It seems that I am busy with work, studying for my CGA designation, and life in general that I am not finding much time to blog. I will make an effort to find more time if I can. As to what happened this past week:

1. I had to buy a $20 gift for my secret Santa at work so I decided I would purchase a sweater or something like that from The Bay (Canadian department store). I was meaning to go anyway because I wanted to buy a shirt for myself and since I had a $50 gift card sitting in my wallet for the past three months, I decided to utilize it. It turns out I ended up spending $92! This is broken down as $49.99 for my shirt (good quality, though) and $29.99 for my secret Santa, plus the rest was sales tax. Result: Went over by $20 and turns out the office decided to cancel secret Santa the day AFTER I bought the gift so I just gave it to my father instead.

2. All was quiet on the investment side, although I got ~$7 dividend from a stock I recently sold out of.

3. As you can see, I have decided to set up visuals of certain things I would like to acquire and have decided to find money from somewhere to contribute towards these goals.

Other than that, it was a calm week (this does not include work-related stuff), although I have started becoming more anxious about making certain moves that will allow me to switch into a career that I have been wanting to pursue for a long time. (No clue why I never thought of this before!) That is all I can think of for now, let us see what the next week brings, although one hopes it is monetary gains (big ones, please!)

Payday was once more upon me on Friday and after making all the allocations, I still do not have much money left over. Nevertheless, I did accomplish to put $1 into my Laptop Fund. Yippee!

At least I have made some cuts in expenditures:

1) I have cancelled my $29 monthly online DVD rental subscription (I am probably not going to see the effect of this much since this was blindly being charged to my credit card and I was not paying it off)

2) I have slashed my cell phone plan from $220 to approximately $75 monthly. (I should see the effect of this because I do pay my cell phone bill from my take-home pay.)

I am at all times on the lookout for an improved job (with better pay, of course!) but nothing has turned up yet. The key, I find, is to conceivably have faith and patience and the rest will come on its own. I have been thinking that it would be nice to find extra earnings from somewhere and I came upon Helium, who pays for articles that you can write. The thing is I am seriously thinking that possibly I should try my hand at freelance writing articles. I have some topics in mind but I want to do it the way I used to write my research essays in university — with research and take my time. I think quality is more important than quantity (plus, it is not as if even one good article is going to compensate me $1000 a month — oh, how I wish!).

Due to the low market prices, I was able to pick up another 20 shares of Bank of America, thus reducing my average cost price per share another 2.5%. This may not be much but every little bit counts once the stock price starts rising again.

On another note, I have decided that I no longer want to use desktop PCs — laptops are the way for me but I intend to pay cash and thus have started my ‘Laptop Fund’. It’s not a big priority right now as it’s more of a want than a need so I can take my time.

I have been busy since Friday and have not had the time to give an update on my investment portfolio transactions.

On Thursday November 30th, I purchased an extra 22 shares of American Capital Strategies

On Monday, December 3rd, I purchased another 15 shares of Bank of America

Today, I picked up another 20 shares of American Capital Strategies.

With these three transactions, my average cost price per share has reduced, which is my whole objective (the fact that I will see larger dividend payments is a bonus!)

I finally decided to take a harder stance in regards to paying off my credit card debt. I did not realize it is was this towering! I mean, over $14,000?! Where did all this come from, I enquire myself. Off the top of my head, I can account for approx. $6700 coming from accounting course fees ($1200), car repairs ($500), and a partial balance transfer of a car loan ($5000) but the rest I presume I was just spending more than I earned.

Well, I would like to quietly (no need for shouting) inform the divine powers that are that I have it in mind to vigorously (cross my fingers) show aggression towards my debt. In addition, I would also like to have a more positive net worth, seeing as how negativity is just plain ole appalling.

Friday was payday! That was fun (while it lasted). I made all the allocations to where my money should be going and everything was going fine until yesterday. You see, it turns out that I forgot to register for the next course in my Certified General Accountant program and two outcomes occurred:

1) I had to use my credit card to pay for the course (which I should have anticipated ahead of time and saved for)

2) I had to pay an extra $30 late fee because I registered late.

Moral of the story – always remember important dates as well save up to pay for something. I will say this much to my credit that even though I HAD to use the credit card, one thing is that it might be worth going into debt for if the end result is that it will pay off down the road with a better paying job. Another point is even though I used my credit card, at least NOW I am aware that I am using debt and that it bothers me. As long as using debt will bother me, I will use it as little as possible and eventually stop using it totally.

]]> http://limitedcredit.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/a-fool-and-his-money-soon-part-ways-and-then-some/feed/ http://limitedcredit.wordpress.com/2007/11/24/cash-vs-debit-card/ http://limitedcredit.wordpress.com/2007/11/24/cash-vs-debit-card/#comments Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:40:00 +0000 limitedcredit http://limitedcredit.wordpress.com/2007/11/24/cash-vs-debit-card/

Recently, I have been skirmishing an internal battle with myself about how I should approach using cold cash versus using my debit card (credit card is undeniably out of the question!). Beingfrugal.net had this debate as well and there were some motivating points of view. Sorry to say, I am still sitting here conflicted.

I lately came across a posting at the American Consumer News blog titled Five Reasons to Always Pay with Cash (And Throw Your Credit Cards Away) that took the view of using hard cash and its benefits. The focal points by using cash were:

1) You spend less
2) There are no finance charges
3) There are no overdraft charges
4) You do not really go over the budget (but only if you have self-control, in my honest opinion).
5) You could get a better deal if you pay cash

I liked this article enough that I will endeavor to use cold cash as much as possible (seeing as how I was leaning in that direction anyway).

You can read the Beingfrugal.net article here and the American Consumer News article here.

Due to falling market prices for bank stocks (among others), I was able to purchase an additional four shares of Bank of America on Tuesday. If anyone is wondering, “who buys just FOUR shares?!” Well, for one thing, I do. My investment philosophy/strategy is one that follows the buy and hold principle and I buy ONLY if by purchasing more shares, my weighted average cost per share reduces, otherwise I do not buy. So, while short-term investors are nervous (hence why they are sending the stock prices in a downward manner), it allows me to add additional shares, which accomplishes two things:

     1) Reduces my weighted average cost per share
     2) Increases my dividend income

Consequently, in my modest point of view, this is more of what I would describe as a ‘win-win’ situation. Accordingly, to all you jittery investors out there, sell away. Continue selling for you are doing me a grand favour!

Last week, Lifehack.org had an article about living without credit. It certainly does apply to my intended goal(s) in life. The article gave a few good reasons to live without credit:
- It forces you to live within your means.
- Things cost more than what they cost.
- It forces you to discipline your spending.
- You cannot default on cash.

I concur with all the points made in that article and I have to confess that I have come to a stronger understanding that debt (for all the goodies it can get you) is malevolence. Unless one knows precisely what they are doing when dealing with debt, one should tread lightly; or else, the next thing you know, you end up with a huge load of monies you owe to multiple creditors.

Well, looks like I got off to a great start (please note the sarcastic tone)! I just spent $15 on dinner, which leaves me with $6 to get me through until Friday. On the plus side, my Dad repaid $50 of $150 that he still has to pay me for a laptop I paid on his behalf. Patience is a virtue, they say, and once Friday is again upon us, things will look better.