Lessons Learned in 2012 (Part 1)
Posted by Gail | Filed under Money Management
Here are some of the lessons y’all learned in 2012. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your responses:
Karen wrote: The biggest money lesson i’ve learned is LESS IS MORE!!!!!
- Less money spent at movies, play places = more quality time with my son
- Less money spent on girls nights out and shopping = more quality time with my husband
- Less money spent on dinners out = more heathy meals (and tastier)
- Less money spent on clothing = more oportunity to be creative and fall in love with my old wardrobe
- Less money spent everywhere = more money down on my mortgage
- Less money spent in the hair salon = more lovely long locks on my head
- Less money spent unnecessarily = more money in my wallet and my bank account
- Less money spent = more positive money conversations with my husband.
I feel like i’ve never had more since i’ve had less. I know next year I will even have more than this year. Thanks Gail. You are an angel. Forever in your debt
Renate wrote: The first lesson I learned from watching your television programs was to keep track and find out where my money goes. I also never food shop without a list. I have also started to plan to go back the next day when I see something that I want while shopping. I virtually Never go back! Before, I would have just impulse purchased.
Amy wrote: The biggest money lesson I learned of 2012 [is] in short, that my financial stability, success and failures are completely in my control. In 2012 I walked away from my beautiful home to not pay the extremely high debt which was accumulated in private, unbeknownst to me, by my former spouse because I made the mistake of not removing his name from the mortgage for the 5 yrs I paid for it solely on my own. I was successfully, legally divorced and I had nothing but I had EVERYTHING! My amazing life partner who is the greatest man on earth, my beautiful daughters and his beautiful daughters. We have everything. We are both HUGE fans of your show and were essentially starting again from scratch so said we are committing to your advice and budget planner. To say it has been successful is an understatement. It is our life! Even the younger two girls have their jars..theirs are labelled SAVINGS, DONATION, SPENDING…their only rule is to divide any money they receive into all three jars, in amounts of their own choosing. Many life lessons for them to learn from that task, I am proud of them and grateful to a friend for the great idea for their age. Now, the kicker is, my amazing partner Curtis laughs and LAUGHS at me for hauling around the jars which I proudly pull out in the grocery store! My girls giggle too HAHAHA … these wallets are sensational and I would love a set so I don’t turn my family off of this amazing way of life.
Sharon wrote: The biggest money lesson that I learned in 2012 was to stop eating out and to cook more at home, this includes coffee runs. I have saved a lot (yes really, “saved” as I am putting that money away 
I really have learnt that in order to really save you must actually put away the money you are not spending on fast food, restaurants, Timmy’s, Starbucks etc. I am now able to tangibly see that by doing this my money is actually growing and the only thing shrinking around here now is my waistline……which is a very good thing!
Abbie wrote: I think the biggest money lesson I learned in 2012 was bi-weekly versus monthly mortgage payments. I had heard several finance writers tout the benefits of it, but hadn’t really understood why. I thought maybe it was the convenience of aligning the payment with your bi-weekly paycheck–not so! I did some reading and crunched some numbers (mortgage math is really hard!) and realized that if I changed to bi-weekly payments, and rounded it up to the nearest hundred (to chip away that extra bit from the principle) I could shed almost 8 years off of my (embarassingly) 30 year amortization period! The next challenge was convincing my husband of this. He’s all for saving money, he just has a hard time wrapping his head around the budget (which, quelle surprise, falls to me to do). Once I showed him the black and white of it, he got on board and phoned our bank. It was easy enough to do over the phone and sign some forms sent in the mail. Our next step: securing life insurance so we cancel the mortgage insurance we got suckered in to buy.
Betsy wrote: The biggest / best money lesson I learned last year was to budget / put money away every two weeks for Gifts! When Christmas came this past year, I had money to buy everything (using cash) and didn’t end up in debt over Christmas!! Other years would take me three months to pay off the cards!! I will never go backwards and will keep that growing, so Christmas debt will be a thing of the past for us!
