Shavuot is over and I'm exhausted. It was really nice, barring the long walk with both the double and single stroller in the pouring rain on Monday. I can't remember the last time when I was literally soaked to the skin (my coat was still wet this afternoon).
So, this evening I thought I'd just provide a taste of things to come over the next week or two.
One of my goals for the month is to write at least one book review. I've been looking over my books, trying to decide which one to review. I think it's important to talk about books that have a specifically Canadian outlook, ones that talk about RRSPs and RESPs and similar things that are unique to those of us who live north of the 49th parallel. I can read countless books and blogs that talk about the difference between a 401(k) and a Roth IRA, but that doesn't help me with my financial decisions.
I think I've decided to begin with a one-two punch. First I'll review Derek Foster's "Stop Working, Here's How You Can!" followed by his other book, "The Lazy Investor". I actually won my copy of Lazy Investor (thanks Mike from Four Pillars!) and Mike and I have had a bit of a discussion via email about the book and the author's M.O. in general.
In case you haven't heard of Derek before, he's 38 this year and retired four years ago. Most of his retirement strategy is built around dividend income and income trusts. He says he began investing in 1992 with the intention of investing $200/month and retired 12 years later with his wife, kids and (I believe) a fully paid for home about an hour out of Toronto.
Is this a good strategy for the average person? I'll weigh in on this and several other things that came to mind when reading his books.
I also want to post about the rebate cheque we British Columbians are expecting at the end of June. While $100 per person is not quite in the same category as the economic stimulus cheques our American neighbours just received, it is an opportunity to devote some windfall money towards achieving our financial goals.
Gas prices are horrible and they just keep getting worse! I want to talk about that a bit. I could vent about how dreadful it is to have the increases happen so shortly after we started traveling hundreds of kilometres to our second home on a regular basis but there is actually a lot to talk about that is a little deeper than saying Poor Me.
And I hope to have some news on the debt reduction front, but I will keep that under my sheitl (wig) for now.
Showing posts with label Shavuot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shavuot. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Time and Money, Money and Time
Part of the struggle I go through, on my road to financial stability is the push and pull between the various aspects of our lives. I want to be out of debt and to stay out of it. But I also want to work on landscaping our yard at our rural home, getting rid of the weeds and planting nice grass, some more flowers and veggies.
I want to do more interior renovations, such as laying down laminate flooring in the living room and master bedroom, painting more walls, moving the furniture back into the bedroom and then doing just a little decorating in the living room. Honestly, the previous owner’s behemoth of a couch needs to go! But I also need to get someone in to reattach the gas line to the fireplace, to service the 40 year old furnace and to repair a small leak under the sink and an intermittent back up of water there.
Then there’s the house in the city. I need to tile the foyer and I’m desperate for the renovation of my bathroom (financially a joint venture between myself and my kids).
But everything costs money. I don’t have enough coming in right now and we’re already in debt. I’m still rebuilding my $1,000 emergency fund after replacing part of the roof. And our DC starts school in the fall. We’ve applied for a tuition reduction but haven’t heard back on it yet. I want to work towards my dream of both lavender and wine and to save for our retirement in about 15 years time.
This is why “miscellaneous” is such a good label for my life. I’m all over the place and I feel like I’m not getting anywhere as a result. But if I only pick one area and focus on it nothing else will get done. The two things that are holding everything up are lack of money and lack of time. I usually only have Thursday nights and Sundays to do any projects. Some projects only require time. Those are things like painting, using paint we’ve already bought, or unpacking boxes. Others require an outlay of some kind first.
An example of that would be the foyer. Originally, I planned to only tile a small area in front of the door and run the engineered wood across the rest of the area. When I installed the Dricore I realized that the concrete floor wasn’t level there so I decided to tile that whole area instead. I have to buy enough Ditra to cover the additional area to be tiled and rent a drill attachment that will mix up the thinset the day I actually do the tiling. I figure it will take an entire Sunday to do and then it will have to be grouted after the thinset has totally dried. In terms of my available time, that means I won’t be grouting until at least the following Thursday evening and possibly not until the Sunday. So the whole project takes about a week in terms of disruption of the area but can’t be started until I have both the money and a free Sunday.
Once the tiling is finished I can move the secretary desk back into place near the front door and I can build and place the small wardrobe I bought from IKEA at least 3 months ago. It will go beside the door to the storage room and hold our jackets. I would never have thought it would take this long to get the foyer tiled but that’s the reality of my life. The earliest I will have time to do it is not next Sunday, but the following one.
