I would like to now show you a screenshot I’m very proud of:

No, in case you’re thinking it.. I do not have any other credit cards What you’re seeing is the result of some very disciplined spending and a lot of hard work. I’m going to have a few extra drinks this weekend in Mill River to celebrate it this weekend! I don’t think I ever mentioned exactly how much money I was in debt, but it was a VERY large amount of money.

With this goal accomplished, I am now starting another goal. That goal is to set up an Emergency Fund. Obviously the pressure is off as I’m no longer paying interest on lines of credit or credit cards – but if something were to happen and I needed some money, I would be back in debt. To me that’s not a great idea. My plan is actually stolen from Gail’s book “Debt Free Forever”. I plan on saving up 6 months worth of my crucial “need to live” items – and I plan on having a checkbox system to accomplish this. For example: I need food during an emergency. I have proven that myself and Liz can live off of $200 worth of food a month (a lot less last month) – so I setup a list with 6 checkboxes. As I save up money (going to be putting it into a TFSA) – I will check off a box once I reach that plateau. So after I have $200 saved up, well I only have to do that 5 more times to cross the food box off the list. Now this may seem excessive, and I likely will stop perhaps at 4 months or even 3 – but the main idea is that it’s important to have an emergency fund setup that you can get money from fairly easily.

In the meantime, I plan on calling my bank and getting them to lower my credit limit on my line of credit to $2000 as well. If you recall I did this for my credit card where somehow my first (and only) credit card that I owned which started at a limit of $500 (student) had increased automatically to $16,000. I had them reduce that to $2000 a few months ago. The reasoning is two-fold. One, I don’t want to ever over the amount that I did ever again, and two – it helps the credit score if I ever did want to get a loan or something else of that nature. If you have a credit limit of $10,000 – when you apply for a loan, the see that 10,000 as money spent (even if you have no balance!).. reason being? Simple.. you could just as easily walk out of that loan application office and go get a cash advance for the full $10,000. I wonder if anyone has ever done that?

Unfortunately for me, I’m REALLY fighting the urge not to buy the iPad. I’ve already told you how much I love my iPhone and once I get some more free time on my hands I’d love to sit down and read some of the great magazines that I’ve downloaded and books in pdf format. Plus it’s REALLY cool Items like this don’t go on sale at all so I’d have to pony up the full $549 for the one I wanted.. *sigh*. Then of course there’s the fact that I bought this really kick ass computer at home which can run Mac software, Windows 7 and Windows XP all at the same time, but I only have one monitor! Time for an upgrade perhaps?? Maybe!! Buy.com has a great looking Samsung BX2440X LCD Monitor – 24″ – LED one on for $279.99 so I could get one of those eventually..

Ok ok, I have to stick to my guns.. if I want something, I’m going to have to save up for it.. end of story.

However, for you contact wearers out there, have you ever purchased a lens case or noticed that the ones that come with the cases or you get with your contacts are getting larger? Adam Zuckerman did – and started doing some math on it, the results were quite surprising as I read at his post on the subject:

• The increase in case size from the smallest (4.5mL) to the largest (13 mL) is ~189%!
• This increase may account for ~$90 per year in additional solution purchases, per person.
• As an approximate 18,000,000 Americans wear soft lenses, this increase could (at its most severe) amount to ~$1,600,000,000 in unnecessary solution purchases.
• This tally equates 162,000,000 bottles of 12 ounce solution.  (That’s a lot of trash!)

You know what the sad part was? I own a bunch of the ones that actually were the WORST for filling up.. and it’s easy to figure out – the more you fill them up – the more you’re going to spend on contact solution!

A few tips to reduce the amount we use when filling up the contact cases??

1. the little lines inside your contact case, just fill it up to the top of those, don’t fill it up all the way. That’s what those lines are for, it’s a "fill to here" line.
2. don’t boil the cases when replacing, but do so regularly – the cases originally come with a little layer of stuff that helps keep bacteria from growing in the case, over time it wears out and if you boil the case it completely gets rid of it, making the case a breeding ground for nastiness.
3. the ones that used the least amount of lens solution? Found here at amazon.com – get something similar likely in on sale at a dollar store or something
4. use the $90 or so on average you’ll save during the year and buy some new camera gear like a new Xlogic VD628 Camera Tripod which will come in handy on your next photo shoot. Ok, well maybe that tip is just for me.

Anyhow some food for thought and I wanted to pass along that tip.

