This Bothers me...

Ugh. I overpaid my VISA by $.02 cents. Bah. Now it has a positive balance. Too bad I can't buy anything worth that little anymore. Yeesh.

New Links!

Just so you all know, I have also added a couple new (to me) blogs that I have been reading for a while but never got around to adding. Most are found under the (PF) section to your right, but I have also added some of my favorite UK bloggers on the left, as well as some non-PF blogs and some gossip and deal sites at the bottom right.

Do just what the heading says, and check 'em out!

We finally got our raise!

... Sadly, I won't be here really long enough to take advantage of it. Poop.

Currently, at office job, we make a measly $12/hour. They've been pushing to get it upped for quite a while, and, this morning, have finally suceeded. They actually increased it to a whopping $18/hour - a huge jump. The downside is that it doesn't take effect until July 1, 2008, and I am only paid until July 18th. Siiigh.

I technically stop working on July 11, 2008, and am paid out the extra week since I didn't take a vacation again this term. So it's a nice extra $720 that I won't have to work for that week, it just sucks soooooo hard that they didn't get this raise together when I started.

If they had, I would've been able to pocket (spend/save/drink away) an extra $12,480 before taxes. That's immense. So. Much. Money. Of course, I would've just spent it, I'm sure, as I really didn't get my act together and start saving until January. Bah. Hum-fakin-bug.

That still would've been an extra $5,760 dollars I'd have made since January 2008. Most likely about $4,000 after tax. I could've had a goal of $14,000 saved instead of $10,000.

Argh! #$%^&*(&^%$%^&*&^%$%^&*(*$#$%&**&$##%%$^&()($%.

They asked if I wanted to stay over the summer, and I did think about it. But I decided against it. The reason I'm leaving this job as soon as I am has nothing to do with the pay. I'm tired of the job. And now my supervisor is leaving this unit for a different district in the city, and as much as I do enjoy working with J, she's not enough to keep me there. I'm tired of talking to people, with their stupid problems.

Plus, I have family comming for the summer, and I'd like to have a lot more freedom to spend time with them. Not to mention the mountain of crap I still have to sort through before I haul my tushie over to the UK.

Looking at it this way, it would be an extra $4,000-ish to work the rest of July and August. I would be working up until the moment I leave. Given the amount of crap I have yet to do, I'd probably have to quit working at Subway.

If I leave on July 11th like I've planned, I will work the July weekend ($168), and will take the week of the 18th off. The week after I will work full-time ($420), and for the month of August I will work 2-4 shifts a week ($672 - $1,344). So, I could easily pull in around $2,000 before tax (or more, if I wanted to).

So I guess the way I have to think about it is that I'm not earning $2,000 to have spare time to spend with my family, friends, and myself before I leave. I like that.

That makes me feel much better. I still wish that I could've been making $18/hour since I started, but I suppose that there's nothing I can do about it. I am getting tired of the job, and with everyone I love working with leaving, there's not much left for me there except crabby callers and goofy policemen. I do enjoy the goofiness, though.

Oh my, it has been quite a while since I've posted, hasn't it? I blame the new girl at the office-job, J. Hah. It's not totally her fault, it's just that I post mainly from the office, and with her being there with me every hour of every day, I don't get much privacy. Yikes. This week is her last week of training, and I cannot wait until June.

See, J is a morning gal, I, however, am not. So, she's going to work the 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. shift, while I get to work the 12-8 shift. Yay! That does mess up the Subway job, since I won't get to work as much there, but seeing as I'll be there on and off all summer, I'll be able to make up the hours I'll be missing. As well, I just can't wait to sleep in. Can't. Wait.

It's like Christmas.

On the $$$ front, things are still chugging along. I just want to see those goals accomplished. I can taste it, I'm so close, and yet, so far. It's very frustrating, and in the meantime, all I've been wanting to do is shop. Shop shop shop.

I did buy a couple travel-related things, but they were things I'd need anyways. I've also been steadily contributing to the Pre-trip fund, and spending from it at the same time. It may never reach $2,000, because I just might spend it before that.

As well, my friend S asked if I wanted to road trip from Calgary to Seattle with her over the Canada Day long weekend. I know it'll be a stupid crazy-busy weekend, but I think it'd be a lot of fun. I've never been to Seattle, I think i'd like it. I just don't know what to budget for it. We'll see how the plans come together.

Oops!

Whoops! Somehow I've managed to spend my $200 limit for this month already. That sucks, and since I wasn't working with a budget, I don't know where all of it went. It will be tough to outlast the month without spending more cash, but I'm sure I can.

