Looking back on April

Alright, here it is, my glorious monthly summary. Now, usually I would show you all my budget categories and how much I went over/under each. But I can't do that. Mainly beacuse I stopped keeping track sometime last week. I don't think I could put it all together, even if I wanted too.

However, I do have a networth increase:

My networth is now $12,570. It was previously $10,407. Not too shabby. I accomplished all my savings goals, sort of. I haven't actually depositied the cash from my chequing account over to my ING Direct accounts, because I had previously used up all my free debits for the month. I will be doing that today, and therefore the charts will be a bit more realistic. But, in the meantime, here they are:

This it the balance of my savings account. I still owe that account $1,400 from my chequing account, so it really should be on part with the chart. But, it looks like I'm well on my way to acheiving this goal. This is the balance of my "Fun Fund". I'm actually progressing faster than expected on this one. I still owe this account $785 from last month. So, by the end of this month, I should have accomplished my goal! I'll most likely be extending this goal, I'm thinking to around $7,000. We'll see how it comes together.

And finally, my Plane/VISA Fund:

The little dip is, of course, the $446 I had to take out to pay for my VISA. I should've taken out some more money to cover a couple other costs, like the costs of getting to Edmonton, as well as the passport photos I took, but I had the money to cover them, so I didn't.

Overall, while it wasn't the best end to the month, what with me being so stressed and all, I'm impressed that I accomplished all my savings goals, even if I did overspend.

I'm tweaking my budget for May. I'm planning on spending $200, and that's it. This is for food, stuff, toiletries (which I don't need and am not going to buy unless it's toothpaste or something), and clothing. I don't need more things. I have a lot of things.

Some of my goals for May include:

• To not spend more than $200 on non-essentials.
• To pack up 5 boxes worth of goods that are staying here.
• To get 75% of the stuff I need together for the garage sale.
• Don't stress myself over the VISA.

Whoof. Sounds possible. I gotta get some sleep first. Thank god I'm working nights at office job next week so I can at least sleep in. Yes.

Catch up!

Oh. My. God. What a week. Yikes. This week has got to be one of the most stressful weeks I've had. Ever. Okay, maybe not while I was in college, but that's a different stress. Research paper deadline stress is one thing, but this week has been anxiety attack, panic-ridden life stress. Thank god I'm not a high-strung person (usually), because I sure as hell can't do this all the time.

Okay, so, when was the last time I updated? Looks like the last time I really wrote was Sunday. Sunday was a nice day. I think. I can't really remember what I did. Monday I was at work, looking at the pile of shat I had to do. I've been leaving things in the office because I've been so focused on getting my VISA paperwork ready for Edmonton on Tuesday. I checked and checked and re-checked all night and all morning to make sure I had all my paperwork with me. I'm a little neurotic it seems. We got into Edmonton with about an hour to spare (I like being super early for things like this) and found the building and got me into the office about 1/2 before my appointment.

Turns out that appointments really aren't necesary, since I was let in pretty much right away. Whatever, worked for me. The guy wasn't very helpful, but he wasn't allowed to be, which sucked. They are basically the middle men. They are there to take your photo, your fingerprints, all your paperwork, and put them into a 'tamper proof' envelope and give it back to you. Yep, give it back to me. Sigh. I was then responsible to mailing it to Ottawa. I didn't really want it back, since having it with me made me just as anxious. I was worried I was going to lose it or bend the 'tamper proof' envelope and then I'd be in trouble.

The rest of the day in Edmonton was kinda fun. I ate and shopped with my sister and dad. Good times. The ride home was fun, too. I should've brought my camera, but I didn't necesarily want to worry about it and all my paperwork.

Wednesday I went back to work here in the office and just sat. I was tired and emotional and exhausted. I pretty much sat most of yesterday, too. Didn't help that I had this asshole call yesterday and I had to argue with him for, like, 1/2 an hour. Guys like him make me hate an ordinarily good job. (He called back again today... douchebag).

Overall, it's been a bad week. I want so bad for this VISA to happen, and I just worry deep down that it won't. I know it probably will, but I still worry. I also found out that when I'm this stressed, I shop. A lot. Well, not a lot, but more than I have been. I bought a couple things while in Edmonton, as well as some things on Wednesday when I was out with K. Stuff I really didn't need, but I wanted. It's been a rough end-of-the-month, budget-wise. I can't even tell you how good/bad I did, since I stopped keeping track. Yep, that's bad.

On a good note, I did buy an external hard-drive last night. It's 320 gigs and I think it should be plenty for storing photos and movies and music. Nothing too impressive. It's nice and tiny, and it doesn't require being plugged into an outlet, which will help when I am in London.

I wish I didn't work every day this weekend, because all I really need is one day off to sit in my jammies and recoup. And sleep. And eat.

My monthly summary and goals for May to follow.

I'm so sorry. It's been an absolutely crazy-stressful couple of days and I want so bad to update you all, but all I want to do is sleep my life away. I need to go to bed and get some crap sorted out. I promise I will update soon. Right now, though, I need to get sleep before work tomorrow.

ZZZZzzZzzzzzZZzzzzZZzzZZZzzzZZ...

Operation: Deep Clean!

Man, do I ever have a lot of junk. And not just physical junk, digital junk!! I've been slowly going through my computer and deleting old programs and files I don't use anymore. Right now my 100 gig hard drive is pretty much full. Yep. Full. Of crap. A lot of that is music, but much much more is photos. 28 gigs of photos to be exact. Yep, I'm "that guy" who takes tons and tons of photos.

Well, I have found one (okay, two) solutions! I was at a scrapbooking party last night (sounds so.... momish of me haha), which was hosted by a woman working for a company called Creative Memories, and while right now I'm not big on the actual process of scrapbooking, I am big on some of the software that they offer. While I was tempted to buy many (soooo many) things, I ended up buying software called "Memory Manager 2.0" from the company. It works basically like a database where you can store, tag, search for and basically sort your pictures. It does some other fun things as well, like add stories to pictures and make mock-scrapbook pages, but it was the database part that really interessted me.

The thing for me, is that I have all my photos into folders. They are named things like "Camping trip 2006" or "Europe 2007" or even "Nikon Testing Photos April 12, 2008". But, for example, I'll have photos of the Eiffel Tower in "Europe Trip 07" as well as "Europe Trip 08", so if I wanted to look at all my Eiffel Tower Photos, I would have to manually sort through all the pictures. With this software, I can digitally put photos in several different "drop-boxes", so for example, all the photos of the Eiffel Tower would be in a box called Eiffel Tower, but most likely, also in boxes labelled "Paris", "France", and "Vacations". I am very much looking forward to this.

Right now, I just have one obstacle in my way: the massive amount of photos I have.

So, for right now, I'm sorting photos. So. Many. Photos. I tend to keep every photo I take, which isn't neccesary. For example, I was hanging out in my room on Tuesday and I saw a bunch of robins outside my window on the front lawn. I pushed open my window, grabbed my camera and shot some pictures. 98 pictures later.... and I still have them all. There is probably only 5 - 10 worth keeping, and that's my bad for not sorting them out.

So, ladies and gentlement, it's sorting time!