geekent's Buy Nothing Year

I figured I would get started early, since my Buy Nothing Year ("BNY") has been flittering about in my mind for months on end now. Close friends will recall me telling them of this idea early this summer. Aden (soon to be my wife in 3 days time) will remember me coming up with this wacky idea around February ('07). In fact, it had been festering for some time longer than that, probably at the turn of the year, 2007.

I really wish I'd journaled or blogged about the gestation of this idea, as it did take a while before it was fully formed, and fleshed out to the point where I was satisfied about it (and, after a short while, very excited to do it). In some respects, this idea started as a means to revitalize my blog. I had been contemplating "3-6-5" photoblog projects and a book that was given to me for Christmas '06, "Everything I Ate" in which a guy documented everything he ate for a year. I was wondering what I could do that was the equivalent but was also interesting to me to do. The percolation started.

After pondering various ideas, none of which even register anymore, I came to look at what I do with myself, what I do with my money, what I enjoy, and what I like to share with people. Looking around my apartment -- at the shelves of DVDs, the containers of CDs under my bed, the boxes and storage compartments of comics and the action figures scattered everywhere -- I knew. Having written literally thousands of movie, comic book, music and other types of reviews over the past decade, I knew. Having blown tens of thousands of dollars on these, my Earthly possessions, I knew there was something there, something to be done.
But what? I mean, I was already keeping track of everything I bought and I was writing reviews for pretty much everything I saw and much of what I read... what more could I do?

Them's the brokes

Aden and I started going out July 23, 2006 after having been friends for many months before that. Once we realized just how in simpatico we were, it wasn't long before we started to discuss things like "the future" and "houses". For a long time the prospect of a house was unattractive to me, being a low maintenance guy and houses being a high-maintenance lifetime investment. (Bear with me, this all does tie in) But for some reason, with Aden, suddenly having a house to call our own seemed an important thing to me, and the talk of houses is what led to talk of (and even-tu-al-ly) marriage. But Toronto isn't a middle-income-friendly market, with a simple bungalow costing a half-million dollars, most houses will be out of our reach, unless we take a lifetime mortgage or sell our kidneys.

Thinking about this kind of thing, how much money it would actually cost to buy a house and how long it would take to pay off a mortgage and such got me thinking in general about financial issues... namely my debt.

I got my first credit card via Citibank, a brochure application chosen primarily because of the company's clever advertisement techniques which preyed upon fears of fraud and identity theft (before identity theft was the "it crime" it is today). I can't even appropriately recall if it was during high school or University, but as it was so exceptionally well put on Judd Apatow's Undeclared, "Free money... they're giving out free money". And for $800 worth of credit, it was like free money. It didn't take long before I'd blown through much of it (from many trips to the cd or comic book store or the occasional restaurant bill). Occasionally my borrowing rate would rise... another $200 here, another $400 there, and it wasn't until one particularly high-paying summer job after 3rd year University that I manage to pay that sucker off, completely, after which I cut it up. Sending payments via cheques to a payment office in Hamilton every month cost me $2 per cheque and $0.4x cents per stamp. Annoying. (A year later, I would get a notice from Citibank saying they were charging me $40 service charge for my inactivity... that's right, you don't use the card, they don't make money, so they charge you a holding charge of sorts. I called them immediately, told them I wasn't going to pay it and cancelled the account).

I got a Visa card via my bank around then, a GM card from which every dollar spent would earn me points towards a new GM vehicle purchase (this was before I was aware that a) I wouldn't ever buy a GM car and b) I wouldn't ever want to own a car again). I used this card a little more nobly... to buy books for school in my fourth and final year, and also to buy some nice things for my girlfriend at the time... oh and like, comics and food and clothes and cds and action figures for myself. I didn't do too badly this time... a couple hundred bucks, nowhere near maxing out my $2k limit. But, that didn't last. One purchase of an engagement ring later and I was on the verge.

I moved away from home, found a crappy job at Wal-Mart which barely paid enough for me to survive, never mind feed my comics and cd and Star Wars toy cravings (and it was that Christmas I discovered DVDs, buying a DVD player and soaking up DVDs like mad). I was quickly tapped out. Me and the fiancee at the time (she also making shit money at a bakery) wanted to buy a computer, and to do so I knew we needed some more credit, so I applied for another Visa card when the Bank rep said "why don't you get a line of credit?"
"Can we?" (We meaning "I")
(Click clack) "You're approved for $5000."
"Oh, I don't want $5000, I only want $2K"
"Well, $5000 is the minimum for a line of credit."
"Hrm... can we put a usage limit of $2000 then?"
"Sure"
And just like that more free money was ours.
One computer purchase later and I was further in the hole with no way out. The relationship ended, and I honored the last few months of the lease by paying for 1/2 the rent on a vacated apartment for, oh, 5 months. Paid via my line of credit. I didn't even get the computer, but I did get out, and my sanity seemed worth the sacrifice.

I returned home and soon a $2000 visa was a $3800 Visa, and with the $2000 cap on my line of credit, it became a $7000 line, then an $8200 line, and with my semi depression and shitty job and new girlfriend and an uncontrollable urge to spend, spend, spend... I had gobs of toys and cds and DVDs and comics, but also a massive debt load that for some reason didn't bother me.

I quit my job, which was going nowhere, and took off with my remaining line of credit and started moving about the province winding up in Toronto in my first solo apartment ($600/mo) with nothing but a car (that sucked up money like George Hamilton does sunshine) and a duffel bag of clothes. I had a job that was (temporary, but) going to pay me more than I had ever earned before. I figured with this job I could get myself out of hock and move on with life. I just had no idea how expensive Toronto was with it's plentiful cd stores, it's well-stocked DVD shelves, it's abundance of comic book stores, and ... Toys'R'Us! There were things like furnishing ala IKEA, parking passes and transit costs and all the eating out and drinking out and grocery bills and plane visits home. Soon I was unemployed and living off my meager government hand-out pittance covering my bare minimum monthly payments, rent and bills, my debt pretty much at its limits and only higher than it ever had been, and it only got worse.

Another relationship, a new job, a failed attempt at paying down debt, only to watch my limits climb and my debt climb with it. I like to say I was trying to keep two people afloat, which is a partial truth, in that I was helping keep two people comfortable, while using my new debt allotment to keep myself in material possessions. Three years later and it was over, my debt maxed out, a perpetual loop of paying down and using up, paying down and using up. I was yo-yoing on my debt, and despite a good job and lots of support over the years, I've never been able to make any headway at actually keeping my debt reduced.

I've had plans, I've made notes, I've kept journals, and yet something always came up, something always separated me from my gap of debt. I've had plans, yearly resolutions to limit my spending, to restrict my buying, and it's never long before it falls apart or compulsion takes over. I have a spending problem in that I seem to have no problem spending. And what do I buy? Things that give the simplest of pleasures for a limited time. It's a good way to live if you're living for today but if you ever want anything from your future, you've got to pull yourself out of it.

