Well... I want it to be right now but really, it's a one step at a time thing that I'm doing. Which is the reality of fighting your way out of a negative net worth. The fact of the matter is, debt usually is a long battle and only very rarely does things change over night. Because money doesn't grow on trees and I'm not exactly making a ton of money in which to make all my money problems disappear.
Hence the budgeting, saving and all the other fancy magic stuff that happens month-over-month for me.
Anyway, onward to the money stuff!
DEBT REPAYMENT: So earlier this month, I had a wild and ongoing debate (with myself) about my current debts and how I can go about paying it off. What it resulted in was that I had changed my mind about ignoring my student loan debt outside of the minimum payments in order to focus on paying off my lower interest credit card debt. Because based on the dollars and cents alone, it didn't makes sense for me to pay off the lower interest loan right away.
What ended up happening was that I did way more than I anticipated to both my debts this month.
My student loan debt ended up getting gifted an extra $75 more than the minimum (the original sum I was planning to contribute for the month) thanks to some "found money" of mine around the time my automated payment went through. And $75 is still $25 more than the $50 I generally plan to overpay my student loans every month anyway.
My 0.99% APR credit card debt saw way more action however in the form of $350, $150 more than the minimum I arbitrarily set every month to pay this debt down. However, $100 of it was already planned overpayment from off a paycheque I received from freelancing,
The other $50 was more or less unplanned, but mostly due to "bad planning." See... I uh... forgot about the fact that my credit card required me to pay a minimum balance before the 10th of every month. And since I wasn't confident that I'll have the money I planned to use to pay that amount down in time, I thought it would be better for me to just toss $50 on it right now and save myself possibly getting dinged badly for missing the date.
INCOME: I got a cost of living raise at work this month. Yay for raises!
Although after deductions and taxes, it only meant that I was making some $15 more a paycheque net or $30 more a month. Don't get me wrong, $30 is a pretty big deal for me anyhow, especially given that it does cover the rises in costs for rent, the internet, etc. I've been dealing with since the beginning of the year. And that's $30 more that I didn't have before that I can use to act as a buffer on my spending or savings so I'm excited to plan towards making that extra cash work for me one way or another going forward.
I also got one fat paycheque from my freelancing gig and a smaller surprise one from another task at around the same time, and most of those were used towards my debts and my savings plans. Because it's just as much fun to see your savings numbers go up as it is to watch your debt amount shrink in my mind. More so, although that's entirely dependent on my mood of the day.
Oh, and there was one other small event that happened this month: I got my first dividend payout from my stocks! It was only about $3.75 total, but it was exciting for me because the moment I got it was the moment I realized that I had already made more in dividend investing than I have earned off of bank interest both in my high and low savings accounts since August! Shocking!
I will hopefully keep earning around $3 a month now off dividends, give or take the quarter and the month, which is an encouraging thought as I move towards making more of my money do actual work for me as opposed to my bank. There are a lot of little schemes going on right now in any case.
SAVINGS: This month saw a lot of funny business happen to my savings as I moved around funds in order to accommodate my impatience and my crackpot plans.
So at the beginning of the month, I raided my emergency fund to the tune of around $500 dollars. To do what you ask? Well, to fund my Direct Investing TFSA account and to buy some shares that ultimately gave me around $3.75 of dividends this month. However, it did neuter my emergency fund a bit, which I had tried so hard not to do since my little shopping trip in December that also saw me raid that section.
Granted, unlike December, it just moved turned the funds from a low-interest but liquid asset into a higher-return but non-liquid asset. It remained savings and didn't become a form of rampant consumption. Still, the point of an e-fund is that the money can be drawn upon easily. It isn't anymore.
I also withdrew $400 from my High interest TFSA account and deposited it back into my Direct Investing TFSA account, and I also ended up spending around $230 out of my short-term savings/planned spending account to fund my sister's birthday as well as a brand new trench coat that I have been waiting and waiting on to buy and finally found the perfect one to buy! (Which will be told in full detail later)
Despite all of this funny business and spending out of the account, I had a pretty good month as far as savings goes. Just under half of all my freelance paycheques went towards savings, either the fund up my TFSA account or else to fund up my depleted e-fund and short term savings accounts to the tune of nearly $452 dollars.
In some ways, me raiding my savings in certain areas prevented me from using that money heedlessly as if I had a larger disposable income.
Well... mostly. I did end up going a little crazy in the spending category.
SPENDING: Well, as per usual it seems, I went a little too nuts in the food category, in that I spent more than $80 more than I had originally intended to spend a month on food, mostly due to the eating out category. That is to say, I had zero discipline this month when it came to eating out and little by little, blew my planned budget to bits.
Part of it was due to laziness and part of it was due to an unnecessary craving, but for next month, it is something that I will have to focus on reigning in. I've already made a start on attempting to reign in the spending however.
Then I also ended up spending around $50 that I never intended to spend on a new indoor jacket from H&M (it was cute and on sale and cute) and due to stupidity on my part as far as the costs of my taxes go, really blew out my miscellaneous fund for the month on getting my taxes done.
Thank goodness for that fat refund next month.
All in all, while this month wasn't nearly as expensive or expansive as December or January, it felt as if it got pretty goddamn close. While one of the big expenses was one that was more or less beyond my control (taxes), the other two could be better managed as far as temptation is concerned. In any case, I will need to figure out a viable plan in which to manage my need for new clothing once in awhile... maybe allow a purchase once a month if possible. But we shall see.
CURRENT NET WORTH: -$28,680.62 (+4.17%)
Allow for this thought to sink in for a moment here. In a month where I only got two paycheques and a marginal raise plus my freelance salary, I almost equaled the savings I made in a month where I had three paycheques and my freelance salary.
What does this tell me? That February did have an effect on me and my priorities and kept me grounded towards putting more of my spare money towards it.
I also thank God that I rethought how I would account for my savings in my net worth and focused on only my emergency fund in my savings account and did not include my "planned spending" accounts like my short term savings and my other accounts, because then like in December you would have likely seen my net worth take a bit of a hit in that category thanks to spending in March out of those categories.
It's somewhat hard to believe looking at this number that I may soon be seeing a net worth around -$25,000... and this from a net worth of -$33,000 in October of 2014.
It just goes to show that even when I feel I had gone crazy with my spending (which seems to happen every single month) or that I am stretching my money too thin, the very fact that I am watching where my money goes and making an attempt to reign in said spending here and there is leading to a very positive net increase every month. Regardless of if I manage to totally reign in my impulses, I am nonetheless reigning them in just by watching them.
Anyway, next month should be interesting to see what happens given a fat return with likely make a giant impact in all my finances. Where and how, we shall have to see however.
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