So I read an article the other day about a 14 year old girl who unfortunately died after drinking a Monster energy drink.  She apparently had a reaction to the caffeine and her heart couldn't take it.  Now I know energy drinks are not good for you anyway but what in the world was a 14 year old doing drinking energy drinks.  I myself am not exactly the best.  At the moment I am drinking at least 4 a week.  Really though I see no difference between me drinking one can a day to people who drink 4 cups of coffee a day.
But still.. I am on a path to better myself physically so I have come up with my challenge for the month of November.  I am going to cut but on energy drinks for the month.  2 a week maximum but I am going to aim for one or none for the week.  But we shall see.   
find myself every now and then telling myself to cut back and then stuff happens and I work my way up to a can a day.  I do like the way they taste which doesn't help but not having them at all will be a good thing.  I know they are bad for me so I shouldn't be drinking them at all.  So hence the challenge.  I may not be able to go cold turkey over night but I can try..  

Here goes November 1 for a month.  Cutting back on energy drinks.

Check my challenge page here

  Its funny how much now I can't wait for payday.  And its now because I am waiting to get paid.  Its so I can see if my budget is working and continue to work on it to make it better.  Also so I can see my savings grow.

Anyone else have that  :)

Why is it when I go see my lawyer it costs me more money.

I should know better.  After all I work for them.   

I will be glad when this is over with  

;)

So one of my goals this month was to come up with a debt repayment plan for the credit cards and line of credit (not including the debt for the lawyer bill).  The following is my plan to be hopefully debt free within 2 years.   
At the moment I am putting $300 a month into debt repayment.  This may seem small-ish but remember I am paying off a lawyer bill for immigration and that is almost 800 a month.  As it stands now the 2 aussie cards have been paid off in full.  The Canadian card is maxed ($1200) and the line of credit is just over $6300.  So here is the plan.
So I am going to transfer $480.00 from the line of credit to the credit card (as the LoC has less interest amount).  Then of the $300 towards debt repayment per month I will put minimum on the LoC (about 120) and the rest (about 180) will go all towards paying off the credit card.  Then once the card is paid off the full $300 will go towards paying off the line of credit.  All extra money (after Cuba) earned will be going towards paying off this debt.  
After paying off the lawyer bill I will look at the budget and put that money towards whatever is going on.  Was thinking of something like a share between debt repayment, creating an emergency fund and/or RSPs.
So by doing the above hopefully I will have the credit card paid off in full by early next year and the line of credit within 18 months.  The goal is to be completely debt free by end of 2014.  The BF understand this and has been doing very well in not using the credit card.  Especially when I threatened to cut off his leg if he did it again haha.. ok that didn't work but when I showed him how much interest we pay on the cards he has been very good.  Also I think this trip to Cuba and ignited a sense of "look what we can do when we save" attitude. 
It would be soo nice to be completely debt free within 2 years.  Then we can save towards other things in life, like more travel, retirement and eventual move back to Australia and have a house (not a condo) for us to raise a family..  

Well that is the Plan.. lets see in a year if its all going the way i hope it will..

So today i paid off the second credit card.. for the second time.  
We used it back in May when we went to Los Angels for a couple of things and then i had an yearly bill payment on the card, which i forgot about until it came up.  So the total as of last week was just over $200.00.  That card was paid off in full this morning.  
However i admit i used the line of credit to pay off this card.  But i felt it was the right thing to do.  The Line of credit is lower interest rate and the fees just to send money back home is upwards of $40.00.  It just made more sense to pay for this card using the line of credit and then focus on paying that off, which we plan to.
So its a bitter sweet moment but at least things are pointing in the right direction.  I put the credit cards away so i wont use them, unless for a real emergency.  That way we don't rack up the debt again.

So the second part to my good news this month and something I touched base on in my goals post for this month is that me and the BF finally booked our trip to Cuba.  We had to borrow some money from our other savings account to get the deal we wanted but we have a plan to continue saving money and replace that money first.  
Anyway we got a really good deal for a 5 star all inclusive resort leaving November 28 for 8 days.  Very happy with this.  And so is the BF.. he is finally getting to Cuba.  All the hard work he has done with overtime has paid off, and the extra I have done to has helped.   
So I know have another goal to coincide with this trip.  I will be a solid size 16 before heading to Cuba.  Which the way I am going now is totally doable..  

Sun and beach.. here I come

Just a quick note here to let everyone know some goods news that has happened over the week.  
I was approved the other day for permanent residence status.  Which is AWESOME news.  So now waiting for the work visa to come in (which should be any day now) so i can leave the country and not have any trouble coming back,   Regarding the PR status i still have a few forms to come in and sign and then i wait for me PR card.  This may take some weeks or months (which is fine as my worker visa shouldn't have a problem being approved) and then and then i am a full on permaent resident of Canada   

This is a huge weight of my shoulders.. Once the paperwork is in i am golden..  

YEAH!!!!

And once again its the beginning of the month.. boy has time passed by at record speed.  So its time to take a look back at my goals for last month and see how I did

 - Finance: Put enough away to reach the half way mark of funds we need for this trip ($2,000) - as mentioned in my earlier posting we did this with flying colours.  Thanks to the BF's overtime, my extras and savings where we can not only did we jump over the goal we bought our tickets to Cuba (another post on that soon)
- Diet: keep an accurate food log (no cheating) and log calories. - Massive fail.  But I cut out the junk food for the most part which is helping
- Fitness - Continue walking 30 minutes a day and hit the gym more often, particular using more weights.  Didn't really get to the gym. However I walked almost every day.  I kept a record of all the days I walked and out of 30 days I walked 25 of them.  Not bad
- Apartment - Put all the stuff in the box marked "for sale" up on line to sell and get rid of them - DONE, even started selling stuff.
- Personal -  Go to bed and get up at a regular time.  Bed earlier then what I have been doing - started doing really well at this at the beginning of the month then things got really busy and there just didn't seem to be enough hours in the day.. oh well

So my goals for October are as follows:

- Finance: Develop and implement a plan for paying off the credit cards/line of credit, including how long it will take to do it etc
- Diet: create a useable meal plan
- Fitness - Continue walking 30 minutes a day.  And work out a winter calendar plan for getting more exercise in. 
- Apartment - Go through cupboards/pantry/fridge and intake what food I have.  Prepare for $21 day challenge (again another future post)
- Personal -  Spend more time with the BF.  We haven't been spending enough time with each other due to different schedules and its putting a strain on our relationship.  Got to do more stuff together...

What are your goals for October