The Skeptical Housewife

We Spend Too Much...

2011-05-29T11:00:00.000-06:00

Argh...I'm not even sure what our numbers are at the moment. With the cat emergency, and the windows, and the iPad I bought...I'm all muddled up. I'm afraid to look at my credit card statement. That's bad, I know.

On the positive side of things, I'm done my course, so I'm going to look into ways to make a little extra money. Also, I was able to set up our loan for our windows so that I can pay extra on it online, very easily. I like that. I already made a $500 payment (from our long-term emergency fund), to knock the interest down.

Need a Bigger Emergency Fund

2011-04-03T20:16:00.000-06:00

I don't think $1000 is gonna cut it. Too many emergencies cost more than that. Case in point? A situation tailor-made for using the emergency fund--my kitty was sick and I had to take him to the emergency vet one night last week. That little trip cost me over $700, and it didn't solve (or even actually find) the source of the problem. Then yesterday, I noticed a red hole beside his bum, so I took him to my regular clinic, and it turned out he needed surgery to remove the abscess. They did that yesterday (he's fine, but he doesn't like his cone), and that cost me over $600. So just like that, more than our emergency fund has gone poof. *sigh*

Oh Dear...

2011-03-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

We went to a home show the other weekend, and now we're getting new windows. Oops. However, we need them, and it will be SO nice to get rid of the crappy ones we've got now! It's going to cost us a pretty penny, though, as we're getting the best windows we can (they have a lifetime warranty on all the important bits...what's not to love?). We're replacing four--the ones in the kitchen, living room, our bedroom, and spare bedroom. Pretty much all of the upstairs ones except for the bathroom and one kitchen window. I'd like to do the other kitchen window, too, but it was already expensive enough and we got a deal for doing 4, so we went with 4. I'd also like to do the bathroom window (heck, I'd like to do the whole house!), but my husband says we can't do that until we renovate the bathroom. Something about rot.

So, we have to finance the windows, because they're going to cost us $12,500. I'm uncomfortable with taking on that much debt (especially because we're financing it over 10 years, because the payment is so manageable), but I'm trying to look at it as an investment. Not only will it increase the value of our house, but it should cut our heating costs. We lose a LOT of heat through the windows. I can feel a draft from the living room window even though it doesn't open. Besides, the house needs quite a few renovations, and it's nice to finally be doing something inside the house. I'm actually really excited about it. Just not the cost. Although I feel a bit more pressure to try to make money somehow.

Anyway, I thought I'd finally do an update post. So last time, our numbers were:

1. pay off my credit card-$170.12
2. replace $708.25 of my personal savings
3. increase short-term emergency fund to $2500 (so $1500 to go)
4. save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5186.19, so $14,813.81 left to go)
5. pay off mortgage (as of January 28, our balance is sitting at $95,053.57)

And now:

pay off my credit card-$170.11
replace $460.76 of my personal savings.
increase short-term emergency fund to $2500 (so $1500 to go)
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $4276.15, so $15,723.85 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of March 11, our balance will be sitting at $94,694.78)

I did finally send off our insurance forms for reimbursement for medical expenses, so I'm just waiting for that to pay off my credit card. Also, for some reason the bank gave me back a penny, so that's why it's different by 1 cent.

For my personal savings, it felt to me like I wasn't really able to add much to it. There was a bit of interest, a bit from extra money we had after the bills were paid (but not more than $100, I didn't think), a cheque for $22.08 from Co-op (a grocery store that sends you a cheque every year if you spend enough there), a bit from having too much (if such a thing is possible) left in the account where I squirrel away money for our yearly expenses...I think that's about it. I guess it added up.

I think the increase to the short-term emergency fund is on hold for now. It doesn't seem as important in light of the other things we've got going on, although maybe I'll start sticking $25 a paycheque in there or something.

The long-term emergency fund has gone down because I took our window deposit out of it. And that's why the short-term savings doesn't seem as important--I'd much rather replenish this one as soon as possible. On top of that, we want to do balloon payments for (at least) the first two payments of our loan, to cut the interest down quickly. There is no penalty for paying it early (that would have been a deal-breaker for me). So that will mean we need to save more. Less eating out, I guess! Which is okay because my friend and I are trying a gluten-elimination diet for a month, to see if we feel better afterward. So I wouldn't know what to eat at a restaurant, anyway.

To Update or Not to Update?

2011-03-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

I want to do an update post, but my husband gets paid on Friday, so I'm thinking maybe I should wait. But I don't really know how much of a difference it will make.

Some quick things:

we got our new mortgage statement, and it turns out that we owe a few hundred dollars more than I thought. Could be worse, I guess.
I thought we'd have to pay taxes this year (for the first time ever!), but when I claimed the Management course I'm taking, we'll actually get a few hundred dollars back, so that's good. I'm just waiting to see how much he's paid in group insurance premiums, and maybe we can claim a little bit more. I don't think so, though, but I want to make sure.
my husband won $332 in the payday pool at work, which I'm thinking I'll put directly in our long-term emergency savings so that it doesn't just disappear. He likes this idea, as well.
we're planning to get new windows, and that means $$$. We might make it up eventually in heating costs, though. Our current windows are pure crap.
I'm stressed about my cat, because I suspect (oh hell--I know) that his teeth are bad and he'll need them pulled. This will also cost $$$, not to mention he will NOT approve. We got the other one's teeth done last year, and it cost about $2500 all together. But I don't want my baby to be in pain.

That's it for now. More later.

I Need Catchier Titles

2011-02-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

But I can't think of any. *sigh* "Beginning of February Update" just doesn't really have that je ne sais quoi, you know? Oh well.

Last time:

pay off my credit card-$346.31 (approx.)
replace $1031.17 of my personal savings
increase short-term emergency fund to $2500 (so $1500 to go)
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5177.40, so $14,822.60 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of January 14, our balance is sitting at $95,290.11)

This time:

pay off my credit card-$170.12
replace $708.25 of my personal savings
increase short-term emergency fund to $2500 (so $1500 to go)
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5186.19, so $14,813.81 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of January 28, our balance is sitting at $95,053.57)

My credit card will be paid off when I get reimbursed for my medical expenses. I just have to stop procrastinating, get the forms ready (i.e. in the envelope), and mail them away. But anyway, while I still owe that amount, there's not much I can do about it until I get reimbursed, so I just moved on to the next item on the list.

I feel a bit ambivalent about the increase to the short-term emergency savings account, but I really think it will be beneficial. I just don't want to do it, haha.

I'm just guessing on the mortgage at this point. I think it's pretty accurate, at least as far as extrapolating last year's statement. But I hope we get this year's statement soon!

I just have to talk about the amazing deal I got through Groupon. They had sent me a $10 off coupon if I bought something before February something-or-other, and one of the deals that came my way was Sunday brunch, for two people, at my second-favourite brunch spot, for $20! With the $10 off coupon, it only cost me $10, until I bought another one later because it was SUCH a good deal. Usually, brunch at that place is $20 per person (and that seems to have gone down...I swear it was $24 for awhile there). I was so excited about that, I just had to share!

Progress...

2011-01-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

Last time:

pay off my credit card-$741.27 (approx.)
replace $1031.17 of my personal savings
increase short-term emergency fund to $2500 (so $1500 to go)
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5177.40, so $14,822.60 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, our balance is sitting at $95,526.50)

And this time:

pay off my credit card-$346.31 (approx.)
replace $1031.17 of my personal savings
increase short-term emergency fund to $2500 (so $1500 to go)
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5177.40, so $14,822.60 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of January 14, our balance is sitting at $95,290.11)

Once I get my interest payment (around the end of the month, so not too much longer), and get reimbursed for some medical expenses (which I have yet to mail), my credit card should be paid off. Yay! Then I can work on getting my savings back to where they should be.

My husband didn't get paid as much as I thought for the last two pay periods. I thought he'd get quite a bit because he did a fair bit of overtime, but he also got out half a day early on both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, so I guess that counteracted it. At least this pay period had a little extra (just not as much as I thought).

I'm guessing on the mortgage, but I think it's accurate as far as extrapolating the statement we had. I figured that the principal payment went up by $0.15 every two weeks, so I used that. I think we should get the new statement around the beginning of February, so hopefully I'm right and I can see how accurate it actually is. I hope if it's not accurate, the actual amount is in our favour, and that we owe less than I thought instead of more!

New Year Update!

2011-01-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

In my pre-Christmas update, our numbers looked like this:

replace $1267.44 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5170.67, so $14,829.33 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 3, our balance is sitting at $95,998.83--I missed the November 19 mortgage update)

And for right now, they look like this:

pay off my credit card-$741.27 (approx.)
replace $1031.17 of my personal savings
increase short-term emergency fund to $2500 (so $1500 to go)
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5177.40, so $14822.60 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, our balance is sitting at $95,526.50)

I don't think it will take me that long to pay off my credit card, just because I'm expecting an interest payment at the end of January. Plus, I think my husband's paycheque will be more than I planned for, due to his raise, which I haven't got all figured out yet, and overtime he worked over New Year's. I have made a few changes to our goals. I figured new year, new goals. They're similar, though. I've long thought that we'd be better off with more in our short-term emergency savings, so I asked my husband what he thought would be a good amount, and he suggested $2500. I think that will do until we have all of our long-term emergency savings built up.

As for our mortgage, the last entry in the statement we got last year is for December 31, 2010. So I don't know what our mortgage amount will be now, until we get our next statement. I have no idea when we received it last year. I suppose I could extrapolate.

New Year's Resolutions--What Are Yours?

2011-01-01T22:11:00.000-07:00

I haven't hammered out the details of mine yet, but I know I need to work on the areas of weight loss, finances, and cleaning my house. Of course, the only two that pertain to this blog are the latter two (although if I ate less, I might spend less! LOL!).

Anyway, back to the resolutions. I'm going to focus on the financial ones here:

Go see a lawyer about adding my name to the title of the house. This has just become extra important recently, for reasons which, sadly, I don't dare go into here. I learned the hard way on my other blog that the walls have ears, so to speak. But it involves the laws in my province and a new addition to the family (no, not a baby).
pay back my personal savings
pay off my credit card, making sure that it's ME that's paying for my husband's Christmas presents (this is why I'm not doing an update yet...I can't bear to take the money out of my account to pay for this! Plus I don't get my interest until the end of January).
build up our short-term emergency fund to...I don't know yet. $2000? $5000?
Maybe build up the cushion in our chequing account to $2000 (so $5000 total that we don't touch). I don't know if this is necessary, though. I already boosted it up to $4000 total just today (remember that I have to keep a minimum of $3000 in there at all times in order to avoid paying bank fees). The $1000 cushion might be enough.
If there's anything left, use it to build up the long-term emergency fund.
Plan for and be ready for Christmas by December 1 next year--I intend to shop all year for next Christmas. I say this every year, though, and I never, ever do it. Someday I will!!!

Ack!

2010-12-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

I just checked my credit card balance. It's ugly--over $1000! But part of that is because I can't access my bank account at the moment (lost my card), so I'll just be putting the entire amount in my bank account (minus my car insurance) on my credit card when I can access my account again. Next year, I need to plan better, though. For realz this time! Luckily, I will get interest around the end of January that I can use, if I must, to pay for some of this Christmas debauchery.

I couldn't handle it anymore, so I did the banking. It's not too bad. Especially considering that tomorrow is payday. We're only missing about $111 of the emergency fund at the moment. There won't be any other savings until my credit card is paid off, though. Hopefully that won't take too long.

Christmas Is Expensive

2010-12-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

I did end up buying my husband a PS3 for Christmas. I hope he likes it. I used my PC Points, and I also got a free $25 card (it was a promotion), so I'm going to put that in his stocking so he can use it towards a game. And I still need a few more stocking stuffers. And I need to buy presents for my dad, brother, and grandma. I just grabbed the first gift basket with bath products I saw for my mother, but that's what she wanted. It was pretty cheap, though. I feel a bit guilty about that. For my dad, I'm thinking one of those coin sets, and my brother wants a snowcat ride. I don't know what to get my grandma, but it won't be anything major. She'd be horrified if I spent too much.

I don't have any idea what my husband bought me, but when he told me how much was in his savings account now, I was shocked. I haven't done the banking in case I see something I shouldn't. I already saw a Bed, Bath, and Beyond bag, and worried that he bought me plates for Christmas (we were looking at plates there recently), but it sounds like he spent way, WAY more than plates would cost. I'm kind of horrified at what I think he spent, actually. I can't imagine what it was--all I want is a Wii!!! I don't think it's a Wii, though. I don't think I'll be doing a real update until after Christmas, when I see what the damage has been. I lost my bank card and have been a little too free with my credit card lately, too. Okay, I was getting a little too free with my credit card before I lost my bank card. I foresee a minor setback as far as my goals go.

I am just terrible at figuring out what to give people.

Pre-Christmas Update

2010-12-05T14:51:00.000-07:00

I say that in case I have to put some money back into the household chequing account. I thought I'd have to already, though, but I just did the budget and we're doing better than I thought. So that's nice. This is my update as things stand today.

Last time:

replace $1665.82 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5164.30, so $14,835.70 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of November 5, our balance is sitting at $96,470.56)

And this time:

replace $1267.44 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5170.67, so $14,829.33 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 3, our balance is sitting at $95,998.83--I missed the November 19 mortgage update)

Yay! Three out of three! I also have a survey cheque to put in the bank still, plus a Christmas cheque from my grandma that should arrive in the mail tomorrow. I might transfer my Paypal funds to my account, too. I was going to wait until I had $150 in there so I didn't have to pay the 50¢ fee, but I bought fudge online (which I haven't received yet), and that ate up some of it. So maybe I'll just swallow the fee.

I'm a bit stressed out about Christmas shopping. I have no real idea what to get anyone. I have to shop for my husband, my dad, my mom, my brother, my grandma, and my stepson and his girlfriend. I think that's everyone. The rest of my husband's family stopped exchanging gifts a few years ago. I've been saving my PC Points to buy a Wii, but I think my husband wants a PS3, so maybe I'll put them towards that, instead. I still want a Wii, though, haha. I have enough for a Wii, but only for about half of a PS3.

I'd write more but my cat is biting my fingers as I type. I think that means I have to stop and pay attention to him.

This and That

2010-11-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

I don't have an update, but I missed this blog. So I thought I'd write about whatever's been going on lately.

My husband got a raise, which is nice. Two dollars an hour, which doesn't sound like much, but every little bit helps. I guess it will probably add up. I don't think we'll see it until the paycheque after this one, though. He also got a few hours of overtime that should be time-and-a-half, which is especially nice because...we spent too much this pay period. It's been cold--REALLY cold. Too cold to go to the store and buy groceries on Sunday. So we ordered in Chinese food instead, and it was really expensive. Plus we had our anniversary on the 17th, so that was a rather expensive dinner out, too. We weren't doing too bad until the Chinese food, though. I still don't have enough groceries. I can't deal with grocery shopping right now.

I had my first appointment with the psychiatrist a couple of days ago. She thinks my main problem is anxiety, but that and depression go together anyway. So she put me on a new medication, and I'm adjusting to it at the moment. I think it's going pretty well, but I keep worrying that it will start causing bad side effects like the last one did. But that's probably just me freaking myself out.

Perhaps if it starts working and I stop feeling overwhelmed with everything, I can get back to cleaning and organizing the house. I was thinking maybe I should try a modified version of the Flylady system. What I mean is that I'd have a "shiny sink" in every room. So say in the bedroom, the "shiny sink" could be the bed. At least one part of the room would be tidy with this idea!

Okay, that's all I've got for now. Hey, I just realized it's payday tomorrow. Sweet.

Here We Go Again...

2010-11-12T10:44:00.003-07:00

Last time:

replace $2103.66 of my personal savings [EDIT: I realized today--the day after I originally wrote this--that it would make more sense to pay one of the bills next pay period, which gives me an extra $130 to put towards my savings. So now, this one would be, "Replace $1973.66 of my personal savings." Much better! :o)]
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5164.30, so $14,835.70 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of October 22, our balance is sitting at $96,706.20)

And this time:

replace $1665.82 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5164.30, so $14,835.70 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of November 5, our balance is sitting at $96,470.56)

We managed to not eat out for one weekend this past pay period, which is a big deal for us, because we usually eat out multiple times on the weekend. That made a big difference. This pay period contains our anniversary, though, and that's the only time I ever get to go to a fancy restaurant! I can't decide on one, though. We'll see how it goes. I was hoping to get a Groupon, Dealfind, or Teambuy deal on some upscale restaurant, but so far I haven't had much luck. I did get one for a place that I'd like to try, but that I don't really consider anniversary-level. I missed one I wanted because I hemmed and hawed for too long, too! But I wasn't 100% sure about it, so...

It all feels like it's going so slow. I'm still trying to figure out a good way (or ways) to work from home. I've found a few possibilities, but with the most promising one, I'm having technical difficulties.

I'm also starting to think about Christmas shopping. Ack.

Somewhat Overdue Update

2010-10-31T23:13:00.004-06:00

Last time:

replace $2271.46 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5157.66, so $14,842.34 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of October 8, our balance is sitting at $96,941.69)

And this time:

replace $2103.66 of my personal savings [EDIT: I realized today--the day after I originally wrote this--that it would make more sense to pay one of the bills next pay period, which gives me an extra $130 to put towards my savings. So now, this one would be, "Replace $1973.66 of my personal savings." Much better! :o)]
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5164.30, so $14,835.70 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of October 22, our balance is sitting at $96,706.20)

I'm not entirely pleased with the amount that went back towards my personal savings this pay period. I went crazy and paid off most of the amounts that had crept up on my credit card (a few extra chiropractor appointments because I hurt my back again, plus my course extension, which is currently doing me no good because I still can't concentrate), which meant that a good chunk of change had to go back into the emergency savings. This left us with very little towards the goals.

