Another full-day shoot today for the show today, and though a long day, I was a little less... anxious about it, I guess, this being our fourth taping, and also more comfortable with the process at this point. We get a mic placed on our person, a quick run through on what they want us to talk about, and then movement. Camera rolls, we speak and do our thing, then we do it again, and again, and sometimes again and again. I think five takes was our max (no pun intended) today, and that's 'cause I was getting a little goofy.
We were set up with a consultation with Scotiabank today, for one of those "second opinions" they talk about on tele. It's true, we haven't been very smart in our investments and it's true that we need help and actually meeting with Lucy at the bank and having an in-depth discussion with her, well, we understand a lot better now. Of course we don't know everything now, and we still can't do it all on our own (not very well, anyway), but we have a much better idea of what we should be doing. We have our goals, which have been clearly defined at this point: 1. get out of debt; 2. buy house; 3. Education fund for the wee lad; 4. Retirement. The first goal will be handled in full throughout this year (maybe sooner), the second will happen much easier than we thought possible, and the third and fourth aren't exactly going to be challenging. Lucy was rather insistant that is was all doable, if we're committed to doing it. So yeah, we came out of that feeling pretty optomistic and feeling better about that whole end of things. We're armed with knowledge we never had, such as the fact that short term goals and long term goals financially need to be handled differently... on short term you want your investments secure, long term, you can afford more risk, which also nets higher-interest. As well we learned that we can each transfer up to $20,000 from our RRSPs to our first home buy and after year two (for the next 15 years) we have to pay that back in. Even Lucy explaining bank accounts and credit cards as "products" was just gave us a new way to think about things (when we asked if there was any negative impact to cancelling a credit card, she just said "no, you're just telling them you don't want their product anymore").
Returning home we met with the host, and she, having read the blog (this entry in particular) and needed to clarify that she wasn't at all making a judgement call on adrienne and I, or our hobby, but instead reinforcing the fact that our collection is an asset, and if we liquidate that asset we move towards our goal that much sooner. So it's our choice on what we want to do with it, but really the more we sell and the sooner we do it, the faster we get to where we want to be. Am I so attached to my comics? Well, yeah. All of them? No. Half of them? Not even. But how much we talkin'? And how much can we get for them? And how soon? I dunno. It's all, quite frankly, a lot of work. It's work we're committed to doing, but it's for certain not all going to happen at once. First thing I want to do is finish the inventory (timeframe... erm, this coming week), and after the inventory is done, it's sorting time (as in two categories, keep and sell), and after that it's figuring out where to sell them. On top of that, 40% of my books are still at my parent's place in Thunder Bay.
The other thing about our third meeting with Alison was clarifying and reinforcing the plan she'd given us for debt repayment (if you recall, all of my net income was put towards debt rempayment, while Adrienne is left to cover all the other expenses). But the fact is, the more aggressively we pay off the debt, the less amount of time we have to deal with it and the more time we have to gather our down payment.
But of course, we need to be comfortable with the amount of money we're putting on debt and in other places, and if enacting the plan leaves us a little too strapped or a little to tense, then we'll need to pare back. But what would be have to lose to try it out?
Exactly.
We have work to do.
(btw: if you're looking at the show's episode guide, our story isn't this one (we're not listed yet).