Anyway, what I want to take away from my time alone is the feeling of peace and the reduction of my stress level. All of the things that need to be done will happen in their own time, not necessarily when I plan and obsess for them to happen. I will have the life I want, debt free, stress free and with beauty. May it happen, as we say, bimheira v’yameinu, speedily in our day.
I’m off now to have a lovely Shavuot. I’ll be back to post again late Tuesday night or Wednesday.
I want to do more interior renovations, such as laying down laminate flooring in the living room and master bedroom, painting more walls, moving the furniture back into the bedroom and then doing just a little decorating in the living room. Honestly, the previous owner’s behemoth of a couch needs to go! But I also need to get someone in to reattach the gas line to the fireplace, to service the 40 year old furnace and to repair a small leak under the sink and an intermittent back up of water there.
Then there’s the house in the city. I need to tile the foyer and I’m desperate for the renovation of my bathroom (financially a joint venture between myself and my kids).
But everything costs money. I don’t have enough coming in right now and we’re already in debt. I’m still rebuilding my $1,000 emergency fund after replacing part of the roof. And our DC starts school in the fall. We’ve applied for a tuition reduction but haven’t heard back on it yet. I want to work towards my dream of both lavender and wine and to save for our retirement in about 15 years time.
This is why “miscellaneous” is such a good label for my life. I’m all over the place and I feel like I’m not getting anywhere as a result. But if I only pick one area and focus on it nothing else will get done. The two things that are holding everything up are lack of money and lack of time. I usually only have Thursday nights and Sundays to do any projects. Some projects only require time. Those are things like painting, using paint we’ve already bought, or unpacking boxes. Others require an outlay of some kind first.
An example of that would be the foyer. Originally, I planned to only tile a small area in front of the door and run the engineered wood across the rest of the area. When I installed the Dricore I realized that the concrete floor wasn’t level there so I decided to tile that whole area instead. I have to buy enough Ditra to cover the additional area to be tiled and rent a drill attachment that will mix up the thinset the day I actually do the tiling. I figure it will take an entire Sunday to do and then it will have to be grouted after the thinset has totally dried. In terms of my available time, that means I won’t be grouting until at least the following Thursday evening and possibly not until the Sunday. So the whole project takes about a week in terms of disruption of the area but can’t be started until I have both the money and a free Sunday.
Once the tiling is finished I can move the secretary desk back into place near the front door and I can build and place the small wardrobe I bought from IKEA at least 3 months ago. It will go beside the door to the storage room and hold our jackets. I would never have thought it would take this long to get the foyer tiled but that’s the reality of my life. The earliest I will have time to do it is not next Sunday, but the following one.
Anyway, what I want to take away from my time alone is the feeling of peace and the reduction of my stress level. All of the things that need to be done will happen in their own time, not necessarily when I plan and obsess for them to happen. I will have the life I want, debt free, stress free and with beauty. May it happen, as we say, bimheira v’yameinu, speedily in our day.
I’m off now to have a lovely Shavuot. I’ll be back to post again late Tuesday night or Wednesday.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Busy Few Days Ahead
I'm always busy but the few days surrounding a religious holiday are particularly hectic. There's a lot of cooking and cleaning to be done ahead of time, extra money that has to be spent on food, sometimes we're having guests, menu planning, laundry to do both before and after. And in the middle of all that I'm going to work, taking care of 3 little girls and trying to get the boxes out of my living room.
So I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I'm probably going to the other house just beforehand. Stop. Rewind. What did I say? The plan is to leave on Friday in the early afternoon and return on Sunday before the holiday starts at sundown. Because of the timing, I'll have to drive. The Greyhound was great but it only leaves at 3 pm and gets in at 9 pm. Candlelighting for Shavuot, the holiday where we celebrate the giving of the Torah, is at 8:58 pm!
And you noticed the singular pronoun "I" in the above, right? That's because it's looking like a solo trip. My DC has been taking ballet for the past couple of months and doesn't want to miss her class, especially when she has not one, but two new tutus to wear (a gift from her big sister). So I'm looking at 8 hours in the car (about 4 hours each way), Shabbat totally by myself, Sunday to do some gardening and to try to cut the lawn with our manual mower.
We didn't go last weekend, we can't go next weekend and we may not go the weekend after that because we want to try to take a few vacation days at the end of June and again at the end of July so we get close to a week there at a time without interfering with the whole family's work schedule and child care needs. I also hate to have 3 weeks or more pass in the summer without spending some time there. I don't feel comfortable dumping my garden on my neighbours for that length of time and there were actually budding strawberries when I was there 2 weeks ago. If there are any I could bring them back for DC.