The amount that did go towards my savings came from a bit extra I had in my chequing account from last pay period (27.49), the amount I wanted to spend on sushi on Friday but didn't ($14.54--this comes out of my spending money and not our "restaurant" budget), interest ($29.38), the tiny amount we had left over in the budget (it was only $21.89!), and $74.50 from our restaurant budget because we managed to not eat out this weekend (it would have been $100 but for my husband paying the lunch truck on Friday). Not eating out on the weekend, for us, is huge. Especially since my dad even called and tried to strong-arm me into agreeing to go out for lunch today, offering to pay half and then getting belligerent when I still said no. Weirdo. Anyway...

My husband is owed about $400 for work he did for extended family on previous weekends. On the one hand, that will definitely help, but on the other, I'm probably going to want to use it to help bump up the cushion in the chequing to $4000 instead of $3500. So it still won't go towards the above, "bulleted" goals.

Ah, well. That's where we're at right now.

Ooooh...Shiny!

2010-10-28T15:16:00.004-06:00

Goodness, it's been a bit dull around here lately, hasn't it? I didn't want to update last week, because all I had to update was the mortgage, and that made me sad (not that the mortgage is going down, but that I had no other changes). I'll probably be doing an update post either tonight or tomorrow (♪♫payday!♪♫). EDIT: I'll be doing an update post on or around November 1, instead. By then the interest will be showing up in the accounts.

Meanwhile, I've been busying myself trying to figure out a way I can work from home. I miss making money, dammit! I've had a few suggestions from some very helpful online acquaintances, but I always seem to get hung up on some aspect of something somewhere.

For example, one such acquaintance suggested designing products to sell on Cafepress and Zazzle. I like the concept--I really do--but I have two problems: I don't know what to design, although even I can come up with a few ideas, I'm sure; and...I have no idea how to use any graphics programs. Seriously--I don't get it. At all. The same acquaintance suggested using free software like GIMP, so I downloaded it.

No. Idea.

I think maybe something went wrong with the download (I think my computer blocked part of it or something), because three boxes came up, none of which seemed to be workable. Otherwise, I guess I could try a tutorial. Maybe that will help.

Another online acquaintance pointed me toward a Virtual Assistant website, with a forum to help those starting out. It's huge, and quite overwhelming. So far, I haven't really found anything too helpful there, but I've barely scratched the surface. It looks if I really wanted to get something out of it, I could order their startup system...for $1000. Yeah. Colour me skeptical (look at my blog title, after all...I mean, really).

Then, somehow, I came across this, which looks like the most promising thing so far. But you know that old, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," adage? That's a bit of a red flag in my mind. Plus, if it is legitimate, I don't know if I can get all the requirements fulfilled. I mean, they want my credit score (hmmm, maybe that should be another red flag)! I don't even know my credit score. Plus they want three references. I haven't worked in two years. Bit of a problem there...

I also signed up with Elance previously. I don't really "get" that, either. I don't understand what you're supposed to say in your proposal, and I don't understand what their budget means. Plus, somewhere else, I saw an Elance position offering just over $1 an hour, "to start." Now is it just me, or is that kinda like slave labour? Are they all like that? I can't tell, because all I've seen on the site so far is their overall budget.

There's a couple other places I signed up for, I suppose without really understanding what they're all about. I forget what they were called...Leapforce was one, I think, and the other...I don't know, but I think it also started with an "L." I got those from Penny Saver. I guess I could try harder to understand what it is they want. I don't think I ever heard back from either of them. Maybe I just signed up for Leapforce, and not the other one. Still...

I'm just finding it all so confusing! I'm a pretty intelligent person (*toot, toot!*), so I don't know why I'm finding all the work-at-home stuff so hard. Maybe I'm overthinking it. I know that for some of it, I'm overwhelmed by all the stuff that I'd need to do (marketing? Networking? Business cards? Business plans? Eeek!), or buy (headphones, a foot pedal (if I want to do transcription, but if I did I'd also need a course of some kind, I think), a new computer (probably...my poor little old laptop has seen better days, plus I don't know if it has all the bells and whistles it would need for some of these jobs), a bigger house with a room I could make into an office...haha) to get started.

I'll let you know if I figure any of it out.

Ah, Might As Well

2010-10-15T10:39:00.003-06:00

Do an update, that is. They make me happy...well, as happy as I get these days, anyway ("This IS mah happy face!"). So last time, the financial situation looked like this:

replace $2563.65 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5157.66, so $14,842.34 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of September 24, our balance is sitting at $97,177.03)

And this time, it looks like this:

replace $2271.46 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5157.66, so $14,842.34 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of October 8, our balance is sitting at $96,941.69)

Looks like yet another "two out of three ain't bad" situation.

My husband was reimbursed for the expenses of a course he took for work, so that allowed me to bump up the short-term emergency fund to $1000 (from $500), as well. However, some of that will be gone as fast as we got it, because he told me last night that a few of his more expensive tools crapped out recently. Still, just having that account a bit higher makes me feel more secure.

Also, we have a variable mortgage at the moment, because interest rates were so low, but they seem to be slowly creeping back up. I don't like this turn of events, especially because this rise in interest rates is NOT reflected in my "high"-interest savings accounts. Hmph.

I've been in the mood to go on a trip again. I miss New Orleans, I find. Why, I don't know. I didn't think I even liked it that much, but I guess it grew on me. I did love Biloxi. I really did. It's not that far from New Orleans. But I keep thinking of swimming in the pool in the courtyard of our hotel. It was so perfect. I'd also like to do a cruise. Maybe I just want to escape. Escaping sounds nice. Or maybe I just want warm weather. It's snowing here today. First time this year. We've been spoiled--it's been quite nice up to now. Well, except for summer. We didn't really get one this year. But September and October were pretty nice.

ETA: I think I also need to work on raising the cushion in the chequing account from $500 to at least $1000. The reason for this is that I occasionally have an uncontrollable urge to pay bills and move money ahead of time, when my husband's pay is shown in his account, but not "officially" in there yet. This resulted in us going below the all-important $3000 that we have to keep in the account to not pay bank fees, by $8 last night. I'm hoping it wasn't long enough to trigger the bank fees, though, but it could have been. I won't know until the beginning of November.

Or Not

2010-10-13T17:38:00.002-06:00

I am having a bad reaction to the antidepressants. They caused a major panic attack and for my heart rate to rise too high. Good thing I realized that the way I was feeling was too awful, even though panicky feelings are a common side effect (just not to that extent, I guess), and went back to the doctor on Monday.

I will be back with regularly scheduled posting when I feel better. I want to do an update soon.

Socialized Medicine for the Win!

2010-10-08T18:09:00.003-06:00

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I have been struggling with depression. So I finally decided that yes, it IS that big a deal, and yes, I should do something about it.

So I found a counsellor online and went to her yesterday. She was pretty good, and I was planning to continue going to her, although it would have created a financial burden ($140 per session! And she wanted me to come once a week! That's $560 a month!). I thought it was something I really needed and that I didn't really have any alternatives.

However, I went to the doctor today to see about going (back) on antidepressants. He was great--he was really helpful and didn't brush me off like I'd feared. He did prescribe them, and he's also going to arrange for me to see a psychiatrist. They, unlike psychologists and counsellors, are covered by our provincial health plan. Which means there will be no money out-of-pocket for me! I am so relieved.

The only thing that sucks is that I will have to contact the counsellor and tell her that I won't be coming back after all. The one visit I did have will mostly be covered by my husband's benefits (up to $300 per year with a deductible of $25), so that will be okay.

I'm so happy to finally be getting treatment! For free! (To me...I know it's not "really" free). I think I've been depressed on-and-off (I suspect always just under the surface) for a very long time...probably since I was a teenager.

Just Another Update

2010-10-01T08:35:00.005-06:00

I didn't think I'd have anything to put towards the goals this pay period, but somehow I do. Here's hoping I didn't forget something. Anyway, moving on--last time:

replace $2768.27 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5149.20, so $14,850.80 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of September 24, our balance is sitting at $97,177.03)

And now:

replace $2563.65 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5157.66, so $14,842.34 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of September 24, our balance is sitting at $97,177.03)

Aww, I didn't quite make a trifecta! But two out of three ain't bad. ;o)

I keep feeling guilty about paying my savings back, even though a big chunk of the amount that's missing came directly from my savings and got put in my husband's chequing. I think I really have to just get over it. Hopefully it will be paid back soon, and I can move on.

I'm also, all of a sudden, feeling a bit guilty about staying home, even though my husband is fine with it and we're doing all right, and even though my back was in so much pain for at least a year and a half that I couldn't have worked even if I wanted to (which I didn't), and even though I'm taking a course, doing all the financial stuff, cooking, (some) cleaning--I admit it's not my strong point, online surveys, errands, etc. to keep myself busy. And even though I have two other invisible health issues that make it difficult (but not impossible, I admit) to work.

Because of that comment that girl made, I started to wonder if it's a general view that society has of housewives, and it appears to be so. There is such a huge level of vitriol and contempt, that I find it absolutely bizarre! Why does anyone care? I don't care what other people do. I can't imagine why anyone would. But then again, I disagree with our society on the huge focus on work--if you don't have to, and you don't want to, why would you? Why should you? Because it makes you a better person? I doubt it. There seems to be this focus on work just for work's sake. Maybe it's that Protestant work ethic, still hanging on. It's not like that everywhere--European workers in general have a lot more vacation time than Canadians or Americans--around 6 weeks to our 2 weeks, in a lot of cases. That's just one example.

Not that women can win no matter what we do. According to general society, stay-at-home wives without kids are lazy and useless, stay-at-home moms are just making excuses and setting a bad example for their children, working moms are neglecting their kids, and working women without kids have it a bit easier except for all the people telling them they should have kids. I don't believe any of this, by the way, it just seems to be a general societal attitude towards women. The saddest part is that the ones who are the hardest on women are other women.

Anyway, all that said, I would like to find a job where I could work from home, simply because some extra money would be nice. Unfortunately, they're not too easy to come by, which is too bad because it has it's advantages (less carbon footprint, less overhead if the company doesn't need an office, etc.). Right now I just want to finish my course before anything else, though.

Dealing With Intolerance of My Housewife Status

2010-09-28T19:39:00.009-06:00

I get a lot of inane comments about the fact that I'm a stay-at-home wife without children. Things like, "Oh, I would be so bored!" and, "So you get to sit on the couch all day eating bonbons?" Sometimes I get, "Oh, I'm so jealous!" which is fine with me, because it's what I would have said before I got to do it! And it doesn't imply a judgement on my character for choosing not to work outside the home for the time being. But the first two? Not so much.

A couple came over here recently to visit us. They are both in their early 20s. He's always been off-and-on rude to me, and unfortunately I let it slide because I didn't know what to say. And a lot of the time he just seemed to be joking. But now, his girlfriend seems to think it's okay to treat me with something less than respect, even in MY own house! She even did it the very first time I met her.

While visiting us sometime last week, my husband said something about my blogging. She said, "What do you blog about? You don't DO anything!" and you know, the sad truth is, I've been battling first the back issue, and then depression for some time now, and I don't do much. In fact, I was reading through my poorly-named "everyday" blog (poorly named because I rarely write in it), and it's so evident to me now how far my mood has tanked since a few years ago. But be that as it may, I don't believe that it's any of this young lady's business, or that I need to explain myself to her. Still, I've run into this attitude before.

So, I decided to look for ways to improve my own reactions, because dealing with people treating me like a doormat is a recurring theme in my life. I've found a few possibilities:

"I beg your pardon?" (said in a cold voice). I don't know if I can muster up a cold voice, though. This one's for anything offensive--questions, remarks, whatever.

"I beg your pardon? I know I didn't hear you correctly." This one is similar, but doesn't require a cold tone of voice. But I can think of at least one problem with it off the top of my head--it opens you up to, "What do you think I said?" and then what do you say?

"What do you mean by that?" (for rude comments). I guess the idea here is to make the perpetrator uncomfortable at having to explain themselves. They might be used to people just letting it slide.

"How kind of you to take an interest in my/our affairs/finances/health/marriage/whatever, but you needn't worry/be concerned. I'm/we're doing fine." (in response to impertinent questions).

I think any of these could be helpful in many different situations. When I think about it, I've heard people throughout my life respond this way to others, and I've admired the graceful way they handled it. But it never registered that I could do it, too.

More specific:

"I blog about the rude things people say to me." (to the "what-do-you-blog-about" comment mentioned above). My friend suggested this one to me after the fact. If only I had thought of it then!

Update Sort Of a Little Bit

2010-09-25T12:19:00.003-06:00

Last time:

replace $3000 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5149.20, so $14,850.80 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of September 10, our balance is sitting at $97,412.22)

And this time:

replace $2768.27 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5149.20, so $14,850.80 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of September 24, our balance is sitting at $97,177.03)

I am torn, once again, about the amount of money we keep in my husband's chequing and short-term emergency savings accounts. I've got this feeling like we never have enough money. It isn't true, but somehow it feels like it is. So I've been toying with the idea of bumping it up a bit. Maybe an extra $500 in each account. But it will take time, of course, and it will detract from the above goals. And will it ever be enough to satisfy me? I think there would be a number that would, but I bet it's somewhere in the thousands. $5000? $10,000? $20,000? I don't know.

Sometimes I feel selfish for putting paying my own account back first, but I shouldn't because I actually didn't! The only reason it's this low in the first place is because I took over $1500 out of it to bump up my husband's chequing account to $3000, so that we didn't have to pay bank fees anymore. Maybe I should just focus on these goals and forget about having more "available" money for now. It does feel good to see it get closer to the minimum that I feel comfortable with.

I guess I'll just do whatever feels right for now.

Move Over, Martha—There’s a New Game in Town

2010-09-19T19:26:00.001-06:00

We have two apple trees in our yard, and I have been working with this year's apple harvest because I was determined to not let them ALL go bad this year! So I have pics for you of all my baking. :o)

First I tried my hand at apple cake (which was delicious!):

And then this lovely apple crisp (I highly recommend that anyone who tries this recipe cut the sugar by at least 1/4 cup):

Then, the next day, I decided to make apple butter. This involved peeling a LOT of apples! Two ice cream buckets full, actually. I don’t think I’d do it again unless I had peeling/coring/chopping help. Although I did use an apple corer/wedger, so that helped.

This is it after it had only been cooking for a little while:

And much later (I used a hand blender to make it smoother):

I still don’t think it’s as thick as apple butter is supposed to be…and I cooked it for a loooong time!

Then I decided to try my hand at making apple pie from scratch for the first time, and this was the result. On my other blog, a few people said it looked great, like a store-bought pie, but in reality the crust was too hard and not flaky. It was still edible, though. I’ll have to try again some time:

Too bad I didn’t take a picture of all the apples before I started! I had two big boxes full. I still have half a box full. I’m planning another pie, and then…I dunno. I did end up making another apple cake, and another apple crisp. I used only 3/4 c. of sugar in the second apple crisp, and I melted the butter before I mixed it together because last time I had trouble making it crumbly. But I kind of burned the top and sides a little bit. I was able to pick most of it off and it’s okay, though.

I still ended up throwing a full-to-the-brim shopping bag full of apples out, though! They were too soft. A few people mentioned (after I did that) that there were still things that could be done with them, but they were vague and didn’t tell me what those things were! Anybody know?

Ho-Hum, Another Update

2010-09-17T00:35:00.002-06:00

*Yawn* I'm writing this at 12:35 a.m. Why? Because that's how I'm rolling tonight.

Moving on, last time the financial situation looked like this:

save an extra $500 as a cushion in the chequing account, making the total $3500-DONE!!!
replace $3220.68 of my personal savings (from interest and budget leftovers from the Sept. 3 paycheque)
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5149.20, so $14,850.80 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of August 27, our balance is sitting at $97,647.27)

And this time:

replace $3000 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5149.20, so $14,850.80 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of September 10, our balance is sitting at $97,412.22)

I took the money to add to my savings account from our yearly fund, which still had too much in it. But now I think I better leave it alone for awhile. It is payday today, but I'm feeling insecure about moving any money to my savings, so instead, I moved the amount I'd like to move to my savings, to our short-term emergency fund account. If we manage not to spend over our budget within the next two weeks, then I'll move it to my account. And if we spend under our budget, I'll be able to move even more! That's what I'm aiming for.

Geez things add up, though. Seriously. It's been horrifying to me that our spending budget is $300 per paycheque, and we've spent that much and sometimes surpassed it. That's about $600 a month! It's not even like we're being all that extravagant. One pay period just buying propane tanks for the BBQ that we lent to my stepson, a few things my husband needed for work, and cat food (they need special food) took a big chunk out of it. I keep track so I know where all our money goes, and yet on some level I still don't know where all our money goes!

An Actual Housewife-Type Post

2010-09-11T09:23:00.001-06:00

One of my wishes for our home is to make it more comfortable and inviting. This is hard because we hate spending money (well, most of the time. For some reason this year it doesn't seem that way). Our new couch, however, made a big difference in the "feel" of the living room. Now it seems much more comfortable and homey.

Unfortunately, I don’t think I have before pictures, but here is what our new couch looks like:

And covered with blankets because I noticed kitty claw marks already:

Doesn’t it look cozy?

Before, we had an old-ish cheap beige couch and a really old loveseat. The loveseat was a good piece in its time, but the springs were leaving marks in people’s backs when they sat on it. Also, both pieces were in the opposite corner. We rearranged the furniture while we were at it. I like the way it looks better now, I think. The only thing I’m slightly worried about it is a sleeping cat rolling off the back of the couch and falling to the floor, which is way down there because that’s a railing behind the couch. One of my cats almost fell, but caught himself, and now he’s more careful, I think.

If we ever want to move stuff around again someday, now we have more options, too, because my husband ran a cable to the corner where we put the TV (which is where the end table between the old couches used to be). We’re also going to get rid of our coffee table and end tables. I don’t like them and they’re too big for the space. Not that you can see what I’m talking about in this picture. We’ve been using the coffee table to hold our plants, but I want something smaller.