And I do want out.
I want out of this $20,000+ debt of (mostly) my own creation.
I did an assessment of my Visa and realized that for all the interest I've paid on it in the past 8 years, it would have paid the entire thing off... basically I've paid into it already what I've gotten out of it, and by the time I pay it all off I'll have paid over double what I borrowed. I don't think my line of credit is that bad, but I can see by the time it's gone I'll have paid about 75% in addition to what I've borrowed.
So yeah, I want out of my debt spiral. I'm done with it, and I know what I have to do to start crawling to the surface. A sacrifice must be made.

Don't get me wrong, I love music and movies and TV and reading and art and little plastic figurines... I love them with a passion that's at times scary, obsessive and feral, but I realize these satiations need a perpetual incursion to sustain them. I know going cold turkey and telling myself no every time instead of saying "well, if I buy this this week, then I'll buy less next week" is the only way I can stop myself. But if I stop buying them, what will happen?

I don't know.

In a year's time will I be itching to get back into it all? Will I have discovered new avenues to spend my debt instead? Will I have basically just set myself back a year on purchasing everything I want? Will I no longer be interested with such fanaticism in such things?

Questions like these erupt out of me for which I (obviously) don't have an answer.

And that's why we're here.

Coming up...

A pre-BNY look at my life as a consumer or comics, DVDs, cds and toys.

Holy jumpin'! I had no idea, and now I'm depressed.

I'm spending, no word of a lie, a hair over $300 a month in interest charges right now on two credit cards and a line of credit. Man that's funk-inducing (and not the good kind of George Clinton funk, or even the odourous, well worn basketball sneaker kind of funk, but rather the sad-sack mopey Charley Brown kinda funk). That's $300 of good and hard earned money I'm shelling out, money that's mine and will never be seen again by me. You tally up how long that's been going on (I'm not going to for fear of how pathetic it will indeed be) and wow... yeah...

Once I get all this debt paid off, well, suddenly I'll have $300 a month to do as I please with. Of course it's going to go into the house fund but it will be indeed a happy day when the last of those three credit lines are bare.

Of course, I do have an impulse control problem, in that I'll buy things without thinking of the ramifications (same with my food gorging mentioned in the previous post) and now, I'm beginning to see that I've been paying for this ungodly habit for years. I had earlier this year done the math, and yeah, I've effectively paid 100% of the money I've borrowed in interest. That's a whale bone shiv in the gut for sure.

I got a second credit card a couple of years ago, figuring that earning points on my credit spending would be good for me, and that I could put away my Visa and not use it for anything and just pay it down and I'd be able to reduce my debt. Well, for a while it worked, and then I wound up using both cards, digging my hole deeper, and now, I'm at a point where any headway I've made on paying down my original Visa and line of credit has basically been off-set by the MasterCard. How fucking silly.

I've tallied up my monies, and if I subtract my rent from my earnings and use all of what remains to pay off my debt it will take a little over ten months to kill it. That's completely unreasonable, but it allows me to understand the target. Buy Nothing Year will be awesome for me in paying down my debt, but a one-year plan isn't going to cut it, even if I'm not buying comics and cds and the rest, I'll still have other expenses (food, clothing, etc) which will impact it. Reasonably, if I can cut my debt down to just my line of credit I'll be paying a third the interest. The way to do that, well, pay off a lump sum on the line of credit (to meet the payment) and then use the line of credit to pay off the credit cards, that way it's lower interest rate is absorbing the higher ones (learned that from the various debt management shows on "W" Network and Slice like Maxed Out and Til Debt Do Us Part). It's a tricky thing to do but I think I can manage it. I guess I don't have much of a choice.

I've gotten to the point now where I've even filled out an application to be on one of the above mentioned shows, if only to have the professional advice. Adrienne's looking it over and we'll decide together whether airing our finances publicly (like I'm not doing that already) is something we want to do. We're probably not in dire enough a situation to get on a show like that, but you never know...

The last two posts here have something in common, but it will take a bit of explaining. You see, when you cut out certain foods or foods with certain ingredients from your daily life, your body appreciates it. By eliminating chips, chocolate, trans fats and other junk foods from my diet, even with my relatively low inactivity rate of late (about an hour of walking every day, 1/2 hour on the way to work and 1/2 back, but no strength training or exhaustive cardio) I've gained little weight... actually, to be honest, I've lost some since I started the diet.

When you put yourself on a budget, and whe you put your credit cards away, so they can't be accessed, and you don't allow yourself to use any sort of credit for purchasing, well, your pocketbook thanks you. You actually start to manage to whittle away at the debt that plagues you.

It's only by ignoring (or willfully resisting) eating highly tasty, yet unhealthy foods as well as ceasing satiating, yet frivolous spending that any sense of loss (weight and debt) - or, realisticlally, gain (health and solvency) - can be achieved.

It's when you start dipping, thinking that one $40 dollar dinner here or 10 mini-chocolate bars there won't have any impact that you undermine the whole process, because invariably, one falter leads to more, and those then become setbacks. I can already the effects of the bag of Hickory Sticks (hey, I said to myself, they don't say "chips" anywhere on the package) I've been slowly enjoying over the past week, the couple dips into the stepson's Hallowe'en candy, and the pumpkin pie from last week, not to mention the few doses of pastries and baked goods as well as the triple dose of popcorn and butter I all ate during my film fest coverage. It's not been good on my body or my system, and now that I think of it, my rough sleeping is likely not attributed to my wonky film fest schedule, but more likely this gorging.

Similarly, I had made headway in paying off debt, or so I thought. Looking at my declining Visa and line of credit balances, I thought good things were happening. What I didn't realize was that my other credit card, which had replaced my Visa as primary, I had been using for various frivolous (as well as larger) expendatures over the past few months and more than tripled its balance, which in turn virtually counteracted all of the good work I'd done on my other credit.

The parallels are there, and the reality is that it's behavioural and not inherent to one or the other. I'm sure there are food addicts who are fiscally sound, as there are probably debt addled shoppers who can resist the lure of Lays and Tim Hortons. But it's really interesting to me how one sensibilty can so easily be duplicated across habits... interesting, and frightening. But knowledge is power... only, is it willpower?

I sat down and crunched the numbers and with BNY in place I should be able to pay off my debt load completely by January 2009. That's about 14 months, or 28 paycheques, worth of budgeting and I don't doubt that it'll be tough, but I look forward to it, and I look forward to being debt free. I've even managed to factor in a healthy amount of spending money for each pay period so I'm not going to be completely skint, but I'm also not going to be able to spend frivolously either... I'm actually going to have to budget out my 15 days between pay each month.

I've already started, and it certainly is a challenge. The temptation to dip into debt (via "credit" cards and line of "credit") is very tempting, but I've resisted so far. With $40 in cash in my wallet to start out last weekend and about $70 in the bank account may seem like a lot, but factoring in public transportation, groceries, and miscellaneous expenses, it disappears rather quickly.

Aden and I have started bringing lunches to work this week (last week we tried bringing sandwiches but we only succeeded twice) and it's all been advance preparation that's allowed us to. Aden made chili on Sunday (some taken to work, the rest frozen), we had leftover lasagna on Wednesday, and I christened our new crock pot yesterday by gettin' myself a stew goin' like Carl Weathers, some take to work today, the rest frozen.

Progress, slow and steady.