What did I get? Well, I decided to get one that was very much Hackintosh approved.. meaning that I could install and run Mac OSX if I needed to or wanted to as well as Windows 7. I actually found a pretty good guide for a system here at tonymacx86.com. The reason I chose almost the exact same parts and accessories that he did are pretty simple – he built a Hackintosh he called the “CustoMac Pro 2010” for a fraction of the price of the newest 4-core Mac Pro just announced. All that seem too geeky and techy for you? Let’s just put it this way, the one I’m building for around $1000 kicks the crap out of the Mac version which costs $2500… end of story.

It’s an i7 930 (Quad-core top of the line Intel processor) with 6 GB or RAM, support for the new USB 3.0 devices (those are going to be nuts), and lots of other goodies. It’s going to rock once it gets here and I put it all together.. but honestly that’s not what I wanted to write about today.

I wanted to write about the ordering process…

So where did I get all this fancy new gear? Answer: NCIX.com. I’ve dealt with them many times in the past and the experience has always been positive. Most times I would only by an item here, and an item there, never a full load of computer parts. My co-worker here at work advised me to go with them and use their built in price match system to make sure you’re getting the lowest price around. I’d like to tell you how that worked.

Basically you go through and pick all your items – for example the case that I purchased was $129.99 at Ncix.com. Realizing this was not on sale or anything, I then went to pricebat.ca and put in the exact name of the case and searched.

As you can see, the lowest price there is $85.95 at Anitec’s website – if you keep scrolling down you’ll see NCIX.com had it on for $129.99 as is what I put it in my shopping cart for.

So what do I do? SIMPLE! Go to the site that has the cheaper sale price – in this case go to the Anitec site – copy down the price and paste it in the price match session along with the URL. That’s it… it automatically gets taken off your price, then once you check out they will verify it during the order process before it’s shipped. In my case I saved $74 off my total order by doing this.. that’s a lot of money! It a great way for NCIX to retain customers as otherwise I’d be going to the other site to do my business but now I can do it all with one stop shopping. Highly recommended for your online tech shopping needs.

So the only thing that I didn’t buy was hard drive space and another monitor. Hard drives I have plenty of, too many too be honest, but I would like to increase my screen real estate and purchase another monitor sometime. Buy.com has a nice Samsung 19” 720p monitor on for $219.99 but I’d have to do my research and find out the best deal around when the time comes.

Looking forward to obtaining all the items I bought and putting it together, it’s been a long time since I’ve done it so I’m sure I’ll be posting how I get along when the time comes.

Anyhow just as we were about to checkout – I noticed that there was a spot for a coupon code. It took me all of about 30 seconds to do a quick Google search and find a coupon code for clearlycontacts.ca. I simple put in the terms “clearlycontacts coupon code july 2010” and took a look at the results. You know what’s ironic? My post here was the first result! In any case the 2nd result was one which I liked so I clicked on it and it gave me the following option:

Clearly Contacts Coupon Code 1

• Coupon code: SMARTCANUCKS
• Discount: 10% Off + Free Priority Shipping on orders over $49.

Clearly Contacts Coupon Code 2

• Coupon code: SMARTFRAMES
• Discount: 20% Off Any Eyeglasses (Lens Included) – no minimum purchase necessary.

Clearly Contacts Promo Codes expire July 31st, 2010

Sweet! I put in the Coupon Code and saved myself over $20 on my order (which was originally $126 or so). So simply by spending 30 seconds, I saved $20. Very impressive!

If I was looking for another sale item anywhere including Buy.com or FutureShop or anywhere online, I ALWAYS do a coupon search first – by putting in the month and year you’re more likely going to find something that’s valid now as old ones don’t obviously stay valid forever.

I found it interesting in this weeks buy.com flyer they now sell household items – for example they have a 6-pack of “Choose a Size” Scott Paper Towels on for $5.97 which qualifies for free shipping. I’m not sure if they’re in Canada yet or not with this type of thing but I know I’d love to be able to buy household items online if I could and avoid heading to the grocery store for some of this stuff.

I would LOVE feedback on this issue as I’m sure lots of laptop users have had this debate and I’m sure lots of desktop users thought about it to. Here’s the scoop for my personal situation.

Well, I’m in need of more power due to the processing of photos and video which I’m doing – I realize that this would be a ‘pro’ for the desktop model but I’m wondering if portability would be a factor? Liz has a laptop which I use regularly as it sits in the kitchen for the most part and is a great little computer for pretty much everything.. the only problem I find is that it doesn’t have the power of my desktop – so therefore I never use it for any photo processing.

