One of the great things about taking the bus is the interesting conversations you get to eavesdrop on. The other day, I was privy to one such conversation about personal finance between two middle aged men from East Vancouver. Now, these men weren’t telling each other “Oh yes, I just love the rate my TFSA mutual fund is giving me right now.” Oh no. Before they started talking about money, Guy #1 was telling a story about how he hid his aunt’s pot from the cops one night when they were drinking together at his apartment. Let’s just say, these guys definitely aren’t accountants or stock brokers for a living.

Anywho, Guy #1 mentioned to Guy #2 how he found it impossible to save money. Whenever he got it, it was gone just as fast. Guy #2, who I guess considers himself the more responsible one out of the two, told Guy #1 how it’s really important to start saving money. When I heard this, it kind of made me forget that they were just talking about drugs, and I wanted to say “Ya! Personal finance is cool!”. But then Guy #2 went on to suggest that Guy #1 send a cheque to a friend he trusted for safe keeping until he needed it (and of course he suggested himself to be that friend). WTF? What’s worse is Guy #1 was seriously considering doing this! I wanted so badly to turn around and say “That’s the worst idea ever. Just put it in the bank or lock it into a GIC so you can’t touch it!”

But I didn’t. I just got off the bus and kept walking. I guess what really got me frustrated was that I just couldn’t understand how two people, in their 30s or 40s, didn’t have basic financial common sense? I know lots of people aren’t financially literate, but come on! Send a cheque to a friend for safe keeping? Really? If they represent the thinking of the majority of people, God help us all!

Thoughts?

-Mo’ Houses out!

Image: UggBoy/flickr

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Hey Mo’ Money readers! I’ve never done a giveaway before, but I just couldn’t pass up this opportunity to give away the e-book The Super Duper Simple Book on Money by personal finance expert Alan Akina. First off, it’s free for two weeks as of today (who doesn’t love free), secondly it’s a very easy read (I finished it in less than an hour), and lastly it’s in a digital format (education just got environmentally friendly y’all).

In the book, Alan pin points the 5 most important money principles everyone needs to know, while explaining his personal finance journey and how it led him to start up his company 101 Financial to teach others about financial literacy.

Just so you know, this isn’t a sponsored or paid post. Alan asked me if I wanted to give this away on my blog, I read the book, I liked it, now I’m giving it away. As I mentioned up top, the book is available today for two weeks for free, and to get your copy all you have to do is visit his site www.SuperDuperSimpleBooks.com

Happy reading :)

-Mo’ Houses out!

Image: miVKN1C/rgbstock

When I was little, I always wanted to be just like my older sister. She was super smart (still is), got straight As in school, and although my mom told me not to, I couldn’t help but compare myself to her. Whenever I got a B, I felt like I just wasn’t as smart as her and pushed myself to try harder. Eventually I realized it wasn’t healthy to compare myself to her or anyone else, because everyone’s different and that’s a good thing. We can’t all get straight As all the time, we can’t all win gold medals at the Olympics, and we can’t think of life as one big competition.

Why I’m bringing this up is because I read a lot of personal finance blogs, and some of those bloggers mention in their posts how much money they make. Usually this doesn’t bother me, but once in a while I’ll stumble upon a blog where the person mentions that they make over $100,000 per year, and I can’t help but feel like I must be doing something wrong if I’m not making this much money too. I’m a financially savvy lady, what step did I miss to jack up my salary to the 6 figure mark?

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A common trend I find on other personal finance blogs are end-of-the-week spending recaps. In case you aren’t familiar with them, they are a recap of what that person has spent from Monday - Sunday plus any income that’s come in. This is definitely a good way to find out what you are spending your money on so you can analyze your habits and adjust, but I find you can do this minus all of the receipt counting via mint.com. That is unless you’re on a strict cash-only diet, then keeping a budget binder is the best way to go as taught by Gail Vaz-Oxlade.

