pre-scholarship so we are waiting for that to be applied. I forget how long that took last year. The online College account says the 20th of August but I know full well it was in September before it actually was applied. So we are waiting to see how much that is, and if any of his accommodations are covered.

DS1's MC bills for his travel down are finally posted. He stayed in a hotel last Wed night and the charge just showed up on the MC today. So that is all paid. What a difference in gas prices between the countries. A fill here was about $50 and down there it is high $20.  It does annoy me that it takes that many days for the charges to show up on the card.

My laptop is still in the shop. I stopped by yesterday and talked to the guy. It made it to their bench Friday.  The Trojan is deeply embedded in my system and they are having trouble wiping it out. So it will be another couple days.

Funny thing - I noticed the weird popups (Trojan) when I was ordering shirts for DS1 from Holister.ca (Abercrombie and Fitch). Hey, $10 Tee shirts!  And good quality ones too. He has one and loves it. Anyhoo, that is when this popped up.

Enter my school laptop that I brought home with me last week. DS2, who hates clothing shopping, said he liked his brother's shirt and since they were cheap, could he get a couple since he needs new shirts anyways.

I never even 'thought' and went to my school laptop to the webpage and after picking a couple, I went to start the check out process and the SAME popup came up. Coincidence???? I think not.

I shut it down and restarted it. Apparently the school has better virus protectors because it is gone. I checked with the techie at school.

I called the company to tell them what happened from their webpage on two different occasions. They could not have cared less.

The money for DS2's hail damaged car came through. I put that in  a savings account. It will be there when we decide what his new to him vehicle will be and find one we can afford.

And that's the money poo.

It's payday today so it feels like a brand new start to things. 

Credit cards back at $0

Now don't worry....there wasn't a balance carrying over. No  wild and crazy retail therapy.


I have been waiting for all the transactions and payments to go through and get me back to that $0 happy place.

On my Visa, I had put the dress I had purchased for DS2's grad.  It took four days for the online transaction to go from 'pending' to actual expense. Then I got an email from the company saying that dress was out of stock. It took another 5 business days for the refund to make it back onto my CC. 

On my MC, I was waiting for DS2's European expenses to show up Since he is not 18, I had to get him a secondary card on my account for the trip as that was the only currency that the ship would accept.  He had the 'unlimited drink package' from the cruise ship. That charge took 9 days to show up. The second charge was his silver pendant /keychain thingie he bought in Athens. That took 7 days. Once they showed up, it took 3 business days for my payment from BMO to BMO mastercard to go through. That part baffles me. I log in to one account to see both my chequing account and my MasterCard and just do a payment, but it takes forever to go through.

They are now, happily, at $0

I have to say I appreciate that Visa shows the pending transactions. BMO MasterCard does not. It  shows up in that my 'credit limit' is lowered because of a charge coming, but I can't see the where or what.   (Do your CC's show the pending transactions?)

I knew what was coming, just not quite how much, with the Euro/Canadian exchange.

That being said, I realized how anxious I get, to get those cards back to $0, even though I know what the expenses are, and I have the money to pay it. Interesting psychological development in me. Ah well, better than being anxious about balances ON the CC and how I am going to pay them off, like I used to all those years ago before I started to take control and understand (a tiny bit more) about how money works.

So then Monday morning....

I called first thing to DS2's garage to see if they could send me an estimate of what was covered and what was not so I could see the breakdown. Neither DH nor DS could understand my need to see that separate breakdown.

In my head, I am wanting the policy to cover at least to the amount that I paid for it. Don't ever let me do that again, ok? It's been bugging me since I did it.

I asked for a fax to be sent over to my school and I waited (im)patiently for the fax,

Meanwhile, by early afternoon DS2 sends me a text with the total of his adventures down the icy hill. Including the tow, as well as the labour and parts, his bill was $320 USD .  He put it on his BMO US Credit card, which gave us a couple days to figure out the repayment allocation. I am working hard at teaching him to use it sparingly and only if it is something that can get paid off in full at the end of the month.

At 3:30 I made one last trip to the office to see if the fax had come through. It had not.

So off to the dealer I went....

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??

CC problems? again?

It seems like we just nicely sorted out DS1's MasterCard issues from April. It took hours on the phone, mostly on hold, multiple calls, visits to the bank and documents to sign, and after 8 weeks, it was finally sorted out.

