Give Me Back My Five Bucks

I briefly mentioned before that I was thinking of hiring a cleaner, and it’s true. I am definitely going to hire one. For the longest time, I was completely against it. When I moved into this townhouse, I tried to reason with myself that my place is small (just less than 700 sq. ft.), and I can just suck it up and spend the time to clean it myself. Surely doing it myself would be worth it to not have to pay someone to come and do it for me. But you know what? Cleaning sucks. I work 65+ hours/week, … Continue reading →

On my last trip to the grocery store, I spent $45.67, and here’s what I bought: Produce (Asian grocery store) – $15.81 – 4 bananas – 2 peppers (red & green) – 2 onions (red & white) – 5 oranges – 1 peach – 1 mango – 2 cucumbers – 2.5 pounds of potatoes – garlic – mushrooms – 1 bunch of carrots   Safeway – $29.86 – 1 loaf of bread – 1 bag of chips – 6 spinach wraps – 1/2 dozen eggs – 1 jar of pasta sauce – 2 bags of bagels – 11 chicken thighs … Continue reading →

I recently received a comment on my July 2011 Monthly Goals post, where I talked about wanting to slash my grocery budget in half for the month (from $200 to $100). I was originally going to respond to it in comments, but I think it’s important enough to talk about. Especially because for some reason, I’ve been getting a lot of traffic to that post from people who think I’m unrealistic and crazy. Here is what one person had to say: Between your cell phone, internet and entertainment you’ve got $300/month budgeted and you want to cut your food bill … Continue reading →

Well as promised, here is my recap of my trip to Toronto/NYC/New Jersey. I’ll break it down into 2 posts (one detailing the money, and one recapping the trip). Let’s start first with the money breakdown. Flights & Rental Cars: $257.73 Vancouver-Toronto (flight) $48 Toronto-Niagara Falls-Buffalo (1 day rental car, including gas) $90 Buffalo-NYC (flight) $19 New Jersey (1 day rental car, including gas) $240.12 New Jersey-Vancouver (flight) TOTAL = $654.85 Accommodation: $208 Toronto (4 nights) $325 New York City (5 nights) $25 New Jersey (1 night) TOTAL =  $558 ($55.80/night) Shopping: $519.62 (seems like a lot, but considering I’ve … Continue reading →

I’m sure you guys are all wondering how much I paid for my townhouse, and also what my mortgage payments and budget will look like going forward. I’ve been careful in not mentioning any specific numbers until I knew the deal was final. But as of Friday, all conditions have been removed and the townhouse is officially mine with a possession date of May 4th. :) Here is a spreadsheet that best illustrates my expenses each month: The budget This is a rough working budget based on my net monthly income, and I feel like I’ve accounted for everything. The … Continue reading →