Debt-Free Kimmie

It's been a while since my last update but I'm happy to report that I am still on track! It's amazing how something as simple as simply having a budget is keeping me from spending. I'm loving it!

My goal last week was to open up an account for my RRSPs. Since I still have well over 30, maybe even 35 years left to work I opted for an aggressive portfolio which sadly means I've already lost money on it. But since this is for long term growth I'm not sweatin' it too much. I had committed to to $75 biweekly but I think I might up it to $100 biweekly since my mortgage payments are now $25 less biweekly.

I spoke with my bank this week and I'm in the process of getting a Studen Line of Credit which will be great until I set up a float to pay for my courses. The way it works for me now is that I pay up front for the course, $715 and once I've completed [and passed!] my job will reimbourse me. I'm aiming to get a Bachelor's Degree so I've got quite a few to go still! Since the courses themselves are fairly cheap I figure I can eventually save up $750-1500 to pay for them and then just owe myself.. but until then I will take advantage of the prime+1% interest rate. Also, I'm entitled to free banking since I'm a student so that means I don't have to pay the $10.95 monthly fee anymore! SCORE!

Another thing I've decided on is a proactive fund for a new laptop/ipod. My current laptop is 2 years and my ipod is 1 year old so they've hopefully still got a few years in them still (knock on wood!) but since they're 2 things I can't live without I would like to save up $1200-1500 to have on hand for that day when I do need to replace them. The ipod I could certainly manage without but I need my laptop for school so that's non-negotiable.

Something I've realized this month is that I do need to make some room in my budget for beer. In the winter I'll go months without but something about the summer heat makes me drink more.. so I'll have to plug that in for my July budget. This month I took it from my incidental's account.

And I suppose that's about it for now.