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Money Diet Challenge

money diet challenge

I’ve been doing a money diet challenge for March in order to try to save lots of money in preparation for my return to the extremely expensive motherland that is Canada. Here is how I did in previous weeks: Week 1 Money Diet Update: $117 Week 2 Money Diet Update: $76 Week 3 came it at $163, with $57 of that being spent in a single night out with the girls and then I also…

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Giving Stuff Away for Free Makes Me Happy

giving stuff away

Over the decade of so I’ve been living in Korea, I’ve collected a lot of stuff and ever since I moved into a large apartment (about 700 square feet for just me!), it’s been extremely easy to keep getting more since storage really isn’t an issue. Except now that I’ve decided to move to Canada in a year, it’s time to unload. My Unloading Stuff Strategy 1. Sell the stuff that had some value. I…

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Money Diet Challenge: Week 2 Update

money diet challenge

I’m doing a March Money Diet Challenge to kick-start my return to Canada savings. My goal is to spend less than $400 for the month on discretionary things. Week 1 was not fabulous at $117, but week 2 came in at a solid $76 with no unexpected expenses (last week I had a $40 bicycle repair). Here’s the week 2 money diet spending breakdown: Transportation: $9 Groceries: $4 Entertainment (coffee, eating out, drinking, karaoke): $63…

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The Return to Canada: let’s talk Money

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I’m going to return to Canada next year after living in South Korea for almost 10 years and that in order to do so, I feel like I need to have a giant pool of money so I can sustain myself for at least a couple years while I go back to school and look for full-time work. Those expats who go home without this money pool often…

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Money Diet Challenge, Week 1 Update

The Total: $117 In order to save up for my return to Canada in one year from now, I’ve undertaken a Money Diet Challenge for March. For the first seven days of March, I spent a total of $117 and had three “zero days” during that time where I spent nothing. Week 1 Breakdown Entertainment/Eating Out/Drinking: $42 Transportation: $9 Groceries: $12 Miscellaneous: $54 (Bike repair-$40, Dentist-$14) Not Terrible, but Not Great I can’t exactly say…

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Top 10 Life Lessons I’ve Learned while Living Abroad

I’m coming up on my 10th year anniversary of living in Korea and along the way, I’ve learned a lot about myself, life and finances. I’m sure I would have learned these things, eventually while living in my home country just as a result of getting older and wiser, but I think there’s something about leaving everything familiar that can speed this process up. Top 10 Life Lesson I’ve Learned while Living Abroad 1. People…

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What I’m Buying: VDY (Canadian High Dividend Yield ETF)

The problem that’s not really a problem I’ve talked a bit about how I’ve been sitting on almost $10,000 of cash, waiting for the market to crash so I can buy. I actually like to have all my cash invested, along with around $30,000 on the margin, so that was $40,000 I didn’t have put to good use. Now, I do realize that having too much cash isn’t really a real problem, but it was…

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Money Diet Challenge

One of my Biggest Fears I’ll be leaving my home for the last 10 years, Korea and going to Canada in about a year from now. In preparation for this move, I’ve been officially on money-spending lock-down and am all about the frugal living, even more than I was previously. There is truly nothing scarier to me than arriving in Canada with basically nothing more than what I can fit in 2 suitcases, nowhere to…

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Going Home After Living Abroad

These days, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes to be successful in the transition back home after living abroad for so many years (10 in my case!). I don’t hate Korea, but I don’t love it either and sticking in a place for 10 more years just because I work 3 or 4 days a week and get 5 months of vacation in not a good way to live. It’s onwards and…

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Moving and Getting Rid of Stuff: Easier than Expected

I Love Simplicity–How Did I Accumulate so much Crap? Over my decade in Korea, I have accumulated as astounding amount of stuff, made all the easier by the fact that I now live in quite a large apartment and despite the fact that I’m actually all about the simplicityand I have this vision of myself as living out of a couple suitcases. It is not the reality that I live in however, and since I’m…

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Moving to Canada: Where to Live

I’ve been doing lots of research about housing options in Canada upon my return and there are a few options, some of which are definitely better than others. 1. Buy a small condo of some kind. I kind of like this option, but I don’t like the idea of buying in a city where I’m only going to school for 2 years and it’s uncertain if I can get a job there, or not. As…

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