$430 of unbudgeted monies added to my MasterCard this weekend. Necessary, but it doesn't make me happy. Most of that money is coming back, since they were expenses that are going to be reimbursed, in a sense, but yeah, I'd rather these things stopped happening.

We rented a cargo van ($155) for Saturday and Sunday, a monstrous beast which sucked up fuel like nobody's business. It's a modern van (a 2008 Chevy) so it had some nice console features including a digital display which allowed you to view things like Avg. Fuel consumed per 100KM, est. remaining distance based on fuel, and total fuel consumed, as well as total KM on the vehicle. I kept it on the total fuel consumed gauge and watched as the dimes were eaten up like Pac Man dots. The thing's average fuel consumption was under 5KM per litre of gas, and it's highway consumption was about 7KM per litre. Atrocious. I felt guilty for even driving the thing. But drive it I did, almost 500 KM in total, as I ventured up to Barrie to help my sister out with moving between practice spaces (she's an RMT) and then off to Brantford to take our second bed to Aden's parents. I fuelled up before leaving and from 2/5 of a tank it cost me $72 dollars to fill'er up. Oy.

Between it all we went grocery shopping ($212) at the Superstore, which we do anytime we get a vehicle, since it is like heaven after having to put up with Dominion's sorry ass for weeks on end. Of course, we always wind up with things that aren't food, which this time included some Christmas presents for the wee one, which is great to get that out of the way, but it all wasn't budgeted for this week.. so I've deducted the amount off my future X-mas spending money and I've adjusted my next pay-period's debt payment to include the difference from what's not getting paid back to me, so it's all taken care of, but yeah, dropping $450 in two days is frightening when you're trying not to accumulate more debt.

But on the positive side, that's some PC points and Air Miles well earned...

I've removed all my debt cards (Visa, MasterCard and my "line of credit" banking card) from my wallet. This security blanket of not-my-money-in-my-pocket now ceases to exist... or would if I didn't so easily remember the card numbers and expiry dates (and if my favourite on-line shopping places didn't keep them in record). Anyway, they're in a safe place now and I don't have to worry about them anymore. I just get to pay them off.

Of course, the "convenience card" factor is the reason why we keep them in our wallets to begin with, and I didn't realize how useful this was until yesterday when I was at the dentist. I'm so used to paying for things outright that I began to panic a little when I realized I had forgotten to bring a debt card with me. Of course, in the end, they can bill me and I can pay it when I have the money (returned to me from benefits coverage, yay) which is such an old-school way of dealing with one's expenses... but it works. Paying for things when you actually have the money surprisingly works. Huh. How 'bout that?

I believed I mentioned that Aden and I had applied to be a participant on a reality televisual programme that deals with debt and financial management, and if I didn't mention it, well then I meant to, and yes, that's what we did.

The show is called Maxed Out, hosted by author and financial management wizard Alison Griffiths. Aden and I have watched it (as well as it's rival show, 'Til Debt Do Us Part) a handful of times, and found the ideas and practices that were presented on the show to be both insightful and inspirational. I've made no secret that I've dug myself into the hole with a lot of consumption, and it's taken a long time for me to find myself in a position where I'm both mature enough to deal with it and in a situation where it encourages me to do so.

I've already established some strangleholds on my spending, I've got a plan in place and I've started budgeting my pay, so I think I've got it under control. If this is the case, then why would I apply to a TV show, where there's regularly no one but out of control people with spending habits that eclipse my own dozens of times over? I dunno, to be honest. I mean, there are reasons, but at its core, I really don't know what reasons really stuck out.

I mean, we pitched them as a debt-in-control couple with aspirations of buying a house in an expensive market (Toronto) and also striving to plan for the future (RRSPs, RESP). We're atypical for the show, and we stressed that, but those types of "how to" things (how do we pay down debt, save for a house down payment and save for our family's future all at once with what we have?) I've never seen on these programs and think it would be not only useful to us, but to any viewer in a similar situation. I'm all for educational TV.

So, the advantages we see are, first, that they give you a stipend for being on the show, and extra money is never a bad thing. Secondly, the resources the show can present to us are probably better than what we'd find on our own. Third, I'm a publicity hound (okay, not really). Fourth, shits and giggles. Fifth, to get educated and to understand the proper way to fiscally live one's life (and enjoy it). That's really what we want to get out of the show.

We've met with an associate producer who loved our application and mentioned that our objectives, from a couple of our status, is something they've been wanting to explore for some time. We sat down for a 1 hour interview which went exceptionally well, and just served to confirm with them that we're what they've been looking for. Our "story" has gone to the "pitch" stage (the production needs the network's approval before they can go ahead) and if it gets approved we will begin lensing shortly.

My perceptions of some of the barriers to us getting on the show include: not enough drama; not enough debt; not enough threat; and the fact we're not allowing Aden's little one to participate. There's also the possibility that we might have to back out, as I'm trying to wrap my head around the agreement we have to sign (it's with one of my legal team now for interpretation) and how much we have to give up in order to appear on television.

We're excited to go on the show if my objections about the agreement turn out to be unfounded or can be overcome, and our experience so far has been a positive one (their excitement over us is quite flattering). I don't know how much I can discuss about the process when it's happening (or even after) so if I'm somewhat silent on the matter, please forgive me.

Well, I majorly messed up my December budget, not accounting for a few things, and generally getting turned around about at what point my X-Mas money was coming into play. Thankfully, my lovely wife can cover the rent until next pay at which point I can close the gaps. Of course, with the year winding down and BNY looming, I'm trying to stock up on those things I can't buy, but, as it turns out, I can't afford them, so basically, I'm screwed. Certain planned purchases of DVDs, CDs and graphic novels are out of the question if I'm going to stick to my budget ... and stick to my budget I shall as closely as possible.

Looks like I'm not going to be buying many Christmas presents this year either, so to friends, expect some warm season's greetings but that's about it. The screws are officially tightening. Putting the line of credit and credit(debt) cards away in a separate location from my wallet has proved beneficial towards not using them (although on-line is a different story).

Then there's the non-fact that I may have to do an emergency jaunt to TBay (for reasons explained on the original blog that's, well, going to take a meaty bite into my early paydown procedures. It's just another of those un-comforts of the situation, alas.

I was finally sorting out my 18 month pile/drawer of bank statements and bills last night, although some gaps have appeared in my records, everything seems to be in order. Of course, tearing open and going through all these for the first time in over a year, one gets to see how the banks and corporations like to arbitrarily take advantage of obscure contractual clauses to change the terms and services of their agreements, usually screwing the customer out of more money in the process... Ugh.

Oh, and the show is a-go. Meeting with the Producer tonight. Wow.

The paperwork has been handed over (both the release forms and our financial data) to the producer, the shooting schedule has been proposed, and now we're officially participants on Maxed Out.

We met with producer Karen last night to hammer out the details, and I finally came to the realization that we're going on a TV program that, in a sense, is beyond our control, rather than shooting "The Aden and Graig Kent Show". It's going to be helpful for us, and for others, of that much I'm sure. The reason we came to the show, and the direction the production staff is taking it are pretty much in sync, which is pretty cool, I'd say. We're not in a debilitating amount of debt, so our angle is different from most who would approach the show, and we're quite happy that they're willing and excited to do that.

