I had some great responses to Monday’s post, detailing my rage at being peed on by a squirrel, my second animal excrement encounter this month. I’m happy to report that I have now gone a full five days without any more squirrel attacks! That said, I am thankful to know that I am not the only person in Toronto who has been having problems with obnoxious animals. On Wednesday night, award-winning Toronto Star journalist Daniel Dale was chased around a park by Toronto mayor Rob Ford, who claimed the reporter was spying on him. For those of you not familiar with Toronto politics, this is just the latest in a LONG line of weird incidents involving our mayor. Otherwise, it really has been a bit of a dry week as I have been very busy with school, starting my last course this week in an attempt to graduate by the end of the summer.
Last week’s article, a Comparison of Foreign ATM Fees Charged by Canadian Banks, was included in a whack of blog carnivals. I put a lot of research into that one, so I’m glad to see it being read. Thanks to all the carnival hosts!
- Totally Money Blog Carnival, hosted by Debt Black Hole
- Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted by My Personal Finance Journey
- Carnival of Financial Planning, hosted by Personal Dividends
- Top Personal Finance Posts of the Week, hosted by Personal Finance Whiz
- Yakezie Carnival, hosted by The Frugal Toad
- Financial Carnival for Young Adults, hosted by 20′s Finances
- Carnival of Money Pros, hosted by Money Cone
- A major announcement came down from one of my favorite personal finance blogs – Young and Thrifty has sold her blog. The new owners? Teacherman and his partner from My University Money. Y&T will still be contributing, but on an infrequent basis. Best of luck to the new owners!
- With all the talk I’ve been doing about throwing a green and frugal wedding, there’s a question to be asked in there – does a couple need to get married anymore? Krystal @ Give Me Back My Five Bucks doesn’t think so and doesn’t want to. While I agree that its not necessary anymore, I still want to do it. The reason why just might be the topic of a future post here at Earth and Money.
- Miss T @ Prairie Eco-Thrifter shares her story of how to successfully take courses while working full-time. It can definitely be a heavy workload, but with a little diligence, its certainly possible.
- Musings of an Abstract Auklander went a week without a smartphone, and then realized how dependent she was on it. A little scary!
- My Own Advisor has a $10,000 emergency fund. It seems like a lot, but he presents a great case for the money.
- Canadian Finance Blog asks if you’re still paying bank fees. Even with a traditional bank account, these days, there are a lot of ways to bank for little to no fee.
Happy Weekend Everyone!
Its been an interesting week to say the least. Recently, one of my colleagues refused to accept the change that was imminent in his life. He was all set to graduate with his Master’s degree in hand. He needed only to make some simple revisions to his thesis and have his supervisor sign off on it before she flew out of the country for the next month. And yet, thus far, he has refused to make the changes. He has cited many reasons, but what I saw in his eyes was fear. Fear of the next step, of the change, of having to grow. Sometimes we think we’re ready for something, right up until the very moment it happens, and then we realize how very unprepared we are. When I was travelling, I went canyoning and at one point, we got to the top of a 50 foot waterfall. We were given the option to hike down the side of it, or jump off the cliff into the pool below. I was all ready to make the jump, until I got to the edge. Then fear gripped me by the arm and held me back. But sometimes you just have to jump, put your faith in yourself and hope for the best. I jumped that day, and it was one of the most exhilarating feelings of my life. Though I know it pales in comparison, I hope my colleague can make the jump he needs to make in his life.
This Sunday, April 22nd, its 
This past week, I completed my first ever freelance photography job, shooting the interiors of a small chain of local coffee shops. I had a blast and it paid reasonably well, though part of my income got eaten away when I had to replace a lens that broke on the first day of the job. Murphy’s Law right! I’m hoping this will lead to more freelance opportunities – while I was shooting one of the stores, a customer came up to me to ask about my rates. Apparently, he is looking for someone to shoot some portraits of him for his online dating profile. I gave him my contact info but haven’t heard anything from him. I learned a major lesson about freelancing from this one gig – freelance jobs don’t grow on trees. Getting freelance jobs is 10% skill on the job and 90% marketing yourself. I didn’t have any business cards with me or really any sense about how I wanted to sell myself to potential future clients. In fact, I was totally caught off guard by the entire situation. It actually didn’t even occur to me that someone might see me working on this job and inquire about my services. So for now, I’m hoping my 10% skill might get me another future job with this same customer, and in the meantime, I’m going to start working on the other 90%.
Do you ever have one of those days, when it seems like things just always go wrong. I’m writing this post in the aftermath of one of those days. I’m a big fan of Ultimate Frisbee. I try to play every weekend if I can with a group of friends. Usually, we play on a field near me, but today, we were trying a new field that was further away. So in an effort to be frugal, I decided to bike there. My first bike ride of the year. Bad idea. By the time I got to the field, my thighs were in agony, which made running for two hours pretty unenjoyable. Needless to say, my team lost both games. Later in the day, since I no longer had the energy to do much of anything, I decided to relax in a park and enjoy the beautiful day we had. About twenty minutes later, I saw something fall from the sky and land, ‘plop!’ on my jacket. Bird poop…wonderful! My lovely fiancee took me home to clean up, then while doing the laundry proceeded to drop my one of my shirts in the toilet. We hang some clothes to dry in the bathroom to save on money and energy from the dryer. It seems the environment has it out for me today. Sigh… At least, it isn’t actually raining.