Hope everyone’s having a great weekend so far.  It’s beautifully sunny here in Vancouver and I can’t wait to get outside to enjoy some of that rare sunshine.

I finally got my act together and signed up for a self-directed RRSP Questrade account.  I’m transferring over the BMO investorline RRSP account to Questrade.  I found that I was hesitant to rebalance my portfolio in the BMO Investorline account because of the $29 trading commissions.  Also, I was getting sick of paying the $100 yearly administration fee (that the guy neglected to tell me about when I signed up a few years back) that they charge if your portfolio is less than $25,000.  I’m not even allowed to contribute more than $25,000 in RRSPs because of the pension adjustment I get.  I should have done this a long time ago, oh well- hindsight is always 20-20, right?

LOL I might as well change my middle name to Questrade.  I now have a non-registered margin account, a TFSA account, and an RRSP account with them.  You really can’t beat the $4.95 trades.

And the winner is…

youngandthrifty.ca had a giveaway of the book “Enjoy Your Money; How do Make It, Save It, Invest It, and Give It” by Steve J. Miller. I used random.org and drew the winner of the book giveaway.

And the winner is….Kevin! From Financiallypoor.com. Congrats, Kevin!

Some weekend Links:

• CanadianFinanceBlog examines how frugality can lead to happiness
• DeliverAwayDebt talks about how hiring someone to cut your grass isn’t really worth it (as I hear my neighbours getting their grass mowed)
• FinancialSamurai tries to give some reasons why East Coast living isn’t that bad (sorry, can’t give examples here because I’m a west coast girl!)
• Million Dollar Journey gives some tips on how to attract the best tenants
• The Financial Blogger calculates how you shouldn’t be scared into a fixed mortgage because of media hype
• Couple Money considers whether now is the time to by BP (let’s just say I feel bad for people who were holding BP before this disaster struck! Can you say.. OUCH?)
• MoneySmartsBlog (previously Four Pillars) tells you to Under Promise, Over Deliver
• Money Reasons reveals his Movie Secret Frugal Weapon
• Well Heeled Blog talks about how sushi can be an expensive culinary habit (mmmm me hungry now)

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So I went out on the town (just a mixed pub/ dance bar) last night for a girlfriend’s birthday party.  This is probably the first time I’ve been out on the town for a loooong time.  I think I know the reason why I don’t go out partying that much (other than the fact that I feel old compared to the 21-year-old girls wearing next to nothing)…I’m cheap and it’s expensive.

Though going once in a while (I’d say once to a few times a year) is budget-reasonable.  I had fun! =)

Here’s the breakdown of what I spent:

• Cover charge $10
• Coat check $6
• Drinks my friends and I $30 (four drinks, working out to be about $7.50 a drink)
• Tip for the bartender $3
• Taxi ride home $12

Total cost of a night on the town $61.

I used to go out almost every weekend when I was a young-un’ in college.  Now I realize how much money I burned through back then!  Yowza!

Here are some tips to help you make sure you don’t spend more than you want, even under the influence of alcohol.

• Bring only the amount of money you budgeted for your night out.  No more (because it will go “poof!”.  Trust me on that one)
• Don’t bring your credit card
• Don’t go out with so many friends (buying rounds for everyone is not easy on the pocket book)
• If you’re a guy, make sure she’s somewhat interested before you buy her a drink (unless you want to be a good samaritan, of course, because even if she isn’t interested, she’ll still accept a drink from you)

Readers, how much do you spend roughly when you go out?  Am I “on par” with the national average in regards to the amount spent on a night out? =)  Is it safe to assume guys will spend more because they are buying drinks for the ladies?

Alright, so onto some link lovage.

• Financial Samurai makes a good point- Only the Poor or Super Rich Say Money Can’t Buy Happiness
• The Financial Blogger gives some great tips on how to fight the rise in interest rates (in Canada) with your portfolio
• Andrew Hallem talks about why beating the market doesn’t add to his confidence
• Deliver Away Debt focuses on the debt snowball
• Little House ponders whether renting is a financially viable option
• Rainy Day Saver talks about marriage and managing finances (very important- everyone around me is getting married left right and centre!)
• Credit Card Daily has this AWESOME personal finance comic going on- check out his latest edition
• Single Guy Money talks about what he would do if he won the lottery

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Howdy folks!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. Seeing as I haven’t done any links for a while (trust me, it’s hard to work on your blog when you are overseas in an internet cafe with sketchy internet access!), here are some interesting fellow Yakezie reads if you need to have a small distraction from work =) (Who’s really productive at work, anyway? kidding!).

As some of you may know (if you were following my random tweets on twitter), I was away in Nepal for a few weeks.  It was an amazing trip- Nepal is beautiful!  Next year (2011) is their “Year of Tourism” so if you’ve gotten a visa before, next year you won’t have to pay the visa fee (it costs about USD $100 for a 90 day visa, FYI).