Rachel wrote: I love those “portable magic jars!” I’ve been walking around with tattered envelopes in my purse for months, but they do the trick! The biggest money lesson I learnt in 2012 was that no matter your income, you need to budget! I started budgeting for every month last year and it’s completely changed my life. I know exactly what’s coming out of my account each month, I know exactly what I have to spend for variable expenses, and for the first time in my life (except when I was little and living off allowances), I’m living off cash and asking for receipts EVERYWHERE I spend money. Even Tim Hortons. It really hasn’t been rocket science, but becoming so much more in control of my money, as opposed to aimlessly spending has been incredibly empowering.
Sarah wrote: The biggest money lesson that I learned in 2012 is to keep better track of where my money is going. My husband and I started writing down everything we spent. It made it much easier to look back and know for a fact where all of our money was going. This also made it much easier to actually budget and not just come up with a random number but to actually plan and use an amount that makes sense. Thank you for introducing us to the jars and a MUCH better system for tracking and planning our spending!
Dennis wrote: Well, maybe managing money isn’t rocket science but that doesn’t mean its easy! Not even close!
Just like taking care of my health or my kids or my job or whatever …. (looking after what is of value & importance) doesn’t happen without my conscious personal intentional involvement. Ya don’t have to like budgeting and ya may not have warm fuzzy’s by paying attention to what’s coming in and what’s going out blah, blah, blah…. BUT results are undeniable! The results will get ya back on the ’budgeting’ is my happy place every time!
I’m not a numbers person were my partner is …. he really finds the tasks (hourly, daily, weekly or whenever) of budgeting easy maybe even fun (not). I see the benefits of his personality type but I’m not one of them and my daughter is not either so I decided two things:
1) I want my teenage daughter to feel respectfully comfortable with budgeting/money and gain insightfulness with the notion that personal intentional involvement = RESULTS (not crappy, stress filled, anxiety ridden, depressing results) but “Y-E-S-S” I did it cuz I rock results!
Chu-ching! (How on earth is she to do this without my example) – very, very motivating for me!
2) Shift my feelings about the budgeting tasks, no I don’t have to love it but I can choose to think about my impending positive results with every budgeting step I do (and so can my daughter) … with a sprinkle of ’suck it up sister and get it over with’ for good measure. lol
So my biggest money lesson for 2012 is two-fold – like two peas in a pod; my personal intentional budgeting involvement = RESULTS (the kind I love) & teaching my daughter the same things allows her to live her life with results (the kind she loves too)!
Elizabeth wrote: My biggest lesson is looking at my HELOC in little bits instead of the large amount and then I feel I can do it. I have it broken into pieces on a graph that I shaped like my house, and I get to fill in with the date every $250. I pay back on principle. It makes me feel better!
Susana wrote: The biggest money lesson I learned was that being in debt sucks and that it sucks the energy out of you. We are now living on the jars and I can tell you that not shopping is hard but not having buyers remorse feels amazing and my husband and I don’t fight about money now.
Kaitlyn wrote: My husband and I started 2012 off with his unemployment that lasted all the way to December. Nothing teaches you more about money than living on one income. I learned that if I wasn’t paying attention or was spending because of my feelings we would have trouble getting to the end of the month before the end of the money. I also learned that we did have enough income-we are very lucky I had the income I had. When you see it as a lack of income instead of as an income of course you will see all that you don’t have or how much you are short. This perspective change is something amazing to experience.