I'm sure everyone knows that reality TV is only real to a point, and there's nothing different with this show. Our daily life will be distilled down to something broadcastable in a 22-25 minute time frame, as well as working within the context of the show's format. For sure there will be some magic of television going on (like if they shoot us getting up in the morning, I'm going to be wearing, well, more than my usual nothing, that's for sure), but it's all for the purpose of getting the sense of what we do and how we spend our money. It's not like they're going to follow us around for months on end to get certain shots, but in the end, everything that will wind up on television will be a representation of our life in some respect or another. I'm quite looking forward to it.

The logistics are a bit more of a hassle. We're shooting around Christmas (schedule-wise, yes, but also for the sake of keeping the show timeless, in a sense, they might try to avoid any prominent examples of Christmas in the background), and also some busy times of the year at work, which is making the logistics of it all challenging, but not something we can't overcome, and they're being incredibly flexible in doing so.

The people from the show we've met so far have been great - their excitement and interest has been a real boon to making us both feel more comfortable about doing the show, as has their reassurance of what the focus is. We hope we're an entertaining couple to watch, but we also hope our story is educational to people in similar situations.

In the end, what will we get out of it? Hopefully the advice we were seeking when we approached the show, and they seem quite committed to providing us with a lot of that. If nothing else, it's going to be a fun experience which Aden and I will be able to smile about for years to come. And you never know... I might be awesome on camera and get my own show about comic books (ha!).

I had to fly back to Thunder Bay for a funeral this weekend. It was, all things considered, a great weekend, so full of family and support and love, it was just the circumstances surrounding it weren't so wonderful. There were tears of sadness, tears of love and warmth, and tears of laughter, and I wouldn't have missed any of it.

Of course, with death as unexpected as it is, so too comes unexpected expenses. The plane ticket was reasonable enough (my sister alerting me to a seat sale), so it won't be affecting my debt management too much (I can amortize it over the next few months easily). The thing about it was I wasn't sure whether they needed to see my credit card or not when I checked in, so back into the wallet it went. Turns out they didn't need to see it, but there it was... that free money...

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the fact that I haven't been keeping my credit cards in my wallet has meant that I really haven't been using them which also means I've not been buying things I really don't need or can't afford at the time. To prove this point, well, I bought stuff, on credit card, all things I didn't need. Wine. Cheese. Persians. Comics.

Oh, I didn't buy much of each, and I think the total for all of this was about $50, but to be honest, it was $50 I didn't have at the time and $50 I shouldn't have spent. Oh, for sure, it was $50 enjoyed, but it's things like this that a) tell me I have an impulse control problem and b) tell me I should just cut the damn things up.

I'm working on "a", but I can tell you now, "b" isn't going to happen.

I was planning on ending 2007 with a bang, sending it off on a dramatic and glorious orgy of spending, loading myself up with consumables for 2008. Oh, how I wanted to drop hundreds - perhaps thousands - on comics, DVDs, music, etc., just to overwhelm myself with so much to intake that I wouldn't really miss spending money so much. There are literally hundreds of graphic novels, trade paperbacks and comics for me to purchase (and that I'd be quite happy purchasing), there are dozens upon dozens of DVDs I don't necessarily need, but oh do I want. There's a whole world of music I love that I don't have and the temptation to pad out my collection (even with just digitally obtaining copies) is somewhat hard to resist. And yet resist I must.

If I succumb to my impulses, I won't stop until I've dug myself deeper and deeper into the hole I'm striving to find my way out of, and, despite what Homer Simpson might suggest, you can't dig your way out of a hole. I've done it before, you know... abandoned all common sense and just blown a whole chunck of my "available credit" on frivolity, knowing full well the consequences of my actions (actually, not realizing that 6 years later I'd be stuck in the same rut, I guess that's not true).

So I'm eyeing up Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited, I've looked at a Netflix-like subscription, rattling in my brain is contemplation about other such expenses that aren't the same style of consuming I've come to know, but nonetheless still expenses of the sort I'm trying to prohibit for Buy Nothing Year. I'm a tricky bastard, even when it comes to skirting around my own set-ups and scenarios.

But I can't.
I just can't swing it.
And I shouldn't try.
Put it right out of my mind.
Look away.
Just say no.
I've got to get used to that at some point.

As you may or may not know, Aden and I have been shooting for Maxed Out this week, last Saturday (during the on-set of the snowstorm) all day (and half eve) in the ol' NoYo homestead, a full-day shoot downtown and last night for a couple hours in studio. As I stated before, there's a lot of "magic of television" involved in making any reality and this show is no different. I know, and you know, that they're not going to spend weeks following us around awaiting TV-ready opportunities to arise, so we've distilled down our daily routine and our favourite activities and common occurrences into two full-day shoots. We'll let you wait and see to see what we actually did.

I found the two day shoots quite enjoyable (if Saturday a tad long), and the crew (Karen, Brian, Adam, Mike, Peter and all the rest) have been good fun and very easy to be around. While some might think the cameras to be obtrusive or difficult to deal with, they haven't really bothered me at all. I might not be an utterly natural camera presence but I do feel that I'm not overly overwhelmed by the camera (I've done interviews for City TV and Space, amongst other camera-on-the-street things before and they've been nerve-wracking and probably useless, left on the proverbial cutting room floor). I certainly have no problem talking about myself, my life, etc., whether I do so eloquently or not, I can't really say. Hopefully it all gets spliced together and I don't look like a total geekdom-obsessed, financially-irresponsible knob (even if I am a little bit). But, then, I know it can be cut together in a number of different ways to make for, well, entertaining television, and I resigned myself to that fact from day one, so I'm fine with it. I think Aden's a little worried that I'm going to be made out to look worse than I actually am in terms of my financial (ir)responsibility, but for all my financial awareness of late there's a bed of truth to that characterization, which I fully admit.

Last night we had our "map and plan" (or, to put it in Idol terms, results night), where Alison (your host and mine) gives us the results of her full goings-over of three-months of our financial paperwork. And, really, wow. If you've never taken the initiative to break your spending down into categories and examine your spending habits, do it. Take two or three months of bank statements, bills, and anything else that will tell you where your money went and see where it's all going, how much is going out, and how much you're actually bringing in. Aden and I were shocked at nearly every number presented to us, even a little skeptical (calling them "TV numbers" once or twice in post-shoot conversation).

After our shoot we heatedly discussed and justified the number and realized that the 3-months of statements, etc that we provided to the show (all, relating to our immediate post-marriage period) isn't exactly the best representation of our regular life together, as additional money came in for the wedding, and we spent a lot of money on moving expenses, including our awesome wall of shelving and an armoire for the bedroom which were needed to make the space suitable for us, and we had a couple of plane trips to account for. Then again, we've only been together 4 months and there really is no "best representation" to look at... as far as Alison is concerned, those three months represent how we're going to live out the rest of our lives if we don't do something about it....

