Friday Five

And now, the Friday Five...

You have just won one million dollars:
1. Who do you call first?

Depending on the time of day, either one of my parents, my brother, drsnicket or Chantal.

2. What is the first thing you buy for yourself?

A life free of debt. Oh, you mean besides that? Hockey tickets for the rest of the season. In the club section.

3. What is the first thing you buy for someone else?

A car for my brother, probably.

4. Do you give any away? If yes, to whom?

Yep, aside from paying my debts (which is so giving away my money), I'd give a little something to each of my good friends, and donate some to the Canadian Cancer Society and Canadian Lung Association, as well as St. Mary's hospital in Montreal.

5. Do you invest any? If so, how?

Yep, some will go into my RRSP, I'll probably just SAVE a bunch of it, and invest in something safe with low interest, like GICs or INGs or something.

... all this reminds me that the Super 7 lotto is $30 million tomorrow (well, Friday) night. Hm. Could the Friday Five be prophetic? :)

Ack.

Running late sucks.

I'm feeling so bohemian like you!

What a day, what a day! And I am in a GREAT mood. While I overslept and rushed, I made my bus after missing a phone call, but I checked the message at school before class, and it made me laugh. Started my day out right.

I shall not bore you with class stuff, not even the part where we switched classrooms twice for Quebec Society, or how I actually wrote stuff before both my classes and during my break (I love love love bringing my laptop with me!). No, instead we shall go directly to the financial portion of our story.

As we know, I am Poor, but I have a piece of paper worth over $700 that I couldn't get a dime from.

So today, I stopped at the Bank of Montreal to see what it would take to redeem the loan certificate. Apparently, nothing. I sign it over to them, two weeks later, I get a cheque in the mail.

Yay them, but two weeks is a little long. Still, not too bad, and the BoM branch near my house is open Saturdays, so if my further research resulted in them being the best option, I could totally go there tomorrow and do the paperwork.

I decided to head up to the Desjardins bank where I make my Pascal payments to see when they could see me for an appointment to open an account with them and redeem the certificate. So I get there and I'm given a form that pretty much asks me every possible question you can think of related to finances. And this isn't even for the loan, this is just to open the account!

I filled out the first half, read down and basically said "Fuck this shit, I'm not giving them all this information just so I can get an appointment." I mean, they were asking for my landlord's name and how much rent I pay a month, and how long I've lived here. Not invasive enough? How about inquiring about my other financial institutions, my current bank account balance, and any credit card balances I have?

All. To. Open. An. Account.

So I stood up and said to the receptionist, "You know, I've changed my mind. The Bank of Montreal said they'd be happy to redeem my certificate without opening an account with them, and they certainly don't need me to provide this amount of information."

Anyways, I took off, daydreaming about telling Pascal that his bank sucks.

So I decided to head towards home and stop at a Laurentian Bank nearby, just to see what they have to say.

I love the Laurentian Bank.

I opened an account (the form was far less invasive and very simple to fill out) and I should have my money by Wednesday at the latest.

I can do that. I have to make a large payment on like, Sunday/Monday, but I should be able to manage that, and if not, I know my brother can lend me $100 until Wednesday.

So, all hail the Laurentian Bank of Canada! And let's all spit on Caisse Populaire Desjardins, 'kay?

It's going to be a tight week, but I'm feeling great, because things are totally working out.