
What did you do to improve your finances today?
This was one of my favourite threads on the old forum, and since there doesn't seem to be one here yet, I thought I'd create one :-)
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Faness said:
freezer meals are our game of rouletteThat's hilarious!! 😂
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Just found out that the maximum 401k contribution for 2020 has gone up to $19,500 (from $19,000). So as of next paycheck, I'm having my employer raise my biweekly contribution accordingly. This works out to only about $20 per paycheck, but once I have it deducted automatically, I won't be tempted to spend the money, thus forcing an extra $500 of savings for this upcoming year.
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Simple and relatively small, but still: packed lunch for a monthly course day. It allways feels a bit as an outing and all the others buy lunch. But I just eat mine, while with them at the table, (that's allowed, nothing awkward) have drinks before and after as in the meeting room there's free coffee/tea.
And I spent nothing at all. 😊
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Reviewed the Shoppers optimum points deal Plus stuff we use on sale when I went to the drugstore to buy Epson salts.
The Dr.oetker frozen pizzas were on sale for $2.99 each (limit of 4) so grabbed 4 of those. Also the almond milk was on for 2 for $5 so grabbed for of those. the points deal was 20x points for $50 spend. so had to get up to $50. Then saw they had the PC frozen meat lasagna on for $5.99 (regular $10.99) so grabbed 3 of those (you can’t mKe a lasagna from scratch for that price). 16,000 points which we will hold onto until a spend your points event when they’ll be worth $25 instead of $16. Gotta work the shoppers points system to get maximum benefit.
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Rebalanced my investments in the TD e-Series for my RRSP to new allocations according to my risk survey to avoid hassles. 46% Cdn Bond Index-e, 18% Cdn Index-e, 18% US Index-e, 18% Int'l Index-e. Realized my biweekly contributions were only to the Bond, so set up a monthly contribution to all 4 equally. Nice watching it grow! My contributions are small until my debt is paid, but then I will happily increase the payments to PAY MYSELF FIRST! :)
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Still on the hunt for a solid side hustle to help pay off our debt. Looked into donating plasma today, but since I just had a baby in October I have 3 more months until I'm eligible. Tried taking surveys, but spent a few hours getting rejected on most of them and only earned $4 in points, can't redeem until $5. Downloaded the Ibotta app to try and save money on groceries, but went shopping over the weekend and completely forgot to use it. Reminded my husband again today to cancel his gym membership we pay $13.33 for every month to not use ever. I keep scrolling through our YNAB budget to see where we can trim. Made my husband promise not to buy anything until my next paycheck and put everything he thinks he needs on the shopping list. I'm determined to use every skill I have to make dinner at home for the next two weeks. I've promised myself that if I can just use what we have and make it stretch, even if it ends up being pancakes for dinner, there will be funds in future to go try that Indian place I've been wanting to go to. Eating out is our kryptonite. I've deviated from the YNAB rules for a while now, but I am recommitting!
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A friend suggested to go out for dinner friday evening, instead of having coffee today, so we won’t be time-pressured while we catch up. I liked the reason, only don’t want to spend any more on eating out this month... After some internal struggle I laid out the dilemma and we agreed to cook together at her place! Best of both worlds!
(Husband and son happy too, pretending they’ll make themselves some salad but already looking forward to pizza, I think 😊. I don’t mind. They would have if I’d been in a restaurant then. And it’s not that I don’t want to spend any money at all, just that the aim for friday is catching up, not eating fancy food)
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Food again: I took cale out of the freezer wanting to throw it away (the last batch I cooked smelled while cooking and we kept putting off eating it) then I took one last sniff and it smelled fine....
Son agreed (though not liking cale) we couldn’t throw away good food, I prepared it after all and we had a nice meal!
And I finally started a list with freezer content + dates...!
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PeculiarBella said:
pancakes for dinnerBEST THING EVER!
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PeculiarBella said:
Eating out is our kryptoniteNot sure if you are eating out because of not wanting to cook or busy or whatever, but a really good idea is to eat lunch (or breakfast) at the restaurant and then do a light soup and sandwich kind of dinner.
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Regifted a very nice beauty products set I received for Christmas to a friend for her 40th birthday. Probably wouldn’t have bought something as nice, had I been out to buy something, so don’t feel I shortchanged her.
Received it from my husbands employer, so no hard feelings there either.
I’m quite content 😊
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Invested a big gift from my parents in stocks.
I researched index investing last year and finally started. Still, after a while the concept tends to make me a little nervous again. Don’t worry, I always remember the “buy and hold” bit. But just if we have enough other assets to invest at all (despite sufficient calculation). So I watched Jesses investing series to boost my confidence before 😊
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After being with the same employer for almost 10 years, I finally started exploring some of the employee benefits in depth. I discovered that I could get car insurance through my employer for $700 less per year than I was paying, and homeowner's insurance for $300 less! And, instead of having to set money aside for 2 big payments a year, it's paid by a small deduction from every paycheck. So besides saving $1000, I am saved the (minor) effort of budgeting for this category each month.
And, I wrote up a realistic meal plan for my kid and me for the coming week, and started preparing the food on it. I've got banana bread and tofu baking in the oven right now, and tomorrow I'll make a stew, and I'll be on my way to saving the $40-$50 I usually spend on lunches at work every week; plus we'll eat out once or twice during the week - including the weekend - instead of the 5 or more times we used to do.
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A nice little one.
I spotted that my mobile phone provider was offering a great deal for £4 more than I currently pay which included a lot more data than I currently have in my plan (95GB more to be precise!)
I am out of contract and found that a rival was offering a slightly better deal so I contacted my provider they offered me the new deal for only £1 a month extra to what I'm currently paying. (£36 better off for the year than had I blindly accepted their initial offer 🙂)
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Turquoise Major said:
95GB more to be preciseWhat?!?!? I have 6gb and pay $60 CDN. My one son is on what is considered an awesome plan here in Canada ($50 for 10 GB) that we got on a crazy Black Friday sale. Canada has one of the highest cell plan rate structures in the world.