Moral-Flexibility.Net

Ok, who used a referral from me to open an ING Direct account? I just got $13 (and so did they it seems) but I’ve no idea who it was, and I don’t remember giving anyone a referral.

My referral code is (it seems) “17389548S1″ so anyone else that wants some free money, and wants to ensure that I receive some myself is encouraged to open up their own ING Direct (Canada) Investment Savings Account.

Click here to get started.

If not, that’s cool too. Every bit counts.

I just interviewed for a city enforcement position, it’s a job I feel uniquely qualified for, and the interview seemed to go well but I’d appreciate any positive energy be directed this way.

I’m a little out of practice in interviews, and while I think I did fairly well there were a few moments where I lost the cadence of the thing. I’m expecting to hear in the next few weeks either way.

I’ll keep you updated as I get news…

So now Lisa and I smugly watch shows like Till debt do us part and Maxed Out (same idea…in fact they’ve had the same couples featured on at least one occasion), but we keep exploring ways to reduce our spending and make our money work a little bit harder, there is always room for improvement.

Immediately after the purchase of our home our savings were nil, no RRSP contributions, no emergency fund and no RESP for Jilly. Far from optimal, but we started small.

We set up Jillys RESP almost immediately (unfortunately I think we went the wrong direction with that, we should have gone self directed, instead we went with a “managed” fund) to let compound interest and the government “top-ups” work for us.

We started putting money away in an emergency fund, initially supposed to cover just one mortgage payment should there be a payroll error (then two mortgage payments, then a months worth of expenses). My previously mentioned “skimming” was divided into five accounts;

1) Emergency Fund (set to top out at about $3,000)
2) RRSP Account ($50 a paycheque to the retirement fund, not going to be able to retire soon, but it should be a bit of help come tax time…and ANY retirement savings are better than NONE).
3) Capital Expenses Fund (Not the emergency fund, but stuff we want to buy/fix and whatnot. No specific plans for it right now)
4) Jilly Fund - This is likely going to end up as seed money for a self-directed RESP.
5) Fun Fund (Not much point saving like a maniac if I can’t enjoy it. It was this fund that paid for my PS3, and it’ll be this fund that buys my next boomstick).

Conventional wisdom seems to suggest that you NOT start to save like this, as each account is only getting a little added to it each payday it takes a long time to notice any appreciable increases. This may harm the would-be savers resolve.

Where did the money come from? I quit smoking. I quit drinking 2 or 3 store bought coffees a day. I stopped eating a store-bought lunch each day, we stopped eating take-out food twice a week, we stopped ordering in food… the list goes on, but the gist is a few bucks saved here and there adds up just as quickly as money foolishly spent here and there does.

Quit frankly, if I was prepared to spend almost $10 a day on smoking, I’d feel much better about saving $10 a day for my daughters education. Another $5 a day that I didn’t spend on coffee can go towards my retirement… you get the idea.

Ask anyone that knew me before I became a father and they’ll tell you the same stories, I worked two or three jobs and consistently ran out of money a few days before payday. My credit cards were perpetually maxed (that’s how I thought they worked, like a loan I hadn’t yet begun to pay off). I had no savings, and only a little bit stashed in RRSPs which I would dip into for significant purchases despite the tax implications.

Not a clever lad we’re describing here, is it?

I was in my mid-twenties and my father would still get the odd phone call asking him to throw a hundred bucks into my bank account to cover me until payday (it is a testament to my fathers patience that he resisted the urge to lecture each and every time, and still delivered in spite of the inconvenience).

I would ALWAYS spend what was not spoken for in my chequing account. ALWAYS. I did eventually learn to allow for bills that were coming out, but I rarely left myself any cushion against unforseen expenses. This pattern continued well after I moved back across the country, the only difference was that with the pay cut I took I simply didn’t have any disposable income to waste.

When Lisa became pregnant I realized that the system I had become accustomed to was simply not working, and that there was more in this equation than me, and that things needed to change fairly quickly.