Not Bad, Considering

2010-09-02T22:51:00.002-06:00

I have another update. Last time:

re-build short-term emergency savings to $500-DONE!!!
save an extra $500 as a cushion in the chequing account (making the total $3500), so that we don't go under $3000 (have $250.30, so $249.70 to go)
replace $3563.88 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5138.47, so $14,861.53 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of August 27, our balance is sitting at $97,647.27)

And this time:

save an extra $500 as a cushion in the chequing account, making the total $3500-DONE!!!
replace $3220.68 of my personal savings (from interest and budget leftovers from the Sept. 3 paycheque)
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5149.20, so $14,850.80 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of August 27, our balance is sitting at $97,647.27)

Sometime around last weekend, I split what we had left in our budget between the chequing and the savings, and while we did spend some of it (which mostly was part of our budget), I was able to borrow some from the "yearly" fund to bump them up to where they should be. I don't like doing that but I think we had too much in the yearly account anyway. I will have to re-figure that, although it doesn't hurt to have a little extra for things!

So I was able to start paying back my personal savings this payday (it's not officially payday yet but the money is sort of showing in the account--in the totals, at least). It feels really good to have gotten to that point again already! I have a little left over from my sink fund (sink fund=spending money), which I'm going to sit on for a bit, and if it turns out I don't need it I'm going to put it towards building back my personal savings, too. It's only around $28, but of course every little bit helps.

I'm getting anxious to start building up the long-term emergency fund in my husband's less-accessible savings account, too. I was thinking the other day that when we met, he had managed to save around $20,000, and neither of us know where it went. I don't know if it got spent when he bought our house, or if we frittered it away, or if our honeymoon decimated it that much, or what. The online bank records only go back to November 2008 (we got married in November 2007), and he only had bank records for the chequing. A lot of it must have gone on the house. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me.

As for the couch, we get it tomorrow, I think. I've decided to just pay it off slowly. We bought it at The Brick, so we're going to see if we can get their "Do not pay for 15 months" thing. If we can, I'll set up an automatic withdrawal to a high-interest savings each month for an amount that will get us there in time. Hopefully we can do it that way so we don't have to pay interest. Maybe having a small amount of debt like this will make us more cautious...if we know we have debt already, having just gotten out of it, I don't think we'll want to add more, you know what I mean?

Oh Yes, I'm the Great...Pretender

2010-08-29T16:27:00.002-06:00

*sigh* I'm not very good at frugality this year. I'm a fraud--a fraud, I tell you!

I did not buy a blow dryer this weekend.

Instead, we bought a new couch. On my husband's credit card.

Tally for this year:

new flat-screen TV- ~$1200
Blu-Ray- ~$300(?)
new bed- ~$2000
trip to New Orleans- ~$3000-$4000 when all was said and done
dental care for one of my kitties (this one couldn't be helped)- ~$2000
new couch- $900

Eeek. I do have some defenses, though. First of all, all of our couches are pure crap. And if they're not pure crap, they've been peed on (little bastards!). One of our cats, when he gets mad at us for something (like if he gets in trouble), heads downstairs to pee on something we own. You can watch him heading down the stairs in a huff. It would be funny if it wasn't so horrid! I've never seen him pee on anything upstairs, though, so I think our new couch is safe. Not that we have it yet.

See, we got a really good deal on this couch. It was on sale already for $999, but we hemmed and hawed long enough that the salesguy (who wouldn't let us out of his sight!) offered us an extra 15% off. So the whole thing, including tax, ended up costing $890-something ($891.60 or something like that). And it's a sectional, which will give us a little more space in our little tiny living room. Anyway, for some reason, because it was already on sale, he couldn't let us take the couch today. He couldn't process the extra discount today, or something. So we get it in about a week.

My other defense is this: We've been married for almost 3 years, and we usually buy practically nothing "big." We're using a crappy $300 couch I bought for my condo about 6 years ago, and a loveseat that was given to my husband over 15 years ago. It was good at one time but now the springs are gone. Our former TV died, and it was really old, too. The bed was okay, but we really needed it in our spare room for my grandma, who was coming to stay with us at that time, and we wanted a bigger bed anyway, so it seemed like a good time. So it's like every other year (we've been married for almost 3 years but together for 10), we've hardly spent any money, and this year we just kind of went nuts with it. I don't know if we couldn't take it anymore, or it just felt like it was time to replace everything, or what.

We do want a few more things, but we don't need them, so I feel like we should resist the urge. Things like a carpet cleaner (yes, we would use it a lot, but we do have an old one, although my husband keeps lending it out to his family), and a new BBQ (he's recently lent our old one to his son and son's girlfriend, and I'm not sure it's coming back). We should definitely save for them, at least!

That's all I've got for defenses. The truth is, we could have gotten by without a new couch until we could save up for one. Now we're going to have a setback on saving for all the financial goals I recently posted about (like the amounts in chequing, the emergency fund, paying back my personal savings, etc.). We were going to just go and look today, to get an idea of what's out there. Which turned out to kind of be a dumb idea, in the end. Oops. Oh well...no use crying over spilt milk, really, is there? I do like the couch a lot...

Or Do I?

2010-08-27T12:01:00.004-06:00

Nope, I really don't have it figured out. I've changed it again. For now. Here's what I said last time:

save $3000 for chequing account cushion to avoid bank fees--DONE!!! I did it by transferring some of my personal savings to my husband's chequing account, and also by transferring the short-term emergency fund from savings into chequing.
re-build short-term emergency fund to $1000 (have $710.91, so $289.09 to go). I did part of this by a decent amount of change that we had in the house that we deposited, and also by saving some of Friday's paycheque.
save an extra $1000 as a bit more of a cushion in the chequing account (just so we don't go below that $3000 mark), making the total $4000. I want to eventually make this $5000, but for now I want to get it to $4000 and then get moving on the other financial goals.
replace $3563.88 of my personal savings (yikesies! It will be done eventually, though). Must. fight. urge. to. draw. upon. this. account. for. everything! This is starting to hurt. Would you believe I considered adding the extra $1000 (to make up $4000 in the chequing) from here? And topping up the emergency fund? No, I don't think I'll be doing that after all. I think I'll just wait.
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5138.47, so $14,861.53 left to go). Maybe I should use this as a way to top up the chequing and short-term savings accounts...probably not, but we'll see.
pay off mortgage (as of August 13, our balance is sitting at $97,882.17)

But here's what I've decided to do now:

re-build short-term emergency savings to $500-DONE!!!
save an extra $500 as a cushion in the chequing account (making the total $3500), so that we don't go under $3000 (have $250.30, so $249.70 to go)
replace $3563.88 of my personal savings
save $20,000 for long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5138.47, so $14,861.53 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of August 27, our balance is sitting at $97,647.27)

I am too impatient to wait to replace my savings. Saving an extra thousand in each account would take too long, and that thought made me sad. :o( So I decided that slightly more difficult math would be worth it, at least until my personal savings are up to a level I'm more comfortable with. I am so tempted to take the money for the chequing out of the long-term emergency savings, though! But that account has higher interest. But still, it's not that much...

I need to go grocery shopping today. I have been feeling very depressed lately (something I struggle with), and yesterday I couldn't bring myself to even make dinner. If I'd had all the ingredients on hand, maybe. But I couldn't bring myself to go shopping. So we went out to eat, and my only nod to frugality was to go to Red Lobster, for which I had a $10 gift card from my birthday. Unfortunately, today, I can only bring myself to go to the closest decent grocery store, not all the cheapest places. But I figure it's better than going out to eat all weekend.

I've also been in the mood to shop lately. I want to redecorate my house, buy a cute new wardrobe, etc. It's probably a good thing that I don't know where my credit card is. I really do want to buy a blow dryer for my hair, though. I'm trying to improve my appearance so that I feel better, and I think it would help. Otherwise my hair is fine and limp and just plasters itself against my head. I guess that could wait until next payday, but I'm not sure it will matter. I set us a "spending" budget...actually I started calling it a "sink fund," but I feel guilty when we use it all. But the point is to spend it on stuff that we need or want. I should be fine with it as long as we don't go over.

I Think I've Got It Figured Out

2010-08-22T18:59:00.002-06:00

I think I do. We shall see how it goes. Anyway, last time:

save $3000 (I may increase this to $4000 or $5000 later, but for now that seems too far away) for chequing account cushion to prevent bank fees (we currently have $422.49, so $2577.51 left to go).
replace $2118.11 of my personal savings (my birthday was on Wednesday, so I put the money I got as gifts into my savings account rather than spend it all on sushi). :-D
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5138.47, so $14,861.53 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of August 13, our balance is sitting at $97,882.17)

And this time:

save $3000 for chequing account cushion to avoid bank fees--DONE!!! I did it by transferring some of my personal savings to my husband's chequing account, and also by transferring the short-term emergency fund from savings into chequing.
re-build short-term emergency fund to $1000 (have $710.91, so $289.09 to go). I did part of this by a decent amount of change that we had in the house that we deposited, and also by saving some of Friday's paycheque.
Save an extra $1000 as a bit more of a cushion in the chequing account (just so we don't go below that $3000 mark), making the total $4000. I want to eventually make this $5000, but for now I want to get it to $4000 and then get moving on the other financial goals.
replace $3563.88 of my personal savings (yikesies! It will be done eventually, though). Must. fight. urge. to. draw. upon. this. account. for. everything! This is starting to hurt. Would you believe I considered adding the extra $1000 (to make up $4000 in the chequing) from here? And topping up the emergency fund? No, I don't think I'll be doing that after all. I think I'll just wait.
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5138.47, so $14,861.53 left to go). Maybe I should use this as a way to top up the chequing and short-term savings accounts...probably not, but we'll see.
pay off mortgage (as of August 13, our balance is sitting at $97,882.17)

I don't like the way my number of goals keeps going up. It should be going down so I can get to the last one--the mortgage! I just really feel like a bit of extra security is something that we've been missing for the past few years. As for the chequing account, I had said before that I was thinking of just keeping $500 extra in there as a cushion (for a total of $3500). That would have worked fine, I'm sure, but I just want it to be $1000 so that it's easier to do the math to figure out how much we "really" (not counting the $3000) have in the account.

I put enough in our short-term emergency savings to get it up to $700-ish, and I'm amazed how much better I felt once I did that. As it turns out, I can't handle having the emergency fund decimated like that. I actually only put it in there until I got to $1000, which I could then transfer to chequing, but now I think I'll leave it. It really makes me feel better to have it there. I'll probably still save the extra $1000 (that will eventually be going to chequing) in there, though. So that's why I decided to put rebuilding the emergency fund ahead of adding an extra $1000 to chequing.

Tentatively, The Plan

2010-08-18T21:36:00.002-06:00

I'm kind of obsessed with this coming payday. I hope I'm not setting myself up for a disappointment, but I think it should be pretty good, because of all the overtime my husband worked that weekend he was on call.

So with input from said husband, I've been trying to decide what to do for savings.

Ultimately, what I want is this:

$5000 in main bank chequing
$5000 in main bank savings
My "comfort zone minimum" in my personal savings
$20,000 in long-term emergency savings

That's just to start, but it's as far as I can think right now. Of course, anything after that, I want to save to apply to the mortgage.

However, I have been feeling frustrated with how long I think it would take to accomplish all this, so I've been trying to figure out how else we could do it.

My husband suggests this, until my personal savings is paid back:

$3500 in chequing
either $500 or $1000 in short-term emergency savings
then alternate between paying back my savings, and building the short-term emergency savings to $3500 (for now)

Which could work, but I am just afraid it doesn't give enough of a cushion anywhere. But I guess it's a good place to start.

On the other hand, we have been keeping only $1000 in the emergency savings for a few years now, without any real problems. But we had $3000 in there for awhile before we went to New Orleans, and the feeling of security it provided was really nice.

Not that I expect to be able to do much of any of this on this Friday's paycheque, but I just need a place to start! I'm still feeling unsettled about it. Maybe, by some miracle, on Friday it will suddenly become completely clear to me. You think? :-D

Meal Plans and Other Things

2010-08-15T13:27:00.003-06:00

I've decided that for the sake of my weight loss goals, and for the sake of our finances we need to eat out less. Much less. But I also recently realized that I'm very tired of a lot of the meals that we eat (at home) on a regular basis, so I need to add more variety. So I've gone ahead and planned my meals up until September 4th, adding in new ones that I found on various websites.

Meal Plan:

August 15-I have no idea and we'll probably get take-out.
August 16-pork chops, cream of mushroom rice, salad
August 17-beef stroganoff (from here)
August 18-Shake N' Bake chicken, carrots, salad
August 19-stuffed peppers
August 20-pizza
August 21-"Sweetish" meatballs
August 22-skillet salmon (from here)
August 23-pork chops, COM rice, salad
August 24-Creamy Philly Rose Penne (from here)
August 25-sausages, applesauce, mashed potatoes, salad
August 26-Fiesta chicken enchiladas (from here)
August 27-pizza
August 28-Goodbye Turkey Tettrazini (from here)
August 29-BBQ steak/chicken, corn, salad
August 30-pork chops, COM rice, salad
August 31-tuna noodle casserole (from here, or I might try the Campbell's one)
September 1-Creamy Philly Pesto chicken (from here)
September 2-Chili-Coke roast (from here--it's Day 3)
September 3-pizza
September 4-sloppy joes (from here)

Okay, I got a LOT of recipes off the "Cooking With Philly" site, haha. Pretty much if I linked to the recipe, it's a new one I haven't tried yet. I really like that "Moms Who Think" website. I'm not a mom (except to two adorable cats, of course), but I think too, dammit!

You may have noticed that I never get tired of pork chops or pizza. I LOVE our pork chops! I LOVE cream of mushroom rice, too! I also love salad, which to me is just torn up romaine with cut up tomatoes as my dressing, and a little salt and pepper. Yes, I like easy recipes. Back-of-the-box all the way for me! What I have gotten tired of is spaghetti, cabbage roll casserole (although I mostly just hate shredding the cabbage), butter chicken, chicken souvlaki, salsa chicken, beef sukiyaki, and trying to think of what to serve with chicken. Then I remembered that when I was a kid, side dishes were one or two (usually two) vegetables. No rice, potatoes, etc. We only had pasta if my mom made spaghetti. And I was really skinny! Now I'm not. *sigh*

Now on to the "other things." I couldn't handle paying bank fees if there's any way to avoid it, so I transferred some money from my personal savings to my husband's chequing account. That amount plus the $1000 emergency fund plus what is left this pay period plus whatever it takes to make up the rest (not much) by this coming Friday (payday), will make up the $3000 we need to avoid bank fees. Yay! I don't know if we will have to still pay them for this (next? For September 1st) month or not. I don't know how many days out of the month you have to maintain a balance over $3000, or how they work that. I can't find any information about it on the website, either.

Now with that done, I'm starting to see that we really need a cushion in the account, so that we don't accidently dip below the "no bank fee" level. Because then what would be the point? I'm thinking $5000 total. So $2000 more. And we also need to put $1000 back into savings as our short-term emergency fund. Mostly because I like having money in savings. I just do, okay? And then we can start on building my personal savings back up.

So many things to pay/save for, so little time. *sigh*

Latest Update

2010-08-13T11:25:00.002-06:00

I decided to do it today, although some things might change because at the moment, we do NOT have much money left in our chequing account!

Last time:

replace $2188.11 of my personal savings (Note: $31.25 of the amount by which it increased was from interest for the month, and $450.57 was from being "paid back," but as long as I get back to my self-imposed account minimum, I don't care how I got there)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5138.47, so $14,861.53 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 30, our balance is sitting at $98,116.92)

But this time, due to the fascinating new information I learned about bank fees on my husband's account, I'm changing some things. So this time, it's going to look like this (hopefully it stays this way until next payday):

save $3000 (I may increase this to $4000 or $5000 later, but for now that seems too far away) for chequing account cushion to prevent bank fees (we currently have $422.49, so $2577.51 left to go).
replace $2118.11 of my personal savings (my birthday was on Wednesday, so I put the money I got as gifts into my savings account rather than spend it all on sushi). :-D
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5138.47, so $14,861.53 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of August 13, our balance is sitting at $97,882.17)

I am a bit troubled by the way new things to save for keep popping up. I'll be happy when we have enough in the chequing account to prevent bank fees, and I know it's a smart move that will save us money, but it does put everything else on hold. On top of that, it sounds like my husband will be needing a new (to him) truck fairly soon, as the transmission on his current truck is starting to slip. I think there are other things wrong, too. We do not have any savings earmarked for replacing a vehicle.

I feel like we need to hurry up and accomplish these goals, but something else always comes up. I could have 10 different "funds" for things that we need and want, and never get to the part where we can start paying down the mortgage. It's frustrating.

At least it's nice to see the mortgage amount go down every month, although our payment increased by almost $5 this pay period! It's a variable mortgage. As much as I want increased interest in my savings account, I hate to see the mortgage payment go up. It makes me wonder how long a variable rate will be a good idea.

One other thing about the chequing account cushion--we do have a short-term emergency fund of $1000 in the savings account. I know I will be tempted to transfer it over to the chequing when we have saved $2000 for the chequing, thereby bumping it up to $3000 earlier. I am not sure whether it will be a good idea or not. It will mean no bank fees faster, and the money will still be there...just in a different account. But will we spend it recklessly? We really won't be able to if we want to maintain no bank fees, and we can then replace the $1000 in savings, I guess. Thoughts?

One other thing I could do is take money out of my personal savings and put it in my husband's account now, so that the no bank fee thing starts immediately (or next month--I'm not sure how they work it). But then it will take a long time to build back, and I'll have to see my personal savings decimated yet again. I don't know if I can handle that. Plus, what if we do spend extra because it's there? Even if we don't go nuts and spend like crazy until there's nothing left, we might still spend more than we would have otherwise, you know? Like nickle and dime ourselves to death. I guess I could try it out and put the money back in my account, if I see it heading in that direction.

This is too much to think about for me right now!

Banking Plans and the People Who Love Them

2010-08-10T20:22:00.005-06:00

I love my no-fee bank account. I can use my debit card with reckless abandon, giving nary a thought to being charged a--*gasp!*--fee. I think it's fantastic, and that everyone should do it.