Meanwhile, I booked my London hotel!! Yay!! Fortunately it won't cost me anything until I get there, which is nice. The hotel I booked is the Luna and Simone hotel in London. It's near Victoria station, which is a very central station - nice, even though I'll most likely be taking a cab from the airport to the hotel. Much more expensive, yes, but the idea of hauling all my worldly possessions around the London Underground aren't that appealing. Hah.

Either way, I'm pleased that all this is starting to come together. I still have yet to book my flights, but I'm hoping the Airlines will have a sale or something. We'll see. I'v,e budgeted just over $1,300 for both my flight to Toronto, and the flight from Toronto to London. I should be able to do that. I might end up comming $100 or so overbudget, but I'm going to try not to.

I have also decided that for now, I'm going to keep the pre-trip savings in a cash format. That way, when I need them, they will be there. I won't have to worry about transferring funds or anything. It'll just be cash. As well, that helps me spend as I see things I need, rather than wait to acheive the $2,000 goal before buying anything. I'm keeping this money seperate from my other money in my wallet by putting it in a little paper enveloppe. I think it's cute.

So, for any of you who would like to know, I'll be in London at the hotel from the 24th of September to the 1 of October. I'll be looking for an apartment to rent as of the 1st of October, so if anyone has any suggestions, then please feel free to share! I've been mainly looking through facebook as well as Gumtree.com, which was recommended to me many many times.

I gotta run - gotta get my nice shirts out of the washer before they wrinkle!!

Savings Goal Accomplished!

So, more than 2 months ahead of shedule, I have accomplished yet another savings goal. It's very exciting! This time it's the $5,000 London 'Fun Fund'!. Yesterday my final payment went through, and the account is now happily sitting at $5,157.91, $157.91 over my goal. This translates to £2652.82. Yay!

So, for all of you visual people, here's the chart ING Direct provides me with:
So, as you can see, this is way ahead of shedule, which is totally cool. I'd rather have extra time to accomplish something than not enough time.

So, now what I think I'll do, is I'll start contributing towards my pre-trip cash. I don't know if I will open yet another savings account, which I'm hesitant to do. Maybe for now, I'll just keep it as a cash fund for now.

Actually, hold that. I think I'll add it to my 'Plane Fund' account. I'll be buying a place ticket soon enough, and it suits the whole concept of the fund, anyways.

Either way, YAY!!!

*exhasperated exhale*

Oh. Em. Gee. What a week. I still haven't made a budget, and I just spend the last half an hour figuring out what exactly I'm doing with my money. Yikes.

Okay, let's recap. It's been a while since I last posted. Okay, so, I picked up my VISA (yay!), everything is correct (yay!), and it's really pretty looking (double yay!). In fact, I will upload the scan I took of it yesterday to show you just how pretty it is. It's like British money - it's so colorful and antique-looking.

See? This is what it looks like: Not too bad, hey? It's a pretty good picture, too. Hah. Too funny. But seriously, it is very pretty. And it's just in there, as a sticker in my passport. Good times.

In other news, I packed many of my worldly goods into my newly-purchased luggage and carted it around the living room for a while. It's damn heavy (around 44 lbs), but it all fits. I would prefer to have a little more wiggle room in the luggage, but again, I don't think i'll be packing as much as I put in there. Plus I had added my tripod, which takes up a lot of space. Unfortunately my umbrella doesn't fit in the suitcase, although it was close! I am thinking about leaving it behind, now. I did give some thought to bringing it in a seperate box or something, but I think it's just becomming more of a pain than it's worth. So I think I'll leave it here and just suck it up and buy another one there.

The new girl started here at the office on Monday, too. She's not here right now, since she had a doctor's appointment today. She's working out good. I enjoy her company, which is nice. I can come off as bitchy when people first meet me, and that's really because I don't want to make a fool of myself, so I tend to shut down. Either way, she's very sweet, and very eager to learn. The only problem I'm having is that given that she's so eager to learn, every 15 minutes I hear "Okay, what can I do now??", which is both nice and annoying. Sometimes, there's really nothing to do here. Sometimes all I want to say is "Okay, now you can sit down and be quiet while I relax for 30 minutes". But again, I'd rather have someone too eager to learn than someone who didn't care. Hopefully in the next 3 weeks I can get her all trained up.

