QUICK NOTE
I AM SO excited by Google Themes!!! I have Pebbles as my theme right now but Ninja is kind of cute as well.
Settings > Themes
And you can select the theme you like
DEBT FREE-NESS
I just cut myself a dividend cheque of $20,000 (wow am I a generous corporation OR WHAT?) and researched up on it. Guess there are no rules as to how much I can pay my shareholders (a.k.a. me) and as to how much. Since I own 100% of the shares, I just paid myself $20,000, and left $15,000 in the bank for now.
But I expect to get more money in there soon. I think I get paid today, or next week, another cheque for $16,000.
I may also withdraw another $15,000 in dividends this year, or all of it. I am going to see a tax professional (yes I caved, this is NOT the area to be frugal) in December to talk about my options of what I should do to close out my corporation if I were to move in 2009 and not want any revenue in 2009 to make my taxes more complicated if I move half of the year to the States.
But they may also tell me: Hey, no problem! Move to the States, you’ve gotta pay taxes to Canada anyway under a TN visa so….
We’ll see what they say.
OK, get to the point, so what?
The good news is with that $20,000 dividend, I am going to do the following:
1. Clear my debt of $13,000 (would the bank be surprised? I wonder….) and close out that account so that it’s one less bank to think about before I move
2. Clear my spending spree of ~$1600
3. Have around $6000 left over to put into savings to make me feel better so it can earn some interest because my savings has been DEPLETED lately from all the expenses I’ve had to cover in the mean time.
I also withdrew another $1000 from my ING savings account because I plan on leaving Canada with only 2 banks to deal with: retirement and regular banking. And then I’ll withdraw everything and close the regular banking one in a year or so after I’ve REALLY settled in the States.
And I’ll leave my retirement income bank open but consolidated with everything.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
Lol, I have pebbles, too! Matches my zen garden wallpaper.
I’m excited about Google themes, too! I’ve been going back and forth between Cherry Blossom and Pebbles. I have a feeling I’ll be changing it daily… ha. 🙂
My advice is to keep the canadian bank account open. It’s much easier to just withdraw cash when you’re home rather than dealing with exchanging money. It will also make life a lot easier if you ever move back to Canada.
A lot of S corps in the US taking out large distributions, not a bad thing at all…well the banker doens’t always think so…but anyways!
Congrats! Good for you!