Laptops generally however are more expensive than desktop computers – even if I was to get one on sale it would be more expensive I’m sure. That said they have the portability and with wireless networks getting so good, that’s a real benefit.

I’m stuck!! Everywhere I look they have sales on for laptops such as buy.com’s Lenovo on for $449 and then Dell has a sale on as well which got me thinking about a desktop (found the 2 day deal here). If you have any insights or recommendations – I’m welcome to it all!

Why do I want one now then? Well, for one.. the deal on it is pretty sweet! It’s on sale for $249.99 at Shoppers Drug Mart and I just happen to have enough Optimum points to get another $75 off of that. Another reason that I think I want one i the portability for when I’m blogging or on the road. That said, I have to ask myself, “Am I on the road that much?” or “Am I away from a computer that often?”.. the answer is “nope!”.

So today I went as far as asking the cashier about the computer, played around with it, checked out the specs – and like a good little frugal shopper – I left the store without said computer.

I think the reason that I find it so intriguing is that I can use my $75 from Shoppers to buy the silly thing! Sure it’ll cost me $175+ taxes but come on.. that’s pretty cheap for a netbook isn’t it??

*sigh* I will try to resist.

There is also the sad fact that most netbooks.. well.. suck! They are under-powered as compared to even the most inexpensive laptop, they have a tiny screen (less than that of an iPad) and depending on which battery you get (the one at Shoppers is only a 3-cell which is pathetic) – you could get in trouble there too!

I guess I’ll perhaps put the $175 I would have spent towards a netbook in my and Liz’s iPhone fund which I wrote about before when I was having this “spending urge”. I think that I may go with that option.

I think it may be a lot easier if I spent more time catching up on the shows I love so much like Entourage (you can get the latest season 5 on DVD from buy.com right now for $23.49) and stop thinking about ways to spend money. After all, I don’t need anything – and I still have debt…

Ok, this was a good self-motivating blog post – I now no longer want to spend that money. *Phew*

My role is going to be part of the Marketing & Public Relations Committee which is going to be dealing with social media (ironic eh?) and obviously public relations. I really hope that my involvement can make a significant impact and I am really excited about the challenge.

Today Liz and I are going to go shopping for some groceries (yes, for next month!) and we’re going to head to Shoppers Drug Mart for their 20X the points event they have every so often. You have to purchase $50 worth of product, but I’m thinking with all their grocery items, plus everything else they have, that won’t take much at all. I wouldn’t really care about the sale – but I have almost enough for $75 worth of free stuff so I’d like to max that out and then cash in!

Speaking of sales, I also purchased a shirt at American Eagle this week online as they had a 15% off and free shipping event! I found the deal here at Red Flag Deals and I’m really excited for it to arrive. I know last time I purchased from them it took something stupid like 3 weeks for it to get here, so hopefully that won’t be the case this time. Another great sale which I think I’m going to have to look into is this one with a package of 100 4×6” photo paper on for $9.95. With all the photos I took last weekend at the wedding – I’m sure going to need a lot more than 100 if I were to print them all out!

I’ll be writing a lot more in the coming week so be prepared! Ha, have a great Saturday everyone!

I did want to write for a minute on what was the most surprising part of the trip for me. It was how quickly the hours flew by when listening to Satellite Radio. My buddy has an extremely nice, brand new Ford F150 and included when he bought it, was 3 months of Sirius radio service. I can honestly say that if I ever have to do a long road trip again – I will be begging for something like this. It made the hours FLY by.. we were in Portland (where we spend night #1) before we knew it.

What did we listen to?? Well.. there are tons of channels (obviously) to choose from – the ones that we listened to most were Howard Stern and “Raw Dog Comedy”.. although we did flip over to the Playboy channel for a few minutes to see what that was all about – it was actually pretty darn good and like I say, kept us entertained for the trip.. which in turn, made it seem extremely fast.

I installed my own XM radio satellite which was given to me as a gift in the Cobalt when I had it – but I actually found that it cut out all over town while I was driving to/from work and it really bugged me. Apparently Sirius doesn’t have this problem as they have satellites which are higher up and perhaps two of them I’ve heard? I have no idea. I don’t know if I’d pick one up on sale or not if it was to come around.. due to the monthly charges and such – but if I did a lot of traveling – it’d be a no brainer.

Raw Dog Comedy was on almost exclusively on the way home, and what was really great was that I wrote down some of the names that REALLY were funny so that I could look them up when I got home.

