Levels of Safety

Because I get paid for the work I do a month later, last Friday represented the last working day of 2009. Once my month end statement gets printed next week, I will know what my income was for the year for income tax purposes as well as if I will owe any taxes next spring. (I'm pretty sure the answer is yes)

I actually look forward to being able to get my taxes done. It is a form of closure for me on another working year (and it has been a tough one) ...yes I know I'm weird!

I also modify my quarterly tax payments according to what type of year I am having so that there would be minimal surprises in the spring. I have fine tuned it over the years such that I am pretty accurate. There is nothing that throws cash flow off like a gargantuan tax bill when it is within our ability to figure it out.

I also like to keep track of that throughout the year because how well my business does affects how much I contribute to RSPs. For the last few years, I haven't been because my goal was to match my registered amount with unregistered money instead as my focus has been on liquidity this year.

Now that the markets have somewhat bounced back, in a shorter time than I had expected, I have close to what I started with in my non registered account and some cash as well. I feel better about that.

So we end the year with:

• $5000 cash towards the main house roof
• $5000 cash towards cottage roof
• $5000 cash as backup
• $1000 regular working account
• $1000 as misc business account

For 2010, I would like to bump up the regular working account to $5000 and start a Float account as well, if possible, have $5000 in it too. I would feel closer to feeling "safer" with respect to liquid assets.

We currently are very real estate heavy in our assets and as we cannot eat our homes, just plain old money is good. This economic downturn has sent that message home to me.