Searching for a new bank account

Citizen's bank has recently decided to close or sell off or otherwise discontinue personal banking for some reason, which has me looking for a new bank account. I started an account there because I wanted no fee debit in the USA when I travelled there, which tends to happen quite frequently. Thus far, the only other place that I could find offering something like that is ICICI. They're asking that $500 be left in the chequing account to avoid fees though. At a modest 1.5%, which is what Canadian Tire Financial Services is offering on their savings account, that comes out to $7.5/year. More if there are more typical interest rates. Maybe I'm ignorant about the number of transactions I make on each trip, but I don't think that move would save me money. Anyway, I suppose I'll keep looking.

Mid-week post

One of my increasingly rare midweek posts. Two major things to say about work. I'm ending my night shift work a little early. This is my last week. Also I lost my ride due to a family emergency. It's going to be interesting tomorrow.

2 More Weeks of Night Shift

I'm down to my last two weeks of night shift now. It's been a change, not sure if I like it or not. I don't like counting on other people for rides though. I should probably think of some sort of gift for him. Not sure what to get. Anyway, 124 days down, going 128.

July Month End

Before I forget, 122 days worked so far this year, going 124. I've been behind on posting. So I guess a July month end is in store for now. The profit share cheque was for $600 or so. I suppose I'm pleased with it.

July summary
deductions/gross pay 18.9%
gross pay saved 66.9%
take home pay saved 82.6%

spending/gross 7.4%
spending/take home 9.1%

loan payments/gross 6.8%
loan payments/take home 8.4%

total outflow/gross pay 33.1%
total savings $2224.22
I spent about $240 this month, with almost $4 in taxes and misc attached government fees, mainly recycling levies and deposits. In the first half of the year, I averaged $202. This month is a tad higher because I renewed my driver's license for $64.45 and I also went to a party, which is where most of the recycling comes in. Maybe next year, I'll separate out the sales tax, recycling deposit and recycling levy. Also paid for some supplies for my sister's Canada day party too. All this and being only $40 or so over average makes me want to check my math, but I did this on a spreadsheet, so maybe checking my data entry would be more appropriate. Also notably a fairly light month on the reusable bag credits, largely due to a shift in my spending habits. Hmm, do I want to start tagging these sorts of things budget or month end or something? I wonder if there's a way that I can mark labels as obsolete so that they stop showing up in my list of suggested labels. Anyway, here's to hoping for a good August. There's only two pay days in August, my string of extra pay has come to an end.

Dollar Store deals

I suppose the little stuff first. As the day nears, I don't feel quite as eager to tell my brother that I don't want to see him any more. Also, I was recently told that in the USA, if you negotiate down credit card debts, you have to pay tax on the portion that the credit card company writes off. That sounds a little scary to me. Also, 119 days worked this year and 6/20 night shifts down.
As for the slightly larger item on today's post, I recently ran across two things to do with dollar store items, so I thought I'd do my own. They tend to be fairly low quality in general. Looking though my spending log, I pulled out a couple items that I thought were of particularly good value.
Going backwards, the most recent one was the maple creme cookies, $1/325g, off hand, I don't know what they usually cost, but next time I'm at the grocery store, I'll find out. I'm pretty sure that the unit price is higher though.
Next item is a stapleless stapler. These things are hard enough to find let alone finding a good deal on one. I still find myself using a regular stapler more often, and it's taken me a while to warm up to this one. Also, I seldom find myself stapling things, so maybe it wasn't such a good deal. Though if you only find yourself stapling a few pages every now and then, your stapler doesn't need to be heavy duty and you can get by with a cheap one.
Following that, there's a tuna sauce meal. Very delicious and good shelf life too. Wonderful standby, however it's a discontinued item. I felt that offered good value and deliciousness that I went back to get more before they were all gone.
Last item on my list is a keychain sized 1AA battery to usb/cell phone charger and flash light. The flashlight is actually a tiny LED, not a regular bulb. It's a handy size and the light is not good, but reasonable and I've used it to give my mp3 player a boost every now and then. I'm not really a heavy cell user though so it might be a while till I try that. Also, should I ever get into robotics again, I could see myself testing these out to provide a mobile source of 5V power for my little machines. I wonder how stable they are.
That seems to sum it up. I also got a couple things that I felt really weren't that nice. A couple of containers that were labelled as leak proof but actually leak considerably. I've been tempted to try putting jello in them, but haven't gotten around to it yet. They're still good for storing paper clips, candy and other small items.
Headphones are also a perpetual disappointment, I've been through a lot of those. There's also a number of items that I didn't think were good that I haven't tried and probably won't.

Count down

My brother comes back on the 30th. I've tentatively decided that I am going to discontinue our relationship once I leave Calgary. I'm just not sure when I should tell him. Maybe now, maybe only after I leave. I don't think that I'll get a good reaction, but I do think that he'll respect that it's my decision to make.
During this time he's shown no interest in helping me, only interest in looking helpful from the point of view of others. He refuses to respect my values or accept that I'm the one who makes decisions about my life. There's a lot of things that I could say, but someone else asked me about it as I was writing this. I'll just sum everything up by saying that I felt hard pressed to summarize things in one hour.

117 days down, going 121

I guess I'm settling into the night shift routine. It's kind of comforting knowing that it'll only last for four weeks. Three more weeks to go. I'm feeling pretty good right now, though somewhat sad. There's little to do at night time because everything has to be quiet and it's hard to stay up.
Hmm, as for other stuff to report, not sure what to say. There's profit share coming up at the end of the month, so I'm putting off making month end figures till then. I hope I get something good. Been late a few times so might be a tad small. We'll see what happens.