Which is why I have been bewildered and confused by my husband's refusal to give up his heavily-fee'd(?) bank account. I felt like it was costing us a fortune. I had big plans to add up all the fees we've paid so far this year and show it to him, in order to horrify him into considering switching banks. But now I don't have to go to all that trouble.

Up until now, his banking plan cost $8.50 per month plus a $2.00 "passbook fee," whatever that is, and he was allowed up to 30 transactions per month. Every transaction above that was subject to a fee. Last month, we went over the allowed transactions by 35, which cost us an extra $21 in banking fees. We don't always do that badly, but it's been taking a huge effort to stay even in the under-40-transactions range. So we pretty much always pay "extra transactions" fees.

But today, I got curious. I don't know why I didn't think of this before. I was poking around on his bank's website, where I learned that they have a plan that costs $13.95 per month (still plus that damned passbook fee, though, I think), and you get unlimited transactions. A bonus to this plan is that you also get Airmiles for debit purchases. An even bigger bonus to this plan is that if you maintain a balance of $3000 in your chequing account, your plan doesn't cost you anything per month (again, except for that ubiquitous passbook fee, about which I need him to find out more)!

Now, we don't have $3000 lying around to keep in the account at the moment, but I think we can save it. Having a balance of $5000 (I think we need a cushion) or so will also provide my husband with a feeling of security, which is always nice. And because otherwise we would be paying a monthly fee of $13.95 anyway, it's almost like getting a 3.3% return on the money (assuming we had $5000 saved).

Even up until the point where we would have enough in the account where it would be free, we'd still be saving money. I budget $20 for bank fees and we often go over that, so now all I have to budget is $15.95, and we shouldn't have any reason to go over.

I also learned that we could have been saving the $8.50 cost of the plan he already had, if we had been maintaining a balance of $2000 in the account. Ah, well, no use crying over spilt milk. I had him call his bank when he got home from work (I'm not on the account), and now it's retroactive to the beginning of this month. I'm so happy to have found another small way to save money! These things add up.

Now I just have to figure out what, if anything, this does to our goals. Do I stay on track and just funnel a little away here and there for this $3000 account cushion? Do I put everything else on hold until we achieve that? That probably makes the most financial sense...but I think there's something to be said for the emotions that go along with financial decisions. Of course, having an extra $3000 just sitting there, providing extra security will make my husband very happy, and me, too. So we'll see. I expect to be able to do an update post by Monday, if all goes according to plan, so I have a bit of time to think about this.

I also would like to encourage you, if you haven't already, to see if there's a way you can save a few bucks by switching banking plans. Or by doing anything that might help lower your bills a bit, really!

EDIT: I think I may have also gotten rid of that $2.00 "passbook fee!" I think it was a charge for the privilege of getting paper statements. Pshaw, I say! Who needs paper statements!? Certainly not us. I guess I will see if that was it by the beginning of next month.

So's Like This

2010-08-06T18:55:00.004-06:00

My husband got paid today, but I'm not updating yet because I'm always concerned that we will need the money without realizing it. I feel more comfortable about letting it just sit there for a week or so.

I budgeted a little extra in our eating-out budget this pay period, because next Wednesday is my birthday, and that always means a few dinners out. For sure we're going out for sushi this weekend, and Tony Roma's has this thing where they send you a gift certificate for a meal for your birthday, and my dad always really wants to go to that. Personally, I could take it or leave it, but I'll go. He'd be so disappointed if we didn't go. Of course that will still cost us money, because my husband will be going too, and then drinks (although I always just get water), tax, tips, appetizers, desserts, etc.--it all adds up. Now the sad thing about my eating-out budget is that we spent FAR more than even what I budgeted this time, last pay period. We really need to work on that.

My zero-based budgeting didn't work very well, because I had budgeted based on our yearly expenses (an amount I set up to go into a "yearly" account every month) coming out on the 6th, but it actually came out on the 5th. Oops. I probably should have known that. So there wasn't enough money in the chequing account, and now there will probably be an NSF charge. I hope it isn't too high. If I remember correctly and if nothing has changed, it should only be about $5, I think. I hope.

Also, we used the debit card WAY too much last month. Bank fees, for the month, cost us $35. Yikes! He's allowed 30 transactions a month, and they seem to take both his chequing and savings accounts into, er, account when they add it all up. Anything over the 30 transactions is subject to a charge. My own bank account has no fees, but my husband will not switch banks no matter what I say. I keep thinking I should go through and add up all the bank fees for the year, and present that to him as an incentive. But he'll probably just say we should use debit less.

Which we should, and on that note, I'm doing an "envelope" thing (it's in brackets because it's not in actual envelopes, just in our respective wallets) this pay period. I asked my husband to take out $600 (although he only took out $500 because that's the maximum you can take out at once--that's how they get ya!), and I divvied it up between groceries ($200), restaurant ($200...$100 for now, and there's another $100 in the bank that he didn't take out yet--oh I'm so ashamed!), gas ($100--$60 for him and $40 for me), and spending ($100--$60 for him and $40 for me...see? I'm not totally selfish. He gets more than I do 'cause he did the actual work). So the idea is to use that instead of the debit card and see how it goes. It would have been easier if I could have transferred it to my account and gone from there, but it takes two business days, and it's Friday (and we needed some cash for the weekend). So I need to find a way to get ahead by a pay period, so that that's not an issue.

In other news, I was poking around in a container in which I used to keep our grocery money (but I kept forgetting it at home!), and I found about $30--a $20 bill, and about $10 in change. That was pleasant. It got me wondering what to do with my little windfall. Sometimes I think we should keep a stash of cash in the house somewhere, but I'm never sure how much or where to put it, especially since our house was broken into before. But I could put that $20 towards it, maybe. Otherwise I'll probably spend it foolishly on ~~crack~~ sushi.

Do you keep a stash of cash (I'm not trying to be cute--I hate that that rhymes!)in the house? If so, how much? And why? If not, why not? Please do respond if you read this; I am really curious.

This Is So Exciting...

2010-08-01T09:46:00.003-06:00

You'll have to forgive me...not only is my laptop working again (and much better!) after having to be crashed due to a virus which I got from only trying to do something nice for my husband...but also there was a terribly exciting thunderstorm last night (I love thunderstorms), and I finally get to do my banking (I love doing the banking). I feel like a happy puppy! *pants happily* :p

And I have an update for you! Can this day get any better!? I don't think it can!

Last time I posted our financial goals, we were in the following situation:

pay off my husband's credit card ($0). We have PAID OFF my husband's credit card! With some fancy footwork from me, that is.
replace $2669.93 of my personal savings (for now)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14,870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 16, our balance is sitting at $98,351.52)

And now...:

replace $2188.11 of my personal savings (Note: $31.25 of the amount by which it increased was from interest for the month, and $450.57 was from being "paid back," but as long as I get back to my self-imposed account minimum, I don't care how I got there)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5138.47, so $14,861.53 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 30, our balance is sitting at $98,116.92)

I got to update all three categories! I tell you, it just doesn't get any better. I'm terribly excited about all of it. Plus my husband is on call this weekend, which means overtime, which means extra money on either the coming paycheque, or the one after that (I'm not sure when the pay periods are).

I wonder if my excessively happy mood is from not getting enough sleep last night? No matter--I'm usually crabby, so I'll take it!

Also, I had my husband hide my credit card, so there's still nothing on it. In fact, I think there's a credit of around 20 cents. I'm not sure if there will be some residual interest to pay on the next statement, though. It would be good if I could be trusted with my own credit card, but as long as there's sushi in the world, I cannot. Be trusted.

Well, Well, Well…

2010-07-30T00:39:00.007-06:00

About 4 or 5 years ago, before I was married, I set about trying to find a financial advisor. I don’t remember how I found them, but I chose a company called Wealthstreet, run by Dave Jones. Now, Dave had a radio show (which was more like an advertisement) on a couple of the radio stations here in Calgary, giving financial and stocks advice. I didn’t listen to it because I don’t listen to any of the radio stations on which he had his show.

I was with Wealthstreet for a very short time. Very short. Maybe a month or two? The reason was, that when I met with Dave Jones, I had a most uneasy feeling about him and his company. I couldn't explain it, but it was bad enough that I told people about it. I was there alone, too, at an after-hours meeting, which in hindsight I think was quite unprofessional on his part. Not that I think he would have attacked me or anything, but usually in a business situation there would be someone else in the building somewhere. When he and his wife took off to Hawaii, leaving all his clients’ investments in the hands of--are you ready for this?--his receptionist…at tax time…it provided the catalyst I needed to bail. And am I ever glad I did.

At the time, one of my Christian friends protested my feelings of uneasiness about the man with, “But he’s Christian!” because, I guess, his show was on the local Christian station. I was like, “So-freakin’-what?” And I got some insight into how dangerous it can be for anyone to be taught to accept the things they’re told without questioning. But that’s a rant for another time and probably a different blog…probably even a different author.

I don’t know what happened with Wealthstreet, or whether it still exists or not. And I don’t care. (EDIT: I just read that they filed for bankruptcy in April of this year). I do know that they called me every year (until I got married, moved, and changed my name) as if I was still their client, obviously not noticing that I had withdrawn all my money to another company. I was always happy to hear they were on top of things and knew exactly what they were doing. :p

My story takes another turn…

Tonight, I was looking up high-interest rates to see if any were higher than ING, and I came across some investment companies that I used to hear advertised all the time on the radio, but which I haven’t heard anything about for years. So I decided to Google it (Google is my oracle, you know). I had considered investing in one of them a couple of years ago with some of my condo money, but it sounded too good to be true and although they promised a guaranteed return, they didn’t seem to promise that you wouldn’t lose your initial investment. At least as far as I could tell. So because of that and laziness on my part, I didn’t invest with them.

Then I found this blog. And I found out that the company I had considered a few years ago, Concrete Equities, appears to have turned out to be a scam. Can I say that? Well, anyway, that’s what it looks like to me. They were not the only company offering the same sort of investment at the time, just the one I had thought might be legitimate. Nope.

I would have known that they were not legitimate, and stayed far, far away from them, of course, if I had known at the time who their CEO was. But I just found out today. Guess who? Go on, guess. I’ll wait.

...*drums fingers on table*...

Oh, you’re good at this! Yes, you’re right…it was Dave Jones (doesn’t that sound like a made-up name? That’s his real name, at least as far as I know). Bullet successfully dodged!

As an aside, I just finished reading a really good book called The Gift of Fear, which advocates listening to your intuition. Good advice! It saved me about $10,000, if not more, in this situation.

Money: Ah Saved It.

2010-07-27T22:19:00.003-06:00

Woo-woo!!! A few years ago, when I was still working, I subcribed to Ancestry.ca. It cost $300 per year, but I guess I didn't care at the time. Last year it was a bit painful to pay for it, but I did it anyway because I didn't want to lose my tree.

However, my cousin from England recently tipped me off that if you cancel your subscription, your tree stays available should you decide to start it up again. So I thought I would call them and confirm this today.

Well, guess what I learned!? Not only will my tree still be there if I decide to re-subscribe, but I will still be able to access it! The only thing I won't be able to do is contact other tree owners (which I don't do anyway), or see the ancestry "hints" that I can see now. I will be able to see that the hints exist, but not what they are.

But it gets better. Ancestry.ca also offers monthly subscriptions. So let's say that once a year or so, I decide to subscribe for a month, and follow up with and enter all my hints. Then I cancel it again. That means that instead of paying $300 a year, I can pay approximately $30 and get the same benefit. I don't use it continually anyway.

I have been putting $100 per paycheque away in anticipation of my subscription being renewed, which means that we now have $200 extra sitting in the emergency fund. I think I'm just going to leave it there as a sort of cushion or "miscellaneous" fund.

This really made my day!

I Need to Hammer Out a Meal Plan

2010-07-27T10:30:00.002-06:00

So I thought I'd do it here. I have started budgeting for two-week periods, which currently means until August 5th (which is the day before next payday). I have budgeted based on no money remaining; everything is accounted for. So I need to hammer out my meal plan so that I don't go over the grocery budget, mostly because I can't go over the grocery budget.

Tues., July 27-spaghetti
Wed., July 28-chicken breasts, Spanish rice, salad
Thurs., July 29-stuffed peppers
Fri., July 30-pizza
Sat., July 31-I don't know yet.
Sun., August 1-I don't know yet.
Mon., August 2-pork chops, cream of mushroom rice, salad
Tues., August 3-spaghetti
Wed., August 4-chicken breasts, Spanish rice, salad
Thurs., August 5-cabbage roll casserole

I always have trouble figuring out what to eat on weekends, which usually results in us going out to eat. But we only have $13 and change left in our "eating out" budget, because we went out repeatedly this past weekend. I have a really hard time sticking to our grocery budget lately. I don't know if everything got more expensive, or if I just suddenly got worse at shopping?

Now For the Exciting Part!

2010-07-23T09:15:00.002-06:00

I'm changing my financial goals a bit, because of the way I just juggled things around. I am not sure how to write it out now, but I'll start with the old way. Today was payday so I get to do it now! *is excited*

So, last time:

pay off my husband's credit card ($1250.00)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 16, our balance is sitting at $98,351.52)

And this time:

pay off my husband's credit card ($0). We have PAID OFF my husband's credit card! With some fancy footwork from me, that is.
replace $2669.93 of my personal savings (for now)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 16, our balance is sitting at $98,351.52)

I paid off my husband's credit card with some of the money that I got when I sold my condo after we got married. As I've mentioned before, my husband agreed that I could just keep that money tucked away unless it became really, really necessary (like if he got laid off or something), so I get to replace it, "as long as I don't break him," he said. There's an amount that I cannot bear to see it dip below, and...well, it's currently $2669.93 below that amount.

Not only did I pay off his credit card, since January I also spent some on our new bed, our trip to New Orleans, the cat's dental surgery...and I'm pretty sure there was something else that I can't remember. Ultimately I want to add another $10,000 back on top of this $2669.93, but first I want to bump up my husband's personal savings, which is also going to be our long-term emergency fund.

The reason that I was just recently able to do this so easily is that I was able to find a way to easily transfer money between our accounts. ING made it sooo easy that it almost seems wrong, haha. It's a bit convoluted, but it's still easy. We did it by making one of his accounts a joint account, so now I can access it.

I am expecting to be able to pay a significant amount back to my account soon, but I don't want to touch it yet in case something comes up. I'll probably do it closer to next payday. Right now I'm just funnelling everything extra into the short-term emergency savings, which isn't the best because it's super-easy to access (he can just use his debit card), but like I said, it needs to be easily accessible for now.

I'm also thinking about upping the amount of our short-term emergency savings. I mentioned before that my husband would like a significant amount in that account to make him feel secure, but there's practically no interest so it pained me. But as it turns out, I really liked that brief period where we had about $3000 in there. I want that feeling again. So I think that eventually, I might bump the amount up to $3000. Maybe even $5000 if I get all crazy. That will make us both happy, and it shouldn't make a huge difference in the interest we'd get, unless interest rates skyrocket. Which it doesn't look like they're going to do anytime soon. I'd also like a bit of a cushion in the chequing account, but we'll see how it goes.

Yeah, so anyway, now we are out of all non-mortgage debt. I know it's not that big of an accomplishment when we have a "secret" fund to draw on, but it still feels pretty good. Now to not get into debt again!

I Did Something Crazy

2010-07-22T21:24:00.002-06:00

...'cause that's how I roll. I can't update yet because while I know what's going to happen, I have to wait for the banks to do their thing. Anyway, I'm sort of excited about this. Also, tomorrow is payday, which is fantastic, and if things go as planned, maybe I'll be able to update tomorrow. My mind is already whirring with ways that I can accomplish what I want to accomplish.

How Do You Budget?

2010-07-21T12:28:00.002-06:00

I made a spreadsheet in Google Docs, and I was doing the budget by month. However, I think from here on out, I'm going to change it to a budget by each payday. Otherwise stuff gets left out/forgotten, and we end up spending money we didn't think about beforehand. I guess I'll keep my "month" tabs and maybe do both the paycheque budgets in whatever month we get them. I just hope this doesn't make it all too complicated.

Off to try to work this out...

Just Because I'm Impatient...

2010-07-19T14:39:00.003-06:00

I decided to push the envelope a little. I didn't really think it all the way through, so I hope it doesn't turn out to be a mistake. Is paying down debt ever a mistake? I really doubt it. So here it is:

Last time:

pay off my credit card ($0). Yes, you read that right--we have PAID OFF my credit card!!!
pay off my husband's credit card ($1750.00)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 16, our balance is sitting at $98,351.52)

This time:

pay off my husband's credit card ($1250.00)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 16, our balance is sitting at $98,351.52)

I didn't leave us much for the rest of the week, but I figure that since my husband gets paid on Friday, we should be fine. I am lucky that we just didn't spend as much as I thought we might. Now that the tax refund and vacation pay are gone, I'm not sure I will be able to put anything towards the credit card on this upcoming paycheque. I hope so, but it will be covering all the bills at once. Luckily the bills aren't usually as high in the summer.

I can't wait to have the credit cards paid off! I can't wait to start putting money into our savings instead. The thing that frustrates me is that we've been in that position before, where we had no credit card debt and we could just put money away, but we got afflicted with the, "Hey, we have money--let's blow it!" line of thinking. I think the goals I've posted here will help with that, though. Seeing concrete goals and knowing that other people know about them helps.

One problem as of late: I've started to think about Christmas. Not as in, "hmmm, what low-cost gifts can I get people I care about this year?" but more as in, "This is going to be the best Christmas ever! I'm going to buy this, and this, and these, and we're going to go on hayrides and, and, and..." I always get like this in July. Why July!? Do I really take the "Christmas in July" thing to heart, or what? I don't know. :p

I Cannot Contain Myself

2010-07-15T09:45:00.002-06:00

I have to do an update post. I tried to wait until tomorrow, when it would make more sense, but I can't. I just can't. I've already been waiting a few days. I can hold out no longer!

