An exercise in not spending

[mousme]

With one exception, I have declared October to be Buy Nothing Month. (The exception is the first Friday, when fearsclave has generously agreed to take me shopping for a fishing rod and other equipment. Yay!)

So for the next couple of weeks I'm going to be doing some advance preparations for food and the like, so that I have enough to carry me through the month, as well as cat litter and the like. That's not a huge difference, since I try as a rule to have a month's worth of litter and food in the house anyway.

What ought to make a difference, however, is not buying books, a luxury to which I've become altogether too accustomed since I got this latest job. I have a reading list a mile long already, so this will force me to read the stuff I bought on a whim a few months ago and then never got around to reading, without succumbing to current whims.

I'm also going to not use my Communauto car except for one weekend, since I find I have begun relying on it for "frivolous" things that I could as easily do using public transport.

I'm thinking of turning 2010 into an exercise in frugality. After doing some careful math, and figuring out which luxuries I'm not willing to forgo right now (like my gym membership) and what obligations I have to meet no matter what (paying off my RRSP loan), I am going to try to live on 2/3 of my current salary. It would be tight, but I think I can do it. Some of the "savings" will go almost right away to a nifty toy from Lee Valley that I think will be very useful for the garden, as my house is too cold and doesn't get enough sun to start seeds with any success, but all the rest of it is going to go into a "house fund" for the near-ish future.

The house plan is still mostly on track, which means I can reasonably start looking at houses in 2012. With the extra "house fund" in place, this ought to make things even more accessible for me, no matter what other contingencies may arise in the meantime.

By 2012 my RRSP loan will be paid off, and that black mark on my credit report which is ruining my financial life forever ought to be gone as well. Yes, I am still bitter that that *one* mistake is screwing me over even now. I still can't get my credit card company to raise my limit, no matter that my credit history has been impeccable for three years, that I make *twice* the amount of money that I was making then, and have no obligations the way I did then (the car). For all the good that trying to fix all of it did, I may as well have declared bankruptcy. GAH!

*pant pant*

Okay, anyway. By 2012 it should all be gone. *crosses fingers* Then the banks might not point and laugh when I ask for money, and I'll have the added "advantage" of having topped out at the maximum salary I'll ever make in my current post at the RCMP, which ought to make a bit of a financial difference by then as well.

I'm going to have to get a car before I move into a house anyway, so 2012 may end up being about getting a car and paying it off, and 2013 will be the house-buying year, in spite of my qualms about waiting "so late" to get a house. It has occurred to me lately that many of my friends have been in their late thirties and early forties when they acquired their houses, so I don't feel quite as bad or behind the game as I did before.

I know that 2012 is right around the corner. Two and a half years. It still *feels* like forever.

Comments

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

Honey, the world is supposed to end in 2012. You don't have that much time.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

I *refuse* to stop planning on the off-chance that the world will explode.

What happens if the operative words in TEOTWAWKI are "as we know it?" What if the world continues, and I still need a house? What then? :P

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

2012 is not going to be a big deal; all we'll need is jaguar-proof umbrellas and hip waders.

[mieszko.livejournal.com]

Will tiger proof shields ad chest waders work?

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

I thought that the Mayans predicted that the world would end in a rain of jaguars. Tigers would be a bit more of a problem; they're much bigger and meaner than jaguars.

[sorceror.livejournal.com]

I'll have to remind Mom & Dad to reinforce the roof.

Good thing I live in a basement. :-P

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

I'm a tiger in Chinese astrology. We're not mean. Just grouchy and misunderstood.

But it would have to be a killer umbrella to hold up to hundreds of punds of British luxury car raining down.

[mieszko.livejournal.com]

The world was suppose to end in 500 A.D. and then in 1000 A.D. and in two thousand it was suppose to go to hell in a hand basket. It'll end when it end and more than likely we'll all be caught with our pants or kilts as the case maybe down.

[mieszko.livejournal.com]

Glad to see someone else out there that plans things like my wife. Good luck with it.

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

Is that Communauto weekend the one for the crafting weekend? If so, let's talk about sharing gas and company along the way, for I am currently rideless.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Gas is not a problem, as Communauto reimburses it afterward.

The one difficulty I foresee is that I plan on leaving pretty early to go fishing rod shopping with fearsclave. I shall send emails so that we can plot. :)

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

Rod shopping? That means you're going up on Friday, right? Ack.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Yup. Friday, likely in the AM. I have pinged fearsclave about logistics, and will get back to you ASAP.

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

I can't leave before Saturday AM. I'll ping Ceri instead.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Argh. Let me know if Ceri can't offer liftage, and we'll work something out. :)

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Worst case scenario (i.e. neither you nor Ceri have a car for the weekend) I can drive into Montreal on Saturday and pick you up.

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's incredibly generous! Thank you so much for the offer. Fortunately Ceri is car-enabled, so we are covered.

[catsarah.livejournal.com]

Hey missymouse, if the rod that I gave you is not suitable for your use, then either gift it on to someone who has no equipment or hold it til I can pick it up from you. *hugs*

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Well, part of the Friday shopping spree will be getting a spinny-thing for your rod, as well as hooks and tackle and fishing line. Right now I only have the rod itself, which, while a sine qua non for fishing, is not in and of itself a sufficient condition to render fishing possible. :)

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

Learn how to tickle the trout.

[catsarah.livejournal.com]

Ah! Are you...dare I ask...getting a fly rod? Sorry, was just confused when you said the exspendition was for a rod...

And I'll have you know that my first rod was a willow switch with a wee line and hook and it served me well! ;) Not for landing the *big* one, but I had a panful (of minnows) for dinner none the less! :D

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Sorry, was using my usual verbal short-hand, which apparently no one but me understands. ;)

No, not a fly rod. I am resisting the lure (no pun intended) of fly fishing, lest I get sucked into yet another hobby for which I have no time. :P

[kiwano.livejournal.com]

Being underemployed with a nontrivial debt burden on my shoulders, I'd like to know what this horrible mistake you made was. I may be tempted to try slightly more drastic measures towards reducing interest rates, and don't want to get screwed by it all.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

The horrible mistake was not being prompt with my credit card payments, back in the day. I had a small but not-insignificant credit card debt, and I am more than a little embarrassed to say that I *forgot* to pay it for three months running. Somewhere in my head I thought I had, and because I didn't keep proper records, the amount never got paid, and the company canceled my card.

Turns out, having that done is practically the equivalent of declaring bankruptcy, as far as I'm concerned. It dropped my credit score by well over 200 points, and is going to stay on my credit record for six years starting from when the debt was fully repaid, which due to a very long and annoying bureaucratic screw-up of $3.00 (yes, three dollars) ended up not being until August of 2006. So I'm actually stuck until August 2012 before this will all go away.

So, yeah, if nothing else, make your minimum payments pronto. This isn't rocket science. It's a very firm Life Lesson in not being lackadaisical about finances.

[kiwano.livejournal.com]

Ahh.. ok, that's not one that I was considering. The two crossing my mind are trying to get a credit counselling service to bludgeon my interest rate down to something sane so that a much larger fraction of my monthly payments can actually go to principal rather than interest, and asking my credit card company to drop my credit limit every time I shave a thousand dollars off my balance (so that it would be easier to apply for lower-interest loans that I could subsequently move my balance to).

And to think that when my postdoc ran out a year and a half ago, I was free of institutional debt (though still had a balance at the bank of mom and dad). Graduating into a recession (apart from the detail that a postdoc doesn't end in a graduation) sucks. Clearly the universe is punishing me for snickering at the dotcom crash because I was going to grad school anyhow, and didn't have to worry about graduating into it.