April 1st - 15th Financials

Thank goodness for paydays!

Until we're debt free, pay check to pay check living is how we roll in this household, but that's just fine with me as long as we're paying down debt and putting food on the table!

So yesterday was both mine and Papa Bear's paydays and if you check my sidebar you'll see that I've made some changes to the information there.

I added a Snowflakes list item which will include rolled coin, as I currently toss all my dimes, nickels and pennies into a container on my dresser (the quarters and dollars go to laundry and the twoonies go back into my wallet). When the container gets to the dangerously overflowing point, I spend an hour, roll it all and tuck it into a dresser drawer. Snowflakes also include money I get when I return empties, or basically any little bits of money that I can toss in a container for Snowflaking. When I have a decent amount of it socked away, I'll put it towards debt. But um...Snowflaking?

...Snowflaking is like the little brother to Snowballing - your debt of course. Snowflakes are what Snowballs are made of...just smaller! Papa Bear and I still have our set amounts that we hurl at our debt every payday but these little things like rolled coin are the little Snowflakes that would usually just get spent on unnecessary things. Read I've Paid For This Twice Already's 'Snowflake Primer' for more info.

I've also changed the Paypal Balance list item to Pinecone Research Income because Paypal is where the money I get from doing Pinecone surveys ($5 each) gets deposited directly into. Lately Pinecone Research has been sort of dry for me...I haven't had a paid survey since March 25th.

Just an aside regarding Paypal and Revolution Money Exchange...if you are from the US, you've probably heard all the buzz regarding Revolution Money Exchange and how they'd give you $25 just for signing up with their company, and they'd give the person who referred you $10. They are 'set to take on Paypal' as the next big thing in the world of sending and receiving money. As you've already gathered, I'm all for 'free' money and decided to have a look.

A look turned into an attempt to sign up which failed because I'm Canadian and they don't accept us Canucks. Which turned out to be a good thing because I found this article on Chief Family Officer's blog. Their $25 offer is now expired (as of the 15th) has been extended to May 15th but I am still incredibly thankful I wasn't able to sign up. Personal information is just that - personal.

Because everyone likes a positive thing, I've added Baby Bear's RESP fund to the list too - if anyone is interested in what company we're using to save for his education or if you want to contribute anything to that account, send me an email and I can answer your questions. As a quick note - we only started this fund on Oct. 21st of last year...The Canada Education Savings Grant has added their $100.00 and the Canada Learning Bond has added their $500.00. If you have kids, you are eligible to receive this money from the government - take advantage of it!

Another change to the Debt & Earnings Tracker are the little +'s and -'s beside each amount. This is to more clearly show what is positive (incoming) money (+'s) and what is negative (owing) money (-'s).

And finally, the best part of any change to the Debt & Earnings Tracker sidebar item are the changes I get to make to the amounts owing. You'll notice that we've made our bi monthly payments on the credit cards and the monthly vacuum cleaner payment - much happiness ensues when I get to change those numbers to ones that are lower!

I have a question that I need help answering! Papa Bear's benefits through his work cover 80% of our prescriptions, chiropractor visits, etc. We pay the cost in full up front, out of our groceries budget, and then I fill out a form, mail it in with the receipts and a few weeks later we get a check from the benefits company. I usually wait until I have a few receipts.

My question is this - when we get the checks from the benefits company, what should we do with the money? Put it into the bank account and use it during the pay period we received it or should we be Snowflaking it, or should we be paying for the prescriptions out of our fun money and when we receive the checks, divying it up accordingly?