Dreaming of retirement: Sticking to the plan

It’s so funny that at 27, the only thing I have in mind is to retire early. Some people could eventually not understand, but knowing what I pass through at different work places, I am still lucky to be mentally healthy lol. It will be the second year that I invest massively in my RRSP. I have the money waiting in bank. I now just have to pick the funds that will make me a rich old miss. Because in my mind, it’s all what it is about, it’s about picking the best investment, crossing fingers and just hope it will turn for the best, knowing I can wait for 20 years in order to retire.

Since I am currently working and its look like I might still have that job for the upcoming days… I begin my search for the best investments for my RRSP. I have a 5 500$ to invest, but I might just invest 5 000$. I plan to invest the major part in mutual funds. I get through the analysts pick of the MorningStar and I had pick the following so far:

RBC O'Shaughnessy US Value
TD Dividend Income – I
TD Entertainment & Comm – I
TD Monthly Income – I

And it’s about it for now. It’s look like I will mostly invest in TD mutual funds. From the experience I got in the past, I might no be able to invest in the mutual funds that I want. So I am looking at other alternatives in case I cannot get what I want, as usual.

Where all that money is coming from?

It's too bad, I way too much impress on my savings and on the return I got from my mutual funds. I have been working so hard for my money, from Monday to Sunday, week after week. It's hard to believe what I am able to do with not so much.

I am so close to reach my first 50 000$ goal now! If only I could make a little bit more than what I am having right now. My salaries varies from 9.50$ to 12$ and for 15$ for overtime. It's nothing much after taxes.

I will be able to invest 5 500$ in my RRSP this year after all

It's now my third week as a customer representative for a cell phone company. I have been through a too short 2 weeks training before beginning the job for real. Not that the job is that complicated, but there's a lot of things to learn and it's been a little bit hard on me since I didn't know anything about cell phone before I begin. Basically, the job is about answering customer calls and answers their request regarding the service they have for their cell phone.

The job pay 12$ per hour. Overtime is being paid 15$. I have been able to add my other job with that in my schedule. I did a lot of money during my 2 weeks period at the job as a customer representative because I have been able to work on a full-time at the 2 jobs at the same time. But only for 2 weeks. Once my regular hours came out from the cx representative job, I had hours all over the place, sometimes 10 am to 20 pm, other times 15 pm to midnight, etc... It's harder to put the second job in my schedule, but I hope to work at least 2 full-day per week at the second job, so I will be able to make at last 500$ after taxes. That's what my plan is about for now.

I will now be able to but that 5 500$ in my RRSP. I am currently looking for mutual funds and other in which I could invest that RRSP money.

Looking to put another 4 000$ in term savings redeemable

I have now have more than 9 000$ in my bank account. Since I just start a new day job, I don't want to put the money at risk. So I plan to put another 4 000$ by Monday. It's something I wanted to do for a long time. It's only take a phone call, but there's thing like that sometimes that get hard to do. It's lazyness from my part. Somtimes, the smallest little thing get hard to do. Like activate a credit card...

My RBC credit card is now activated. It took me a couple of weeks, but now it's activated. Since I have more than 5 000$ in RBC mutual funds, I am eligible for a free account that will let me buy any mutual funds that I want. Now, I need to get an apointment to open that kind of account, which hasn't been done yet. I hope maybe by the end of 2007...

I find myself a new day job

I find myself a new day job on my first week of "active" searching. I have to put here "active" because there's been time while I was a job seeker, but I wasn't actively searching. Without putting too muh details here, I will only say that it's a job in call center. Most of the call are in English, which is quite challenging for me. The pay is only 12$ per hour, but until now, it get well with my other job that I have.

I am working from 8 to 16 on the job in the call center and from 17 to 21 on my other job, which is also in a call center. I also work Saturday and Sunday at the second job. So far so good, I am too much tired and stuff, but it get complicated at the ends to organized, but it's not that bad. So I plan to have an income for a little bit more than 600$ after tax in the upcoming 2 weeks.

I just hope it will work out at my new job. I just want to stabilize my situation, I am tired of jobs and contracts searching all the time. If I am still on my day job until the end of December, I will be bale to pay off some credit debts and put 5 000$ in my RRSP. I begin to think where to put my money for my RRSP. The search begin.

Searching for a job

I am currently been doing a lot of search so I can find a job before December. I am getting tired of it. I am ready to do almost everything. It's a good thing I have at least the unemployment benefits because I am really getting tired of all the job seeking thing.

Anyway, so far so good. I got an interview today. I will have one tomorrow.

I should go to bed for now because I have to wake-up tomorrow...