Anyway, we did bandy a lot of money between ourselves in that time (which I can see would be very difficult to understand from an outside perspective), but even still the numbers that we were disbelieving, upon self-examination, turned out to be much closer to fact than we were initially willing to admit, at least in the context of that 3-month period. If anything, the results we were given put us into mind to do our own examination, and in the end, that's what being on the show is all about... coming to grips with our finances, and that's the ultimate reward of this. Alison has put into light our shortcomings in terms of how we deal with our money (or, better yet, how we ignore it), and has charged us with the task of addressing it. Things like taking a look at our RRSPs and understanding what we're investing in and how we're investing is something we both have been ignoring. Understanding our collections, and cataloging it has been fast tracked from "sometime next year" to, erm, now-ish, and reigning in our spending will begin Monday (although, we've already been striving to do that).

We've been given a plan, a spending plan, and it's doable, but not immediately so (at least not in full). Most everything, in terms of reducing spending, limiting spending on certain items and examining how to recoup monies from our deadweight collection is all acceptable. We've been asked to shift my 1-year debt pay-off (still on target) to a 9-month debt payoff, and in order to do that we would need to combine our incomes and switch our thinking from her money/my money to "our" money. Is it "our debt"? Erm, yes, I guess. But it's still hard not to consider it my debt. Aden had gotten rid of her debt before I met her, so saddling her with paying off my debt isn't something I feel comfortable doing... What we've been asked to do, essentially, is put my ENTIRE net income onto my debt every month for the next 9 months, leaving Aden to pay for everything else and that's something I don't think we're ready to do, especially given how stressful being a 1-income family had proven to be for her in the past. Maybe once I get past the credit card hurdle (both will be paid off in 4 months regardless of whether I follow my plan or Alison's plan), then Aden and I will examine the situation, our immediate goals, and our finances and see whether it's time to see both our incomes as one income and progress from there.

You get these people who are resistant to "the plan" on these debt management shows, and you shout at them to "just do it, don't argue" but actually being in the center of it, I understand how difficult it is, especially given the habits we have. Aden and I are a young couple, in that we've only been married for 4 months (in two days) and we're still working on the idea of combining our lives. It's been relatively seamless in many respects, but it's still difficult in some, and we're working on it, but we need time, and a one-month (three week, actually) time frame just isn't enough time to come to grips with it.

That said, I'm certainly grateful for all the work, thought and planning Alison and crew have put into what we need to do for our situation, and we will be implementing most of it immediately, and perhaps all of it at some point down the road.

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).

With the intensive day of money matters we had yesterday, it's no wonder I woke up early, my mind stirring with visions of dollarsigns dancing through my mind. I was thinking of various bank-related options, accounts to close, money to transfer, etc. What we're doing, I think, (today's at least), is changing all our accounts and cards to joint accounts, and progressing from there, seeing what the best way is to deal with our money, our debt and our investments. It's not a straight or immediate amalgam of our resources but it's the next step to geting there.

Aden and I aren't secretive, we share pretty much everything with each other, so we're not worried about sharing our money. I think where the hesitation comes is a sense of individuality. We don't smother each other, but at the same time I think having her money and my money is one way of maintaining a sense of independence, of making decisions on our own. I don't know if that's good or bad, what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another. A friend who has done a hearty dose of financial planning courses took to heart a statement from her advisor that what works is different for everyone. The "smart" way might be to stop putting money in savings and put everything towards debt, with the thought that since interest is more expensive than any investment return you might be making (18% versus, say, 4%). But for some people, they may feel that they must be putting some money away. Psychology of investing and money management will be different for everyone, but the important thing is that it's all being addressed. The same thing can be said about how couples deal with their money, some people are comfortable with pooling, others with individual accounts and others with a mix of all.

We're still trying to establish what we're comfortable with, but we're working on figuring it out. Maybe one pool of money would be simpler, but at the same time you can't escape monitoring each other's spending habits, and we haven't decided if we're happy with that or not. It's not that we need secrets, however, without some sense of private funds, how can we surprise one another with things? All very strange concerns, but we're going to try a few things and see how they work out.

Thinking about one's personal finances to the extent that I have over the past four days is not healthy. I'm a little stressed by it all, quite frankly, and more than a little tired because of it. Aden and I need to go to the bank and get stuff done, but I don't know if I feel up to it today. Quite frankly I just want to go to Swatow , eat a hearty fried noodle lunch, and then go shopping for a pile of cds and comic books. Spending money always made me feel better and that's what I think would make me happy now. But it won't. Well, not for very long. Stay the course. Get it done. Save your happy for the future.
That sounds kind of depressing though, don't it?

Besides, we brought lunch today.

Aden and I finished our last shoot for the show yesterday, and on the one hand we're glad to have it done with... not that it wasn't a good experience, nor that the people we worked with weren't great, but it's just something off our plate.

Let me tell you something about our plate, it's basically looks like my dad's plate at Thanksgiving. You know, start with a solid foundation of mashed potatoes in the center, flank on either side with green beans, cooked carrots, broccoli and maybe peas. Blanket with white meat from the turkey breast, drop a leg on top, whoops forgot the stuffing, so fit that on there somewhere, with some cranberry sauce and pour the gravy on top. Yeah, that's our plate right now. So with the show done, we've just polished off that turkey leg and now it's time to dig out some potato, but first that broccoli.

I'm getting lost in my metaphor here, but I think the veggies represent our taxes, which I tackled this past weekend. No, I'm not some keener go-getter when it comes to tax time, quite the opposite. Back taxes. Oops. Aden and I are both quite bad and doing that stuff, and when I screw up the numbers and scare myself into thinking I owe $2500, well, there's a reason I don't like doing it (turns out its only about $500 - stupid health tax -, but still bleh... thankfully, having a kid is great for tax deductions, so Aden's getting some healthy sums back to even it out) Well, we're all caught up now and ready for this years', which will be our first joint filing, so I'm feeling a little intimidated, but have another month before our paperworks are ready for filing.

It's interesting what you learn when you have a better understanding of your finances when you do your taxes. Suddenly various entries on the tax form begin to make sense when they didn't before, and you start to see the benefit to living lighter, putting more money away on RRSPs and paying for monthy transit passes (tax deductable... hrm... so despite the fact that we'd spend about fifty dollars more per month buying passes as opposed to tokens, we'd get to write hundreds of dollars off of our taxes for doing so. Sounds like a good idea frankly. Hadn't thought of it that way before.)

Anyway, back to the beginning, as part of the show we agreed to do a little house hunting, even though we're still a year and a half to two years away from that (it's actually looking like we can fast track a little though, which may have seemed unbelievable at one time, but now is filling us with delight) and at first we questioned why we would want to, but now I get it... getting comfortable with the process of looking at houses, talking with real estate people and in general establishing familiarity with the whole ordeal. Despite the fact that we aren't yet looking, I think the more we look and the more we're at ease with the idea of looking the better we'll be able to handle it when we actually get out there in the market. We talked casually with a great guy, Max, who, even just in conversation, educated us both on some of the aspects of property purchasing procedure and the follies and foibles of first-time buyers, not to mention some of the less attractive side of real estate shopping.

It's quite amazing the little things we've wound up taking out of this experience that will obviously have some lasting value, alongside the big things that were intended to have an impact on our lives. The process of shooting for television can be an arduous or tedious one at times, but honestly, the show has provided us even more than we thought we'd initially get out of it. Much of it is thanks to the process, but equally it's been on Aden and myself to run with it and carry it forward. There's no easy answers and we need to invest our time and energy (and money) into making the solutions work, but through close monitoring, open conversation and a lot of mutual support, we're going to make it out of debt quickly, build our down payment for a house and support ourselves in the future.

