The last six weeks have been busy here at the CSS household. As most of you know, we’ve had some pretty big changes with my husband’s layoff and my work hours being cut. While this was initially a really scary thing, it hasn’t been all bad. Some things have been changing for me and the changes in our careers have started to crystallize them. It
There is a lot of conversation around the personal finance blogosphere about taking personal responsibility for our actions. We ‘take control’ of our finances and pay down our debt; control our spending; or grow our investment portfolios. We shun pension plans, social programs, and other initiatives and forge our own trail. We are aiming to be prepared for anything and that’s cool because anything can
This is not a post about how to recession proof your investments. That’s a different blog post. So. Retirement planning. Yeah. I really need to get on that. Don’t get me wrong, I have a defined benefit pension plan that will happily pay out a percentage of my yearly working wage until the day I die. The only thing I have to do is work
I’m a big fan of Chris Guillebeau and his Unconventional Guides series. I love his unflagging optimism and his appreciation for the weird and wonderful ways people find meaning in their lives. Recently, he teamed up with J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly (GRS) fame and put out a GRS Guide for purchase on his website. I had been in a funk lately and was
It’s a New Year’s resolution revolution! Cheezy title? Completely. But it’s a year of new beginnings. And not just because it’s January. First, a little history: For the past year and half, we have been living with a very difficult family situation. It wasn’t the kind of thing we could solve, influence, avoid, or move along more quickly. It was large and in charge and
Welcome to debt payment progress for year 2013. Meh. Debt payment progress. Without the progress part. Yeah, sorry, no trumpets or fanfare here. Not even a parade. I’ve read a lot of other personal finance blogs with some pretty great reports on what they accomplished last year but that’s not really going to be me. My debt payment progress has been not stellar. Some of
Spending Update: I have some extra money this month because I got paid three times; I received a nice expense cheque; and I kept back the rent money to use for other expenses. Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying attention so I went a little crazy with some of the spending. I don’t regret all the spending though: – I spent $215 on food and dining this