Last time, the finances looked like this:

pay off my credit card ($405.68)
pay off my husband's credit card ($1880.89)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 2, our balance is sitting at $98,585.97)

And now...drum roll, please!:

pay off my credit card ($0). Yes, you read that right--we have PAID OFF my credit card!!!
pay off my husband's credit card ($1750.00)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 16, our balance is sitting at $98,351.52)

Yeah, the mortgage thing is the reason I tried really hard to wait until tomorrow. Oops. Oh well, close enough. :o)

Now, regarding my credit card...after I paid it off, I still had to use it again. And I will likely continue to need to use it. However, from now on, it will get paid monthly. In fact, I have an amount sitting in our savings to cover what I had to put on the card, and as soon as I know that we will not be in dire straits before the next paycheque, I will be paying it off (again). I put it as zero because it was and it will be again, dangit!

I also plunked a bit extra on my husband's credit card, just because I could. I'm looking forward to watching the balance drop. Hopefully we will be able to pay it down quickly! Then the real fun begins--watching the balance in our savings account grow, and grow, and grow...

As for the mortgage, I'm so happy that my husband found the amortization schedule. I love watching the balance drop every two weeks! I am keeping it posted on the fridge for easy access. :o)

What To Do?

2010-07-13T23:59:00.005-06:00

At my bank, I get PC Points for using my credit card and for buying things at the Real Canadian Superstore (which is affiliated with that bank). I have been saving my PC Points in order to buy a Wii, which I really wanted. Or so I thought.

Now, I think I almost have enough. A few more good shopping trips would do it. But now, I don't know if I want a Wii. Is it something that we would just end up throwing in a closet somewhere? Will it be obsolete in a year or two? Is it really all that fun?

It won't cost me anything extra as long as I manage to collect all the points I need. But, I could use the points to cut my grocery bill, which is what I've done with them in the past. However, if I don't buy a Wii with these points, I will probably never get one. Is that a bad thing? I don't know. I've played it a little bit at friends' houses, and I liked it, but I wonder if it's just a fad that's almost past now.

What do you think? Do you have one? Do you think it's worth it?

Well, This Hurts

2010-07-10T12:40:00.003-06:00

In a good way, though, I guess. Eeek. I just made a rather large payment on my credit card. I didn't think I would be able to. I'll tell you why after this latest update.

So, up until a few minutes ago, my financial goals looked like this:

pay off my credit card ($872.03)
pay off my husband's credit card ($1920.89)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 2, our balance is sitting at $98,585.97)

Amazingly enough, I actually just got tired of the "??? PROFIT!!!" thing. Just happened now so I decided not to do it this time. Anyway...

Now things look like this:

pay off my credit card ($400.00...and change, but I don't know the amount because my credit card website is not fully up-to-date)
pay off my husband's credit card ($1880.89)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 2, our balance is sitting at $98,585.97)

I hit my credit card pretty hard, as you can see. It was more painful than it looks, because I just got back from a road trip with a friend where I used my credit card almost exclusively. So it was quite a bit higher than the last time I posted (like over $400 more). I just paid almost $900 on it to get it down to this amount--OUCH!!!

Huh. If I hadn't gone on my road trip, I guess I could have paid it off. Oh, well.

As for the amount, my credit card doesn't always update the finer details right away. I can usually tell how much I owe (dollars only, no cents) by subtracting my available credit from my credit limit. For some reason, it's more accurate to do it that way than it is to look at my balance owing. So that's what I did in this case. I'll have to check in a few days to see the exact amount. It feels pretty good to have less than $500 left to go! I'm almost tempted to pay it out of our emergency fund, but I think I'd better not. Maybe I will be able to pay it off with the next paycheque. That would be great! Now to stop using it for things I don't need...

As for my husband's credit card, I had just been paying whatever the minimum payment was. However, since I've been paying a lot off of the card after we used it (and we've used it a lot recently), the website says the minimum payment is zero. So of course it would say that, but that doesn't help the balance go down any, does it? And it occurred to me that there has been no reduction in balance for a good long while. I rather need the website to tell me how much to pay, but since it didn't, I settled on $40, which took it down to the balance it is now.

I am very pleased with the progress of our credit cards. If we hadn't done anything fun (like trips! Yay for trips!), I guess we could have had them both paid off already, but I think experiences are important, too. You still have to live. I've also begun to realize that with the amount I'm able to drop on paying off our credit cards on a fairly regular basis, income is not our problem. Spending too damned much IS our problem. I largely blame myself and my addiction to sushi, not to mention my aversion to cooking a lot of the time. I've gotten much worse with that. But my husband also spends a lot on tools and such.

Oh, I was going to tell you why I didn't think I'd be able to pay anything at all on our debt this paycheque. The paycheque itself was really small--only about $955. Usually it's about $1700 at least. But my husband's vacation pay was not included, which meant that he didn't get paid (on his paycheque, anyway) for our trip to New Orleans. I didn't know it, but he did get a separate cheque specifically for vacation pay. There was also a rather small ($74) bonus cheque. He just showed them to me this morning. Good thing he showed me before I wrote a post bemoaning the fact that I couldn't pay any extra on debt! With the vacation pay cheque, we actually had more than a regular pay period. So that was nice. :o)

Woo-hoo! A Mortgage Update

2010-07-03T10:45:00.002-06:00

Just because I like doing it this way:

pay off my credit card ($872.03)
pay off my husband's credit card ($1920.89)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, our balance was sitting at $101,852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

Now, I have a bit of a mortgage update thanks to the amortization schedule my husband found for me:

pay off my credit card ($872.03)
pay off my husband's credit card ($1920.89)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of July 2, our balance is sitting at $98,585.97)
???
PROFIT!!!

This mortgage amount is an estimate, based on the way things were when they sent us that schedule, so the principal left owing could be somewhat different. Still, it gives an idea of how our mortgage payoff is progressing.

Other Stuff

2010-07-01T12:28:00.002-06:00

I've only been updating with financial posts for the past few months, and completely ignoring other "housewife-y" stuff that I said I was going to write about. Like groceries--although in my defense, those receipt posts are a real pain in the ass to write--and cleaning, decluttering, making our home more comfortable and more "us," ways I've found to reduce waste, etc.

Mostly that's because I've been distracted, and therefore not really doing anything. But I think my desire is back. The other day, I found one way not to waste so much food--which is one of my goals. I had bought a large carton of eggs at Costco before we left for our trip, and the expiry date was for about two days after we returned. We had at least 9 eggs left, so I didn't think we'd be able to use them, and I would have to throw them out.

Turns out they didn't get used right away, but by using the method where you put them in a bowl of water, I was able to determine which ones were still usable. Only two floated, so I only had to throw those two out. The others stood on their points on the bottom of the bowl, which means that they were still good, but had to be used soon. I had been reading the forums at Free Jinger (link on sidebar), and one poster mentioned how she would make a frittata, foccacia, and minestrone, instead of anything like Anna Duggar's "Chickenetti". So I looked up a recipe online, and decided to use my eggs for a frittata. And that's how I didn't waste any more than two of my nearly-done-for eggs. So I was happy about that. :o)

I've also been thinking about ways to reduce my grocery budget, although I haven't come up with much yet. I know I could make more things from scratch, but I'm so lazy! I need things to be easy. I'll have to think about it some more.

I am avoiding writing an essay for the course I'm taking. I need to get it done and over with, but suddenly everything else seems much more important. Help!

After-Trip Update

2010-06-30T10:26:00.004-06:00

Before our trip, this is how our finances looked:

pay off my credit card ($1062.89)
pay off my husband's credit card ($1920.89)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5121.34, so $14878.66 to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, 2009, our balance was sitting at $101852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

And now, after our trip, I have managed to actually pay a bit down a little more! Yay:

pay off my credit card ($872.03)
pay off my husband's credit card ($1920.89)
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5129.76, so $14870.24 left to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, our balance was sitting at $101,852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

Just a couple of notes about things...my husband's balance is the same as it was before we left, but that took some effort, let me tell you! That's only because I paid off a huge chunk of it (over $1000! Eeek!) once we got back. Perhaps I should have applied that to my own, higher-interest credit card first, now that I think about it. But I didn't, and this makes things feel less complicated to me. So I'm okay with it. Plus, it's nice to see it at the same level as it was before we left.

With my own credit card, I was hoping to be able to get it down to $900, and I actually managed to get it to a little bit under that, so I'm quite happy. I'm hoping to reduce the balance to $700 by the time of my husband's next paycheque, but I want to make sure we have enough money to live on first. Let me clarify--I'm hoping to reduce it to that amount before I pay more from the next paycheque...I'm hoping to get it to $700 on this paycheque, just later. We shall see if it can be done.

For the long-term emergency savings, the bank has not updated to post the new interest yet, which should be applied today or tomorrow. So I just added what I figured out was 2% (*cries*...*then realizes it's actually gone up a bit--from 1.20%--and does a little happy dance*). I'll check it again tomorrow, and if it turns out to be different, I'll sneak back into this post and change it. I'm pretty sure it will be at least a little bit different, considering I don't know when the interest rate went up. So most of the month will probably be figured at the lower interest rate.

It's been 6 months since we got our mortgage statement. I'm quite dying to know how much we owe now! I can't call and find out, though, because I'm not on the mortgage. And by the time my husband gets home they will probably be closed. :o(

*Whew!* You know, I wouldn't constantly be trying to beat my last amount if I wasn't posting it on this blog. So this is a really good thing! :o)

GROAN!!!!!!

2010-06-29T14:02:00.002-06:00

Oh, no! Do you know what I did? I assumed that my husband's credit card was updated with everything we had spent in New Orleans. It seemed to be, to me, although how I missed the fact that the CAR RENTAL hadn't posted yet is beyond me. That's a big expense--you'd think I'd have noticed it!

So I log into my husband's bank account today to work out my budget and see if I can (hopefully) put more money onto my credit card balance. And do you know what I see? I see that the balance on my husband's credit card is $662.92 higher than it was yesterday after I had paid a hefty chunk of change towards it. Thanks to his most recent paycheque and what's left of our tax refund, I was able to pay it down, too, but now I'm worried about what I'll find tomorrow. If I look. Maybe I won't look. There can't be THAT much more left to post! Um, right? Right?

On top of all this, in my desperation to keep his credit card balance at no higher than it was before we left for our trip, I keep forgetting that he doesn't get paid the same (supposedly) because he doesn't qualify for vacation pay yet. It makes no sense, though, because his benefits book says that everyone's eligible after June 1 (I think...maybe it was June 30), and he still says he'll get paid vacation pay after July. But his paycheque was pretty much the same as it always is. Whether the next one will be the same or not remains to be seen. I hope so! Or that'll screw me up even further.

I think I'll wait a few days before I even look at mine again. Before I left, I had it down to $900, but there was something (I can't remember what) that had yet to post, which cost $162, so my actual balance was $1062. So I will be happy if I can manage to get my credit card balance to equal $900 after they've posted everything--it will mean I've come out ahead. And then I'm going to really focus on paying both of our credit cards off.

I know that my husband feels more comfortable when he has a significant amount of money in his (too) easily-accessible savings account, but I can't make it work for him that way no matter which way I look at it. If I focus on savings now and pay less on our credit cards, it will just take forever to pay them off. I don't want that. And even after they're paid off, there is almost zero interest in that savings account. While he'd prefer to have $10,000 worth of savings in there to feel secure, he has an ING account that would better suit that purpose. But since he can't "see" it as easily (he leaves all the banking to me), it doesn't exist to him. Maybe I can get around it by showing him the increasing balance in his ING account on a regular basis. He'll still have to wait until the credit cards are paid off, though.

How much do you try to keep in an emergency savings account? I try to keep $1000 in there at least, but it doesn't really make me feel secure--it doesn't feel like enough. Currently there is around $1500 in there, but that $500 is at risk of jumping out and landing on my credit card. But sometimes I think it would be better to have $2000 or even $3000 in there. But the lack of interest makes me wanna cry! Interest is bad enough right now as it is.

Back From New Orleans

2010-06-28T17:20:00.004-06:00

I'm back, and now I'm back to being frugal (trying, anyway!). If you'd like to read about my trip, please see my weight loss blog here. The most recent post (so far) has pictures, and there are a couple posts before that where I just wrote what was going on, or what we had done.

I will be doing a money update post when my bank decides to get around to posting everything that's gone on with my credit card lately. They've never been so slow before! I can tell you that I just paid my husband's credit card back down to where it was before we left. Mine was harder to figure out, but I think that I have paid it down to lower than before we left. But I'm not sure yet.

Before-Trip Update

2010-06-12T10:59:00.002-06:00

Okay, so last time this is how things stood:

pay off my credit card ($1072.83)
pay off my husband's credit card ($1960.89)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5112.66, so $14887.34 to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, 2009, our balance was sitting at $101,852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

And now, BEFORE our trip to New Orleans, we are in the following situation:

pay off my credit card ($1062.89)
pay off my husband's credit card ($1920.89)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5121.34, so $14878.66 to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, 2009, our balance was sitting at $101852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

So, not much difference, really, but down a little bit at least. I don't know what it will look like once we get back from New Orleans, though...

Finally! An Update.

2010-05-18T13:49:00.003-06:00

Oh, I have NOT been living the frugal life lately! Since I last wrote, I booked a trip to New Orleans with my husband for June 19-26th. That cost me a fair bit, obviously (like around $1800-ish). Now we're thinking we'd like to rent a car as well, so you can go ahead and add on AT LEAST $300 for that. Hopefully we can find a place to park it! That's kind of what it depends on.

Shortly after I booked the trip, I took one of my precious and adorable little kitties, Spices, to the vet because he was having trouble getting up on things and I knew he was developing arthritis (my babies are almost 13). That cost me $420.34, and I know the exact amount because I just paid it off my credit card a few minutes ago. While there, the vet informed me (once again) that he had bad teeth, but this time he added that there were things that could be (and had to be) done about it. So, my little pumpkin is booked for his dental surgery this Thursday (two days from now). :o( I'm a worried mommy.

So, the estimate they gave me is going to cost me almost the same as our trip (before rental car). The estimate was over $1600. Although I'm not sure, that might have included the bloodwork that I already got done (and paid for) to make sure that the anesthetic will not be a problem. So I should try to find that estimate--I may have paid for part of that $1600 already. Why so expensive, you ask? Tests, x-rays, tooth extractions (apparently it's quite bad), cleaning, drugs, antibiotics, etc., etc. It all adds up. I'm horrified, but my cats are like my kids and beyond worth it to me. I'd pretty much pay any price to keep them with me as long as possible.

But, in spite of all that, and also in spite of my general lack of watching our spending, I have some number updates for you. I had a little help from a tax refund of $2761.99 (of which I used $761.99 and put the rest in emergency savings). So last time, it looked like this:

pay off my credit card ($1246.84)
pay off my husband's credit card ($2043.86)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5100.50 towards this total, so $14899.50 to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, 2009, our balance was sitting at $101,852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

And this time, my numbers are looking like this:

pay off my credit card ($1072.83)
pay off my husband's credit card ($1960.89)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5112.66, so $14887.34 to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, 2009, our balance was sitting at $101,852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

I'm not sure what I bought (besides the vet and vacation stuff, which I paid off right away with my condo money) that bumped up my credit card amount to such a degree...groceries, I assume. Imagine what could it could have been paid down to if I had been more careful! I'd love to pay it off before we go to New Orleans, but I just don't see it happening. We also need to save for our trip, unless we want to put everything on the credit cards (the very idea of which makes my hair stand on end!).

I'm Still Here

2010-04-09T12:02:00.002-06:00

I have, however, NOT been doing very well in the frugal department. But I have some update numbers anyway. Last time, my situation looked like this:

pay off my credit card($1334.35)
pay off my husband's credit card($2043.86)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5087.54 towards this total, so $14,912.46 to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, 2009, our balance was sitting at $101,852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

And this time, it looks like this:

pay off my credit card ($1246.84)
pay off my husband's credit card ($2043.86)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5100.50 towards this total, so $14899.50 to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, 2009, our balance was sitting at $101,852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

No, I never get tired of doing it that way.

I would have had my credit card paid down more, but my husband missed one day of work, and I bought a rather expensive pair of running shoes. Oops. I need them, though.

Payday! (AKA Goal Update)

2010-03-19T09:46:00.002-06:00

First, last time my financial situation looked like this:

pay off my credit card ($1631.46)
pay off my husband's credit card ($2066.74)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5087.54 towards this total, so $14,912.46 to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, 2009, our balance was sitting at $101,852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

But I just made some payments! So now it looks (or will shortly) like this:

pay off my credit card($1334.35)
pay off my husband's credit card($2043.86)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5087.54 towards this total, so $14,912.46 to go)
pay off mortgage (as of December 31, 2009, our balance was sitting at $101,852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

I left a cushion of about $340 in my husband's bank account just in case, but if we behave ourselves and don't spend it all, maybe I can make another payment just before next payday. Or at least pay extra next time.

I'm feeling a tiny bit frustrated today at how slow it's going to pay stuff down, especially my husband's credit card. But I'm doing it on purpose, just paying his minimum until mine is paid off, because his interest rate is MUCH lower than mine.

My grandma has been staying with us this week, and she's been buying us stuff and practically throwing money at me, so it's been great, lol!

Check-In

2010-03-09T09:46:00.006-07:00

I made another credit card payment! Yay!!!

So last time (February 19), my situation looked like this:

pay off my credit card ($1919.46)
pay off my husband's credit card ($2066.74)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we actually have about $5000 in a tax-free investment savings account for this purpose already, but if I take it out to pay the credit cards, I can't put it back in again this year...plus it gives me some extra peace of mind).
pay off mortgage.
???
PROFIT!!!

Since then, I have used my credit card twice where it wasn't immediately paid off--$34 for the chiropractor, and $10 for a registration fee to do a 5K walk for cancer research called the Underwear Affair. Speaking of which, I know most people who read this are trying to save money, but if you can spare a few bucks, please donate to my cause! I can't help myself; I just have to say that. The words "Underwear Affair" above are linked to my personal page.