Our coming days will be filled with banking, birthday parties, good-byes, and our typical busywork (as well as much atypical busy work). We're organizing and planning some sales of comics and DVDs which should hopefully give me a helping hand in debt repayment and move us that much more quickly to the end result. Yes our plate is full, but soon our bellies will be too.

I have no idea what that means.

**ITEM**
We're selling comics, dvds and cds soon, Aden and I are. I will have a spreadsheet available of all items and prices (o.b.o), and Graig'slist will be hitting Craigslist and GeeBay around the same time... maybe... if I figure this whole internets resale thing out.

**ITEM**
I had a hamburger and fries and a vodka-laced beverage last night...and it was good. Breaking my own self-imposed rules makes me such the rebel, no?

**ITEM**
Apparently my RSS feed is a bit tankered, as the new installation of Moveable Type with all it's weird Java interfacedness isn't working up to snuff. It's causing headaches as comments and trackbacks are locked out, pinging's right off, and yup, the "convert line breaks" doesn't work properly. So previous posts you're probably seeing as one grand Kerouac-ian lump-o-text, but now, with this very post and the power of html encoding, you should see paragraphs (oh, the novelty of it all).

**ITEM**
Now that I'm not buying new music, I'm still able to get my fix of sounds-I've-never-heard thanks to CBC Radio 3 live streams and podcasts, and Vancouver's newest DJ GAK (mp3s available on-site or you can tune in live Mondays 10:30 - Midnight eastern or 7:30 - 9 pacific on CITR).

**ITEM**
The Ricky Gervais-fuelled, HBO/BBC produced Extras is airing from square one on the Comedy Network, starting last night (yeah, I know it's been on DVD for ages). Rating: Uncomfortably hilarious. Because Extras is a full half hour show, it runs longer with commercials added in the mix. As such Comedy Network has to fill in about 20 minutes of time and has turned to Adult Swim's 12-minute monstrosity Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!. Rating: Bewildering. The show is not conventionally funny, but instead so beyond irreverent that you just have to stare in awe. Aden was stunned after a few minutes, unable to formulate words to describe it. The creators of the already peculiar Tom Goes To The Mayor un-cartoon have topped themselves, with the help once again of Mr. Show's Bob Odenkirk, and Walk Hard's John C. Reilly ("I'm not ready...").

**ITEM**
Aden received Battle of the Planets DVDs on loan from a co-worker, but they shall not be reviewed, because, quite frankly, there's no way in hell we're going to make it through watching all 16 episodes without either being drunk or wedging the corner edge of a table into our foreheads. The basic idea behind the show is it's a Japanese cartoon (or "anime" as all the kids call it) that was transported to America in the late 1970's, only Japan's cultural take on cartoons in that era were much different than the ol' USA's, and what was teenaged entertainment was made kid-friendly. Each episode was butchered to remove any real violence, any suggestion of death, or, quite frankly, logical storytelling. I wonder if any of the episodes retain even the basic plot of their Japanese counterpart? Instead, a little robot creature, 7-Zark-7 has been inserted into the cartoon, mainly through a voice over to either explain what's happening or to clarify to the kids that all the bad guys evacuated their exploded ship safely, were collected and are now behind bars. The Japanese Gatchaman tamed into Battle of the Planets by the same crew from the Superfriends (shared voice actors and similar musical accompaniment) is a bizarre experience; there's a curious similarity to how Space Ghost: Coast To Coast or Sealab: 2021 would re-use old animation for twisted new purposes, but here it's lacking creativity and moreover diminishing the original animation. Wikipedia details some of the big differences between the original and butchered remakes.

**ITEM**
All out of items for today.

Something we were introduced to as a result of the show is the concept of tracking our spending. We were given various tools (most of which can be foundhere) through the show, including some software, but the most useful has been the small and portable booklet they provided us with from Credit Canada. Maxed Out has replicated it with the Daily Expense Booklet, and I would highly recommend challenging yourself to track your spending for a month. I think it's amazing to realize how much one spends, and how often.

For Aden and I, we had already started to cut back before we started with the show, but now we're much more aware of how we spend our money and where. It's also interesting to see patterns in spending. What we realized is that in the first week of the month we spend a lot more, mainly it's bills and rent, but each subsequent week what we spend becomes less and less. By the fourth week our grid is pretty much empty, and it's not because we're out of money, but because the main expenses are done with. It might also be that we're just getting used to the idea of spending less over this past month as well, and maybe we'll see in the first weeks of February less spending than in January.

Aside from the biggest expenses - rent, RRSP payments, day care and debt repayment - our biggest expense for the month were groceries. We've severely cut back on eating out, this month only five times over four weeks, at about a total of $150, taking up the bulk of our entertainment budget. 3 were lunches, 2 dinners, which is quite a change from, well, every lunch being an eat out lunch (at a total, of, we estimated, $100 per week, or a little over $400 for the month). To make up for it, obviously our food bill has increased to cover lunches, but that $250+ difference in eating out has meant only about a $50 increase in groceries. That's a couple hundred bucks in our pocket... nice.

Our transportation bill for the month was $193, spent on tokens and the odd family weekend pass, and even though it is cheaper than buying two monthly passes for Aden and I at $218, I realized doing taxes this year that we "can claim the full amount paid for a public transit pass".

The little guy's birthday is coming up so we've bought his birthday presents to the tune of $110, which is a little excessive (but I found the gift I wanted to get him just after I bought him something else), so obviously that's not a routine monthly expense, and a couple hundred dollars in medical expenses, most of which actually comes back to me when I claim them through my heath coverage, so no biggie there.

Overall, we're doing very well, spending well below our capacity and putting the remaining money where it's best served. Our savings are growing, my debt is depleting, and it's all good. Operation maxed out: phase one is at a close.

As you will see on Maxed Out on Tuesday (8pm & 11pm EST, W Network, repeated again 11:30pm Sunday the 24th), I have some debt. By the show's account, around $23,000 worth of debt. Well, that was a few months ago, and with host Alison's help Adrienne and I have been very disciplined in how we deal with our money.

I don't know, having not yet seen the final product, how much information will get out there, but here's an approximate breakdown of where my money was owing:

• Credit Card #1: 5600
• Credit Card #2: 3300
• Line of Credit: 14,000
• Back Taxes (recently discovered): 600

Where this debt came from? Spending, and almost all of it non-essential spending over 7 years. I spent it on trips in other countries, my entertainment habit netting me hundreds of dvds and cds and comics and toys, eating out and drinking out, car rentals, furniture, my car (since departed), cinema, live theatre (although not often that), and, on vary rare occasions, covering rent and groceries. I'm sure there are others, but I'm sure if you went over my years of buying, 98% would be on the above. It's foolish, self-indulgent debt and it's been a thorn in my side for almost as long as I've had it.

Oh sure, I've been comfortable with my massive debt load for a long time, but now being married and trying to figure out this whole "future" thing, I've realized that it's just a big wall in the way of establishing some security for myself and my family. Damn, the sounds of growing up is abrasively pleasant, like Aphex Twin.

