Heavy spending months

With the arrival of October we’re officially into my heavy spending months. From September until January, this is the time of year where I have to work a little harder at scrounging the cash to cover expenses.

Over the last three years, during this time period, I’ve had to contend with…

Three birthdays
Tuition
Anniversary (First date)
Film Festival
Christmas

It comes across as a mighty short list, but tuition, the film fest and Christmas alone are usually enough to reduce my wallet into leathery tatters.

This year I have the added economic hangover of…

Wedding
Honeymoon
Pending Australia trip.

But strangely enough, if you discount the recent free fall in the marketplace, my finances look pretty good. (In the sense that I’ve managed to keep my credit card zeroed and don’t have any massive debt) I guess fiscal prudence has finally paid off.

In fact, things look so good, I’m finally going to tackle my outstanding student debt. With only $2500 left to go and so many other expenses to worry about it hardly seemed worth the effort to set aside the cash to polish this baby off. But the recent worldwide financial turmoil has convinced me that I’d be better crossing this off my ‘To Do’ list. It may not be a lot of money but in case of unexpected financial emergencies I don’t want to have to worry about covering this nut.

Thus I have developed a system to help be achieve my goal of student debt elimination.

1. After all monthly bills, RRSP deposits and ongoing investments have been take care of I will…

2. Divide all outstanding monies in my bank account three ways.

a. 1/3 to credit card payments (whenever applicable, when credit card balance is at zero, outstanding monies will be divided in half.)
b. 1/3 to student debt repayment
c. 1/3 roll over into next month.

That 1/3 rollover into the next month may be extravagant, but that is the cash I’ll be using to pay for all those birthday’s and such.

I’ve been using this system for a month and so far its been working out really well. So well that my Christmas gift to myself may be being debt free by Jan 1st, 2009.