One of the benefits of being a personal finance blogger is having the ability to “test drive” things to write reviews about them.  I was given a copy of Quicken Home and Business 2012 to try out and review.

I was very very excited to try Quicken because I have heard so many great things about it and it almost seems that any Personal Finance Blogger isn’t really a personal finance blogger if they don’t use some sort of snazzy personal finance software like Quicken to track their spending, their budgets, and their investments all in one place.

Now, I think my review might be skewed because I have never tried Quicken before, I have used Mint.com before Quicken, and I am an extremely low-tech person (which is absolutely shocking to hear from someone who identifies themselves as Generation Y, I know).

I gave it an honest effort, I spent about 4 hours trying to figure out it, clicking on tabs, clicking on graphs, and trying to input data.  Then I became extremely frustrated because I wasn’t doing it correctly and was worried that I would have to be manually inputting data on a regular basis (like correcting my mortgage remaining amount, updating my bank accounts).  I manually inputted all my investments because they do not have Questrade in their database (just like Mint.com).

That would just drive me up the wall.

I tried to set up accounts but then was asked to download some sort of spreadsheet from my bank’s website (which I couldn’t find) so that Quicken could update my Quicken account.  I then resorted to manually inputting my information.  I gave up after four hours and left it again for a week.  With fresh eyes, I tried it again and no luck, really.

Here are some of the PROS and CONS of Quicken that I have gathered in my short time trying it out:

PROS:

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Although I want to keep my personal finance resolutions as aggressive as they were last year, I know that this is not feasible and it will most likely only serve to punish me and make me feel bad come end of 2012.

Therefore, because I like baby steps (and achieving these baby steps makes me feel better about myself, thus making me want to try harder to achieve more), I’m going to try and make my financial resolutions realistic, given my recent move to working at 50% of my previous income and going to graduate school.

Without further delay, here are my 2012 New Year’s Resolutions.  I’m looking forward to reviewing them in June and again in December to see how I do.  Nothing compares to blogging for the world to see in order to keep yourself accountable.

2012 Personal Finance New Year’s Resolutions

• Contribute $5000 to the TFSA- I plan to sell some of my Canadian non-registered stocks in order to put money into my Tax Free Trading Account.  With the remaining amount, I may use my RRSP tax refund (provided I got one lol) to top it up to the $5000, for a total of approximately $20,000 total contribution in the account.

• Max out RRSP allowed contributions- I set out $200 a month automatically to an RRSP TD e-series and top up the rest before the year ends.  Next year will be the first year where I have to start repaying my Home Buyers Plan withdrawal.  I believe I will be paying back into my RRSP at a rate of $150 a month.  The remaining $50 contributed per month can be used towards offsetting taxes.

• $5000 baseline for Emergency Fund:  I would like to save $3300 before year end for my emergency fund, in case I need to repair my car, or pay for a veterinary bill since I don’t have any pet insurance, and other unplanned necessities.

• Save up $3600 total for Travel Fund- I plan to climb the highest peak in Africa in 2013  and will need some cashola for that (not to mention get in shape)…I will try and set aside $100 a month for this travel fund (automatically). I have an ING savings account for that.  This should be doable as long as I keep the $100 a month contribution to this account.  It currently sits at $2600.

• Pay down the Mortgage extra $200/month- We just started this before the end of the year.  If it were completely up to me, I would be paying this down very aggressively and sacrificing many things for this.  However, my boyfriend lives in the same roof as me and I need to make sure he’s on board with the aggressive pay down plan, and he wasn’t.  I’ll need to work on him …
  

• Slowly change most of my equities into dividend paying equities- Organize DRIPs for more investments if possible, and also arrange for a TD e-series fund for a TFSA account (though this means I would have to apply for a mutual fund TFSA account, which can be a pain in the behind).

• Write down what I spend my money on daily- I’ve been terrible at remembering to do this last year- though I think I was pretty good at it up until September. I need to continue to remember to do this in order to keep track of my spending.  Let’s just say December was a bit of a gong show in terms of trying to keep track of my spending, what with Christmas presents and all.

Readers, what are some of your 2012 Personal Finance Resolutions?

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Part of blogging about your goals and resolutions means trying (key word, trying!) to keep accountable with them.