Well, thanks to a lot of work on the part of my wife, myself, the staff of the show and our bank adviser, Adrienne and I are now in the black. Oh, I still have debt, but our assets now officially outweigh our debts. What's more, Credit Card #2 debt: gone. Credit Card #1 debt: will be gone completely at the end of the month. Back Taxes: gone. Line of credit remaining owing: 13,000.

We've had the good fortune of receiving a few bonuses and Aden has 2 years of tax refunds due so our advanced schedule of debt repayment has been fast tracked well beyond our imagination. That 13K on Line of Credit, I've projected, will be completely gone by the end of July. From my initial forecast of 1 year (December - December) to the show's forecast of 9-months (January - September) to now what looks like 7-months, we're so far ahead of schedule, I'm elated. To have 0 balances on my credit cards almost brings me to tears, it makes me that happy.

What this allows me to do is look ahead, and for the first time I'm actually able to plan ahead like this. As of July, all the money Aden and I bring in will be ours, with no creditor stake hold. It's brilliant. I've already got ideas on how my money is going to be distributed with the primary goals of a) buying a house and b) saving for retirement looking rosy already. In fact, by the looks of it, Aden and I are going to be able to start house hunting in April 2009, which is about half a year ahead of when we originally had predicted, and by the looks of it we'll be in an immeasurably stronger position to buy that house than we were before. It's exciting, a little scary, and also a little intense, knowing that we have a lot of thinking to do about where we want to buy before we get there.

Life, if not great, is pretty damn good.

1) We finished inventorying our floppies (well, our on-site floppies) today... I recorded every issue and the cover price (U.S. cover) and the grand total came out to just under $14,000. I haven't recorded the thousands of comics still remaining at my parent's house, and the value doesn't take into account that on most books we paid anywhere from 20 to 40% more for Canadian cover price. So yeah, over the past, erm, 18 years, we've bought a lot of comics with a lot of money, but really, not that much... I suppose. Next step, figuring out what gets kept and what gets gone.

2) I realized today that aside from various food products, I have actually bought nothing for myself so far this year. I mean, that's the point of Buy Nothing Year, but I haven't bought any clothes or accessories or... other such things not on the BNY list. Mainly, it's because I have no money. But today, on "Family Day", the wife and I, sans the little guy who's at his dad's for the holiday, went shopping, which seemed to be the general consensus on what to do for most of us lucky enough to have this new holiday off (with crappy weather and, well, being mid-February, maybe June would be a better time for a "Family Day" holiday?... how about "Shopping Day" for the third week in February? Call a spade a spade). Anyway... I bought two sweaters and a collared shirt, total cost of just over $25 (and not on credit). Thanks Indonesian children! Kidding. If it didn't have a red "sale" tag, then I didn't bother looking at it, and most of the items were 70% off (or more). A little treat for myself for being so good.

Our episode of Maxed Out aired yesterday at 8:00 and 11:00 (if you missed it, you can watch it after the Oscars at 11:30 on Sunday) and, ego centrists we are, we watched them both. Adrienne had been fretting about the show, primarily because she worried about being non-photogenic, but she looked beautiful. Don't know what was up with my hair though, and is my smile really that askew?

The show, for the many hours we put into it, moved along at a tremendously fast clip. I guess when you have days of memories, distilling it down to a 22-minute retrospective leaves a lot (in some cases thankfully) lost in that mix, like the kerfuffle between myself and Alison over selling the comics collection in full was pared back to Alison stating, "It's all about making choices" and me responding "Exactly."

When I decided last year that enough was enough and that my debt needed to go far, far away, I wasn't sure exactly how I would (or could) get its bags packed and put it on the bus... I mean, I have needs, and wants. I'm a human being after all, desire is one of the seven great things about being such. I mean, with my robot friends, it's all altruism all the time. They're good guys but not so much fun when wanting to go on a spending bender.

Now, I know my robot friends, with their mathematical minds, can balance their books like nobody's business, but us humans aren't so lucky. We're prone to impulsiveness and greed, and as a result sometimes we dip into the bad places, the debt reserves, all in the vain to make us feel better in the short term. Robots don't know what it's like to feel better, or to feel at all, so they don't get the idea of a spending bender, it makes no sense to them.

Since I know they're reading, dear robot friends, let me define "spending bender" for you... it's when you go out and blow a large chunk of money on things you don't really need that give you simple satisfaction for a few hours, and after your high wears off regret truly kicks in. Most spending benders involve dispensing of cash which you cannot afford to relieve yourself of, or heading deeper into debt justifying to yourself why it's okay to do so.

Most spending benders take place when us humans are either a) upset or b) bored. Sometimes nothing relieves heartache or an unsatisfactory workday or a pathetic life or sexual frustration like a good old shopping spree. I've been there, I know. This past Monday (and Tuesday) for instance, work was unchallenging, mildly annoying, and at times boring. Monday and Tuesdays are the days the wife and I stay at work an extra 90 minutes to make up for the other days when we might leave a half hour early, and that extra 90 minutes, especially on a slow or annoying day can really detach the mind, causing it to explore random thoughts like "I wonder what DVDs came out this week" or "I think I need new shoes". This is the type of thinking that leads homo sapiens to spending benders, since our pink, meaty mind is in a mood that's receptive to spending money. When the workday is finally through, instead of going home and making a meal, exercising and watching a reality tv programme like most humans would, (or, leaving the workplace for your storage container, plugging yourself in and putting yourself on standby for the evening, as you electronic beings would) one leaves work for the busy downtown streets and malls of Toronto to "look for nothing in particular", except to say there's some money in that pocket there that's causing a rash, if only metaphorically.

But there is a cure to the spending bender, dear robot friends, it's called willpower. I know you know nothing of the will, but just download yourself forty year's worth of Green Lantern comics and it'll all make sense to you. I had to employ willpower this week, for the itch was there and I could not scratch it. On Monday, the worst day of the week (since new DVDs and CDs come out on Tuesday, new comics on Wednesday and new movies on Friday, nothing happens on Monday), the itch was the strongest it's been since last November. Christmas tends to take care of the shopping itch rather handily. Anyway, the wife needing to buy the stepson a new pair of track pants was coerced into going to the Eaton's Center to do so, and in the process I decided to look at toys for the little guy, and for myself. Now the wife and I have decided not to buy him any more toys for a while since his birthday came not long after Christmas and the kids up to his neck in Thomas, Cars, Mega Blocks, stuffed animals, and other things. But I've gotten into playing with the Matchbox Mega Rigs he was given over the past two occasions, and I love them I think as much as he does. Having spied a couple more sets he doesn't have on Monday, I was so so so tempted to buy them, as much for me as him. Two things saved me 1) having left all my credit cards at home and 2) having no money in my bank account since it's all gone on debt. My lovely wife, thankfully, was resistant to my coercion tactics and we left the mall with but some clothes for the child.

