Last updated: May 15, 2014
After the long winter, summer is almost here. As everyone one of you, we have some exciting plans for the summer. We both love to travel, and the last summer we spent a lot for travelling and most of the spending was for fuel. We went on road trip for Ottawa for few times, Quebec city, Montreal, Boston, Rochester and Niagara falls. And, top of everything we went on vacation for a week to Dominican Republic.
It was fun summer, but we spent a lot without tracking our expenses. Actually, I can track them using my credit card statements, but too lazy to go back and do the calculations. For this reason, I am thinking to document my weekly financial activities on here, so, I can come back and see what I have done & how much I spent for extra activities.
For this summer, we won’t spend as much as last year (I hope :d) because we need to save some money to buy our first home, but, we may go for a week vacation if we get a good deal and have enough reward points to cover the cost. Let’s see ;-).
Last week financial activities
I received around $5000 tax refund and paid down a credit card debt
One of my credit card’s promotion deals (1.99% interest rate) is coming to end in few weeks, so, I better pay it off as early as possible.Bought a mattress at Leon’s furniture for my loving mom for Mother’s day
It cost around $450 with tax. It was a good deal for high quality mattress (I guess). Honestly, I didn’t shop around to compare the price as we were so busy in viewing houses, I just went to a Leon’s store and bought the mattress without checking the price in other stores. It is too bad financial habit.Car repair & yearly service – cost $650
We have 12 years old Toyota Camry. We went to a garage to replace its back brake pads, and the mechanic said there was a minor oil leak in the oil tank. So, we asked him to fix it too. Both repairs cost us around $650 :(. If we have a old car, then there will be some maintenance and repairs cost, but those expenses will be much lower than having a brand new car.My dividend portfolio’s value dropped slightly
My dividend stock portfolios dropped around $500 since my last net worth update :(. It is a usual summer of volatile. I won’t make any changes in my portfolios.I received the Amex gold reward card
I received my American Express gold reward card, but I am little disappointed with it as we could not use the card in some stores and fast food restaurants :(. I will try the card in some other stores and document here about my experience with the American express card.We are planning to go to Ottawa for the Victoria Day long weekend
My wife’s relatives and my family friends are living in Ottawa. We usually visit there for long weekends and other long holidays. Ottawa (400km from our home) is one of the beautiful cities in Canada. The trip will cost around $300, but it will be fun, and something different from our regular day-job routines.Thank you for reading.
Thanks for sharing your financial activities. It’s really nice and transparent when others share income and expenses. That’s one think I like about this blogging community. Your expenses do remind me and everyone else I’m sure that unexpected costs always come up and when I read about your needing a new mattress and needing cars repairs it just hit home. You can never really anticipate every single expense no matter how much plan.