The following is one of them – Todd Barry – take a listen to this small clip from Letterman.

One of the other inventions which we used and were very glad we did (in Boston) was the GPS system! Honestly I can see road traveling getting a lot more popular with these two great in-car services. Even if you know where you’re going – it’s really nice to see how far left you have in your trip, how many hours approximately to get there, and perhaps you want to go somewhere off the beaten path.. getting lost = not an option.. very cool. Just noticed buy.com has one on for $98.99 and it’s a really great Garmin NuVi 255W as well.

I’m getting off topic a bit – but what I wanted to point across is that I’m seriously fighting the urge to purchase something. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? I guess it does!! It’s just that I have had a few select items on my radar which are most certainly wants and not needs. #1 on the list.. an iPhone – as my blackberry is getting older, I’m finding it slower and less reliable for me – I do like the look of the 9700 Blackberries as well, but if I had the choice I think I’d go with the iPhone… problem is.. it’s over $600 to purchase and they never go on sale.. boo.

The other item on my list was something that I had before, and sold. A netbook. They are just coming down so much in price that I think it would be extremely handy to have around the house – I find lately we’ve been using Liz’s laptop in the kitchen, downstairs watching TV, all kinds of places in which a netbook would likely be the easier option. That and the fact that Shoppers had them on sale for $90 if you used 75,000 optimum points.. I don’t have that many by a long shot, but I do almost have 40,000 saved up… not bad for a guy whom usually doesn’t shop there.

And of course now I come across a buy.com flyer that has a full Dell laptop on sale for $299! With the dollar as close as it is right now, when I head to Boston next month I may have to come back with some of these sale items, that’s a great deal!

FOCUS LEN! FOCUS!!

Ok, I don’t need any of these things.. and why I’m trying so hard to fight the urge is that I still owe for things I already purchased!! Even though I’ve paid off over 51% of my debt since last year – I still have a ways to go and I want to make sure that I don’t fall of the wagon here.

I came up with an idea which made sense to me yesterday which may help. If I want to purchase one of these items.. I can’t purchase them with money that I have earmarked for debt-repayment. So, what that means to me – if I want that iPhone.. I better save up $600 by selling something, working somewhere extra, or somehow creating extra money so that my plan to get debt-free remains in tact. As much as I feel guilty about buying the Roomba (and am still very excited about it arriving), I purchased it out of extra money which I had and have already paid off – it didn’t come out of my monthly debt repayment, so that’s a good purchase as far as I’m concerned.

Don’t ask me how I’ll ever be able to get over $600 for an iPhone 3gs though.. oh well.

Great Vaccum For The Car For Sure!

I just spent pretty much the last 3 hours waxing, vaccuming, and cleaning my car. Poor thing hasn’t been cleaned in quite some time – and I’m usually pretty darn good to her!

It was nice to actually use some of the toys I purchased on sale at Canadian Tire over the winter or last fall which I never got a chance to before – namely my Simoniz Vaccuum and Buffer.

First thing I used was the buffer, and it worked as advertised.. what a difference in how smooth the car is now that it’s waxed.. crazy. I had to show Liz as she was wondering what I was doing (I don’t think she’s used to doing a lot of car cleaning, but with her new car I think she wants to take care

The vaccuum also is pretty handy, it’s got a shoulder strap an it’s no bigger than a bathroom garbage can, oddly enough it really is pretty darn powerful. I found it unfortunately not that handy with the enormous amount of Beagle fur I have woven in the carpets of the Vibe. The seats aren’t bad at all, it’s the carpets that seem to keep the fur stuck in it.

Actually, I noticed that buy.com has a Dyson vaccuum on (the roller ball one) on for $299!! Now that our dollar is getting closer to par this is one hell of a deal. I think one of my good buddies has one of these and he thinks it’s the best vaccuum ever (yes, the topic of a vaccuum came up between shots of tequila and war stories). Does anyone have one of these? Are they worth the money? I’m thinking that it’d be nice to have something that would really get that fur out.

Anyhow back to the car cleaning – I did realize one thing that I wish I knew before. Using armor all on the car is a hell of a lot easier when applied with a sponge. I swear it’s taken me 15 years to realize this.. but it was a breeze to make that smooth armour all look which you can’t get while trying to spray it and spread it with a cloth (usually you end up getting armour all all over the windows and everywhere you don’t want).

So now I’m really hoping it doesn’t rain the next few days!