His new BMO MasterCard arrived the night before he left for the US. His BMO US$ MasterCard never did, despite a fee for having it rushed.

He is home now and brought his online statement to me Tuesday, showing me that there was a credit from the online company the thief brought from. We had already been credited for those purchases so this set off alarm bells. The last time this happened the credit showed first on  his account and then a purchase. I was worried this would be the case again.

We called the BMO line immediately and only had a 7 min wait to talk to a rep. That was a nice change. She said that the fraud department had put an alert on this transaction the day it went through and that we would need to talk to them to find out the details. Of course it was July 1 and they were not open that day. She gave us the direct number to call the next morning.

So yesterday we called. It was a 62 min wait on hold. Still better than the almost 5 hours I did in early May, but still unacceptable IMHO.

The fraud department checked this and that and concluded that bmo did a second recredit on this transaction for some mysterious reason. I asked him to double check that bmo did it and not the company. He did, and assured me the card had not been compromised. 

What a relief.

As for the US $ MasterCard...after 8 weeks it never did arrive. He went to the branch and the staff there were astounded. They called for him and we are assured it will arrive this week. We shall see.

While on the topic of CCs, I made him phone Delta airlines yesterday. When he was flying to come home, his first flight was delayed and delayed and then cancelled. Electrical troubles they said. When he checked his luggage he had to pay a $60USD fee for oversized bagged (all the equipment he got from the team). When it was cancelled, the passengers all retrieved their luggage. The airline assured said he would have to pay the fee again when he flew out the next day, and the first fee would be cancelled.

It never was. So he called  yesterday and explained to them and it sounds like we will get the first fee credited back. I will be watching to see.

DS  said to me 'They said they would credit I back. I just trusted they would"

Powerful life lesson, mama said. No one has your back except you and you have to be on top of things yourself and speak up.

We shall see if this lesson works.

Ahhh growing up in the world of invisible money :-)

He had a wonderful time there. Loves the team, the community, everything. He laughed when they said he has an accent.

Update: The BMO  US mastercard arrived today in the mail. 62 days after we requested it.
But it's here :-)

Still working on the CC fraud

On  Thursday, April 17th we learned that my older son's MC had been used for several charges that were not his. We dutifully called that night to MC to begin the process.

On Tuesday, April 22nd, nothing had changed on his account so we called again.  This gentleman took all the same information but seemed surprised that we had not received a fraud affidavit in the  mail yet. He checked and the man who took our original call did not get that started.  We went over again the 6 charges on his account. I told the CS Rep that DS would be leaving for the States soon and asked what would happen if this time sensitive document came while he was gone. He took my information down and DS's verbal consent, we agreed I could sign for him.

By last Thursday, all but one of the charges was gone from his account. There were a total of three to the same magazine in the US, but only two of them were removed. Very odd.

Last Friday, the fraud report arrived. Only 3 of the original 6 charges were listed. If we had signed this report then it would be saying that the other 3 were our responsibility.

I found it odd that online they had wiped out 5 charges but the paper said 3. What was up with the discrepancy you ask???

Good question.

And so began the moment I began my hate of 'on hold ' music.

Getting into the details again will make me bang my head against the wall. Let's just say that between Sunday and Wednesday, DS and I spent over 11 hours on hold in multiple calls. One call lasted multiple hours because I was determined not to give up.

I was not alone. Many customers joined me in our solitude of phone to ear, muzak playing ad nauseum, with an interruption every couple of minutes telling me 'My call is important to them. Please stay on the line so I do not lose my place in the queue."

Apparently there is some sort of glitch in their system.  They even apologized here , but really, gave no reason why. It was beyond insulting.

DS ended up having to take time off work to go into the branch and ask them to intervene. As of  today, the lone charge is still there.

I emailed MC and got a form letter response. It was ONLY in French. Not both of our official languages, but only in French. I was really offended. Now I do speak some French and could make sense of what it was saying.

Begin head bashing against a wall.

So he leaves for the US with this charge still there. The 'rules' say to report the fraud within 30 days and we did, so hopefully the fact that he will be gone for several weeks won't interfere with this getting resolved.

I have had a  BMO MasterCard since 1991 and have never had trouble so this is really uncharacteristic, but it's going to lose them a lot of customers I suspect.