So I thought I would share with you how I think I did this year.   As you know, I blogged about my personal finance goals for this year early in January, and also shared my personal goals. I will share how I’m doing for both.

• Max out TFSA to $15000- In January, I’ll have $15,000 of TFSA space because I took out all of my TFSA’s for my down payment. I plan to sell some of my non-registered stocks in order to put money back into my Tax Free Trading Account and top it up with savings.

100% completed:  I ended up transferring in kind my non-registered dividend stocks.  I did receive capital gains or losses (net capital gain for this year is only about $120) because I moved them when the markets dipped to near the purchase value of what I bought them as.

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I used to be a huge huge fan of Boxing Day (not to the point where I would start lining up at 7pm on Christmas day in order to score a flat screen TV) when I was younger, but for me, it has lost its lustre.  I think part of it is the realization that most of the merchants just put out their crap leftover from the previous year and try and sell it at deep (and lately I find, not so deep) discounts.

Uh… What’s Boxing Day?

For those of you that don’t know what Boxing Day is (which is basically anyone NOT from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada), according to Wikipedia, it occurs on December 26 and its origin is said to be from the Roman era where the more well-to-do place boxes of goodies outside the Churches for those less fortunate.

Why is it Bad?

Now it has become a mass frenzy of consumerism (an extension of the associated Christmas consumerism of course).  Not only do you have Boxing Day where people line up at insane hours of the day just to wait to be the first one to get the 1 of 5 available $899 50″ flat screen television, you get Boxing Week too, which basically is Boxing Day for the entire week.  It’s a sign for the public to BUY BUY BUY and… not stop buying.

It’s now EVEN EASIER (which is scary for me because I hate line ups) to participate in Boxing Day.  You can do it from the safety of your own home (without having the brave the mad crowd) by participating in the Cyber version of Boxing Day.  I find this much more dangerous than shopping in person because you don’t have to wait in line, you don’t have to get dressed and brave the cold, and you don’t have to find parking.

How to Avoid the Boxing Day Hangover?

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Given all the recent talk and hubbub about the Occupy Vancouver/Portland/San Francisco/ New York (insert big city here) movement, I started thinking about the current state of our economy and the dismal state of our current generation.  I know.  I’m being a Debbie Downer.

I came across an interesting article in the local Vancouver magazine by Tyee Bridge, aptly named Going Going Gone.  It is about whether generation Y is should be actually renamed generation F.

Generation F doesn’t stand for Generation Facebook, but Generation F stands for Generation F&#(d

Due to Vancouver’s rising real estate costs and general high cost of living, many young middle income earner families (whose household income is in the healthy $100,000 range) are being squeezed out of the housing market.  Unfortunately, the salaries and wages in Vancouver are not increasing despite the exorbitant increase in real estate cost.

I know that in other cities with high real estate prices, like New York, or even San Francisco, the salaries and wages have kept up with the cost of real estate, but for an unknown reason, this doesn’t seem to be happening just yet in Vancouver.  Many people are drawn to Vancouver’s beauty, charm, delicious food, and of course, developing hipster culture, however they are unable to afford living here.

Many families are raising their children in apartments or even basement suites due to the high cost of housing here.  Either that, or they are moving to the suburbs and commuting in to Vancouver for work.

I personally believe I will never be as successful as my parents were (haha, how’s that for positive thinking?).  I’m not complaining, I’m just being realistic.  Inflation has gone up to extreme levels and income has not.  My parents bought their home in the 70′s for $100,000 and now it is worth well over a million.  I know that incomes weren’t as high then but I still think that the cost of real estate is very high relatively speaking.  I am 110% sure that the home we bought recently will not be worth 10x our initial purchase price in 40 years.  Personally, I absolutely love living here but I’m not sure what this place will be like in a 5 or 10 years with the rapidly changing city scene and real estate market.  If we move though, we would probably end up renting out our home to keep some sort of stake in this popular city.

I know that we as generation Y are given a bad rap for not working hard like our parent’s baby boomer generation, but I do feel that it is harder to work hard and be successful in our current society.

That’s why I think it’s of even more importance for us as generation Y to be able to  “think outside of the box” and generate passive income or different income streams, be frugal, and save for multiple rainy days…otherwise we would probably be even more screwed than we already are.

Readers, what do you think? Do you think we belong to Generation F or do you think there’s a glimmer of hope for us 20-somethings?

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