February 7, 2013 at 8:03 am
2012: I learned that there can be an end to debt, that what you’ve been striving hard to achieve is possible. 2012 will have been our last year of debt, I hope
. I learned that the more we make, the less I want or feel a “need” to spend. I don’t need to look like I’m doing very well; we ARE doing very well. It’s funny how when you can actually afford stuff, it doesn’t hold the attraction anymore. I’ve also learned that I can be independent and I can survive without my husband, although I wouldn’t ever want to, as he’s been out of town for work. I’ve learned how much my husband truly cares for me, how much I care for him, learning to appreciate each other more. I’ve learned life is good. And I spent many years worrying for naught. And, while I thought we were careful with our money, I learned there is always someplace else to do better. 2012 helped me realize my priorities and made them clearer 
February 7, 2013 at 9:05 am
Grew my hair & embraced my greys. Free highlights!
February 7, 2013 at 10:25 am
In 2012 I quit smoking and going to the casino in September. Since that time my savings has grown by $1,500. My emergency money is more than $1,000 (paid car insurance of $665 in cash from that) and my one remaining credit card is down to $2,500 and will be paid off in less than 5 months. Christmas was cash only.
Perhaps the best part for me is that my girlfriend down in Florida is finally starting to see the light after watching me. She’s taken a second job to try and catch up on her bills and I’ve convinced her that even though she still owes a lot of money to a lot of places and people she must start an emergency fund to prevent her fragile house of cards from falling down. And the only way she can do that is to mail me the money every week. So starting today she’s sending me money first. It may only be $5 but it’ll be there for her. She doesn’t have the will power to keep the savings herself so I’ll do it for her.
February 7, 2013 at 10:25 am
My big lesson… that nobody ever went broke taking a profit. I was so nervous about selling a stock I was overweight in (half my rrsp was in a single stock, my employers) because I was afraid it would skyrocket the day after I sold it. But I did, selling it and changing into a small group of ETF’s… and over the next days it rose $4 (costing me thousands). I was upset at my ‘loss’. But then I realized that it wasn’t really a loss, I sold it at roughly twice what I paid for it, and to chillax. Then the stock went back down the next week. So, really, I did just fine and need to stop beating myself up for not being psychic.
February 7, 2013 at 10:35 am
My biggest lesson learned is in 2012 was that a car was a want not a need. I can get every where I need with the bus or train. I can walk to most stores I need and bring back my purchases in my wagon. I don’t have to pay for car payments, car insurance, gas, maintenance/repairs or parking! It has been GREAT.
February 7, 2013 at 11:11 am
My take away from 2012, was to relax and trust that the plan we’ve laid out is working and will get us where we want to be. We can’t become complacent, but we can now relax a little.
We’ve cut everything we can or intend to for the foreseeable future. We are whacking down the mortgage using every tool available (bi-weekly payments, rounded up $150, and making in additional $12k extra pmts every year), we are contributing to our RRSPs at our planned level which is not the maximum, but at the level that maximizes our tax refund while not over-contributing. (I didn’t realize you could actually wind up with too much in your RRSPs, so now we max our our TFSAs, nonregistered savings and focus more on the mortgage.
For many years we analysed our spending, cut what we could, renegotiated rates where possible, and researched where our savings should be directed for maximum tax benefit when we start to make retirement withdrawls. Now we give our plan a regular once over to ensure it’s still right for us and nothing has changed, but now we feel like we’re on autopilot. Just follow the plan, rinse and repeat, then retire early. Our budget and spending is now kind of a non-event. Watching the mortage drop and the savings increase are our indicators of progress, but we’re just now starting to relax and just live with the plan instead of having a long list of financial issues that to be worked on.