Credit Card Compromised

It was not a great day yesterday. We had a really bad morning, but more on that later. Fast forward to evening.

DS1 comes up to say something weird is on his credit card statement. I look and wince. Oh boy! Charges that weren't his.

sigh

They were interesting charges to say the least. 3 were  to a  consumer reports in the US. I am not even sure what that is.

One was to a college in Guelph, Ontario, online for  $285.00. That has got to be a registration fee or something like that. I wonder if I called there and asked what fee they have online that is exactly that number, if they would share that information?

Two were very odd. A refund in Euros for something that cost $574 followed by a purchase later that day for $600+ from that same company.

We called the CC number right away. DS had no clue what to say but I prompted him through it.   They have put a block on it and I am not sure what happens from there. Do you ever find out who/where it was compromised?

He has only used it about 8 times in the past 8 months he has had it and it is always paid off in full. I wanted him to practice using it and doing that for a year before he went off to the US.

I am wondering if I need to call Equifax and learn how to pull his credit report and make sure the corruption went no deeper. 

Can anyone in Canada step me through how that 'one free a year' credit report check works?  Do they do it over the phone? Do we have to wait for the report to come in the mail? 

I confess that I have never done one on my own. I did see what the bank sees when they check, when I applied for my LOC a few years ago.

Air Miles Credit Cards

Looking for a little input here from folks, particularly my Canadian readers.

I have a lot of flights in my future if I ever want to visit DS at college to see him play or fly him home at Christmas etc.

I bank with BMO and use their BMO air miles CC...the one with no fee. I get one reward mile for every $20 in purchases.   I am wondering if I should choose to get one of the other airmiles cards where there IS a yearly fee, but the ratio of dollars spent to miles earned is better.

I would be using it for flights down to the US and back and those days would be rather specific so I would not want to fight 'blackout' times.

I really haven't used my airmiles for much beyond some gift redemeptions.

Thoughts? suggestions? 

A goal met

Well today DS1's plates (insurance) were due. The car is technically registered under his father's name so it was a good thing the happy Scouters got home last night.

We went down to SGI (Sask Government Insurance) to take care of the plates. You can go month by month, or by groups of months or by the year. For this vehicle it just makes sense to take care of this once a year. It was a good opportunity to teach my son about saving up for known expenses.

He had saved his share and I saved mine. Since it's under hubby's name, I went down with him, with DS in tow. DH signed the papers and I put the full amount of $1075 on my Mastercard.

DS looked confused. After all, we saved up all this money and I put it on my CC??  I then took him with  me to the bank and we put the cash straight onto the CC. "What was the point of that??", DS asked. I explained that if one has a CC with rewards (airmiles on mine) and one can save up and keep a 0 balance, then by doing this, we earn air miles.

He still looked confused. Remember that night I spent over an hour on the phone with Airmiles booking the rental car for your hockey camp??? I asked him. Yup he says. Well actually his yup was some sort of unintelligible cavement grunt with an affirmative sound to it :-)  THAT is what airmiles paid for. A $300 ish car rental that we just have to pay a wee admin fee portion to and not even close to the full amount. OHHHHHHH, he says. (caveman grunt with a rounder sound and eyes open wider).

Not sure how much he got but he was along for the ride :-)

Now, to help DS and his father understand that SMART ppl would start tucking money away each week so that next year (when it is DH's turn to pay 2/3) the money is there, ready to go.  Methinks I will have better luck with the boy than his father LOL

shopping

Today is the big shopping day. The boys and I are off for the city to get everything on our list as we head into back to school.

• DS2 needs the uniform that goes with his newly achieved rank of Service Scouter. No clue what that will cost.
• DS1 needs new hockey pants. about $200
• I am picking up something to wear for the wedding this weekend that I could also wear to work.
• I need clothes for work
• Boys' school supplies
• a couple things each for the boys for school
• Costco run

should be pretty interesting.  Since I get 'extra' money on my Aug check (EI and CPP are done, I think) and since I have $200 left of our summer money, there will be no debt for this. It will go on my Mastercard for the airmiles and then tomorrow or wed I will go to bank and pay it all off.

I will NOT go to a teacher store I will NOT go to a teacher store I will not go to a teacher store *fingers crossed LOL*

Payday!!!