Speaking of that, I'm thinking that I will give my notice here at office job for July 15th, 2008. This will give me all of June to earn more money, as well as July. But then I will have accomplished my $10,000 savings goal. That will also give me 6 weeks or so to get ready and relax before I leave in September. I also have my aunt, uncle, their 2 kids, and my grandparents comming out from Ontario to visit, so it will be a very full household. Either way it'll be fun to take day trips and be a tourist with them. Working through the beginning of July will also give me a break from Stampede. It gets pretty crazy here during Stampede, so it's better to be in an office rather than navigating the streets.

After that I'll continue to work at Subway, but probably only 2 shifts a week or so. That'll give me about $600 a month for wiggle room, as well as the chance to keep midly busy and keep in touch with people there.

So, when my boss comes in this morning I'm going to chat with her about it and see how she feels about it. I'm pretty sure the new girl should be able to handle the office by herself with 2 months of working. We'll see.

I'm busy moving some money around right now, so when that gets settled I will update some figures!!

No Budget?!

So, so far this month, I'm running blind. I haven't written down a budget, I haven't checked my bank balances, and I haven't even deposited a cheque that I've had in my possession for a week now!


You would think it would give me freedom to buy and spend spen spend... but actually...


It sucks.

A lot. I'm actually a bit surprised. I didn't think it would stress me out as much as it is. I really need to sit down tonight and make one, so here goes.

Currently in my TD Bank Account I have a balance of $2,114.43. This seems like a big number, but I'll explain why it isn't in a minute.

Currently in my ING Accounts I have a grand total of $10,012.20. This is, of course, seperated into several categories:

Some of these values are a litlle lower than usual. Technically, I owe $1,400 to Savings from last month as well as $1375 to the fun fund. I have $400 in cash that I need to deposit, as well as a $70 cheque from my mom. This still doesn't include the $1,400 I need to deposit for this month. So, thinking about the deposits from last month alone, I am sitting at a deficit of -$260. Yeeesh.

The good news is, is that I am making $2,356 this month, so I will have more than enough money to pay for all my, "bills". After I pay everything, I will still have $695 left this month. But no, I'm not going to spend it!


I've set myself a budget for $200 this month. The $400 I'll have left over is either going to act as a cushion for my future budgets, or to put towards my pre-trip savings. Yay!

The good news is, is that, if all goes well, I should have all my goals accomplished by the end of June!! Yay!!


Now, something I have pondered for a while, is, do I lessen the hours I'm working at my jobs to give myself a breather and take some extra time off to relax, or should I push through and continue to work my ass off to save all the extra dollah for London. I'm not sure...

We'll see. We will be hiring a new girl here at the office this comming Monday, so i've got to spend 2 weeks training her. We'll see how she turns out. If we don't get super-along, then I might consider leaving this job a little earlier than August 1st.


I'll be spending some time thinking about that.


The good news is, is that I get to go pick up my PASSPORT and VISA today at the Post Office!!

Wheee!!

So. Much. Planning.

I seriously cannot believe that everything is comming together. omg. omgomgomgomg. It's a little bit surreal.

Either way, I finally feel like I can go ahead and start planning! Everything was kind of on hold for a while because I didn't want to go and pack everything up and book a flight before I heard back, but now, I can do just that!

It's probably good timing, too, since Air Canada and some of the other jets have started increasing their prices because of the rediculous cost of fuel. So, hopefully by the end of next week I will have a flight booked.

I just have something I want to think over, first. My original thought was to fly or take a greyhound bus to Toronto, spend a couple weeks visiting extended family there, then fly to London from Toronto, which would be cheaper. On the other hand, that does mean that I have to get everything packed and sorted before I go, then cart it around while I'm in Ontario - something I'm not so keen about anymore. I'm thinking I will book a ticket from Calgary, and then decide later if i'd like to visit family for a week or so before I leave.

Now the question is, when do I want to fly out? Ideally I'd like to have an apartment and be settled by October... but how much time should I give myself to find an apartment? That I'm not sure. I doubt i'd need more than 2 weeks to find an apartment - but i'd hate to book a hotel for 2 weeks only to find something the first day. Maybe I'll book something for 5 days or a week and see what happens.

I'll also need either a place with Wi-Fi or be in proximity to a cafe or something that gets Wi-Fi. This will be important in my search for an apartment.

The only problem I can forsee is a phone. I'm not sure if places like Virgin Mobile allow you to buy prepaid cell phones if you are a tourist. If they did, this will be ideal. That way people can contact me as well.

Omg. I am so happy. And overwhelmed, but mainly with happiness. Here we go!

I GOT MY VISA!!!

(omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg).

Ahhhhhh!!!!!