Tuesday, a different matter though, with new release Tuesday hitting and the wife wanting to buy the new Justice League: The New Frontier DVD. Well, she didn't necessarily want to buy it on new release Tuesday, and thus she did succumb to my coercing then. We made our way to the Future Shop, where I had a $50 gift card (received from the in-laws at Christmas) and was searching for the new They Might Be Giants album Here Come The 1, 2, 3s, which wouldn't be a break in the BNY moratorium on CD buying since it would be for the wee one moreso than for me (he loves No! and Here Come The A, B, Cs, the Giant's previous albums which makes me happy... you don't know what that feels like, do you robots?). Well the Future Shop sucks for selection and didn't have it, and with the urge to spend-bend building over the two-day span, I had to buy something, so I snatched The New Frontier from Aden's hands and said the gift card would take care of it (calculating in my head whether I'd have enough for Frisky Dingo, out later this March... I do). After departing the store, a little frustrated but also a little jazzed from the "purchase", I asked Aden if we could go into HMV next door (just to see if they had TMBG), the most enabling store in town for a pop culture junkie. I hadn't been in an HMV, nevermind the Yonge Street mecca since BNY began, and I got weak knees and the junkie shakes the second I stepped in the door. There it was... Flight of the Conchords (the TV on DVD I meant to buy before BNY started), finally in Canada, and it was everywhere... Aden ignored my whimpering and went off in search of Dylan, while I tortured myself perusing the aisles, looking at the miraculous 2/$25 and 2/$30 DVD deals, seeing CD after CD of things I'd totally dig, and just having a general good-thing-I-left-my-credit-cards-at-home meltdown. After nearly an hour of this self-torture (and noticing that Here Come The 1, 2, 3s was more expensive than on Amazon, we left, Aden with her booty of two 2-disc Dylan sets and me empty handed (and no further into debt). That, my robot compatriots, was a spending bender averted.

Let's just say, I'm going to be staying away from HMV for a long, long while. I can walk down the snack food aisle and ignore things quite easily (okay, maybe not that easily... another thing you don't understand, my robo-amigos, hunger, flavour, food cravings...) but being surrounded by colourful covers and vibrant sales tags makes me weak in the wallet. Now that the Ikea 6-month shopping boycott ends this week, I can replace that with a (an?) HMV boycott. Probably for the best.

After all our hard work with The Show to learn about financial management and managing our money properly, well, we've let ourselves slip. Oh, I don't mean we've gone crazy and started spending money everywhere, it's just that we have instead decided to relax about the whole thing.

The Show gave us the tools we needed to help our situation, and they gave us lots of advice on best routes to achieving our goals, most of which we've taken quite to heart. Through the process, Aden and I also learned to be very open about our money and our spending and it's really helped unify us on that front. So what do I mean when I say we've "relaxed"?

Well, for starters, we are not being diligent about tracking our spending.... actually, we're not tracking it at all. Let's just say the previous three months of keeping on top of recording every little expenditure gave us a pretty good idea of how we spend our money. One of the things Alison said on The Show was we should buy things using our debit cards so we can track purchases easily and only take, max, $60 a week out in cash. So, we're doing that instead. Some weeks we don't even take that $60 out, and we tend to pay for everything on debit anyway, what little we actually buy now. I think the initial months of paring back on our expenses, like eating out and pop-culture consumption (especially for me) was a little difficult, and we had to break the habit that we were into, but now, we're really coasting well, and we don't need to be too rigid about monitoring things. I've allocated the money every month to go towards debt, so anything left over after the bills I pay is mine to spend (what very little it is, however). Aden's doing a good job of paying for most things and still banking a hefty sum in her chequing account, so whenever she wants to splurge a little on herself, like a new pair of shoes or a stylin' yellow jacket, well, it's certainly within her budget to do so.

The credit cards are all but dried out and brittle from non-use. We both still haven't cancelled our extraneous $0 balance cards yet, but we'll get to it. One card has been used, maybe twice in the past two months (for groceries, and even then only to collect points) and that we pay off in full every month now without problem. Of the two lines of credit, one is kaput and will too be cancelled, while the other is our(my) only source of debt, which makes it very convenient for paying things off. That puppy is still slated for the big payoff in full in July (expected bonuses and tax returns dependant) and after that, it'll be time to take stock of our finances and make the big push towards home ownership.

That last push involves some heavy investing in RRSPs and our house fund, while managing bills, life expenses, (hopefully) vacation(s), and RESP contributions. So even though we're not tracking daily how much we spend, we will still need our monthly account reports to see where our money is going so that, when the time comes, we can plan our money accordingly.

So even though we're not spending as much time stewing over financial matters as we were in January or February, I think we're both very comfortable with where we are today and where we're going. It's a lot of work (and even a little stressful) to be constantly monitoring your money, and I really think that it shouldn't have to have such a hold over us, especially given how not-bad-shape we are in. I mean, even when we're out of debt, we have our second goal of saving for the house to think about, so I'm sure for a month or two then we're going to have to return to watching things closely and getting comfortable with our situation once more before returning to coasting mode.

ITEM! - It's been a weird three months of not buying anything, but the buying of nothing (which has not actually been the buying of nothing at all, but buying of some things specifically, and the still acquiring of stuff via non-out-of-pocket means) has been a definite boon to debt repayment. As of yesterday I'm in 4-digit territory in my debt, and the span between what we have an what we owe gets greater with each passing tax return and pay cheque. It's a damn good feeling. I'm still on target for an end-of-July $0 balance on all debt which makes me feel so good, I wish it were tomorrow. It's like the old Christmas anticipation when I was a kid, you just can't wait.

ITEM! - Taxes. Taxes have been done and are all up to date for both the wife and I. Now a married man, it's the first time I've ever done "joint" taxes and, well, it's pretty simple actually. Unless you're partner is earning less than $9K (appx)/yr, you're basically filing individually anyway, only just one of you get to claim Ontario credits and the kids. The fact that the little guy splits his time between us and his dad, it's caused a bit of a headache figuring out how with Aden's ex how to optimize the money he gets in return for his RESP but we're working on it. That little guy should have a nice chunk of money to go to school with when we're finished with him.

ITEM! - RRSPs and taxes. Our financial/banking adviser has mentioned getting an RRSP line-of-credit to buy RRSP's to top up contributions every year. I didn't really understand what she meant, but I was monkeying with some numbers last night and figured it out. Basically, the more RRSPs you contribute (to your limit, of course) the more is deducted from your net income. But you're still paying taxes on your gross income, the spread is that much greater meaning you bet more back. Now, using a line of credit may seem kind of silly, going into debt to contribute to your RRSP, but figure it this way... if you take $5000 out of your LOC and add it to your RRSP, you're going to be paying, say, 9% interest on that $5K. But with that additional $5K you get a bigger boost to your tax return (depending on how much you've already contributed I've figured it to average around 30% of what you put in... ) so 30% of $5K comes back to you on tax return (or $1500). So if you put that $1500 right back onto your LOC you're only having to pay back $3500, so you get an instant win of $1500. But that's not all, since although it's 9% interest you're paying over, say, one year it takes for you to pay it back, you're actually getting the benefit of $5000 at your RRSP interest rate, accrued for many years to come. Of course, taking out a chunk of debt to lower taxes and increase your future savings seems a little odd and it can impact your daily/monthly/annual budgeting, so think about whether you can afford to pay back your debt before you use it.

ITEM! - more money saving measures! Bike to work, and then bike home again. It's exercise and