by Chris | Jan 14, 2015 | Budgets, Taxes, What's the deal with Taxes?
My resume is terrible. I have only had one real job in my life, for one summer, and that was almost ten years ago. There are times when I am proud of this fact, and other times when it’s more on the “extreme shame” side of things. I’ve spent most of my life working as either a farmer or an artist; two jobs that can fill the day with work, but are difficult to translate in to “resume” type experience.
But I did have that one summer, in which I experienced the sinking feeling of opening your first paycheque and realizing how much smaller it is than you were expecting.
You know it well… there must be something wrong! Where has all my money gone?
Well, I hate to break it to you: It wasn’t your money. (more…)
by Chris | Jan 11, 2015 | Budgets
I’ve heard from quite a few people who were inspired by the tracking challenge and are ready to face their finances head on. They started drawing up budgets. YES. A total win, right?
Well, it’s not that I’m not about budgets, but let’s be honest… They totally suck. Plus, mostly they don’t work. At least not most of the time. How many budget horror stories have you heard? How many budgets don’t reach their 1 month birthday?
A budget seems like the exact sort of thing you “should” do….
Well… I also “should” have gone to law school. I “should” floss after every meal. I “should” eat something healthier than the block of cheese that is currently on my plate.
It’s January again. You’ve made your resolutions and channeled all that can-do spirit into being the person you want to be… trying your darndest to start that budget or, if you’re advanced (it is January 10th…), you may have already given up on your budget and are desperately looking for another way.
I totally get it.
But here’s the good news! (more…)
by Chris | Jan 8, 2015 | Budgets
So. Here’s the thing…
Quite a few of you have been asking about MINT. That’s because it’s super popular and pretty dang awesome.
I am a relative newcomer to Mint. I downloaded it this summer, and quickly realized what all the fuss was about. There’s nothing in the market quite like it.
Why is Mint awesome?
When you first sign up for Mint you sync it with all of your bank accounts and credit cards. Mint then pulls all the information in to a one stop shop for your personal finances.
- It can link to most banks, it even linked to my credit union Mastercard, which always seems totally off the grid. GOOO MINT!!!
- Not only do you add bank accounts, you can also add other assets: cars, real estate, etc.., as well as debt.
- It automatically tracks your spending, and puts it into categories. You can set up a budget as well, and it will send you an alert if you’re overspending in a category.
- Mint also sends you alerts if you’re charged something you would normally miss: Like a bank fee. I never realized how many bank fees were coming my way until my phone started buzzing. (more…)
by Chris | Jan 7, 2015 | Budgets, Getting Started
What’s a YNAB?:
If you READ MY STORY, you know that a huge teacher in the early part of my financial education was YNAB (You Need A Budget). It’s a budget software. It’s really easy to use, and it looks great.
But the truth is it’s more than just a software. It’s a budgeting philosophy, it’s a community, and it’s a bunch of fine people who will work with you and help you get back in control of your spending and saving.
The Philosophy:
In the YNAB world there are 4 rules
RULE 1: GIVE EVERY DOLLAR A JOB
RULE 2: SAVE FOR A RAINY DAY
RULE 3: ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES
RULE 4: LIVE ON LAST MONTHS INCOME
These four rules, more than the software itself, are what changed the way that I spend my money. Give them a browse, I lay out the details and talk about how they work with the self-employed life. They may seem simple, but that just makes them easy to follow and they’ve really worked for me (especially Rule 4). (more…)
by Chris | Jan 4, 2015 | Budgets, Getting Started
It’s hard to know where to begin. It’s easy to ‘discuss’ it all in the abstract, but when it comes down to cold hard action where do you start?
You have to find out where the money is going.
Ignorance is bliss. It’s also a really easy way to avoid changing anything. So if you’re looking for one resolution, try finding 5 minutes at the end of every day to write down everything that you spend money on.
You don’t have to do anything but that. Just write it down. Don’t judge it. There’s no right or wrong way to spend your money. (Seriously. It’s your money, you get to spend it how you want, we’re just trying to make sure it’s actually what you want.)
Before you can really take any other kind of action, you have to figure out what your habits are. Some of them you might know, some of them might surprise you.
I just spent some time looking through my first budgets, when I started to track my spending. I remember one of the major surprises being how much I spent on food. It was crazy. Over 700 dollars some months was spent on food. The worst of it was that it wasn’t even on good food (not necessarily meaning organic, grain-fed stuff… I mean sandwiches from Sobeys, and so many shawarmas). All the little stuff added up, and a huge chunk of my income was disappearing.
So. How do you do it? (more…)
by Chris | Dec 15, 2014 | Budgets
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In David Bach’s book Smart Couples Finish Rich he uses an exercise called the Value Circle. At first it sounded a little hokey, every personal finance book needs a hook, so they just find different ways to say the same thing (I’m ignoring what that statement means for this blog), but as I started to go through it I fell in love with it.
He encourages you to define your values, a daunting thing. My values? What do they have to do with personal finance. It’s much easier to set clear goals. Pay off debt. Contribute to my RRSP. Spend less on clothing. But how many times have these “clear goals” left us with nothing. They become things you “should” do. A better version of you would do them, but maybe they’re just not who I am!!
Well. Who are you? What do you want? Your values are the answer to that question. They’re the big words like “Happiness” “Love” “Adventure” “Relationships” “Health” “Fun” “Making a difference”. He has a list of words here. It’s not definitive, but it helped give me an idea of what he was talking about when he said values. You’ll also see on the link above a list of goals. It’s important to make the distinction between two. Goals are active. It’s great to have goals. But the advantage to first defining what your core values are is that you’ll pick the goals that are right for you, and hopefully the ones that you’ll actually stick to. (more…)
My resume is terrible. I have only had one real job in my life, for one summer, and that was almost ten years ago. There are times when I am proud of this fact, and other times when it’s more on the “extreme shame” side of things. I’ve spent most of my life working as either a farmer or an artist; two jobs that can fill the day with work, but are difficult to translate in to “resume” type experience.
