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Friday night is pajama night! September 29, 2007

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I love Friday nights. I remember a time when I always had to have something to do on a Friday night, otherwise I’d be called a loser for staying home and doing nothing. But now? I can’t wait until I get home from work on Friday afternoons (I try to schedule my 2nd job so I don’t need to come in on Friday), because as soon as I get through the door and dump my crap on the table, I go change into my PJs. LOVE IT.

Anyway this Pajama Friday, I watched Stranger Than Fiction (borrowed from my mom’s friend who has a massive DVD library and lets people borrow whatever they want for free). I love Will Ferrell, but have never watched the movie before because it didn’t look very funny. Have you seen it? I thought it was awesome!!! I mean, it was no masterpiece, but for an attempt at a different kind of role, I thought he did a great job. I was engaged in the storyline the entire time, and I never once thought it was boring.

Too bad the arena job is going to ruin my solo Friday night PJ party. :) Oh well, I’m probably going to switch Pajama night to Wednesday nights, because America’s Next Top Model is on. It’s my guilty pleasure.


$850 for scooter performance parts September 29, 2007

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This may not sound very frugal of me, and it probably isn’t … but the combined total of servicing my scooter and adding performance parts (70cc kit, chrome muffler, kevlar belt, etc. … it’s a Stage 3 upgrade) was $850. That’s right. $850.

Because I know the head mechanic, I got a break on labour, so I’m mostly just paying for parts. I know it’s an expensive purchase, but by upgrading all of the pieces in the scooter from stock parts, I’ve prolonged the life of my scooter and upped the resale value as well. Plus, most importantly, I’ll feel safer on the road by being able to go the speed of traffic, and it’ll cut down my travel time to and from my jobs pretty drastically. He said that the top speed of my scooter is dependent on a lot of things, but I should be able to reach 90km/hr. easily. That’s fast as hell. Not that I would ever want to go that fast, but since before, I was always full throttle and going 60km, I’ll only be putting half the stress on the scooter now that it’s capable of going faster. And I know he’s not screwing me over because 1) he’s not exactly charging me labour, and 2) he’s a friend.

The BF thinks it’s outrageous to pay that much for performance upgrades, but when I pointed out that $850 is almost the same amount as his truck payments, insurance and gas for one month, that shut him up pretty quickly. :)

And the way I see it is, I’m still ahead of the game by riding my scooter, and it’s still way cheaper than buying a new scooter and having to go through taking the $600 course to get my motorcycle license. It’ll be more fun to ride it now that I’m not stressed about slowing down traffic. Plus, it’s just plain embarrassing to see a whole line of cars stuck behind you, with no room to pass, and no safe places to pull over.

I’m honestly not concerned about the money. I might have to revise my budget and goals for the month, but to me, it’s worth it. I’ve been meaning to do this since I bought the scooter, and now I can’t wait to get back on and go riding!


October Monthly Goals September 28, 2007

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October 2007 goals:


September Goals: My Review September 28, 2007

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September Goals (end of month review):


Having a scooter can be so inconvenient at times September 27, 2007

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Today I was informed that they are shutting down the road I take to get to work for an undetermined amount of time (to re-pave a huge chunk of it). This is not good. Even if it’s only for a few weeks, it’s a major problem for me.

There is no other way to get to work on my scooter other than by this road … and sure I can catch a ride to work with a co-worker (who has a car and can go on the highway), but I’m really concerned about traveling to my 2nd job after work, which is also out in this area and is only accessible by this one road (or by going on the highway, which I can’t do). There are no buses that run this way, it’s way too far to walk, and I am not in a position to be calling a taxi to get to my 2nd job, and then to take another one all the way back into town to get home.

I need to be in the office right now to do the 2nd job, otherwise I wouldn’t care because I do a lot of work from home. But I have meetings to attend, documents to upload/download, large quantities of material to print, etc.

I can’t borrow the BF’s truck because I don’t know how to drive a standard … and my parents both use their cars during the week to get to their jobs. I guess I could rent a car, but that’s probably expensive.

