My first car...

One week had passed at my new job. I cannot complaint. It all went very fine for the big major part of it. For the car thing, my mom decided to give me her car. My mom very much like Toyota Yaris car. It’s a cool little car. She went for a second hand silver Yaris. I don’t have too much problems to drive my mom car, an Echo. So now, I am now the owner of an Echo car, which worth about 5 000$ with the winter tires.

After work Friday, I went for registration for my first car insurance. The cost? 1 297$. I took a real basic package that covers for as much as 1 million dollar in case I caused somewhat of a car incident. I could have save close to 200$ if I would have took the 200k protection. Problem being that in case of a major accident, it could happen that the damage reached much more than 200k. So to keep my peace of mind, I went with the 1 million protection and pay in cash the 1 297$ for the car insurance. The amount is quite heavy, but it’s because I never had a car of my own before, I never had been registered as second driver for a car. Personally, I always prefer to use public transportation. A lot more cheaper and safer.

As you can imagine, now I am kind of broke but confident I will be able to catch up in the next couple weeks. My trip to Ottawa, my move from Montreal to New Brunswick, car insurance and ho... shopping, shopping, shopping... you know, all those things needed but I never bother to buy. Like a travel suitcase, shoes, new running shoes, tops, pants and how many other things... But won’t thing for sure, I won’t have to buy anything for a little while and I am currently on a frugal mode. I now have everything I need. And currently, what I really need is fresh new CASH.

Here are my current expenses:

Balance accumulated on different credit cards: 1 918.51$
Car insurance for 1 year paid in onetime payment to avoid the interest fee of 3%: 1 297$

TOTAL: 3 215.51$

Yeah, I know...

I currently have a 1 500$ available in my banking account that I can transfer over my credit cards. I will be receiving a pay check next week for my current job. I am also waiting for a big paycheck of 1k+ from my old job for money that I had left for my vacations. I should be all right to pay it all and I am very lucky to be able to do so. Because I really don’t hold anything in term of immediate available cash. I live paycheck per paycheck. However, I do have some savings, it’s just everything is fully invested and untouchable. An emergency, laid off are among the kind of events that will make be sell my stocks. I lived emergencies before, I been through laid off. I never had to sell my stocks. It represent much more than you can even imagine to me. And it’s not anytime soon that I will be canceling my DRIP.

I will see how it goes, but I may not be able to invest again anytime soon. I want to invest in a few stocks of CNR to help stabilize the value of my portfolio. I know I didn’t update my portfolio value since a really long time, but with the stock market going upside down, I didn’t feel like updating my portfolio was a necessity and I still feel the same in date of today. My non-registered portfolio closed Friday session at 107 192$. Before the stock crash of August, my non-registered portfolio was at a very good 113k. I am at minus a 6k here. Do I feel like updating my portfolio value? No not at all. I don’t have anything to hide, I always been fully exposed here on my blog, it’s just going through a -6k phase inside my portfolio is difficult to go through, but I am able to deal with is. I mean now, my strategy is to invest in extra high quality stocks, exclusively blue chips. One part that really don’t like with that strategy is that high quality stock, the type I am trying to add to my portfolio, well, those ones only pay very little in dividend. I guess I will get use to it. At this point, I find EnerCare Inc. (ECI) very tempting. I wouldn’t like to invest in it when the price hit 8$ see what I mean. On the long run, I guess I could mix blue chips with other whatever chips and alternate...

While moving back home in New Brunswick, my monthly budget is about to change but I will do my best to control my expenses because I really need to control them.

Here was the “before” budget, while living in Montreal:

Rent: 555$
Internet: 50$
Cell phone: 41$
Line of credit #1 minimum payment: 100$
Line of credit #2 minimum payment: 65$
RRSP loan: 108$
Credit card balance transfer minimum payment: 44$
Student loan: 100$
Groceries and other: 450$

Total: 1 513$

And here’s the “after”:

Rent: NONE
Pension for my parents: 300$
Internet + extra cable channels: 50$
Cell phone: NONE
Line of credit #1 minimum payment: 100$
Line of credit #2 minimum payment: 65$
RRSP loan: 108$
Credit card balance transfer minimum payment: 44$
Student loan: 100$
Groceries and other: NONE
Gas (for my new car!!): 40$
Extras: 100$

TOTAL: 907$

Money saves by being in New Brunswick: +606$

Yeah, so while living in New Brunswick, I won’t be paying any rent. So I asked my mom who much she wanted. She said 300$ so ok, it will be 300$. I could even give her 400$ that it wouldn’t be a problem at all. For now, I won’t be complaining, it will be 300$ and I gave her a 150$ for this month.

I now have Internet installed at home and I am very happy! I got it with Rogers. The 50$ include the Internet and a few extra cable channels for my dad. I am pretty much all set now. Moving from Montreal to New Brunswick hasn’t been difficult, but it involves a lot of preparation.

While living in Montreal, I was spending a lot of time outside of my apartment, that’s why my expenses were higher. Here in X town of New Brunswick, we barely have any cafes at lot, if not a Presse Cafe. And ho misery, there’s no Second Cup! Right there alone, it’s a 50$ per month that I am saving... I no longer buy coffees most of the time.

I guess this post was detailed enough to give you a portrait of what my life is now that I am living in that X town of New Brunswick. My life had changed drastically, maybe for the best. I no longer hear customer speaking in my ears (I am not missing my old job in a X call center) and I no longer lived in the Quebec corruptible province. Have all a good weekend.