I will promise to add some photos of my trip and any tips on saving money while traveling in that corner of the world once I become less zombie-like from sleep deprivation and time zone changes.

With the recent European crisis, let’s just say I am glad I set some stop losses and preserved some of my gains with my stocks before I left!

• Financial Samurai has a great post on what to do during the bad times (aka markets crashing again)
• Fiscal Fizzle (Wojo) is going on a blog sabbatical until mid August =(  Will miss him, but hope he has a good break- well deserved.
• Early Retirement Extreme also talks about the Latte Factor and kicks is up a notch with the idea of brewing your own coffee.
• Canadian Finance Blog gives us 5 tips for Getting Back on the Credit Card Ladder (if you’ve fallen off with the current economic crunch)
• Money Funk has a fun post on not getting tricked by Infomercials (yes, the “STOP HAIR LOSS” products)
• Money Reasons has a very thought provoking post on how High Personal Integrity can harm you
• Little House talks about how She was Rich Last Sunday until life took over! =(
• Simple Life in France also has a thought provoking post questioning whether Technology and Entertainment is making us Unhappy
• Rainy Day Saver gives a personal example about the Importance of Health Insurance

Hope you enjoyed those good reads and have a great rest of the week!

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Weekend Ramblings

Meant to post yesterday, but because of the power outage that lasted a grand total of 17 hours, I was stuck without internet.. or television.  It felt like camping!  It’s a real eye-opener when you realize that so many things you do depend heavily on electricity.  Had dinner with the family by candlelight at a restaurant because the power died there too!!  It was quite romantic actually, lol!

Then headed over to boyfriend’s place to watch The Hurt Locker (because he, unlike me, had some electricity!)… I understand why this movie beat out Avatar for best director… never had my adrenalin pumping NONSTOP for the entire duration of the movie before.

Glad the power is back on though- and the stormy winds have died down to reveal a beautiful blue sky day!

Back to business…the winner of my FIRST EVER giveaway of the miniature edition of One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch drawn courtesy of Random.org is…..

drum roll please….

you ready?

Evolution of Wealth! Congrats fellow Yakezie PF blogger! (Wow- we Yakezie are seriously DOMINATING!! First WiseBread’s Top 100 and now winning the giveaways!!)

(cool, just realized WiseBread put me on their list! I’m 136, wow! Thank you Yakezie!)

PF Blog Love

Deliver Away Debt is celebrating his 6 month blogivesary by giving away 3 copies of ManvsDebt’s book “Unautomate your Finances”- congrats man on the success you’ve achieved in six short months!

My Journey to Millions has a guest post by The Rat from Ending the Rat Race on: Using Dividend Stocks to get Free Coffee- hmm $75 bucks per month courtesy of Second Cup sounds pretttty darn good.

Punch Debt also celebrating his blogiversary in his post 365 Days of World Domination Happy blogivesary!

Out of Debt Again talks about How Companies try to scam other Companies in Real Life

PF Ninja is hiring Mascots to add to his Kick-Butt team… except it was a good April Fools Joke lol- good one!

Simple Life in France contemplates about her Struggle with Stuff (I think society as a whole has a struggle with buying stuff!!)

Krystal at Work reviews her March 2010 goals =)

Financial Samurai talks about Riding Rocketships to Greater Success- BLASTOFF!!

Mike from Four Pillars has a new site called Blogthority in his analysis of Different Types of Search Engine Visitors- great resource if you’re interested in making some $ from your blog (or at least cover the monthly expenses from blogging!)

Hope everyone is having a wonderfully relaxing long weekend with friends and family… not to mention Easter chocolate!

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Weekend Ramblings

Can’t believe it’s Sunday already- the weekend sure is going by fast!

Since the weather has been so great here lately, I was able to walk my dog to the dog park yesterday instead of taking the car as I would usually do.  It took about 45 minutes to walk there, and another 45 minutes to walk back.  It was so nice walking through the quaint little neighbourhoods on the first day of spring.  When driving or cycling, you really have a different perspective on what you see compared to walking.  The walk really made me realize that I want to stay here in Vancouver even though it’s so unaffordable.

Yesterday, Mr. youngandthrifty and I had our Valentine’s dinner in lieu (yes, coming a month late!) because we were really busy with trying to partake in all the Vancouver 2010 Olympic festivities.  We went to a fancy steakhouse (I know, I know, not very thrifty) and the dinner total came up to $150 (including tip).  I think that is probably the most expensive dinner that mr. youngandthrifty and I have ever had.  We probably go out for a nice dinner (meaning more than $60 for the total bill) about three times a year, so it was quite the treat.  Usually we don’t order any drinks but we splurged last night AND even ordered an appetizer!  Yes, we are usually quite thrifty!

Just a little contest I wanted to share with y’all.

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