All this means a certain increase in expenses. With gas in the $1.35/litre range (very roughly, that's about $5.40/gallon!) it means I'm going to spend about $120 on gas, plus whatever extra I spend on food. For example, I bought sliced roast beef and potato salad again for Shabbat as I won't have time to cook for Shabbat and my hubby won't want to if he and DC really do stay home. That's about $20 just for the meat, about $6 to $8 more than I would be spending for the meat portion normally. Hey, at least it's not dining out so it doesn't count towards Krystal's June Dining Out challenge. I'm already having problems staying on track with that.
Now, I have to admit, the $120 on gas is a little misleading. I fill up at about the halfway point, where gas is cheaper than here in the GVRD (because we have an extra transit levy on top of all the other taxes that are hidden in the cost of gas). I certainly don't use a full tank of gas to get home after that. In fact, I'll have between half and 3/4 of a tank left over that we will drive on for the next week or so. That actually means the Greyhound isn't as good a deal as it looks on the surface. It cost approximately $118 for my ticket when I went 2 weeks ago, but that doesn't put cheap(er) gas in the car.
Anyway, I think I'll have to take ingredients with me and make at least a dairy kugel motzai Shabbos [Saturday night, after the sabbath is over when it is fully dark]. Dairy foods are traditional for Shavuot and we do love eating dairy!
It's late, already well past midnight so this post will say "Friday" instead of Thursday, and I'm tired. If I have 4 or 5 hours of work plus a big drive ahead of me tomorrow I'd best get to bed now. Just note that I won't be able to post while I'm away and that I don't use the computer on holidays so there will be no posts Monday or Tuesday (unless I post late Tuesday night).
So I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I'm probably going to the other house just beforehand. Stop. Rewind. What did I say? The plan is to leave on Friday in the early afternoon and return on Sunday before the holiday starts at sundown. Because of the timing, I'll have to drive. The Greyhound was great but it only leaves at 3 pm and gets in at 9 pm. Candlelighting for Shavuot, the holiday where we celebrate the giving of the Torah, is at 8:58 pm!
And you noticed the singular pronoun "I" in the above, right? That's because it's looking like a solo trip. My DC has been taking ballet for the past couple of months and doesn't want to miss her class, especially when she has not one, but two new tutus to wear (a gift from her big sister). So I'm looking at 8 hours in the car (about 4 hours each way), Shabbat totally by myself, Sunday to do some gardening and to try to cut the lawn with our manual mower.
We didn't go last weekend, we can't go next weekend and we may not go the weekend after that because we want to try to take a few vacation days at the end of June and again at the end of July so we get close to a week there at a time without interfering with the whole family's work schedule and child care needs. I also hate to have 3 weeks or more pass in the summer without spending some time there. I don't feel comfortable dumping my garden on my neighbours for that length of time and there were actually budding strawberries when I was there 2 weeks ago. If there are any I could bring them back for DC.
All this means a certain increase in expenses. With gas in the $1.35/litre range (very roughly, that's about $5.40/gallon!) it means I'm going to spend about $120 on gas, plus whatever extra I spend on food. For example, I bought sliced roast beef and potato salad again for Shabbat as I won't have time to cook for Shabbat and my hubby won't want to if he and DC really do stay home. That's about $20 just for the meat, about $6 to $8 more than I would be spending for the meat portion normally. Hey, at least it's not dining out so it doesn't count towards Krystal's June Dining Out challenge. I'm already having problems staying on track with that.
Now, I have to admit, the $120 on gas is a little misleading. I fill up at about the halfway point, where gas is cheaper than here in the GVRD (because we have an extra transit levy on top of all the other taxes that are hidden in the cost of gas). I certainly don't use a full tank of gas to get home after that. In fact, I'll have between half and 3/4 of a tank left over that we will drive on for the next week or so. That actually means the Greyhound isn't as good a deal as it looks on the surface. It cost approximately $118 for my ticket when I went 2 weeks ago, but that doesn't put cheap(er) gas in the car.
Anyway, I think I'll have to take ingredients with me and make at least a dairy kugel motzai Shabbos [Saturday night, after the sabbath is over when it is fully dark]. Dairy foods are traditional for Shavuot and we do love eating dairy!
It's late, already well past midnight so this post will say "Friday" instead of Thursday, and I'm tired. If I have 4 or 5 hours of work plus a big drive ahead of me tomorrow I'd best get to bed now. Just note that I won't be able to post while I'm away and that I don't use the computer on holidays so there will be no posts Monday or Tuesday (unless I post late Tuesday night).
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