My current balance showing on my credit card's website is $2031.46. However, yesterday I paid $400 towards that total. I used $209 in "overage" (once again, the amount my husband got paid over $1500), and $117.88 that was left over from last month. The other $73.12 was just to make it nice and even, and because I figured I could.

I'm slightly worried that I made a mistake, because our $1000 emergency fund took a big hit last month. I'm not even sure where it all went, but I know my husband's truck took a large chunk of it. Now we have just under $300 in it. So hopefully nothing goes wrong!

Now our situation looks (or will, in a few days) like this:

pay off my credit card ($1631.46)
pay off my husband's credit card ($2066.74)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we currently have $5087.54 towards this total, so $14,912.46 to go)
pay off mortgage (we got our statement recently and as of December 31, 2009, our balance was sitting at $101,852.80)
???
PROFIT!!!

I'm pleased with how my credit card knock-down is progressing. :-D

In other news I mentioned and never updated:

my overdue library book ended up costing me $4.55. I'm glad it's gone. Now I'm working on another one that I kind of wish was done, but it's not overdue yet.
I didn't really do a grocery plan or grocery shopping for this week. We did a little bit of grocery shopping at Costco this weekend, but not everything I need for the week. So I'm trying to work with what I have, as much as I can.
We spent way too much this weekend. We're not really over budget, though, so it's okay. We bought two board games. Perhaps they can keep us entertained so that we don't have to go out.
I thought there was something else, but I can't think of it. Maybe it will come to me later.

Stuff N' Such

2010-03-03T09:50:00.003-07:00

Well, where to begin? I meant to post here awhile ago, but somehow I just never got around to it. So here's where I've been lately:

We bought a new, memory foam bed. I'm hoping it will help my back, but so far...I kinda miss my old bed. But I seriously think I'm just being nostalgic because of the change. I am not that great with change. One thing at a time I can usually handle, but we also rearranged the furniture in the bedroom, so that may have pushed me over the edge. Yeah, it doesn't take much. At least if I really find I don't like it, we have a 60-day trial period. But I like it, I just don't know if I love it yet. But then I sit on it and I love it. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Anyway, it was kind of...not cheap.
I'm paying for it out of my condo money. My husband said I can slowly pay myself back with his money, as long as I don't break him with the bed. So I'm happy about that. It won't stay on my credit card, and I'm not losing my "what-if-something-happens-to-him" fund.
I set up one of our bills to be paid automatically with my credit card. I would have done it for all of them, but it wasn't an option. Why would I do such a crazy thing, when I'm trying to pay OFF the credit cards? PC Points. One of my new friends bought a Wii using her PC Points, and I waste mine foolishly on groceries. :p I want a Wii! So I'm going to work on building up my PC points for that purpose. Any bill that gets paid with my credit card will be paid off as soon as possible, of course (like, within the month so there's no interest).

On the organizational front, I need to drink more tea! LOL. I still have too many boxes and tins of tea left on my counter from when I cleaned out my cupboard. Turns out that even IN sight, they're still out of mind. :p

Grocery Bill-February 24 to March 2, 2010

2010-02-26T09:33:00.002-07:00

Well, I stayed under budget, although there may be a few more things that my husband will need to pick up.

Market Produce, February 24, 2010:
bag of peppers (I think there were 8 in the bag)-$2.98
2 heads romaine-$2.96
3.21 lbs ($1.28/lb) field tomatoes-$4.11
10-lb bag long grain rice-$9.98
1 bag Anjou pears (3 lbs)-$2.88
3 lb bag yellow onions-$2.28
0.45 lbs white mushrooms ($2.48/lb)-$1.12
Total: $26.31

Walmart Supercentre, February 24, 2010:
2.6 kg box Minute Rice-$8.77
Spanish yellow (saffron) rice-$2.57
Uncle Ben's Fast & Fancy rice-$1.48
Uncle Ben's Fast & Fancy rice-$1.48
Uncle Ben's Fast & Fancy rice-$1.48
Spanish yellow (saffron) rice-$2.57
Uncle Ben's Fast & Fancy rice-$1.48
GV 475 ml light Ranch-$1.57
GV 475 ml thousand island-$1.57
200 g romano cheese-$7.14
sourdough English muffins (bag of 6)-$2.87
454 g fine bread crumbs-$4.17
4L 1% milk + deposits-$4.08 + $0.30
312 g organic baby spinach-$4.97
deli rotisserie chicken-$6.75
CL CWT W 170-$2.00...I have no idea what this is.
Great Value baked beans (can)-$0.77
Subtotal-$56.02
GST-$0.34
Total: $56.36

and this here is what you get when you're PMSing and must have ice cream NOW:

Co-op, February 24, 2010:
Nestle cookie dough/brownie ice cream-$8.49
Carmilk bar-$1.25
2 bulk long sandwich buns-$0.68
Subtotal-$10.42
GST-$0.06
Total: $10.48
Grand Weekly Total (so far, anyway): $93.15

Well, I wasn't doing too badly until the Co-op trip. Oops.

Menu Plan Feb. 24-Mar. 3, 2010

2010-02-24T14:24:00.002-07:00

Here is my meal plan for the next week (I've been forgetting to do this lately):

Wed., Feb. 24-~~butter chicken~~ roasted deli chicken, saffron rice, salad (or coleslaw)
Thurs., Feb. 25-stuffed peppers
Fri., Feb. 26-ham, mushroom, and spinach pizza, salad
Sat., Feb. 27-Girl's Night Out dinner (not sure about husband)
Sun., Feb. 28-tuna noodle casserole (maybe), salad
Mon., Mar. 1-pork chops, cream of mushroom rice, salad
Tuesday, Mar. 2-spaghetti, salad
Wed., Mar. 3-butter chicken, rice, salad

I was planning on making butter chicken tonight, but my tummy's been upset because I'm crazy this week (see my blog titled "Shrink" for details...although the name is referring to weight loss and not to a psychiatrist-type shrink, lol). So when I walked past the tantalizing (and cheap!) roasted deli chickens at Walmart today, I changed my plans. Butter chicken gets shoved to next Wednesday.

Just One Good Lottery Win Would Do It...

2010-02-24T08:51:00.003-07:00

That's what my husband likes to say lately, anyway. Although we rarely play the lottery, so I don't think that's going to happen, lol.

We've had some "interesting" financial developments lately. There are a few things we need: my husband needs some parts to fix the front end of his truck because it's rattling, we need our furnace cleaned and serviced, and we need a new bed.

The furnace thing was something that I found out yesterday. Sears called and asked us if we wanted an inspection, so I said why not. The guy came yesterday, and said our furnace is way out of whack and could desperately use a cleaning. Normally I would be suspicious of recommendations from someone that I did not seek out, but this guy was pretty good. He also checked the water heater and said it was too old to have it serviced, so I was happy to see he wouldn't just make up a problem to get more money, you know? Plus, he explained to me what the pilot light should look like, and...it doesn't look like that at all.

My husband also said that he knew the furnace needed something, because it blows cold air too long after the heat shuts off. I've noticed that, too. Also, our energy/gas bill has been REALLY high lately, and the guy who came to look at the furnace said that it could be adding $30-$40 per month (or more) to our bill. So if that's true, getting the furnace cleaned would pay for itself rather quickly. It would cost about $260 (including tax).

As for the bed, this one is tricky. On one hand, it's only a few years old. Maybe 5, but no more than that. But it is nowhere near as comfortable as it was when I got it (my husband bought it for me before we were married because I was sleeping on a futon in my condo and was starting to get back problems). I also lost about 45 lbs over the past year and a bit, and there's now a slope in the mattress on my side from when I was heavier. Not very comfy. Also, we fight over the space in our double (with two imperialistic cats who can make themselves VERY large when they're all spread out, and naturally we can't disturb them because we both agree that they wear the pants in the family), so we'd like to get a queen-size. Our frame can be expanded, so we only need a mattress and box spring.

Another thing is, my grandma is coming to stay overnight at our house next month because she has an eye appointment (she has what might be a cancerous growth in her eye) early the next day, and she will not be able to get in and out of the crappy little bed that we currently have in our guest room. So we want to move our double in there when we get our new one. I'd also really like to paint the room, and maybe get some pretty curtains.

Now here's where it gets tricky. I know that I want a memory foam mattress. I've done the research and know the questions to ask to get a quality one. I'm convinced that it will help my back, as well. If the place I have in mind answers all my questions to my satisfaction, then it's not hugely more expensive than a regular mattress, anyway. Although we'd still need a box spring, which is practically impossible to find on its own, especially for cheap. I have been thinking of getting a used one, but my husband is afraid of bedbugs and so am I a little bit. But it would probably be our best option. Now, we could just get a regular mattress set and it might be a little cheaper, but is that really more frugal if we're just going to get a memory foam eventually anyway? I don't think so.

In other financial news, we got our mortgage statement a couple of days ago. It says that as of December 31, 2009, our mortgage balance was $101,852.80. That's around what I thought it would be. I cannot wait to get to the point where we can start paying it down! Now if only random expenses would stop coming up, that would be great.

Motorhome Update

2010-02-23T12:49:00.004-07:00

I emailed the guy back that I contacted from Kijiji and told him that I couldn't afford a motorhome right now, so I wouldn't be coming to take a look at it after all.

Yay me!

*cries*

Help...I Want a Motorhome

2010-02-22T09:56:00.004-07:00

Now I know that may sound silly, being as here I am talking about saving money all the time, and now I'm telling you I want to make a major unnecessary purchase.

But I've wanted one for almost a year. We looked at them last summer, but could never quite bring ourselves to spend that kind of money on one, even though we found one that was a REALLY good deal for the year ($30 000 for a 2003 or so, when usually the equivalent costs about $50 000). Still, it was too expensive for us. The older ones are more in our price range (around $6000-7000), but of course they're not as nice.

I found one on Kijiji that I want to go look at. I shouldn't buy it, though. It's one of the older ones, so it's cheaper, but I still shouldn't buy it. It's still more than I want to spend. Plus it's probably terrible on gas. It's just that I think of all the things we could do with it...(road trips galore!) and how it would make it easier to travel with the cats (I think). And it makes me want one.

I try to remember my belief that everything you buy that you don't need is selling yourself into slavery for as much longer as it takes to either pay it off, or build your savings back up, but wants are strong.

Help...tell me everything you've ever heard about motorhomes that's bad. Okay? Thanks.

Goals Revisited

2010-02-19T15:00:00.005-07:00

This may also be known as "payday." On February 6th, I posted the following goals:

pay off my credit card ($3201.04)
pay off husband's credit card ($2088.17)--mine has higher interest, so that's why it's first
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund
pay off mortgage
???
PROFIT!!!

Shortly after that, I dug deep and paid off $1016.01 of my credit card, leaving the balance at $2185.03. Or something like that. The interest screws my calculations up a bit.

Anyway, the current balance, as per the website, is $2266.86. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I think it involves chiropractor visits and interest. Actually, there should be one more chiropractor visit on there, I think. But anyway, I just paid another $347.40 towards my credit card, which should bring the current total balance down to $1919.46 (or somewhere thereabouts).

The $347.40 was made up of $144.62 that was left in the account from the last paycheque, plus $202.78 overage (remember that I'm considering all paycheques to be $1500, and anything over that is overage and goes on my credit card). I also paid the minimum of $42 on my husband's credit card, but I need to wait until they post the interest to get a realistic picture of what we now owe on his.

As of right now, my goals look like this:

pay off my credit card ($1919.46)
pay off my husband's credit card ($2066.74)
save $20000 for a long-term emergency fund (we actually have about $5000 in a tax-free investment savings account for this purpose already, but if I take it out to pay the credit cards, I can't put it back in again this year...plus it gives me some extra peace of mind).
pay off mortgage.
???
PROFIT!!!

Um, yeah...I'm still being silly with it. I probably won't stop. Sorry.

If I thought I could get away with it, I'd pay another $500 towards the credit card, but that would leave our short-term emergency fund at only $500, which would be a bit scary. Especially considering my husband says he needs to fix the front end of his truck because it's starting to scare him, and also because his place of employment just laid a few people off. Plus I've been borrowing the grocery money from the emergency fund, and paying half of it back each paycheque.

Currently, this feels like it will take forever. But at least I've stopped using my credit card for wants.

Speaking of using my credit card, I am still using it for chiropractor treatments, but my husband just got his benefit package! Yay! And they cover chiropractors up to $300 per year (I wonder if that's per person or total?), with a $50 deductible. Also, now my very expensive blood pressure medication will be covered! And my BCP. Those suckers add up. I am pleased.

I Am the Pigeon

2010-02-17T23:54:00.003-07:00

A girl on my Facebook linked to this article. It was an enjoyable read. Now, whenever I go to use my credit card, I shall imagine the dumbass pigeons who sit in front of my car and won't move (while I'm trying to drive--not while it's parked!), and ponder the fact that when it comes to handling money, my way of thinking is not so far removed from theirs.

Imagine if you gave a pigeon a credit card, and they were able to use it? They would probably buy a bunch of dumb crap that they couldn't afford. Hmmm...

Potpourri

2010-02-16T14:00:00.004-07:00

No, not that kind of potpourri. To be honest, potpourri grosses me out a little bit. Dusty dried flowers, leaves, and twigs? No thanks. I don't even think it smells very nice. But I digress...

No, I'm talking of potpourri as more of a mishmash of different thoughts I'm having today. I do think the word "potpourri" is a nicer-sounding word than "mishmash." Hence my title.

Shall I get on with it? Okay, I kind of suck at this frugal thing. We had a long weekend up here this past weekend, and I went out to eat Every. Single. Day of it. Each time was for breakfast. I have an eggs benedict addiction that is good neither for my weight, nor my wallet. Note to self: Learn to make a low-cal eggs benedict.

In other news, I get to be part of an online/telephone focus group on March 2nd, which will take 90 minutes and pay $60. Not too shabby! I don't really know what to do with the money. I guess I probably should put it towards my credit card.

Also, I got a phone call today about some grocery scanning thing I signed up for last year. I'm thinking maybe Nielson? I couldn't make out what the guy was saying very well, but I do remember signing up for something like that. Vaguely. He said they're mailing me a scanner. Unfortunately, it sounds like you can only use your points for gifts and not cash, but hopefully they will at least be good gifts.

I just got distracted reading a forum about the AC Nielson Home Scan...

Anyway, I don't know if I have the self-discipline for this, but whatever. It should be interesting, at least.

What would you do with $60 from a focus group? On the one hand, it's extra money. On the other, it's so easy for $60 to slip through your (my) fingers, that it really doesn't seem like much. Thoughts?

Grocery Bill-February 17-February 23, 2010

2010-02-16T11:55:00.002-07:00

Part 1: Safeway, February 16, 2010
473 ml bottle Hidden Valley fat-free Ranch-$4.59
900 g generic spaghetti-$2.38
900 g generic spaghetti-$2.38
500 g carton Simply Egg Whites-$2.99 (on sale)
Best Buy medium light cheddar-$6.49
3 stuffed portabellos-$8.52 (on sale)
2 boneless centre cut pork chops-$5.69 (on sale)
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts-$15.77 (on sale)
Total: $48.81

Part Two: Co-op, February 16, 2010
1 lb strawberries-$2.88
1 lb strawberries-$2.88
1 lb strawberries-$2.88*
8 oz. sliced white mushrooms-$2.49
generic frozen light whipped topping-$3.99*
hot house tomatoes ($1.99/lb)-$4.41*
chocolate Easter eggs-$5.49*
Subtotal-$25.02
GST-$0.27
Total: $25.29
Grand Weekly Total: $74.10
*denotes unplanned purchases

I usually buy Catelli Smart spaghetti, because it says it's 300 calories for 85 g and the other ones usually say 320 calories for 85 g, but I found that the generic one said the same as the Catelli Smart. So I bought it, because it was much cheaper. I'm sure the calories are an educated estimate on both, though, and probably vary by more than 20 calories, but...I'm trying to lose weight, and sometimes I like to fool myself.

The stuffed portabellas are for my special homemade "Valentine's" meal. See, we usually celebrate Valentine's Day on the 17th, but on Sunday we went out for brunch to celebrate it. I was going to make a special meal Sunday and then we would go out tomorrow, but I decided to reverse it instead. I'm quite excited about such an unusual (to us) dinner. It will be fresh pasta and sauce, stuffed portabellos, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. Yum!

The pork chops were on sale for a good price, so I bought two of them because the package we bought yesterday gave us enough for four meals, minus two pork chops. So this makes it an even four meals. Yay! This will feed us for awhile, obviously.

The Easter chocolates got to me because they are cream-filled and come with a spoon, and I'm a sucker for unusual items. Especially unusual chocolate items. I was going to pay for them with my spending money instead of my grocery budget, but Co-op is having a promotion where for every $10 you spend, you get a sticker towards a set of pots and pans. My husband started collecting the stickers. Anyway, I was only a few cents short...unless I put the chocolates in with the groceries.

That's how they getcha!

Thus Begins My Descent Into Criminality

2010-02-13T09:59:00.003-07:00

I have a library book. I tried to renew it, but I couldn't, because it has holds. I'm not finished it. I discovered the fine for overdue library books is a measly $0.35 per day.

I'm going to finish the book.

I'm trying to read it as fast as I can, but it's not that kinda book. I do feel bad about keeping it longer, but I already started it. I can't leave a book that I already started! I feel so guilty.

But the $0.35 per day doesn't bother me in the least. That's not even enough to worry my cheap little heart.

Grocery Bill-February 10-February 16, 2010

2010-02-11T21:20:00.004-07:00

Because I went over my grocery budget last week by $39.59, it should have left me $60.41 for this week (I wanted to keep it down this week so that I have the full $200 available for the next two weeks). However, I managed to misplace $4.43 somehow, so I only had $55.98 for this week. Although I also had a Walmart gift card from my mother.