CRAP.


What are the pros and cons of free post-secondary education? September 27, 2007

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I was reading Chitown’s blog Windy City Blues today through my RSS feed, and she was talking about what her financial plan was now that she’s done law school. I got to about the point in her post where she mentioned her student loan debt: $207k. Holy crap!!! It makes my $17k of debt look so small next to that amount … but perhaps it’s all relative to the careers that we have. Obviously she’ll make a lot more money than me since she went to law school, and all I have is a half-finished marketing degree and a college diploma in communications.

It makes me envious of other countries that offer free post-secondary education like France and Germany (I think). But I was reading up a little on government-run Universities, and apparently people think that the level of education offered there is lower than what you would find at a private institution. Also, an old teammate of mine told me that becoming a doctor is a lot easier in some countries in Europe because you don’t need to take all the fluff general classes – you just go straight into the classes you’ll actually need, and apparently that drastically reduces the amount of time spent in school. By years.

Anyway, I honestly don’t know much about the pros and cons of free post-secondary education, or really even on how other countries run their educational system, and I couldn’t find very helpful articles on the internet about it. Then again, I didn’t really look that hard. I wonder if anyone out there knows of a website that explains the pros and cons?


I heart you guys September 27, 2007

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The PF community is amazing. Since I started this blog, I’ve felt such a sense of camaraderie with all of you. I appreciate the articles you e-mail to me, the wonderful, thoughtful comments you leave in my blog, and the general sense of togetherness we’ve created in this tiny section of cyberspace. Are you sick of my mush yet? Don’t lie, you love it.

I think what really got me was yesterday, Nancy commented on how she didn’t know I drove a scooter, and asked if I would post about riding a scooter (costs, insurance, gear, money spent, etc) … and before I even got a chance to reply, an anonymous poster wrote a comment directing Nancy to the appropriate entry from last week. You guys sure are swell.

Anyway, Saving Diva and Canadian Retired Guy have both sent me really useful articles over the past couple of weeks, and I feel awful I haven’t had a chance to reply to your e-mails yet, so instead thought I’d thank you here instead. :)

Saving Diva sent me a really interesting article called Soaring Canadian ‘Loonie’ Spurs U.S. Border Shopping. It was about how Canadians are flocking across the border to shop … and why wouldn’t they? With the exchange rate so good right now, and with products much cheaper in the U.S., it seems almost ridiculous to buy in Canada if you can avoid it. I can relate to this article, because I remember there was a time where American stores refused to take my Canadian pennies. And now, they’ll take most of our change up to a quarter. I wonder if there’ll ever come a time where Canadian stores will refuse to take American change!

Canadian Retired Guy sent me a link a while back to an article called Longevity ultimately leads to success. It was really interesting, and basically stated that those people who are always chasing the newest, hottest money-making strategy … they usually end up getting into the game at the wrong time – and they ultimately end up getting burned. We get caught up in the noise of day-to-day market action. I know I’m guilty of that, although I haven’t actually had the guts to invest my money in anything past mutual funds. I’m impatient when it comes to my finances, and that’s a huge problem I have. I want my debt to be gone NOW, my money to grow faster, my dream home to be affordable now … now now now! And I usually have to take a step back and tell myself that I’m 24 years old, and nothing’s going to get handed to me. The only way to get what I want is to work hard.

So I just wanted to say thank you again to all of you! I really appreciate it.


Scooterless this week September 26, 2007

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My scooter is in the shop getting serviced. Since I have been doing all the maintenance work for the past year, I just wanted to have a professional look at it to make sure everything is running okay. I need new tires as well, and I asked the mechanic to look into performance parts so that I can squeeze some extra speed out of the bike. I was really leaning towards selling my scoots (my friend said she’d buy it off me for $1,000) and getting a brand new, faster one … but the frugal side of me won over. If I could buy performance parts for a few hundred dollars, that’s a lot cheaper than buying something brand new.