A benefit of actually cleaning...

My mom and my niece are coming for a visit tomorrow so it is high time for me to be cleaning my room, which I have been doing off and on for a few hours. As I was cleaning, I found the wallet I used when I was living in Boston. When I opened it up, it had a bunch of American money that I didn't realize I had. It made my day because I am actually quite broke right now so it will come in handy. Hopefully, I will get around to depositing it soon so I can actually use it. So today's favourite thing is finding money you forgot you had.

Money. money, money, money......monay!

Today, I got paid. It was less than usual but more than I expected given the amount of time I have not been working these past couple of weeks. With the money, I was able to pay off both of my credit cards and still have some money left over - hopefully, to last me another couple of weeks without putting anything (or very little) back on my credit cards. It's nice not having to worry about paying them off, and to have money left over. So today's favourite thing is being able to pay off the credit cards and still have money left over.

It pays the bills...

I can't really, honestly with 100% sincerity say that I love my new job. I enjoy the fact that I am now doing more than taking up space in my sister's house (actually, I was doing more than that - -I ate her food and drove her car and made a mess, etc,etc), but at the end of the day, it's not like I really accomplish anything other than making my feet hurt so much I can barely stand.
I am making progress with learning the job and I think I am getting quite good at it. I still have some things to learn but I know I am improving. But what is keeping me going is the fact that I am actually making money, not just spending it. Today was the first payday and while it wasn't a ginormous amount of money (and realistically, it wouldn't be) it still helped relieve the stress of my previously very broke life. Seriously, I had like $6 in the bank. Now I just hope that I remember to buy some sort of support to put in my shoes so that my shoes don't end up completely mangling and permanently damaging my feet, because oy! They hurt so much, for hours and hours after I get home.

Do you want fries with that?

As I briefly mentioned in a post a while ago, I got a McJob. So yay! Money! I haven't actually started yet but my orientation was today so I can pretty much start right away. While working at a fast food place was never my intention, at this point I will pretty much take whatever I can get, and whatever I can get is fast food at this moment in time. I plan to continue to look for work in different areas but this job means that I am not quite as terribly broke as I was getting to be. I am hoping that works out well for me. I have never worked in a fast food place before so this will be something new for me. I also enjoy that I will be paid for the three hour orientation I was at tonight so I having money coming in soon even if that is the only thing I am paid for on that pay cheque. So today's favourite thing is actually having money coming in.

Pretty much the definition of an extra penny

When I was living in the US, I had a couple of accounts with Bank of America (chequing and savings). A couple of months after moving back to Canada, I finally decided to close my accounts because a) I needed the money and b)I couldn't see myself returning to the States in the near enough future for it to be useful for me. I closed my accounts over the phone. The lovely agent helped me transfer my money from savings to chequing so that my savings account would close, then I wrote myself a cheque for the balance of the chequing account so the chequing account would have a zero balance so it would close. This all would have been fine and dandy if $0.04 interest hadn't been credited to my savings account after my money was transfered out of my savings account. This meant that my savings account never closed. I continued getting Bank of America statements alternating between saying I had $0.04 in the account, I had $ -11.96 in the account (due to a $12 balance protection fee. Seriously, $12. I didn't realize that until after I thought I had closed the account or I would have closed the account sooner), and a notice that I once again had $0.04 in the account because they had cancelled the fee. This went on for a few months until I finally got my arse in gear and called them to see what was going on. They explained everything to me and, because they can't just do away with people's money, they would be sending me a cheque for the $0.04. The cheque arrived this week. I want to reiterate that I now live in Canada, so they had to mail the $0.04 cheque using international postage. I would, in fact, rather have the postage because it is worth more. But anyways, today I cashed the cheque at the ATM under US currency transactions. Due to the exchange rate, I actually got $0.05 which made me inexplicably euphoric. When I told my sister what had happened, I made the profound statement that it was "like I got an extra penny." She replied that it was pretty much the definition of an extra penny. So todays favourite thing is getting $0.05 when you think you are getting $0.04.