Seattle Recap

I ended up spending a little more than I hoped to in Seattle. Which always seems to happen to me when I am on a holiday. What about you? I had tons of fun in Seattle! We went on a tour at Pike Market. What an awesome experience. It was fairly reasonable too. It was $16 a person for a 72 min tour. Totally worth it!

I also ended up going to a thrift store. Those of you who know me know that I am addicted to thrifting. Yes I did say addicted. I ended up getting some amazing deals. I bought mostly dressed. I found them super easy and chic for work. I also bought an awesome Hello Kitty tote bag. I am going to use it to lug around school books I think. As I am going back to school in the fall.

What do you always buy when your on holidays?

Seattle Next Weekend :)

Summer is almost over. *sigh*. Thus far this summer I have been no where. Like literally no where! Last summer I was in Berlin studying for most of June. Then I took a trip to New York in July. I have been grounded in Vancouver for far too long and I am starting to go stir crazy. Next weekend I am going to take a trip to Seattle with a friend. Seattle is about a 3 hour drive from where I live. Assuming that there is no boarder line up. With a boarder line up it is anywhere from 4-8 hours away. I kid you not I have been in a 3 hour boarder line up on a long weekend.

I am trying to brainstorm ways to save money on this trip. My current position is ending at the end of August. I have money saved up but I don't want to blow it on a weekend in Seattle. Any ideas on how I can save money on my trip? Any snack/food ideas that are simple? I think that is where the bulk of our money will go is towards food. Any ideas would help! I am hoping to stay under $300 for everything. Gas, hotel, food, ect.

Home Ownership

I have been thinking a lot about home ownership lately. Will I ever be able to afford a mortgage? What do they look at when deciding if you qualify for a mortgage? If I decide to buy, where do I want to live? Vancouver? In the Valley? If I qualify for a mortgage am I really ready for the responsibility? If you have a mortgage, did you ever have these thoughts? Any advice?

Sacrificing

This is the first weekend that I have been on a budget. I kind of feel like I am being tempted to stray from my budget. I know that life is about sacrifices. Sometimes there is a trade off. Being 24 there are a lot of trade offs. This weekend I could have easily spend $200 thus far and it is only SATURDAY afternoon. I need to start finding free and reasonably priced activities to do. I can't always go out to bars and clubs.

Any suggestions on fun cheap activities? I don't want to completely give up a social life. However, I know that if I want to spend my weekend with friends that I may be the one organizing the activities. 

Rental Insurance

Early this morning the fire alarm went off in my apartment building. I bolted out of a deep sleep and grabbed the most important thing in my life, my 9 and a half year old Chorkie named Chico. He was at the end of my bed shaking. The next thing I did was make sure my parents were awake. As I have mentioned before I still live at home.

My dad is older and has knee and back problems. I gave my dog to my mom and told her to start going down the stairs and that I would wait with dad. My dad, who was obviously in a state of confusion at this point.He kept wondering around the condo grabbing items. He needed his wallet and his truck keys. I told him the only thing that we needed to do at this point was to exit the building.

As soon as we got outside we found my mom and doggy. I asked my parents if we were insured. My mother said of course we are insured. She said insurance is the most expensive thing you will buy until you need it. As I sat on the curb at 4 am watching the fire trucks pull up. I started thinking about my blog. I started this blog to track my journey into becoming financially independent.

I want to move out of my parents house in a year. Rental insurance is just another thing I will have to add to my budget. I don't know the first thing about it. Where do I get it? What does it even cover? How much does it cost? It seems like I have lots to learn about living on my own.

Any other insurance that I should be buying? What are your thoughts?

Business Clothing

Welcome back!

This summer I have been stressing out over putting together a professional wardrobe. I am currently a fourth year BBA in Accounting student trying to secure a place to article for fall 2014. For school, my business clothes consist primarily of Forever 21 finds. I know, not office appropriate by any means. Better suited for a night out on the town. This summer I have made it my mission to purchase appropriate business clothing.

What I have found is that the fit of the garment is critical. However, quality tailored pieces do not come cheap! This summer I found a great place to purchase quality pieces at little cost. THRIFT STORES. Now I know that thrift shopping isn't for everyone. It can be a whole day event searching racks sometimes to find nothing. However, if your on a tight budget, like I am, the payoff is well worth it.

One great thing about thrift finds is that there usually relatively inexpensive. With the savings I have been able to take the garment to the tailor. For $20 I was able to purchase a brand new Mexx blazer (original tag still intact) AND get it tailored. Any student would be happy with that find. Thrift stores sometimes also offer discounts for students. My favourite thrift store offers students a 10% discount. Pretty awesome as the clothing is typically reasonable to start with.

Any other suggestions to where I can get reasonably priced business clothes? I also need to get some comfortable office appropriate shoes. Any suggestions?

Emergency Savings

Step 1 in creating a budget is knowing where the money should go. I thought where I would start is the savings section. I decided to start here as I am extremely blessed to be able to still live at home. My parents do not make me pay rent or buy groceries. However, my parents do have the expectation that I pay for my own education and that I stay out of debt while living under their roof. Which in my opinion is a fair deal. Now that I am in my fourth year and have enough money saved to pay for the rest of my tuition. I am trying to figure out how much I should be saving per month and where it should be going.

I have been doing some research on how to create a budget. Most articles agree that everyone should have emergency savings. Articles disagree on how much should be in your emergency savings account. All articles agree that it should be at least 3 months worth of expenses. A few articles said that it should be 6 months worth of expenses! 6 months worth of expenses is a little overwhelming for me to think about. Which is extremely scary considering I don't pay any room and board expenses yet.

My current expenses consist of a car payment, car insurance, cell phone bill, life insurance, and critical illness insurance. If I create a emergency savings account that is enough to cover just these expenses for 3 months I would need to save approximately $1,900. This amount may not seem like a lot of money to you but for a student only working part time it is overwhelming. It means that I will have to put approximately $160 away a month if I want to have this emergency fund set up in a year.

What are your opinions on an emergency fund? How may months worth of expenses should you save up? Should your emergency savings account take into consideration variable expenses such as clothing and entertainment?