Personally, I just feel that if I was to count every penny I spent every week, I’d literally drive myself crazy! And let’s not even delve into the whole guilt factor. Again, I’ve got a very high level of guilt being a Catholic, meaning I’m guilty about everything all the time. So if I was to look at my week-end recap and see that I spent too much money at Earls that week, I’d probably feel compelled to ban myself from eating out for the rest of the month.

Which leads me to my next topic of discussion, no spend days. What do you think about them? I like the concept but I just feel like living on a budget is hard enough, why punish yourself with more restrictions? Instead, what I do is reward myself for sticking to my budget every Friday. Every Friday morning before work I allow myself to get a fancy coffee and a sweet treat at Starbucks costing me no more that $5-8. I’m telling you, working with a reward system is way more effective and more delicious.

What are your thoughts on weekly spending re-caps and no-spend days?

Image: slgckgc/flickr

Hello Mo’ Money readers! This is my first guest post, and I’m so excited to introduce to you my friend Jon, a great writer, photographer and Robot in Disguise blogger, who said yes to sharing his debt story and how he’s on his way to becoming debt-free. Take it away Jon!

Like most of us, when I was in my early twenties I got a credit card. It felt like a gift from the money gods. I was so excited to finally be able to get things I couldn’t actually afford. I felt like I just got free money and pushed the possible consequences aside. I would use the card, pay the minimum each month and they still kept raising my limits. “Hooray”, I thought “I’m so rich I can get whatever I want”. I didn’t really think about the 18% interest rate or that my minimum payments just covered that percentage. Basically, I was a credit card companies dream.

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In continuation of yesterday’s post, here are some more things you should either buy at IKEA, Winners or the dollar store because I guarantee you will break these:

Wine glasses - I break about 4 or 5 of these a year. One day I’d love to be a non-clumsy, real adult and buy some Riedel wine glasses but until then, it’s the cheap stuff from Winners for me.

Couch - Do you have a pet, or a roommate? Then I’d put off buying that really nice Urban Barn leather couch until your pet dies or your roommate finally leaves…or dies.

Cell phone - This isn’t a stereotype, this is just being honest. If you are a girl there is a good chance your cell phone has or will be floating in a toilet at some point in time. If this sounds like you, then don’t splurge on an iPhone. Just get yourself the cheapest phone you can get, you’ll thank yourself later.

Plates/bowls - If you’re like me and don’t have a dishwasher and probably won’t for a while because most apartments in Vancouver are super old, you will chip a fair number of plates and bowls while hand washing dishes everyday. I recommend IKEA because they’re cheap and super easy to replace.

What type of things do you break often that should be added on to the list?

-Mo’ Houses out!

Image: AnneCN/flickr

There are some things you should pay a bit more money for to make sure you get the best quality, such as a car or a house for instance, but there are some things that you probably should cheap out on because you will lose them:

Sunglasses - It’s nice at the time when you just shelled out a couple hundred bucks for some Gucci sunglasses, but guaranteed within a year you will either accidentally sit on them or lose them somewhere in your car only to find them 5 years later when they will out of style.

Gloves - Precisely two weeks after winter you will not be able to find one of your gloves or you’ll be like my BF and forget your really nice leather gloves your GF gave you last Christmas at the pub.

Umbrella - You will leave this on the bus or at a restaurant a month after you buy it.

Earrings - I’ve only ever owned one pair of earrings worth anything. They were an anniversary present from my BF and after 3 years of never losing them, the day finally came and one of them went astray. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still want some diamond earrings eventually. Maybe I’ll just get some cubic zirconia’s instead though, just to be safe.

Socks - Atleast one sock from every pair will disappear via a magic portal to a different dimension in the dryer. It’s science.

Chapstick - Just buy this in bulk from Costco because you’ll either forget where you put it or accidentally leave it in your jeans and it will melt in the wash.

Got anything else to add to this list?

-Mo’ Houses out!

Image: Peleda/sxc.hu