January 28, 2010

Transaction Override

Hey people,

I am happy to report that for the past couple of months I have been living on cash only. When I receive my paycheque, i pay all outstanding bills and credit card payments. Once everything is
settled, whatever I have left over I wihdraw as cash. The problem is that I do not have that much money left over. Case in point:

Last Friday, I was paid and I ended up with $190 in my hand. That Saturday we decided to go to the mall to buy a few things and let me tell you, money sure does flow fast. I mean, we bought some things for our bathroom (my wife had some money she received from the government for the Child Tax Benefit and even though we spent about $140 only $40 was all that I had to contribute. That evening I took my wife out for dinner at Boston Pizza ($70) then another $30 to $40 at the movie theatre. We enjoyed ourselves and I do believe we deserved to indulge that day because with taking care of our almost three month old daughter took away most of our time.

By the time this week rolled around, I had no money but I lingered until yesterday when I received $60 reimbursement from my group health plan from work. My spirits have been lifted and God willing, they will remain so until I get paid next Friday.

January 26, 2010

Job Issue

First, let me mention a couple of things:

My degree is in Political Science but I decided after mid-way through my time at university that I wanted to do accounting. Instead of starting from scratch by switching programs, I completed my degree and then enrolled into the Certified General Accountants program (it is a Canadian accounting designation) and started looking for accounting jobs since one needs to have progressive accounting experience while you are studying for the designation.

Here is the chronology of my career history:
In 2004, I landed a job as a credit analyst for a Toronto-based collections company (pretty much first-party collections for American Express), which I held onto for two years. In between, I did a three-month stint in third-party collections (not my cup of tea!) and I found an opportunity as a Junior Accounting Clerk for three months as well. I did this to strengthen my resume.

In 2006, I landed a job as an Accounts Receivable Administrator with Ticketmaster Canada which was located in downtown Toronto as well. I can tell you it was a lot better working environment and the work was more in line with where I wanted to take my career.

In 2007, I was offered an Accounts Receivable Clerk position for a small, local company (I live in the suburbs of Toronto). My title may have said Accounts Receivable but all I was doing was creating invoices and mailing them out to the clients. The job was boring and tedious but worse was the fact that the work environment was horrible! Every single person, from the CEO to the guy who worked in the warehouse, used profanity! I found this very disappointing and unprofessional! I endured this for about a year and I quit that job since I was getting married and I had been offered a better job, which would start once I got back from my honeymoon.

In 2008, I was offered an Intermediate Accountant role with a local manufacturing company for a far better pay and better work environment. The best part was the ideal job that I was looking for for years and I finally had found it! I was only there for eight months when, due to the worsening economy (the company derived 80% of its business from the US housing sector), 15% of the workforce were laid off (including me).
After being laid off for three months, I finally got a job as a Grant Accountant with a world-renowned children hospital located in downtown Toronto in August 2009 and this is where I currently am employed (the salary is 26% higher than my previous job so I am thankful to God for His blessing).

As the title of this post states, there is an issue with my current job. The issue is this: the position is a one year contract that ends in July. I love the job. I love the people I work with. A manager who was on maternity leave is coming back and it looks like my job could be eliminated. I spoke with the Finance Director yesterday and she said she doesn't know anything until the manager comes back in March but she wants to keep everyone. However, since this is a quasi-government organization, there is always office politics. My co-workers have been telling me to start looking for another job now because the director is known to say that your job is safe when in fact you will still lose your job and she had no intention of keeping me in the first place. So, now the job hunt is back on for something else. I dislike this situation because I love my job and I now have to support a baby as well.

Anyway, this is life and without drama in life, it would be quite boring living. Let us see what the next day brings...

January 25, 2010

I Am Back! (Hopefully)

Hello people,

It has been a long time since my last posting. There is a lot of things that have happened and I will try to summarize them as simply as I can:

  1. I got married in July 2008
  2. I was blessed with a baby girl in November 2009.
  3. I have changed jobs twice since my last posting with the first occurring in August 2008 and the second in August 2009.
That pretty much summarizes life events that I have experienced.

The issue of my finances is another thing to discuss:

  1. I had to wipe out my registered retirement plan (about $6,000) to help pay for my wedding.
  2. I had started to get back on track in terms of saving 10% of my net pay into my RRSP but about a month ago I realized that it is better to pay down debt (I have over $65,000 in consumer debt) than to save since I would be earning a higher return via debt reduction.
  3. Money is tight because out of my biweekly pay cheque, all I have left for discretionary spending is less than $200, which isn't much in my honest opinion. It has taken me more than five years to finally force myself to begin paying down my debt because once a few of the credit cards are paid off, I will see more money in my hand but it does require patience and perseverance on my part, which is hard but in the end I tell myself that I have faith that I will survive.
Anyways, this is what I have to report for now. My intention is to try to keep up with posting as much as I can but let's see how my busy schedule reacts to it.