Month in Review – May Edition

As I may have eluded to in a few of my other blog posts, I’m currently not working but will be starting my full time job in September. This has meant that I’ve had quite a lot of time to do a variety of activities, read a lot of books and think clearly about my goals. In the first of hopefully many Month in Review blog posts, I’ll be giving you a more personal look at some of things I’m getting up to, financial or otherwise.

Reading

One of the things I have never been able to do while at school is reading (for fun that is), and I’ve definitely hit the ground running this summer. With all the free time I’ve had, I’ve managed to read the following books and more, which have all been excellent I might add;

Superfreakonomics

Already a huge fan of Freakonomics which I read way back in the day it seems, Superfreakonomics was just as good. I have to say I don’t usually think like an economist but it’s nice every one in a while to read a book that will open my eyes to a much more logical (but emotionally lacking) way of thought. Your everyday economist probably doesn’t discuss prostitution but these guys sure do..

Wheat Belly

Reading this book has drastically changed the way I eat, going from my student diet of pasta basically every night to switching over to an almost wheat free diet (I have to drink beer still of course). I didn’t believe that I ate that much wheat all the time but this switch has opened my eyes to the fact that wheat has become so intertwined with our diets in general. The thought of Sunday bacon and eggs without toast seems crazy right? We will see how long this goes and it might just inspire a blog post in itself- #wheatfreesummerliving (had to make my own hashtag obviously).

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

This one is a massive book but also one of those terrifying all your food is killing you novels. Read this one on my way to New York City and back and it was once again an eye opener. My fam and I don’t usually eat a ton of processed foods to begin with but whatever I used to eat (mainly crackers) will definitely be cut out of my diet. It’s a great (but extreme) look at the food processing companies in North America and beyond and how scientifically engineered our packaged food really is.

Please note* I definitely got all of these from the library..saving myself a nice chunk of change.

TV Watching

I’ve told many people before that I have a serious problem when it comes to watching tv and movies, I watch way too much. This month was no different since I’ve had some time on my hands. For this month I’ve dabbled in a few shows to get caught up for the new season of episodes or whatever awesomeness has appeared on Netflix as of late.

• Veronica Mars
• The Sopranos
• Suits
• The Mindy Project

All of which are amazing and the majority of which I’ve streamed through Netflix which is my favourite way to watch TV.

Who’s pumped for Orange is the New Black?!

Music

I realized that a horrible tragedy had been occurring the 8 months while I was at school..I was not at all in search of great music. I can’t say that it’s been a vast improvement this month but something I love to do since I’m always in search of some great music. Lately it’s been all too tied into my tv and movie watching where I’ve found some awesome (often Indie music) in the background of some of my favourite TV shows, I find it’s a nice break from the Top 40 crap on the radio. I also recently bought music (it’s shocking if you really know me), Breathe – Mermaids Exist which is a band made up of 3 guys, 2 of which I grew up with. Loved the songs so I had to download and show my support, check it out!

Activities/Things to Do

A few of my friends and I have actually decided to start trying out some of the best patio’s in the city according to BlogTO that is. We’ve previously checked a few off the list unknowingly, I guess we have great taste, and will continue to check out the rest.

I was also waiting until the weather got nice before I made the trip down to the Rogers Centre for a Jays game (when they open up the roof). I just went to my first game this weekend and will for sure be going to many more games this summer.

Goals

When it comes to this blog there are so many things I want to do/change so we will see how far I get, maybe a layout change + a new logo? You’ll have to wait and see. Plus there’s all the behind the scene’s stuff that I need to learn more about and take greater advantage of. Google Analytics is a powerful tool that I use but definitely not the fullest, so i’ll be looking into that soon enough.

Financially-I will only be working odd jobs here and there so it’s hard to really set financial goals for the summer right now. Once I start my job in September I’ll start to really outline my goals when it comes to finances. I definitely want to learn a lot more about retirement savings (scary I know) and ETFs and other forms of investments. I’ve only had slight exposure to stocks in the past so I would love to expand beyond that. Oh and those nagging things called student loans, I’ll be working on paying those off soon.

Travel

I’ve already mentioned that I recently went to New York City and absolutely loved it. I also just booked my return trip flight to Greece this month and will be gone for over 3 weeks. Can’t explain how excited I am and we’ve already booked our first few nights in Mykonos. I made sure to book with my brand new Visa to get some miles as well as booked through Expedia to get additional Airmiles through Airmilesshops.ca. Hopefully I’ll be able to use those soon enough for my next vacay. It’s going to be an amazing trip, really freakin hot and of course a great way to finish off my summer before full-time work. I’ll make sure to keep everyone updated.

This month in review is the first but definitely not the last. In the future I may even throw in some numbers but we will see how it goes. Overall May has been awesome (and thankfully the weather is getting nicer as well), so I can’t wait for what the rest of the summer months have in store.

What did you do this month and what are your goals financial or otherwise?