Cool cash

I paid cash for some stuff at the store the other day, and the cashier held up each of the bills I gave her to the light. I used to be a cashier and used to have to know all the things you could do to check the authenticity of a bill, but I haven't been a cashier since the new bills came out (yeah, I handle money at my current job, but we don't check for counterfeits at this job...shhh!). Anyway, I just held up a $20 CDN bill to the light, and there is a watermark of the Queen on it. Cool!

Also on a financial note (ha, ha, ha, paper money = bank note, so I was also talking about a "note" above, ha, ha, ha), I just paid off our line of credit! Okay, it is true that it turns out I'm not eligible for OSAP funding for my next year of school (and that this is the first year that, going into the school year, I won't already have my school $ saved up from previous summer jobs) and therefore am going to be creating my own debt very soon, but that will be my debt, whereas this line-of-credit debt has been our debt (and at least I only need to borrow for one year of schooling and have paid my own way through the last seven...well, with a little help from my folks, who paid for my Israel trip and room-and-board during my first year of Bible college). We first took money out of our line of credit on March 21, 2001 to give us some $ to pay for our first car (Martin had a car before we got married, but he sold that before we got married, too)--a car which turned out to be a former taxi (we didn't know that when we bought it) and which, after a certain accident, needed to have many things replaced one after another (including the muffler, engine, brakes and transmission), leading to further withdrawals from our line of credit. The car is not the only thing we made withdrawals from that account for, but it's a good example; the line of credit came to be our emergency fund. Despite making regular payments into it (payments that were always greater than the minimum payment we were required to make), today is the first day after that initial withdrawal that our line of credit has been paid off. It is nice to have one source of debt completely looked after now. Now we can take the $ we were putting into the line of credit every month and put it instead towards paying off hubby's student loans faster, though I'm going to wait until September to implement that and use the $ to help save up for my textbooks for the coming school year in the meantime. As for my school $ for next year, I'm planning on getting that (or what part of it I can't look after through my summer job, anyway) through a withdrawal from hubby's RRSP under the Lifelong Learning Plan that we have here in Canada. Under the LLP, there is no interest to pay--well, you do end up losing what the $ would have earned if you had left it in the RRSP, but there are no fees associated with my having this $ out, anyway. There is also no withholding tax charged (withholding tax is what you normally get charged if you take $ out of your RRSP before the year you turn 65). You do have to pay it back, but the calculation that figures out when you have to start paying back the $ is based on when you were last a full-time student, and according to my current plan (in which this coming school year is my last year of full-time studies and I will be gainfully employed as a full-time teacher starting with the 2007-2008 school year), I don't have to start paying back the $ until 2009. My plan is that when I become gainfully employed after this last year of school, all the $ I earn will go first and foremost towards paying off this debt, so I should have no trouble paying off that debt even before 2009 (even if I don't become a full-time teacher as soon as I finish school and have to flip burgers at minimum wage until I get a teaching job, I should still be able to pay off this debt in less than a year after I hopefully graduate from my B.Ed. program in June 2007)...and the sooner the better so that that $ can go back to earning $ for hubby's retirement. Once I have my school debt paid off, I can help more with saving up the $ to buy out our car when our lease is up as well as saving for a down payment on a house/apartment/whatever of our own. Maybe even some furniture for our house (maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman). Then we can talk about kids and saving for retirement...yeah, there's always somewhere for the $ to go, but now that our line of credit is paid off, I'm feeling a little more like it's going good places and we are back on track. I feel like I should find a little (non-expensive) way to celebrate. Hmm, maybe I will bake something to share with hubby and the in-laws upstairs and my family and small group and...okay, gotta go, the oven's calling :).