Anyway, let me start by saying that...I lost my receipt. I was going to put it in my purse, but then I thought it might be better off in one of the grocery bags. This was a bad idea because my husband put the groceries in the bed of the truck, so the receipt must have blown out. However, I know the amount we spent was $34.17.

This is what I bought:

Part 1-Walmart Supercentre
213 ml can GV pizza sauce-$0.74*
213 ml can GV pizza sauce-$0.74*
213 ml can GV pizza sauce-$0.74*
213 ml can GV pizza sauce-$0.74*
18 kg box Special Kitty scented clumping cat litter-$?
8 oz. whole white mushrooms-$1.47
Uncle Ben's Fast & Fancy rice-$1.48*
Uncle Ben's Fast & Fancy rice-$1.48*
1.66L Breyer's Very Chocolatey Cherry ice cream-$*
Hershey's mini Kisses chocolate chips-$2.?*
2L bottle Coke-$1.97*
box of Nature Valley granola bars (on sale)-$2.00*
box of Nature Valley granola bars (on sale)-$2.00*
1 package Olivieri pasta-$4.?
1 container Olivieri creamy pesto sauce-$2.?
1 stick curly bamboo-$2.97*
4L 1% Dairyland milk-$4.08
Walmart gift card from my mother: (-$20.00)
Total: $34.17
*denotes unplanned purchases

I think that was everything. At least I know the total amount, I guess. I put as many prices down as I remembered. I'm so mad at myself for taking the receipt out of my purse and putting it in the bag! Argh!

So now I have $21.81 left for the week. Good thing I had that gift card. There were a LOT of unplanned purchases. That always happens when my husband comes with me, not that it was all his fault. I still need a carton of egg whites (although I could probably get by without them), and pork chops. I think that's it. The only thing is that the pork chops will probably cost me more than what I have left. But, they will also last for more than one week, so part can come out of a future week (we have them every week).

So I guess I'll keep trying, next week, to keep the cost of groceries down. It might be hard because we've been using up stuff in our freezer, so we're running out of things!

Part 2: Co-op
hot house tomatoes($1.99/lb)-$4.57
pork loin centre roast(enough for 3.5 meals)-$23.67
Total: $28.24
I paid $21.81 in cash from my grocery budget, and the rest ($6.43) came from my husband's bank account.
Grand Weekly Total: $62.41

Not so bad.

Organization

2010-02-10T13:40:00.003-07:00

I think getting and staying organized is an important part of any money-saving plan. To illustrate, let me share this example: I was making a new (to me) recipe posted by The Happy (atheist) Homemaker, and the recipe called for dried thyme. I was sure I had some, but I couldn't find it. I assumed it had gotten moved because we have a box with "rarely used" spices in it (somewhere...). So I went to the store and bought more thyme.

A few days later, I decided to go through the spice cupboard. Every once in awhile I get delusions that I'll be able to tidy it up enough that jars of spices won't fall on my head when I open it. That will probably never happen, though, because we just have too many! Anyway, what should I find but a big package of dried thyme?! So, wasted money. I don't use that much thyme (maybe I will now).

Today I decided to clean out just the top shelf of the cupboard above our microwave. I did it last year and assumed it hadn't changed much, and possibly didn't really need it (yes, that's how I think), but I decided to see what was what. I discovered that we have far too many hot drink mixes and tea bags. There are a lot of duplicates, too. We may not need to buy tea for the rest of our lives. Okay, well, maybe it's not that bad, but it will be awhile!

Most of it is just clutter, and so unnecessary. I came across a hot chocolate recipe today from The Saved Quarter. It's simple, it's cheap, and do you know what it means? It means I'll never have to buy packaged hot chocolate mix again. Space will be reclaimed in my cupboards! We still have a ton to use up before that happens, though.

I've put all our drink mixes and tea bags that I want to start using up on the kitchen counters, assuming that if we see them, we might actually use them. I suspect my husband won't be thrilled to see them on the counters, but maybe if I explain my evil plan, he'll leave them there. Maybe he'll even make himself a nice cup of tea...

My next objective is to clear out the second shelf of that same cupboard. This is where we keep all our cookbooks and recipes that have been torn out of magazines or picked up somewhere on a loose piece of paper. To tidy this shelf, I will have to first go through the bookshelf in the spare room, because I want to move our cookbooks there. I also want to find some way to corral all those loose recipe cards (the ones that are too big for my recipe box) and pieces of paper. This plan will mean going through my bookshelf and finding books to try to sell. I already have a stack in my car, and I will be adding to them. Maybe I will even be able to get rid of some more cookbooks!

Procrastination Is Bad

2010-02-09T13:59:00.002-07:00

Because I've been procrastinating about various things, I have to hurry up and read an entire library book today. I tried to renew it but because it has holds, I am not able to. So this is making me a little stressed out. Yeah, I could just take it back and get it again later, but I hate doing that. So I'm endeavouring to read it today. I'm almost halfway through so far, and it's due tomorrow.

I also have to check my survey email account, but I don't feel like I have the time! And on top of that, I've been ignoring my course since I got a few days ahead, and now I think I'm one day behind. So that's why I say procrastination is bad. It can cost you if you're not careful. Plus I have another library book I had planned to start today, but it will have to wait. Oh, well.

Anyway, one area I can't afford to procrastinate on is my meal planning. I had planned to go shopping tomorrow for the week of February 10-February 17, but I think I'm going to try something a little different. Since I overspent so much last week, I'm thinking of what I have available this week. Here is my plan:

Feb. 9: stuffed peppers-have everything (well, I need one more can of tomato juice, but I've decided to sub tomato soup instead, because that's what I have).
Feb. 10: Shake N' Bake chicken, sauteed carrots and onions, and either creamed corn or stuffing muffins.-have everything.
Feb. 11: spaghetti (it was supposed to be today, but I just don't feel like making it for some reason).-need mushrooms and to check how much spaghetti I have.
Feb. 12: ham, mushroom, and spinach pizza-need pizza sauce and mushrooms.
Feb. 13: sweet and sour meatballs, rice, salad-have everything.
Feb. 14: something special for Valentine's Day-need to buy.
Feb. 15: pork chops, cream of mushroom rice, salad-need pork chops.
Feb. 16: I'm thinking some sort of cheesy tuna casserole.-not sure yet.
Feb. 17: we are probably going out for "our" Valentine's Day (less crowded--and cheaper--if you celebrate it a few days later! Plus I have an affinity for the number seven, so it's perfect). Our eating out budget is separate from our grocery budget, so it won't affect it.

So the only things I'm going to need to buy this week are pizza sauce, mushrooms, the Valentine's Day meal (I'm thinking those fresh pastas and sauce, something interesting from the "fancy" section of the meat counter, and chocolate-dipped strawberries), pork chops, and possibly needed ingredients for when I find a tuna casserole recipe, but I'm hoping I have everything already. I also might need to pick up some milk and maybe more tomatoes. Not too shabby!

Anyway, I should have $60.41 left for my groceries for the week, but for some reason I only have $55.98. I'm missing $4.43, but I suspect it has something to do with my convoluted math regarding paying for half of the food processor with the grocery budget. While I was looking in my wallet to see if it was in there, I found a $20 Walmart gift certificate that my mother gave me for Christmas. So that could come in handy sometime. I put it in my "grocery" change purse because I always forget about it in my regular wallet!

Oh yeah, I can do this. Maybe I'll even have some left over! (Yeah, right!)

Thoughts for Today: Making Money Online

2010-02-08T13:05:00.004-07:00

This morning, I was looking at ways to make money online. I would love to be able to bring in a little extra cash from various online methods, and contribute that little bit extra to our household budget. Even a small amount could make a big difference to achieving our goals. So I thought I'd give some money-making suggestions I've read about on other blogs a shot.

By far, the easiest, most passive way that I've found is to open a high-interest savings account, and save like crazy. I have an account with ING Direct (my Orange Key is 16604882S1 in case you'd like to sign up through me, ha ha!), and I get 1.20% interest in one account, and 3% interest in my tax-free investment savings account. I realize those numbers aren't great, but they're the best I've found for bank interest right now. Interest rates suck right now! Although our mortgage keeps going down. Tradeoffs, I suppose.

In addition to that, I get 4% interest on an RRSP. But I signed up for that before the interest rates dropped again.

So anyway, I get a small amount in monthly interest. But, that's because that's where I plunked most of my condo money. Obviously not everyone lucked out with the real estate market like I did (I make it sound like I made millions, don't I? I wish!).

I would like to try my hand at making more. I was thinking about setting myself a small goal to shoot for, just to see what I can do. Like, maybe just $10. But I don't have any idea how to go about it. I already do online surveys, but I'm at the mercy of what they send me. Of course it helps if I actually do the surveys, which is why I've been checking my survey email account every day for the last little bit. It's too easy to ignore it and miss out.

I signed up for Swagbucks (link on my sidebar and yes, Canadians can use Swagbucks! Yay!), but the widget doesn't quite fit on my blog, and I don't really know how to promote it any other way.

I also signed up for Infolinks, but I don't know how to insert the code properly. I'm waiting for instructions. I don't want to annoy people with my attempts to see if I can make money this way, either. But I'm hoping it's fairly unobtrusive. If not, I'll probably remove it.

I saw a post today about sites where you can make something and sell it (like t-shirts, cookbooks, etc.), so I might check that out. Or if I could find Virtual Assistant work (that I can do from home, of course), that would be good, too.

I don't know if anything will come of it, but it feels like an adventure!

I Couldn't Wait

2010-02-06T22:24:00.004-07:00

I was horrified by the amount on my credit card (I honestly thought it was around $2400...I've been afraid to check until now), so I dipped into some savings and paid it down considerably. Here is the breakdown:

Owed earlier: $3201.04
Paid from my savings: $749.26
Paid from husband's "overage": $266.75

New total owed on my cc: $2185.03

I feel somewhat better now. Only somewhat, because I hate spending my savings. You see, before we were married, I owned a (tiny!) condo, which I sold when we got married. I happened to buy it shortly before real estate prices took off in my city, and sold it just at the beginning of when they started going down a bit again. So I made some money on the sale. It's enough to give me a VERY small income...not quite enough to pay my monthly insurance at the moment, but every little bit helps.

Anyway, I chose an amount that I want to maintain in my savings account. I don't want to see my balance dip below this amount, and as it happens, that left me $749.26 to put on my credit card. The only thing is that I recently got a yearly interest payment (I have some locked away at a higher interest rate, and I chose to withdraw the interest once a year), and I was planning to transfer about $75 into my chequing account once a month, just to give myself some spending money. But I've decided that paying down our debt is more important. Plus, honestly, over $600 of my credit card debt is from a university course I recently signed up for, and I feel that that's something I should be paying for myself, anyway.

Yes, my husband and I have some weird hybrid of sharing our money and keeping it separate. He knows I want to preserve my condo money so that I can get the interest from it, and he's okay with it. If worst came to worst and he lost his job or something, we would use it to get by. So it's nice to have it, just in case. We don't consider it our emergency fund, though, which is good because it's much less likely to be replaced when we use it than money from one of his accounts.

Anyway, now that I've gotten my credit card down to an amount that feels more manageable, I may be able to sleep tonight! Pity I won't be able to put a big chunk of money down on our debt every day. That would be good. ;o)

Oh, I almost forgot--the "overage." Remember when I said I'll consider his paycheque to be $1500 each time? Well, this time, it was $266.75 more than that, so I decided to apply it to the credit card. If it turns out that we have any money left over by the next paycheque (which I doubt we will), I'll apply that, too. Well, except for groceries. I've already mentioned that any grocery $$$ leftover will go to needed bulk purchases.

Weekend Wall

2010-02-06T17:28:00.010-07:00

Why are weekends so much harder than weekdays to stay on track? Do we need at least one of us to work just so that we have less opportunity to spend? We went out for lunch today, and we're going out for dinner. Dinner has been planned for a long time; lunch was not planned at all except that I didn't want to eat anything in the house for lunch. This is a recurring problem for me when there are no leftovers.

I asked my husband today if he would rather if he didn't have to work, and he said yes. When he was at his old job, he rarely said that. I worry that he doesn't really like his new job much, although he says he does. He says he feels limited by working the same way for so long. At any rate, I feel terribly guilty that he still has to work, so I started thinking about how much we'd need for us both to stay home.

The figure I came up with was about $800,000, assuming that our mortgage and credit cards were paid off, and we could get an interest rate of at least 4% somewhere (I used that because I got that rate locked in shortly before the interest rates tanked). That's a ton of money (to me), but we might not need quite that much. If one or both of us temped once in awhile, we'd need less. Then again, there is inflation, so maybe we'd actually need more.

That can be broken down, as well. For example, if we saved $70,000, we could invest it in a RSP at, say, ING, and boom! there's one month's living expenses (plus a bit extra), paid once per year. Now $70,000 sounds like a lot of money as well, but it's not quite as daunting as $800,000. I have heard there are (much) better investments out there in stocks and stuff, but sadly, I don't understand them. I have a financial advisor, but my assets there seem to be doing worse than in ING, and not only are they not guaranteed interest, but financial advisors don't seem to understand the concept of not wanting to work. Plus they seem to forget that it's actually your money.

That amount seems almost impossible. Of course, it won't hurt to aim for it, but can we possibly ever reach it? I don't know. All I know is I can try, and the more we can save and pay off, the better our lives will be. I sometimes read or hear people opining that frugality and paying off debt is overrated, and we should just accept wage slavery (they don't put it that way, of course) and get on with the spending and the credit cards. I think they're both crazy and lazy, myself. But, to each his or her own.

For my part, I will do what I can to move us both closer to financial freedom. Here are my steps:

pay off my credit card ($3201.04)
pay off husband's credit card ($2088.17)--mine has higher interest, so that's why it's first
save $20,000 for a long-term emergency fund
pay off mortgage
???
PROFIT!!!

Okay, so I haven't thought it all the way through, lol. But that seems like a good place to start, and the rest of it is far enough away that it probably doesn't matter if I don't have the entire plan now.

Today I paid an extra $198.50 on my credit card, which I wasn't going to do. I was going to wait until closer to the next pay period, but I decided that we'd probably just fritter it away, and it would be better to apply it to the credit card before that happened. Unfortunately, there's still a LOT to pay off ($3201.04 as of right now), and I can't just put it away. I need it, at the very least, for my weekly chiropractor appointments. But I can choose to use it ONLY for that.

Baby steps...

Eureka!

2010-02-05T09:32:00.006-07:00

"Eureka" means, "I have found it," for those not in the know. And what have I found? I have found the website I mentioned that I was looking for yesterday--Confessions of a Bottom Feeder. I feel the need to point out that I do NOT agree with about 90% of what she says and I think she's right bonkers, but there is actually some useful stuff in there. It's a looong read, though, and she keeps changing it and adding to it! But there it is.

Yesterday's experiment with making my own dry ranch dressing mix was a success. I made two batches, which gives me about a cup, and I now can't believe I ever paid over a dollar or two for a fraction of that amount. You know what it cost me? Nothing. Well, not nothing. I mean, I had all that stuff already on hand. So it cost me a tiny fraction of what all the ingredients cost me. And I was able to take the two packets I wanted off my shopping list, thereby cutting my bill. Yay!

I discovered two other possible grocery money-savers yesterday, too: Weigh2Go, a bulk-food store in my city, and Market Produce, which is a cheap produce market (who'da thunk?). Actually, I had just forgotten about Market Produce, which is a shame because I don't live that far from it. I remember it as being very cheap, but my husband remembers it as having produce that's seen better days, so I think I might go there today and take a look. Or maybe next week when I'm closer to actually needing more produce. We'll see.

As for Weigh2Go, I'm not sure if they're actually that much cheaper than the bulk bins at my local Superstore (although I'm pretty sure they have more stuff), but I think I'll call them today and ask for prices on a few of their items, to get a better idea. They're too far away to drive down there just to take a look. Too bad they don't put the prices on their website! Maybe I'll make a file for it on my computer, write it down and compare it to our other meagre bulk-shopping options.

I was thinking about what to do with the extra money if I'm successful at lowering the grocery bill. I've decided to put it towards bulk stock-ups for things like skim milk powder, spices, etc. Now if I have extra money after that, then bonus! I don't know yet. Maybe savings? Maybe I should make a special account (I can do that at ING) just for grocery surplus. I probably have an old account I don't want anymore that would do nicely.

I was thinking of something to try for banking, too. Every time my husband gets paid, I'll just use the amount of $1500. It's always been more than that, and it's never the same amount twice, so that should be a good base number to budget off of. Extra goes in immediate savings account until it hits a certain amount, at which point it goes into long-term savings.

Mission(s) for the day:

read to at least page 100 of current book, as well as pages 20-41 in textbook
~~check "survey" email account and complete any paying surveys~~
cut up ham and peppers for pizza
~~make a list of spices/baking needs that I want to know the bulk prices of from Weigh2Go, and call or email them~~
~~do banking~~

Grocery Guilt

2010-02-04T11:20:00.004-07:00

A few years ago, I was really into survivalism, anti-consumerism, and living on practically no money. Well, I was into reading about it. I never lived off the land or anything. But a part of me wanted to. The reason I was so into it was because I didn't want to have to work. But now, my husband works and says he doesn't mind me staying home, and I sort of started to slip.

Even reading about that sort of thing constantly makes you more aware of what you're spending, I think. Unfortunately, now I can't find some of the things I read before, but I'm going to keep trying. Just today I found Possum Living again! Yay! There was other, more updated stuff I remember reading, too. I don't remember it being this hard to find, actually! That's what I get for slipping back into the consumer mindset.

Anyway, it's really not fair for me to slip back into spending too much money just because my husband is okay with me staying home. I would like him to have the option of not working, too. It just feels overwhelming! It feels like we'd need so much money to be able to do that. One thing that would help, of course, is to lower our current expenses drastically. And the area I have most control over in that aspect, is the grocery bill.