My life as a job seeker for now is not easy.

Getting slowly out of debt

I just paid over 1 500$ in credit card debts today. Outch! I just begin to realize that it's a lot of money! I am proud that it's been paid of. I just had put over 1 400$ in checks that I had and that I couldn't depose because I didn't have the time previously. So now it's done.

I am missing Internet at home so I am at a cafe and I through I should write a couple of lines to shear me up a little. I had spotted a couple of jobs, I just need to apply to them today and give a few phone calls later on. I just hope to be able to find something near a metro station. The great thing about being in Montreal is everything mostly French, so I don't need to get too nervous about an English résumé. I do have one, but each time, I am anxious it might not be written properly. There's a difference between writing for fun on a blog and writing a professional résumé. Anyway, I will only upgrade my French résumé for now.

The good thing about my situation is that I have, since last June, unemployment benefits. So I don't have to stress that much if I don't find a job right away. I used to have one day job, and an evening and weekend job. I gave up on the day job yesterday for different reasons and I plan to fill something about it because of the different things that happen to me there. I believe I will be able to receive as much as 7 000$ for different things that had happen and that I won't write down here. I have a co-worker of mine who got unfairly fired. I didn’t get fire, but something being unemployed is better than being employed. Anyway, I only was receiving about 400$ after that from that job. I might receive unemployment benefits this week.

Anyway, it's not those small little things that will slow me down for now. I am happy to be able to pay off some debts even if my employment situation is not super great. At least for now.

My mutual funds are all in the red for now...

My mutual funds are all in the red and right now, I didn't make any money out of them. I had more than 10 000$ in mutual funds and I begin to think it might be too much. I begin to worried recently, knowing I can loose everything in a day, or make a few bucks in a day.

For now, since it's all in red, I will try to keep it this way. But I also worried because my situation as a worker is quite not stable and now that my rent is a little bit more expensive than it's use to be, I barely don't know what to do with myself...

I have a job interview this evening. Since I am currently working (I am at my break right now), the recruiter wanted to see me in the evening. So I believe it's a good sign. I will learn more this evening.

How fast will I be to reach my first 50 000$?

I am only missing about 16 000$ and something now in order to reach my first 50 000$ and I am geeting excited about it! My situation is getting back on track I believe. I have a job interview on Monday for a new day job (since my present contract ends on December 4) and I work tomorrow and Friday evenings on what use to be my everyday-of-the-week-evening-job. It will make a little extra. I really need money to cover my moving expenses and everything that come with it. I am getting Sympatico Internet soon. I should get it by next week.

I am getting so use to run everywhere, and when it’s stop, I just don’t stand myself. I am too use to work on the evening. When I get back home, after my day job, I wonder what I am doing here. Why am I not at work? So am checking here and there for another evening job. But I have to say that I am getting use of being off on evenings. I get in bed early and I wake up early enough to eat breakfast and make myself coffee that I can drink before getting to the job. My main goal now is too reach my 50 000 bucks as soon as I can and I can’t afford lossing time and money on a job place that only use me as back up because I am not able to be there on time for the evening shift, whatever the job is about.

My situation on date of November 5, 2007

I had move this Saturday in my new place. The apartment is kind of quite. All my stuff fit in it. It has a few furniture in it, bridge stove, bed, mattress, a small table and 2 chairs. I was quite happy to finally move in. The moving cost me about 130$. Add to that the cost of some stuff that I need to buy, but it didn't cost me more than 200$ so far.

The place is very quite, even if it's not far away from St-Denis. So I believe I have a good deal.

Now, that I am all fix, I can now concentrate in my job search. Unfortunately, for my evening and weekend job, I can only start at 17h in order to be bale to do the evening shift, witch is quite impossible for now. The soonest I can arrive is 17h30... Anyway, every week, it's between 150$ to 200$ that is missing in my pockets and it's disturbing me, knowing that my day job contract will end on December 4. But I am quite lucky, because I have the unemployment insurance that I benefit since last June. But since June, the only thing I got from the unemployment insurance is something like 350$, because I had been working the whole time. So I believe that if I don't work after December 4, I will have the unemployment insurance, which I can receive as much as 410$ weekly. Anyway, for now, I can only work during the weekend on what use to be my evening and weekend job.

Now that I am no more working during evening, I will try to find another evening job. That's the only thing that is going on for me at the present time. I also plan to do some search for my RRSP, where I should put my money for this year. I will try to do better than last year. Last year, I was way too much at the last minute. The goal for me is to be able to find at least another day job that could start on December 10 and than, I will be able to invest the amount I am able to put for this year in my RRSP. So for now, it's all about planning.