Well, here we are… New Year’s Eve… time to make New Year’s resolutions, right?! Well… I haven’t exactly been good about sticking to NY resolutions in the past (and really, who is?!), so I’m a little hesitant to make any. I DO, however, have goals for the upcoming year (if I’m being honest, I actually always keep a running list of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. Gawd, I’m nerdy). Here are my financial ones:
Loonie Sue
my road to financial independence - one loonie at a time
Month: December 2016
In part 1, I talked about Christmas gifts, mainly those received by our kids. Part 2 is about the gifts we give. Every year, we (well, mostly me, except in the case of used items, which hubs is equally keen about) make a conscious effort to give from the following ‘categories’:
When you’re actively trying to declutter & simplify your home, Christmas can be very challenging. Especially with 3 kids. And very wonderful, giving, generous relatives.
I remember a few years back (long before I’d ever encountered the concepts of minimalism or simplifying), being HORRIFIED by all the gifts my kids received (many of which consisted of several thousand pieces, or so it seemed), ridiculously-impossible-to-get-into plastic packaging, non-recyclable gift wrap, excessive amounts of money spent (especially bothersome when it came from those with low means), not to mention over-the-top consumerism, that Christmas brought along… To top it all off, it would often take weeks (or even MONTHS!) just to integrate all the new toys into the already-massive toy collection… SO. MANY. TOYS.
It’s late on the 28th and after several days that were completely computer-free and mostly smartphone-free, I’m now reminiscing on the Christmas that was…
We had an amazing Christmas yet again. Highlights were lots and lots of family time (4 separate family gatherings!), seeing kids play and laugh with their cousins, new games to play together as a family, perfectly timing an out-of-town trip to narrowly miss a big-time late Christmas Day, all-day Boxing Day blizzard, etc, etc.
Lowlight was losing my cool (again) at Christmas mass when the kids wouldn’t sit still (WHY can’t they sit still????), but no need to dwell on that…
Do you ever wonder where all your money goes each month? Do you feel like even though you make a decent salary, you’re still living paycheque to paycheque?
If you want to know where all your money is going, start tracking all the money coming into, and out of, your household for an entire month. And not just the big stuff like your mortgage payments, your utilities, etc, Track the little stuff too – every Starbucks coffee, the chocolate bar you pick up while paying for gas, the toonie you gave the kid who came to your door for their school fundraiser. All of it.
I wasn’t always obsessed with personal finances…
While I’ve always been relatively responsible with money (I always paid all my bills on time, I had a healthy fear of debt, I never carried a balance on my credit cards, etc), my interest in it was mild at best.
Then, in February 2015, I read Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin and EVERYTHING changed.
This blog is called ‘Loonie Sue’ – why?
Well, Sue is my name so that’s simple enough.
And this blog is about money, so that’s the Loonie part. But Loonie is meant to convey a bit more than that…
Today is my 40th birthday.
And my birthday gift to myself is this blog.
I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for a while now but I’ve been too afraid to take the first step. My fears – I’m not qualified, no one will read it, no one will care, I’m not qualified, I’m not tech-savvy enough, I don’t write well enough, I’ll run out of ideas, I’m not qualified, blah, blah, blah. You get the idea… Well, on this day, I say ‘F**k it’, and I’m just doing it.
So, here we are… Now what?!
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