Month End - February 2011

I had some fun at the company curling bonspiel this weekend. For those of you who don't know, curling is quite possibly the only sport in the world where house cleaning experience comes in handy. Hehehe. They call it sweeping, but it's really more of a mopping motion. I'm a little sore from sliding those chunks of granite around now.

I realized something earlier this month. I've been contributing money to my RRSPs through work, but I never actually took the money into account when I was doing my month ends. Oops. Looks like I have about $600 more in assets than I thought I had :)

Sweet.

Anyway, here's how the month panned out:

	31-Mar-10	31-Jan-11	28-Feb-11
Chequing	$116.66	$149.68	$661.78
Savings 1	$0.24	$0.26	$0.26
Savings 2	$100.00	$0.90	$0.90
Savings 3	$500.00	$0.07	$0.07
Investment	$2,189.67	$1,154.89	$1,256.02
TFSA	$0.00	$2,423.86	$2,522.19
RRSP 1	$1,525.96	$1,632.31	$1,642.74
RRSP 2	$3,868.08	$4,016.41	$4,038.05
RRSP 3	$0.00	$444.94	$667.42
ASSETS	$8,300.61	$9,823.32	$10,789.43
Car Loan	($13,138.27)	($9,397.49)	($9,034.03)
LOC	($10,000.00)	($11,000.00)	($11,000.00)
Credit Card	($5,155.65)	($4,433.32)	($4,301.76)
DEBTS	($28,293.92)	($24,830.81)	($24,335.79)
Net Worth	($19,993.31)	($15,007.49)	($13,546.36)

While I didn't backslide anywhere, I didn't exactly pay anything off by leaps and bounds. It's disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. I'll go into more detail on where the money went in tomorrow's post, because it would make for far too long of a post if I put it in today's. I'm utterly miffed by how small the change in my credit card was, but it's my own fault.

I really need to consolidate my RRSP accounts, I don't need to have 3 of them. I've been meaning to do that for about 6 months now, I just... haven't. It's right up there with writing a will and buying more life insurance. I know better. I'll probably do it when I get all of my tax slips in, that way I'll have all the information I need to switch things around. I'll set that as a goal for April. The will and life insurance will probably be goals for May and June.

How did you guys fare this past month?

Retirement Frustration

As I mentioned a while back, I've started up my retirement contributions again. They're small mind you, but they are there. When I received my last pay raise the entire raise went into retirement savings. No pain no gain? That seems to me like a gain without the pain to me. What really spurred me into action was an e-mail from my employer saying that they were re-instituting part of their contribution matching program. The program had been cut during the downturn as a cost savings measure. Better to keep more people employed with most of their benefits than keep fewer people employed with all of the benefits. For employees working at the company for 1-5 years, they would match up to 2% of your pay, providing you put at least that much into the account. My last raise was 3%, so I met that requirement. My 1 year anniversary was earlier this month, so as of this pay period I'll be receiving their contributions as well.

When I signed up for the contribution matching, they had a little section on the form where you put down which funds you wanted the money dispersed between. I selected a couple funds with low MERs (management expense ratio - the percentage of your fund that goes to them every year), and submitted the form. A couple weeks later I received a letter from the company holding the mutual funds, saying that the funds I selected were not available in my program. I'm not entirely sure if it's because I didn't have the minimum balances for the funds, or if they're not available to my company's plan? They had another form asking for different funds, which I never sent back to them. The money has been sitting in the account making whatever their interest rate for cash is (super low).

Not having the cash in an actual fund isn't going to stop me from getting my employer's contribution, so I've been just letting it sit there. A 67% straight return is better than nothing in the short term.

The reason why I didn't select one of their other funds is because they have absolutely ridiculous MERs (2.5%-3% was common, and even higher). What's really frustrating is that they don't tell you that when they send you the paperwork to fill out.  I received another form this week, with a list of mutual funds again. They list the Gross Annualized Rate of Return for the last 1, 3, 5 and 10 years, but no other information. Besides the fact that you can't predict the future returns based on the past, the Gross ARR is meaningless. If anything, I'd wan't to see the Net ARR. There would be a lot more negatives on this sheet if they did show that, that much I can promise you. It's frustrating that they don't show you the fees, they just mention in small print that you can contact them or find them online.

Grrrrr.

So, for the time being, I'm leaving my money in cash. I'll let it accumulate for a while and see if the other funds open up for me. If they don't, I'll probably just let the money build up and then periodically make a bulk transfer from it to my other institution which has cheaper fees. Better to get free employer money in a crappy account than not.

A Thank You

I've had a couple surprises this last couple weeks when it comes to my friends and their finances. I keep in contact with some friends from University through daily e-mails we send back and forth as a group. Somehow we got onto the topic of retirement savings. I was feeling a little sheepish, because I had cut my retirement savings from 18% to 0% when I switched jobs after I bought my house, and only recently had I started to put a little bit back in. This sheepishness is compounded by the fact that I used my retirement nest egg as a downpayment for my house through the new homebuyers program. These friends are professionals, make smart financial decisions, and some of them had actually stayed at home with their parents until they had enough money to buy a house. Surely they must be putting in their maximum contributions?

Nope.

Some of them hadn't even put in a dime yet. Some were only putting in 2%. Of those of us that were sharing, I think my 3% contributions were actually the highest. I was stunned. I'm glad that our discussion moved in the direction of "I really should get on this, even if it's just a little", because I know how much easier it is to save when you're young.

I showed my blog to a friend of mine at work, again with a surprising response. Apparently we have the same consumer debtload. It's creepy close, one total was within $100. It's making me realize that I'm not the only one out there who has made mistakes, I'm not the only one feeling the pinch, and I'm not the only one worried about the future. It's relieving in a way, because struggling with debt can be such an isolating experience.

So, I'd like to thank all of the other personal finance bloggers out there for sharing your stories and encouragement. It means a lot to me, and it helps me stay committed to getting rid of my debt. Thank You!



Seven RRSP growth strategies. (Registered Retirement Savings Plan): An article from: Canadian Chemical News
Retirement realities. (Registered Retirement Savings Plans): An article from: Canadian Manager
Are RRSPs worth it? (registered retirement savings plans): An article from: Canadian Chemical News