It’s unfortunate that while I’ve been sick at home that I’ve had to spend a good portion of my time worrying about money. I was getting sick pay when I was first off work, and then when that ran out I was able to get medical leave pay from our provincial government but that ran out too. So for the last 8 months or so I’ve been on my own, trying to figure out how to pay our loans, home insurance and other bills.
As many of you know I have found some ways to make money on the internet but we still have to watch our spending. At least we won’t have to go in for Debt Advice thanks to the income that I’m getting from our various websites.
All of that money, what would be “extra money” to most folks, ends up going into our current accounts. We then pay our bills online using those accounts.
We never used our credit Cards much, and we use them even less these days. Still, I’m happy that we do have credit cards in case any big expenses come up.
We also re-negotiated our mortgage last summer with a broker who specializes in getting the best deals on Mortgages. We’ve been very lucky ever since we bought this house. We got it when the interest rates were at an all time low and actual ended up with 0% interest for the first 6 months! We had a variable mortgage so the rate did go up as the interest rates climbed but we never did end up paying any more than 4% interest in the first five years we owned our home. Now, since we renewed our mortgage our interest rate is a little higher, but we renewed just as the interest rates were about to go up again, so once more we lucked out and got a good deal. I think we’re paying 4.5% interest now.
All in all, considering that I’ve been stuck at home, sick, with little to no income for the last 14 going on 15 months we’ve been pretty lucky money wise. However, I do know that if I hadn’t found a way to start making some income off my websites I’d be sitting here telling you a vastly different story right now.
My Tips –
You never know when something might happen that could cause you to lose your job or have to take extended sick leave like I’ve had to do.
My advice to all is to try to set as much as 20 to 25% of your income aside in case something happens. If you don’t end up using that money it’ll make a nice retirement income someday.
Also, stay on top of your bills – don’t let them build up. Once you start to get into debt everything just seems to have that snowball effect and the situation will get worse. Trust me on this one – I’ve been there too!
Credit cards I think are my favorite things ever because it lets me get cashback on things that I would have spent anyway. It’s safer than cash as when it gets stolen you can stop funds coming out of it. Quite a double-edged sword but very powerful if you use it correctly.