Whoa, it just dawned on me today that April is a three pay month for me.
WOO HOO!
I’m usually pretty good at knowing which months this happens in, however I totally forgot this time around. They happen about every 6 months or so for me as I’m paid every two weeks by my employer. Very very cool. Couple that with my income tax return this month, and I am a happy camper. This means that I’ll be able to pay a little bit more on the loan, or save a bit more in my car savings, most excellent.
Don’t you love it when you’re surprised by extra money coming in?
For the last two weeks I’ve been enjoying checking out my bank balance and seeing all sorts of money in there. That’s because I haven’t yet divvied up my income tax refund. It’s been a busy few weeks at work and I haven’t had a chance to do anything with it. Half of it is going towards my loan, and the other half to my savings account for the car payoff next year. And this past Friday was pay day, so the number’s even higher than before! Yowza. It’s always fun to see the numbers go up into 4 digits, especially when it used to be only in the 2-digits. 
Sadly this week I fear it’s time to start dividing up the money, so I’ll be a little sad to see the amount decrease, but it’s gotta be done.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post on how I could trade my Delta SkyMiles for Air Canada Aeroplan miles, but that it would cost me over US$200 to do so. I waffled on whether to do it, but in the end I decided to post the trade request. Since the trade would expire a month after I posted it, I figured I had nothing to lose, so I posted the trade. 20,000 Delta SkyMiles for 20,000 Aeroplan miles.
Wouldn’t you know it, this week the trade went through! Good thing it was this week to, as the Canadian dollar is almost at par with the US one, so the US$220 fee ended up costing me CDN$227 and change. Yeah!
I’m excited about this trade because it means that I’m more than halfway to a ticket to Europe, which is cool since I’m hoping to go there next year. OR, I’ve got a ticket to the West Coast, which is another option, although since I was just there in February I’ll probably hold on to them to use for Europe. Woo!
And as far as finding the $227 to pay for the trade, I’ve got $100 saved up in my Toonie fund, and I’ll take $100 from my income tax refund to finance the other portion. The rest will come from my next paycheque (this Friday), so it’s all covered.
Sure, I won’t use the Aeroplan points for a while, so some of you might be thinking why didn’t I wait, but in the end with something like a trade, I couldn’t be sure if anyone would accept the trade when I needed them. If it was a matter of relying on the airline to let me trade them, then sure, I would have waited. But since I had to find someone to trade with me, I thought it was better to do it as soon as I could, that way I’d have the points when I needed them.
It’s true! I went grocery shopping this week and a lot of the items I picked up cost $4:
It was strange to see all those multiples of 4 getting rung up at the cash register. Went to the pharmacy, and found the same thing:
- a pack of soap, $4
- vitamin supplement on sale, $4
- 2 toothbrushes on sale, $4
Have you ever noticed things like this in your shopping travels?
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