February 7, 2013 at 1:17 pm
About those mortgage savings incurred when you pay bi-weekly vs monthly. The writer is indeed confused. There is no magic by paying more often. It is simple math. The way that she saved was by paying more money over the course of the year (or to be more exact, over the compounding period which is semi-annual typically, but for the purpose of this note, say just annual compunding. e.g. say you have a $1000 monthly mortgage or $12,000 per yr. You switch to $500 bi-weekly. This is apples and oranges. Paying bi-weekly is 26 x $500 which is $13,000 per year. If she made 461.54 bi-weekly payments (26 x 461.54 = 12,000) then her mortgage would not have been paid down quicker. She is paying $38.46 more each bi-weekly payment … that’s all. If she made an extra top -up payment of $1000 on top of her $12,000 annual payment in the monthly payment case (making the same $13,000 annual total), her mortage period would also have been shortened by 8 yrs. If it really did help to pay more often, why not pay every day, or every hr, etc. It’s comical really how this befuddles people. The real trick is … if you get paid bi-weekly or weekly, pay using that same period so you won’t blow it on something else. And yes, make top up payments if you can … that’s where the magic is … paying more … not paying more often. As long as you pay the same amount during the lending institution’s compounding period (usually 6 months), so even a once every 6 months payment would reduce the mortgage just as fast as a weekly payment because the bank does not charge you less interest until the compounding period occurs.
February 7, 2013 at 2:54 pm
I think my biggest money lesson for 2012 is to get a job in 2013.
February 7, 2013 at 9:53 pm
Yay Yvonne!
February 8, 2013 at 12:40 am
Ha ha ha, the one about natural highlights. I think I already posted about saving over $1000 this year by no longer coloring my hair. I’ve been gray for over 30 years (*sigh*) but $100 a month to keep the red in and the gray out is ludicrous! I’ll pay $105 for 2 more months for a short short cut and weave to get the gray growing out, then it’s on to gray and loving it!
In 2012 I learned that yes, I am capable of turning my finances around and yes, it depends on me. Tracking can be a big pain in the butt, no doubt. I am seeing progress already this year, and, like others, am motivated by my small steps forward. I’m very proud of my tattered envelopes; they’re my constant companions and sometimes when I see them I smile, knowing there’s more success on the way.
I’m finding that the happiness and contentment I feel is carrying over to other facets of my life. There are some very positive things happening at work, which means opportunity for me. My daughter has made major strides paying off her student loans (she’s much more financially-savvy than her mom, but supports my efforts 100%). I am sleeping better, eating much better and the weight is coming off; my spiritual life is blossoming.
Imagine, just pulling myself together and taking those first steps has given me the confidence to believe that I truly am capable of setting a goal, meeting it, and setting another one. I’m still in my financial infancy but I’m getting better at it, and I look forward to a 2013 full of continued success.
February 8, 2013 at 12:43 am
@Geoff, that’s funny, allowing yourself to accept your lack of psychic abilities! I’m glad you were brave and I admire you for taking a step you agonized over for a while. And congratulations-it worked for you!
May you realize continued (financial) growth and success!
February 8, 2013 at 7:09 pm
The big lesson my wife and I learned is that you can make your money go a long way while traveling for the long term. We were able to experience so much but still keep costs under control. Granted, we had saved for a long time to be able to take this trip which itself trained us to spend wisely.
You just need to live within your means and everything else will just fall into place!
February 9, 2013 at 6:38 am
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February 9, 2013 at 9:39 am
@Rachel….where do I find those portable money jars? I have been looking everywhere, I saw them awhile ago on gails website and now I cannot find the link anywhere…
February 12, 2013 at 2:11 pm
Why spend $100+ on hairdressers? I can dye my own grey hair at home for $3 a month (split one kit in half, buy on sale for $6 per kit, use half one month and half the next). Dirt cheap and totally acceptable results.
February 13, 2013 at 12:40 pm
Years ago I started putting away a dollar a day for Christmas–fourteen dollars per paycheque that goes into a separate little savings account–starting with the first paycheque after Christmas. Such a tiny amount it isn’t missed, but it makes a huge difference when the holidays come around every year. There have been many years when that $365.00 has been the total Christmas budget–but it’s there and it can be a lot of fun creating an interesting and exciting holiday season (my children are all adults now, no grandkids) within the scope of what we have. Rule number one for the holiday season for the entire family–do not buy gifts on credit. End of story. Many years dinner is potluck to spread the expense around. Makes for a truly satisfying, enjoyable and worry-free Christmas.