I changed two things. Whenever I told myself “I want” something, I would pause for a second and ask “Do I need” it. Nothing major there, just a few moments to shake off the impulse to buy something, a moment to consider the expense in a greater context. The second was that I started embezzling money from myself.

You heard me, I started skimming from my paycheques. I’d have a few pre-authorized withdrawls set up for payday, and they’d skim away $25, $50 and sometimes $100 before I had a chance to spend it mentally. Pretty soon there wasn’t much left in my chequing account except what was needed for the bills.

Found the point again… skip onward to the next post as I try to pick up the thread again.

I’m slow to recommend parenthood to people, it’s an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything but it’s a kick in the shorts, no mistake. Very little in your life remains about “you”, there’s now this smaller priority that is your focus.

The same is becoming true of home ownership. Minor “housekeeping” issues abound, this last weekend was spent gardening and tending the lawn (I am embroiled in a battle with a small patch of crabgrass in my backyard), watering the lawn seeds, finishing the edging, reorganizing the shed (Small space + many tools = creative organization and lots of hangy hooks).

No major projects sadly, just a dozen minor details. I am hoping to overhaul the CCTV system next weekend, adding at least one more camera and finally getting cracking on reconciling and revamping the wiring (real RG6 instead of siamese RG59 for the more tempermental cameras) and hopefully I can post some highlights from that work.

We’re still here, just embroiled in day to day details.

Looks like our Jilly caught a nasty bit of a stomach bug this past week, and being the kind considerate soul she is has likely shared it with the rest of us. I sincerely doubt we’ll be doing a lot of outdoor activities this weekend as a result.

The good news is that I’ve treated myself to The Office (Season 1 and 2) on DVD this last week, and have no shortage of entertainment if I’m stuck inside.

While I’m sure everyone reading this is already familiar with the office, I’ll post a highlights clip for any that have missed this. It’s brilliant.

Of course my preoccupation with day-to-day life combined with my continuing dayshift schedule has meant that I have not made it out to the range in over three months. This was further complicated by the fact that my range was recently forced to implement a buddy system (no solo shooting) after a gummint inspection.

This pretty much kills off my favorite shooting. Just me, my firearms and a completely empty range at 10:00am on a weekday. No waiting around for cease-fires to do target changes, no yahoos explaining to their neophyte friends why an SKS can cut down trees, no distractions.

As a consequence I am now looking at acquiring a second range membership, hopefully this will give me the opportunity to do a little more shooting during “new” off-peak times.

Yes, between work, family and regular visits to the dentist I’ve been significantly absent from the blog. There are things I wanted to rail against, rant about and even mock, but time has been a constant enemy.

First the update. I’m still here, I’m still not smoking (6 months! Yay me!), I’ve gone through approximately $1500 in dental work in slightly more than a month (which anyone will tell you is really not that much when it comes to dentistry - in fact it covers two MAJOR fillings, one MINOR filling, one extraction and a cleaning bordering on industrial - The doc has told me I have the summer off, there is more work to be done, but all the evil issues have been dealt with, and the majority of the remaining work is cosmetic in nature).

While most that know me will undoubtedly point out that I’ve never been one to keep my mouth shut for any length of time, keeping it open for hours on end (two seperate 1 1/2 and 2 hour sessions) is exhausting in a very special way.

Now, before I joke about this I’d like to point out that my dentist is truly excellent, and a far cry from the doctor I had in Vancouver, a clip of which I’ve posted below.

Well, the clip reminded me of my old dentist.

I love stuff like this. Shaking up the “day to day” lives of people just a little bit, replacing the normal panorama of urban drudge with something that gives you a moments pause and snaps you out of that auto-pilot most of us spend so much time in.

Improv Everywhere, according to their webpage, causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. These stunts are harmless, but the reaction they provoke (both in the general public, and those in “authority” are fascinating).

My two favorite “stunts” are linked below, give them a perusal.