So that is my new mission--to lower my grocery bill. I found a recipe online yesterday to make dry ranch dressing mix, which I would normally buy for making oven ranch potatoes. Although I have to say, paying over $1.00 (or was it $2.oo?) for a tiny little packet of powder was painful for me. So I'm very happy to have found this recipe! I wasn't even considering making my own, before this. Now I need to find other things I can make instead of buy. Like a homemade version of Uncle Ben's Fast & Fancy Garden Vegetable rice. I use it in my stuffed peppers, and I ♥ it. But nothing packaged like that is every cheap!

Today's To-Do

2010-02-03T14:14:00.006-07:00

I've decided to take it easy on forcing myself to exercise for the week. As in, I'm not going to force myself to exercise. It was causing me too much stress, and I had this epiphany that maybe I just need a break. I am going swimming tonight, though, but that's for fun and socialization. Bonus that it happens to be exercise.

Yesterday I actually did quite a few days' worth of my self-imposed course schedule. That said, I did make the schedule very easy so that I would actually do it. But still. :o)

So today's to-do:

~~do dishes~~
~~work on grocery list for next week~~
~~finish reading my current library book~~
start reading my new book (try for 100 pages)
read pages 30-41 in the textbook
~~find a recipe for dry ranch mix~~
organize top shelf of cupboard above microwave
~~clear 5-10 emails out of my "survey" email account (depends on if I actually have to take the surveys or not)~~ I actually did them all!
clean out my spice cupboard because I swear it just tried to kill me
get husband to fix leaking faucet in the bathtub
~~check mail~~
~~give kitty his meds~~
look up recipe for alfredo sauce (low-fat if possible)
clean out fridge because it's garbage day tomorrow
look up how to make cabbage last

Pomegranates--You're Doing it Wrong

2010-02-03T10:09:00.004-07:00

Well, I was doing it wrong. I would buy them because I love to eat them, and then let them go to waste because I hate getting the arils out. I got that whole thing about cutting them up underwater, but what I didn't get was the part where you score them, not cut them. It occurred to me last night that maybe that was the way I was supposed to do it, so I tried it. Wow! So much easier! And cheaper, since my only other option was buying the expensive arils from Costco.

In other news, I bought a food processor yesterday. We had a really, really old one, but the shredding disk broke so we put it out by our trash and somebody took it away. I guess we could have tried to find a shredding disk, but it was so old that we didn't bother. Anyway, I found it on Kijiji, and it was from a company that gets stuff like that and re-sells it. This particular one is a store return from Costco. It's a Black & Decker one that comes with a blender attachment as well. It works and appears to have all its pieces, so I think it will be a good one. It cost me $42, when it's usually twice that brand-new in the store (and it is basically brand-new). So yay! Pity I couldn't find one for free, but I'm happy with this one.

Unfortunately I had to use $20 of our grocery money towards it, so I'll have to cut that somewhere else. It doesn't leave me much leftover for this week. I also used $20 that I had left over from a girl's night out dinner, and the $2 (for GST) came from a $5 bill I had in my wallet that I had forgotten about.

Still, this means that instead of buying pre-shredded mozzarella for our pizzas, I can buy blocks (cheaper), and instead of buying coleslaw mix I can just buy green and red cabbage and carrots (cheaper). So if I use it, it will save me money! You might be saying that I could shred and chop that stuff myself, and you'd be right, but I tried that before and I hate it so much that I just didn't do it. I wonder how long it will take to pay for itself? I don't really know how to figure that sort of thing out.

Now What?

2010-02-02T10:00:00.008-07:00

Hmmm, I really have nothing pressing to do today, but I still want to accomplish something. So I guess I'll post another "to-do" list:

exercise enough to burn 500 calories
~~do Study Questions (for course)~~
~~re-take practice quiz on textbook website~~
~~take practice quiz for Chapter 2 on textbook website~~
~~write a brief response to "What would you do?" vignette at the beginning of Chapter 2.~~
read pages 30-41 in the textbook. (these last four are optional--all I really have to do today is #2)
~~try to find a free or cheap food processor~~
do dishes
~~get dressed~~
~~clear 50 emails out of my "survey" email account~~
work on grocery list for next week
optional: go get groceries I couldn't get yesterday
organize top shelf of cupboard above microwave
~~cut up my pomegranate so I can eat it (I've been putting this off...I hope it's still good)~~
finish reading my current library book

At least dinner will be easy. It's those tamales I picked up yesterday, plus leftover mashed potatoes, and probably salad.

Boring, I know. ;o)

Grocery Bill-February 2-February 9, 2010

2010-02-01T16:40:00.010-07:00

I went to the Walmart Supercentre (for the first time ever!) for my grocery shopping today. I was able to get most, but not all, of what I needed. I think I will need to run out one more time this week, probably to my local Co-op.

So here's my receipt:

Part One: Walmart Supercentre
4 green peppers-$2.67
Uncle Ben's Fast&Fancy rice-$1.48
Uncle Ben's Fast&Fancy rice-$1.48
3-lb bag Golden Delicious apples*-$3.47
Uncle Ben's Fast&Fancy rice*-$1.48
Uncle Ben's Fast&Fancy rice*-$1.48
bag farfalle pasta-$1.67
bag farfalle pasta-$1.67
232 g romano cheese-$8.28
1.36 L can GV tomato juice*-$1.72 + $0.25 deposit
can GV diced tomatoes-$0.97
can GV creamed corn-$0.77
can GV wildberry punch*-$0.67
fat-free ham-$9.96 (the sign said $8.96)
bottle coleslaw dressing-$1.57
can GV fruit punch*-$0.67
can GV peach punch*-$0.67
8 oz. whole white mushrooms-$1.47
510 g romaine (3 heads)-$2.47
can GV creamed corn*-$0.77
can GV grape punch*-0.67
can GV baked beans*-0.77
jar Ragu pasta sauce-$2.27
box Catelli Smart spaghetti-$1.77
box Catelli Smart spaghetti-$1.77
18 extra-large eggs-$3.48
Subtotal: $56.37
GST: $0.13
Total: $56.50
Grand Weekly Total: $56.50
*denotes unplanned purchases

Like I said, I still have a few more things to buy, but I have $43.50 for this week left to do so, and I don't think it will be that much.

That said, however, I did buy 10 tamales at a Mexican place that I plan for us to have for dinner tomorrow. I wanted my husband to try them, but then I thought we'd have leftovers the next day, too, and we'd have them for dinner one night...anyway, it ended up costing me about $43.50 (including the two I had for lunch at the Mexican place today, which I planned to pay for out of my spending money). I'm not quite sure how those are getting paid for yet--I just put them on my credit card for now...credit cards bad! BAD!!!.

Part Deux: Safeway, February 3, 2010
430 g bulk sunflower seeds* ($0.69/100 g)-$2.97
946 ml Almond Breeze*-$3.89 + deposit-$0.10 & recycle fee-$0.02
Mezzetta Sun-dried tomatoes-$5.29
500 g Lemon Liberte yogurt*-$3.59
750 g Kraft part-skim mozza-$10.79
300 ml Olivieri light alfredo sauce-$4.69 (on sale)
845 g red seedless grapes*-$3.71 (on sale)
930 g tomatoes-$6.13
850 g green cabbage-$1.28
1.075 kg red cabbage-$2.34
2 lb bag of carrots-$1.49
28 g organic fresh basil-$2.49 (yikes! they only had it in a little plastic container.)
Subtotal: $48.78
GST: $0.15 (only on the bulk sunflower seeds--how weird is that?!)
Total: $48.93
Grand Weekly Total: $116.50 (I added the $20 from the grocery budget for the food processor in here, and also subtracted $8.93 that I cheated and used out of my spending money that was in my wallet so I wouldn't have to break another $20)

Could have been worse, I guess. Not terrible, although I'm still not done. I'm changing the Sunday meal from Salsa Chicken to roasted deli chicken with oven-ranch potatoes and either salad or coleslaw. So I still need to pick up ranch dressing mix (dry), and the chicken. I also might need some more milk before the week is up. Hmmm, unless there's a way for me to make the ranch dressing mix myself. I should look that up...

Anyway, if I didn't do that, I'd still have to buy chicken breasts (for the salsa chicken), and I wouldn't have any plans to use up more of my potatoes. We always have a problem with our potatoes going to waste, and I'm determined to stop wasting so much food.

Part Trois: Safeway, February 5, 2010
unsweetened applesauce-$2.69
2 bags Lay's chips-$5.00*
pina colada yogurt-$0.65
Subtotal: $8.34
GST: $0.25
Total: $8.59
Grand Weekly Total: $125.09

This trip was because I wanted to bake banana-nut muffins, and my applesauce had gone moldy. I was not really expecting that. Then the chips and yogurt were impulse buys by my husband, and me, respectively.

Part Four: Market Produce, February 8, 2010
I can't find the receipt, but I know I got the following:
8 red peppers
1 avocado
1 pineapple
2 16-oz. containers strawberries
5 tomatoes
Total: $14.50 (but then I lost one of the quarters in change!).
Grand Weekly Total: $139.59

I needed tomatoes for salad because the ones I had also went moldy, and there were some amazing deals to be had at Market Produce. Still, I'm significantly over budget for my groceries. I want to try and keep next week's budget low to make up for it. Hopefully I can do that!

Menu Plan Feb. 2-Feb. 9, 2010

2010-02-01T11:58:00.005-07:00

Okay, I'm going to stick today's plan in there too, just because I can. Here is my meal plan for the next week:

February 1-breaded, pan-fried pork chops; cream of mushroom rice, salad
February 2-chicken tamales, leftover mashed potatoes, salad
February 3-sundried tomato bacon alfredo pasta with chicken, salad
February 4-stuffed peppers
February 5-ham, mushroom, and spinach pizza
February 6-we are going out for Mexican
February 7-~~salsa chicken, rice, salad~~ roasted deli chicken, oven ranch potatoes, coleslaw
February 8-pork chops, COM rice, salad
February 9-spaghetti, salad

Now I just have to make a shopping list. I'm terrible at making shopping lists--I always, ALWAYS forget something terribly important. I also forget about breakfasts and lunches.

Feeling Overwhelmed Today

2010-02-01T08:52:00.011-07:00

Today I feel overwhelmed by all the stuff I have to do, although in reality it probably isn't that much. Here is my "to-do" list (in no particular order):

~~figure out how much cash I need to withdraw from my husband's bank account~~ All I can withdraw right now is $400, which is our grocery money.
~~go to the bank~~
exercise enough to burn 500 calories (this is something I have been trying to do every day, because I'm also trying to lose weight)
research food processors, because we need a new (or good used) one
~~finish reading Chapter 1 of my textbook~~ (I'm taking a course through an online university)
~~Read Commentary after "Learning Objectives" on course website~~
~~do Practice Exercises~~
~~clean at least the section of kitchen between sink and stove~~
~~shower~~
~~get dressed~~
finish reading my current library book (I'm almost done!)
~~make a grocery list for this week (Tuesday-Tuesday)~~
~~clear at least 10 emails out of my "survey" email account~~ Okay, I actually did 60...
~~put new registration sticker on my car, and new insurance and registration cards in my glove compartment~~

That's just all I can think of right now. *sigh* :o/

Last year, at the beginning of the year, I was doing fairly well as far as finances, grocery shopping, and cleaning (at least, I hadn't given up yet). Exercise, too. But then I kept hurting my back (to the point where it just stayed hurt all the time). On top of that, certain of my family members who are extremely stressful to have around started coming to visit all the time in the nicer weather (they live a couple of hours away), which made me feel paralyzed and unable to do much of anything--open the blinds, stay in the house, leave the house, get together with a friend, open the door, go for a walk, have anyone else come to visit, etc. I wanted to move far away and not tell them where. It may sound extreme, but they are truly strange and are happiest when I'm not happy. They will actually go out of their way and risk harrassment charges, just to drive people (friends; husband) away from me.

Anyway, all of this and my inability to keep up with everything led to depression that lasted until...well, now. In fact, it's still going on, and remembering last summer and how paralyzed I felt isn't helping, since summer will be here again before I know it. I think a priority is going to have to be getting a new garage door so I can park in there (that way they won't be able to tell when I'm home).

I usually feel like I need to hide that information about my family (although I never do hide it...it always comes out), but I feel better since I posted about it. Weird. Anyway, they're not here now, so I have no reason not to make the most of today.

Oh, and on a totally different topic, check out my new background! I love it! I found it at a completely different website than the one I normally use (I have no idea now which website it was, but there's probably a link on my blog somewhere--free background places usually stick one in).

So Much To Do!

2010-02-01T00:30:00.001-07:00

I couldn’t wait a whole entire day to post again on my shiny new blog, ha ha! So let’s see, what shall I write about?

Well, I’m going to try something new tomorrow (okay, now it's today, but I haven't gone to bed yet! February 1 already! Wow!) with the grocery budget. I budget $400 per month for groceries, and I usually use my credit card with the best intentions of paying it down from my husband’s bank account. But it turns out that the road to Hell really is paved with good intentions. It’s too easy to use my credit card for things that I want but that we don’t need (hello, proscuitto, I’m talking to YOU!).

So, I’m the proud possessor (temporarily) of my husband’s debit card. Which means I’ll have to go to his bank to withdraw the funds, which is a bit of a pain because his bank machine locations are MUCH less convenient than mine (bank machines that work with my bank can be found in any 7-11). But I shall do it! I’m going to take out the entire amount and keep it in an envelope somewhere in the house. I think I’ll have to take it out of the savings for now, but I’ll either replace $200 per paycheque, or all $400 with the next paycheque. We shall see; I haven’t decided yet.

Then there will be grocery shopping. I don’t think I’ll go tomorrow, just because I’m not ready yet. I have a menu plan, but I still need to make a shopping list and figure out what I already have. I hate grocery shopping, honestly, so I’d love to only go once a month and get it ALL done (except maybe produce and milk), but when I tried it before it didn’t work out so well. I ended up wanting to go postal by the time I got to the checkout, and since I can never get EVERYTHING I need from one grocery store here, I always have to go to at least 3 stores to finish my shopping. Not cool when all I want to do is go home. So maybe I’ll try to do once a week to start, and then maybe I can lessen it to once every two weeks once I get better at it. Is that possible, do you think? To get *better* at grocery shopping? I think it is.

Hmmm, it just occurred to me to take out all the cash we will need for the month, instead of just the grocery money. I’m not sure how that will work, though. Maybe I’ll just start with grocery money for now.

Here We Go!

2010-02-01T00:22:00.002-07:00

So, about me: I’m a stay-at-home wife, by choice. For now, anyway. I have no children, unless you count fur babies (I have two adorable cats), and no plans to have any. I’m an atheist, hence the “skeptical” part of my title (I’m skeptical in many areas, actually). By that I mean that since I don't believe in any of the currently or formerly popular (um, or unpopular) gods, I live my life as if there isn't one. I feel the need to mention that because so many housewife blogs/forums are Christian-oriented. Not this one! Of course, anyone is welcome.

I also want to be able to be open about who I am, from the very beginning (I have a more public weight-loss blog as well). I often feel like there are certain things I can’t/shouldn’t post, so I decided to start a different kind of blog where I’m just going to say whatever comes to mind.

I tried to set up this new blog on Blog.com, and then Wordpress, but I ended up coming back to my one true love, Blogger. Yay for Blogger! So much more user-friendly (in my opinion). Now I can easily upload a totally girly template. *whew!* Seriously, that was bothering me. I'm, um, a little weird.

The point of this blog, as I intend it right now (things can change, of course), is to help me become more organized and accomplished. Maybe if I have to post about it, I’ll actually do stuff! Hah! So this will include stuff like finances, grocery shopping, meal planning, decluttering, cleaning, getting out of debt, organizing, making life easier for my husband (and me!), etc. Whatever relates, actually.

So here we go!

The Skeptical Housewife

We Spend Too Much...

Need a Bigger Emergency Fund

Oh Dear...

To Update or Not to Update?

I Need Catchier Titles

Progress...

New Year Update!

New Year's Resolutions--What Are Yours?

Ack!

Christmas Is Expensive

Pre-Christmas Update

This and That

Here We Go Again...

Somewhat Overdue Update

Ooooh...Shiny!

Ah, Might As Well

Or Not

Socialized Medicine for the Win!

Just Another Update

Dealing With Intolerance of My Housewife Status

Update Sort Of a Little Bit

Move Over, Martha—There’s a New Game in Town

Ho-Hum, Another Update

An Actual Housewife-Type Post

Not Bad, Considering

Oh Yes, I'm the Great...Pretender

Or Do I?

I Think I've Got It Figured Out

Tentatively, The Plan

Meal Plans and Other Things

Latest Update

Banking Plans and the People Who Love Them

So's Like This

This Is So Exciting...

Well, Well, Well…

Money: Ah Saved It.

I Need to Hammer Out a Meal Plan

Now For the Exciting Part!

I Did Something Crazy

How Do You Budget?

Just Because I'm Impatient...

I Cannot Contain Myself

What To Do?

Well, This Hurts

Woo-hoo! A Mortgage Update

Other Stuff

After-Trip Update

*GROAN!!!!!!*

Back From New Orleans

Before-Trip Update

Finally! An Update.

I'm Still Here

Payday! (AKA Goal Update)

Check-In

Stuff N' Such

Grocery Bill-February 24 to March 2, 2010

Menu Plan Feb. 24-Mar. 3, 2010

Just One Good Lottery Win Would Do It...

Motorhome Update

Help...I Want a Motorhome

Goals Revisited

I Am the Pigeon

Potpourri

Grocery Bill-February 17-February 23, 2010

Thus Begins My Descent Into Criminality

Grocery Bill-February 10-February 16, 2010

Organization

Procrastination Is Bad

Thoughts for Today: Making Money Online

I Couldn't Wait

Weekend Wall

Eureka!

Grocery Guilt

Today's To-Do

Pomegranates--You're Doing it Wrong

Now What?

Grocery Bill-February 2-February 9, 2010

Menu Plan Feb. 2-Feb. 9, 2010

Feeling Overwhelmed Today

GROAN!!!!!!