Just In time

I had a slip of paper in my mailbox last week, notifying me that I had a parcel waiting for me at a nearby postal outlet.

I wasn't expecting anything, so I didn't rush over to get it. Yesterday, after I picked up DD2 from school, I thought I should drop in and pick up my parcel. Good thing I did it yesterday, because with the lockout today, I'm not sure I could even get it now.

To my surprise, it was a large-ish envelope containing some books.

Some time ago, I entered a giveaway from Darren over at One Year, One Canadian. In order to enter, I had to 'like' a picture of some old Canadian bills on Facebook. Well, Darren emailed me to say that I won the books from the contest.

(I stole the picture of the books from Darren's site.)

Another thing that will get done just in time is my taxes. I spent several hours yesterday compiling all the year long numbers for my business in order to take my info to the tax preparer. June 15th is the deadline for filing taxes for self-employed and businesses, so I'll actually do this one on time for once. The past few years, I have been very late with filing (I'm such a procrastinator) and it has cost me dearly. But no more. From now on, I will do them on time, every year. I fully expect to pay again this year, likely to the tune of about $4500. At least that's what I'm budgeting for. I really have no idea how much it will be from year to year, but at least it's a reasonable guess.

I learned a lot from yesterday's year long expense compilation. Some of the numbers just made me ill, and there are some huge changes going to be made.

Chants to self: "Spend less than you earn. Put 10 per cent of earnings in savings." This is my new mantra!

What have you learned about your spending lately?

Update: I just opened the book Chocolate Wars as I was eager to start reading it, and to my surprise, it was autographed by the author. Thanks again, Darren! :)