Angela loves learning and discussing personal finances and money. Not in the greedy sense, but in constant pursuit of financial peace. Financial freedom if you will. Her passion for this started in her early 30s, when she started paying for younger years’ financial mistakes. She’s now spent nearly a decade trying to learn how to correct those mistakes and, at the same time, has learnt to love the process. While she still has a long way to go to get to financial freedom, she hopes that by writing about her journey she keeps the momentum going, and, hopefully, also inspires others towards financial independence.
Credit cards are not the source of all evil. Yes, you read that correctly. They are not our friends, but neither are they our foes. They are objects, and objects don’t have intentions. This would be like saying a carrot stick or a textbook intends to murder us in the middle of the night. Although… Read more »
I’ve been trying to drill the importance of sticking to a proper budget into my head. I’ll stay on track for weeks, and then wham, I’ll see a deal and convince myself this is just too good to ignore. I’ll even walk away, go home, carry on with my day, and then have nightmares about… Read more »
Summer came & went; September arrived in the blink of an eye and the traditional school season began. Some of us at AU took a break from our studies, and some didn’t. Some AU students went on long road trips and adventurous travels. Others chose to stay at home and enjoy their downtime lounging around… Read more »
Life emergencies happen. We have all dealt with Murphy’s Law—if anything can go wrong, it will—at one point in time. A furnace that breaks down in the middle of a prairie winter is bound to happen once in your lifetime. A vandal slashing all four tires of your car, in a highly condensed, populated area… Read more »
Our family is on a strict budget to make progress with our debt reduction plan—this includes sticking to our grocery budget, of course. We decide on a set amount to spend for groceries each month, withdraw the cash on the first day of the month, and that is the exact amount we spend for food… Read more »
A few months back, I began experimenting with the concept of “money-free entertainment”. Since embarking on our “debt-free journey”, one of my biggest realizations is that many activities we used to do regularly and take for granted were really bogging down our budget. They had to be put on pause for a while if we… Read more »
Gas prices across Canada are not going down anytime soon. Just this past April, prices went up in all of our provinces as the federal carbon tax kicked in. According to Global News, in late April, the price of gas in British Columbia almost reached $2 a litre, with some unsuspecting vehicle owners waking up… Read more »
Now that summer is here, spending time outside in the sunshine can have significant and wide-ranging health benefits. Exposure to green space reduces stress, and all the ailments that go along with it (“University of East Anglia: It’s official – spending time outside is good for you.”, 2018). We don’t have to go on a… Read more »
Spring is in the air, summer is just around the corner, traditional students are nearing the end of their semesters (not us AU die-hards, obviously), and everyone is dreaming about warm, lazy sunsets and BBQs. But for those of us at AU who were not lucky enough to have escaped this past winter, wanderlust is… Read more »
Marie Kondo is a Japanese organizing consultant whose popularity has taken off in recent years in North America, by instructing consumers and hoarders alike to rediscover joy by decluttering and throwing away stuff (Green, 2014). At 19 years old, Ms. Kondo started working as a professional tidier in Japan when she founded her organizing consulting business… Read more »