I love payday. I wish it came more than once a month...with the same cheque I get now...but more than once a month LOL

I am gone with my class on outdoor adventures all day so I had to take care of a couple things last night. Since my vehicle loan comes out of a dif bank than where my paycheque is deposited, I wrote a lil cheque to myself from Account A and took it over to Account B to deposit in the ATM (no late open banks here). I wanted to be sure the $ was there for the 26th auto withdrawl as I am not totally when it comes out should the 26th fall on a weekend.

I also got the cheque from work yesterday to pay off the $ on my Mastercard that the laptop purchase put on there. No balance on the CCs again this month. wheeeee.

We get in late tonight so there will not be time for me to get my $ out for my jars until perhaps tomorrow, although that day is crazy busy too. I keep waiting for the treadmill to stop but it does not seem to.

Happy Friday Everyone.

New plans/goals for the fall

Morning everyone. I'm curled up in a hotel, waiting for DS1 Sleeping Beauty to wake up. We are away at sports camp and our first ice time is in the afternoon so I let him sleep in a bit here.

Before my trip, my budget/finances were causing me stress, I think, because I am doing too much too fast OR I'm doing it in the wrong way. I kept re-doing numbers over hoping to get different answers or finish a debt sooner.

My goals at that point were:
a) Pay off Loan #1 early, by end of June 2010 (it matures in March 2011)
b) Take the money I was using to pay Loan #1 and double pay off my vehicle loan

This made me feel stressed because I didn't know how I would meet my goals of xmas money each year, RRSP money, and other goals like the new laptap I am going to need as the one I am typing on is three years old and, growing weary *pets her current laptop and reassures it that it's a wonderful and valued member of her family and to please not die this year*.

The premise of my aquiring $ for these sorts of goals were lump sum amounts that appear every now and again in my life. Well that is not a realistic way of making these goals part of my daily life and budget and THAT is what I need to do. Then it is little bits coming out regularly and not me panicking hoping the large amounts don't disappear.

So while I tinker with the actual amounts, here are my current important yet not as stressful goals for the fall. There is no $ attached to this or deadline, as I find that if I do NOT attach those things, the goal is met faster.

a) Pay off the MC/Visa for this summer, the T trip and this current (and costly) week away in hotel for sports camp
b) Pay off all the back to school bills such as supplies, a few new clothes, school fees, and start up costs for their extra curricular activities.

~~For the above two goals, (not counting the T trip) the estimated costs are close to $3000.~~

c) Max out my first ever RRSP, which is small, but a start.
d) Make the equivalent of one month's lump sum payment to Loan #1.
e) Put some money in each of the new target bars (which I will discuss another day)
f) If there is anything left 'extra' by the end of December then put it towards more lump sum payments.

A through D I want to make happen before Dec 31st. After that, whatever else I can do in that time period, is bonus. I have other plans for January.

Now I don't have tons of $ free so these are giant goals to be sure. What helps is that as of this paycheck (I think), I have maxed out my auto contributions on my paycheck for Pension and..........lordy the other one escapes me at the moment. I will get that extra money (about $300 a month) to play with along with a bit of a raise ($100ish) a month.

We shall see if this works. I have accepted plans and goals do and sometimes Must change and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Well sleeping beauty is waking up here so time to get him moving and to the fitness center and get his hiney on the treadmill. Happy Day all!!

a benefit of Credit card rewards

With 'almost' 100% carefully planning and pay off (just one glitz in June), I have seen my AirMiles rewards zooming up. I usually ran around 20 miles a month, which was hardly worth it. I was excited earlier this spring with 50ish. I checked this morning though and for the past month, I earned 122 miles. Granted that shows how much went on the MC, but still :-)

Aside from Shopper's Drug Mart Optimum card, the MC airmiles is the only reward card I use.

Even better was that Bank of Montreal nixed the $35 fee for the card. I saw it go on my statement and then about 4 days later, a $35 credit refund applied.

A CC annoyance

In April-ish I began using my Mastercard again, only with money already budgeted for, and to be paid off right away, just to get myself some more airmiles. There is no fee for the card so as long as I use it responsibly, it should be win win. So far so good and I'm pleased to see I have aquired a bit of restraint when it comes to exercising the plastic.

