Sunday, May 31, 2009

May month end

Special thanks to two overtime shifts and this being one of two months with three pay cheques, my income during the month of may was rather high. I decided not to include investment returns in my analysis, or that I got my tax refund this month. Maybe a budget would be more interesting, but my living costs are severely distorted due to living with my mom.

Gross pay: 4422
Take home: 3459.85
spending: 172.85
loan payments: 225.91
savings: 3061.09

deductions/gross pay: 21.8%
gross pay saved: 69.2%
take home pay saved: 88.5%

spending/gross: 3.9%
spending/take home: 5.0%

loan payments/gross: 5.1%
loan payments/take home: 6.5%

total outflow/gross pay: 30.8%

Some nice ratios there. I like that I'm saving 88.5% of my take home pay. However I don't really like 21.8% of my pay disappearing in deductions but I'm not sure there's really anything I can do about that. Now to invest the small sum that I've accumulated this month.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Time vs wants/needs trade offs

Haven't posted anything in a while, so I guess I'll start by saying 84 days down, going on 88 at the end of next week. I've got a couple things on my mind right now, such as getting a musical instrument. The past two weeks or so, I've been practicing on the recorder and searching youtube for videos of people playing and listening to the sound they make. Now I'm contemplating getting an e-bay account just to a jade dizi. The tin whistle was another one that was high up there and I also liked the sound of the flute but after some research, I learnt that it was probably a bad idea. The dizi is probably a bad idea as well. I'm told that it isn't the best to learn on and bamboo has better acoustics. Anyway, it got me started on this little list of wants and how long I'd have to work to get them based off my marginal tax rate and current wage.
Item hours
A good burger 0.25
Pie 0.5
Monthly cell payment 0.9
Movie 1
Tin whistle 1.25
Dizi 3-4
Zoo pass 4.7
Bus pass 7
New computer 30
New camera 21
Going DSLR 60
Vacation 85-128
Car 850
Median condo price 21407
Median house price 32409
A million dollars 85288

The last four are for amusement purposes only.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Whoo long weekend

Well, after the chaos and having worked a total of 77 days since the start of this year, I have four days off. Put today to somewhat decent use. I rested up, which is always important. It's more a reminder of how much work takes out of me than anything else. Also did something nice and cleaned the floors. Hmm, what else to report? The market retreated a bit but it's still higher than what I was thinking that things would be at. Notably though Artis did not crash back down as I worried that it might, instead it sits even higher at $8.10. Everything else I have though moved with the markets. I'm not sure if this is where I should consider selling. Personally I'm reluctant to.
Also tried to take up some music. The recorder doesn't feel as natural as I remember it being. If only I could find some sheet music for songs that I'm interested in learning how to play. I want to learn Bert the Turtle made famous by the Duck and Cover film. If I had the sheet music for it, I would make a goal out of being able to play it.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Stunningly surprised

I bought artis at 5.75 on March 8 and yesterday it closed at 7.86 add $0.18/unit of distributions in that time. I suppose this should be pleasantly surprised, though it is puzzling. I hate sudden large and unexplained price changes. Mainly because they show that prices aren't rational and it forces me to question my ability to predict things. Granted, my decisions regarding SFK pulp and Nortel outright told me that I suck. When I don't see an apparent trigger for something like this, I worry that it won't last.

Monday, May 4, 2009

March called off, market recovery

Before I forget, 69 Days down, 73 by week's end...
Well, it seems that this round of overtime is likely going to be limited to a two week affair. I managed to get two shifts out of it. $300 isn't too bad.
Also, seems we're in a market recovery. I'm not sure how this changes my plans, previously I was pouring money in almost as fast as I could get it. I suppose that isn't changing much. Though can I still be as optimistic? Many of my previous estimates were based off getting more money in before things started recovering much. I wonder if I can substitute growth in as my source of optimism, it does feel better to have things improving rather than stagnating.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Whoo scanner

Well, ask and ye shall receive. Interestingly enough, I went out and managed to get a free scanner. Yay co-incidence.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Of Need and Want

My binder of old credit card bills, investment statements and pay stubs is getting pretty full now. There's probably no reason for me to keep saving most of that stuff. I want to get a scanner for it. That'll probably save a lot of hunting around at tax time too. Granted I'll still need the physical copies to actually mail in.

Overtime

Well, yesterday went well. I was a little surprised to find that it was a 10 hour overtime shift instead of the 9 hour shifts that they used to ask for. The extra hour is nice. There was also overtime for the night shift, so I suppose this is the start to a reasonable string of overtime and now the trick begins, seeing how well I can hold this down. The extra cash feels good. Interestingly, according to my math, if I compare how much I make on average and the marginal effect of working this extra day, overtime only gives me about an $18 premium after tax. I think that says more about taxes than anything else. Pre-tax though I get an extra $50.25 on top of what I could regularly expect for an average normal 10 hour shift. That basic exemption skews the average rates that people think about and the marginal rates.
To make the math simple, I suppose I'll estimate that working that shift brought in an extra $150. It's actually a little more, but I like being able to do math in my head and the difference isn't much. An extra $300 on a pay check is quite a bit. $600 in a month, over three months and enough extra pay to count for nearly a month of extra income. $600 at 6% is $36, or an extra $3 a month. Not much, but it adds up.