AMEX Free Flight Promotion Ending May 31, 2009

I’ve been told that May 31, 2009 (Sunday) is the last day to take advantage of the American Express free flight promotion.

AMEX is offering a 25,000 welcome points along with waiving the $180 annual fee for the first year.  What’s the big deal?  The 25k points are transferable 1:1 to Aeroplan which equates to a free flight anywhere in North America!  So basically, a free vacation for nothing out of your pocket courtesy of American Express.

What’s the catch?  In order to receive the bonus, the card holder must spend at least $1,000 on the AMEX in the first 3 months.  For most of us with regular bills, spending $333/month on a credit card is pretty easy to achieve.

Check out the American Express free flight deal here.

Weekend Reading

Canadian Money Forum has a discussion on finding the best deals on phone, cable and internet.  If you’d like to particpate in the discussion, you can sign in here.

Squawk Fox lists 41 money tips from all sorts of bloggers.

The Strump writes about his new chip enabled visa card.

Canadian Capitalist details the Claymore gold bullion trust.

Jonathan Chevreau asks “are you better off alone?”

Have a great weekend guys and gals!

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Welcome to the Million Dollar Journey May 2009 Net Worth Update the mortgage pay down edition.

As I mentioned before, we are going to get aggressive in paying down the mortgage.  Having said that, we have dumped most of our savings onto the mortgage along with increasing our payment by about 50%.  The result is a 50% reduction in our mortgage balance with the end in sight.   The plan is to have the mortgage completely eliminated before our mortgage expires in a little under 2 years.

As with most equity investment accounts this past month, our portfolios have experienced a significant boost due to a rising market.  The 15%+ gain in the RRSP is due to a $5,000 contribution + gains.  The leveraged portfolio gains (+9%) however, are all organic.  I would actually be happy if we had another market correction as I still have quite a bit of cash to deploy (HELOC).

You may have noticed as well that our vehicles have been depreciating at an accelerated rate.  That’s intentional as I am looking to take the cars off the balance sheet soon.

Assets: $441,650.00 (-3.87%)

• Cash: $4,500 (+0.00%)
• Savings: $7,500 (-80.00%)
• Registered/Retirement Investment Account: $63,300 (+15.93%)
• Pension: $22,350 (+0.00%)
• Non-Registered Investment Account: $15,000.00 (+3.45%)
• Smith Manoeuvre Investment Account: $45,000 (+9.76%)
• Investment Property: $ 124,500 (+0.00%)
• Principal Residence: $275,000 (+0.00%) (purchase price)
• Vehicles: $9,000 (2 vehicles) (-10.00%)

Liabilities: $93,200.00 (-27.53%)

• Tax Liability: $3,000 (-0.00%)
• Investment Property Mortgage: $92,000 (-0.11%)
• Principal Residence Mortgage (readvanceable): $38,000 (-48.30%)
• HELOC balance: $52,200 (+0.19%)

Total Net Worth: ~$348,450.00 (+$17,600) (+5.32%)

• Started 2008 with Net Worth: $309,950.00
• Year to Date Gain/Loss: +12.42%

May has turned out to be another record breaking month for 2009 and has pushed the net worth gain for the year (thus far) into the double digits.

Some quick notes and explanations to net worth questions I get often:

The Cash

The $4,500 cash are held in chequing accounts to meet the minimum balance so that we pay no fees (accounting for regular bill payments). Yes, we do hold no fee accounts also, but I find value in having an account with a full service bank as the relationship with a banker can prove useful.

Savings

Our savings accounts are all held with PC Financial. We hold a fair bit of cash in case “something” comes up. The “something” can be anything that requires cash such as an investment opportunity that requires quick cash or maybe an emergency car/home repair.  We also need cash to cover any future tax liabilities.

Real Estate

Our real estate holdings consist of a primary residence plus a rental property. The value of the principal residence remains valued at the purchase price despite significant appreciation in the real estate market that we’re in.

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The other day I was chatting with a friend of mine. During the conversation I asked her if she was hoping to retire early. She said, “No way! I love my job too much.” It is a similar response I’ve heard from others. Even when I asked my spouse about his projected retirement date, he said somewhat too sincerely, “I enjoy what I do to much to to retire before I have to.”

Contrast this with someone who hates their job. “Not soon enough!” is the response I hear most often. Have you ever worked in a job where you counted down the hours and minutes until the end of your shift, every day? I have and it wasn’t fun. To work in a job like long term would have sucked the joy right out of my life.

Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of doing work we love in a bad economy. Sometimes we just have to take any job we can. There are many of us who are working in a job that’s just ok. It’s not terrible but it doesn’t fulfill us.

Here are some ways to know you’ve found your passion

1. Does the time seem to fly while your at work? When you’re doing what you love, you aren’t counting the hours. I have an uncle that works 12 hour days. I asked him how he did such long days, and he said, “It’s so much fun that time goes by so fast I’m surprised when it’s over.”
2. Do you love talking about what do you? Some people never talk about their work after hours. My brother is one of these. He works to live and has fun during his off hours. It’s not that he hates his job. He’s just done with it by the end of the day and would rather focus on the things he is passionate about after hours. Then there are people whose eyes light up when you ask them a question about their specialty. That’s a sign they’ve found their passion!
3. Do you feel more energized then drained at the end of a work day? There are tasks in life that drain our energy and tasks that restore our energy. Ideally, when you have found your passion, you’ll be spending about 80% of your time on tasks that give you energy. At the end of the day, with few exceptions, you’ll feel content, fulfilled and energized rather than drained and exhausted.
4. Does the idea of an early retirement not sound the least bit appealing? There are many people who can’t wait to retire so they can get on living the life of their dreams. Wouldn’t it be amazing to live the life of your dreams and continue to draw a salary from it! When you’ve found your passion, the salary is just the icing on the cake .. the icing that makes an even nicer eventual retirement more likely.

When you do what you love and love what you do, you’ll do it well. Your passion will show through in everything you do. Employers love people who are passionate about their work. Their enthusiasm is contagious and they bring a positive energy to their work environment. They enjoy what they do, do it well and are more often then not the ones who are promoted and become long term successful employees.

Have you found your passion? Do you love love your job? Share with us here how you found work that you enjoy.

Kathryn is a regular contributor on Million Dollar Journey and has a passion for personal finance.  She volunteers her time as a money coach meeting with ordinary Canadians, teaching them the basics of budgeting, no fee banking, saving for the future and other basics of personal finance.

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