If I buy something that is normally budgeted out of the jars, I simply come home and move the money from that jar to a MC jar and then pay it once a week. If it comes out of another part of my budget, I just come home and immediately make that payment on the MC.

Here's the annoying part. Last Monday I gave myself a long earned and saved treat of a pedicure and a colour. I put it on the Mastercard and dutifully came home and paid it immediately out of that online savings account. The charge itself still hasn't shown up on my online MC statement. The payment is there. Other purchases made after it have shown up, but this one, which is now 7 days old, isn't there.

This is a new revelation for me as I used to just wait for the bill to come and see it then. How long does it take businesses to get their info in so it shows up online?

Airmiles change

So with my 'use your Credit card carefully' scheme, I have used it for groceries, household supplies and gas mostly. As soon as I get home, I pay it off so there is no balance.

I went from 18 airmiles in a month on my Mastercard to 56. Interesting hypothesis. I will continue to try this as long as I continue to pay off the charges TOUTE SUITE

My Love Affair with Credit Cards

Circa 1991. I was young. Just newly married. Finished a 3 year degree at University and taking classes back at home and working casual.

Time for me to get a credit history of my own. Until this point, I had only a bank account and a debit card. No cheques. No loans. No credit cards.

My name was added to my husband's account, creating a joint chequing account which I could use, but contributed nothing to, so I did not.

I opened up my own chequing account as well at the same place I had my regular account.

Next, it was time to get a credit card. I applied for a Mastercard with the bank I had been with since I was 10. I had received the offers while at University to get a credit card then but having zero income...well, I didn't bite. Mastercard turned me down. No history...not worth the risk. I called and after explaining my situation, they said 'ok but you will only get a $100 limit.' pffft, hardly worth the hassle. I declined.

Moving on, I managed to get my name on my husband's VISA but still no rating of my own as it was HIS account. I headed next to the department stores. Zellers, Sears, and Canadian Tire were all too happy to get my business and gave me cards for about $500 each.

A month later, with none of the department store cards having even been used, I applied again to Mastercard. Astonishingly, they were only too have to give me a card with a $500 limit.

The night I got it, I headed to a drugstore and wandered the aisles, excited to just buy whatever I liked on pretty soaps, lotions, make up etc. I think the damage was about $100. I can't begin to explain the rush I got from that outing. Did I have $$ to pay it back??? No. Did that even cross my mind??? Not even for a moment.

In retrospect, it was scary!!! and should have been a warning to me but I really truly had no clue.

Over the years, the credit limit has grown. My husband's VISA was at scary amounts and he could barely pay minimum on it. His financial skills were non existant. At one point, he received a $ gift from his father and paid off his Visa. I got my name off it toute suite and opened my own with zero difficulty.

Now I am certainly cannot claim to be a financial credit card whiz and over the past 10 years my balance has been high. I would dutifully pay the minimum, sometimes more, and more than once, miss a payment altogether. bad jolie!!

It isnt' that I buy huge expensive things on it. I have mostly plain furniture, no fancy jewels, no designer clothes or even high end clothes. It is just little things that got put on it, adding up slowly and slowly.

Over the past 5 years, I have probably 'paid off' my balance and been at zero about a dozen times. Have I learned? no clue. I am only at two months of zero balance so the night is young LOL

I hope I have learned. I hope I am better. I hope I see the light.

Thank god I am not addicted to fancy purses, or art, clothes or jewelery. I'd be so screwed!!

Bye Bye Balance

It seems like just yesterday, or rather October, that I uttered these words: "I no longer have a credit card balance". October 25th to be precise. I celebrated. I rejoiced. Perhaps even a wee bit of gloating. And then the following month I had a five day away in the city for my son's hockey and BOOM it was on again.

But now... "I no longer have a credit card balance" . wheee

I am not going to be so cocky and arrogant this time as to think I am immune to a future balance. That is tempting fate far far too much in the face and she'll get me my pretty, and my lil dog too!!

I will stick to my cash for the next two months and see how that experiment goes.

The nice thing about it is I can whap anything left from my grocery jar onto my Bank of Mom Loan, and then all the money set aside for the snowball debt this month, goes onto this. ($400 I think. I still have to do the math).

It is a good feeling, but this budgeting is still new to me and there are many many hurdles, seen and unseen, coming at me this year.

Happy Friday