By the Numbers

I have been bogged down lately due to my habit of taking literally thousands of photos when I travel. My recent trip to Scotland was no exception! I snapped crazily away at every waterfall, every mountain, every castle, every sheep, every island...well, you get the picture heeheehee. So far I have "sent to trash" around 1,000 photos due to being blurry, uninteresting, bad light etc. I hope to delete at least another 1,000 over the next few weeks, hopefully more.

So I thought I would do a "by the numbers" post as October has provided a number of numbers...groan...significant ones from my point of view. As the month is rapidly coming to a close this post could also serve as a budget update. Killing a few birds with a couple of big numbers, sort of....here goes.

• 290 + 145 = 435 pounds Sterling still in my money belt after the trip! That's never happened before, usually I spend all of my cash and then turn to credit cards. The 290 is what I had leftover, the 145 was what my brother had leftover and which he gifted to me towards my next trip. He's planning a trip for next year to Ireland where he'll be spending Euros instead. The 290 that I brought back is almost 1/3 of what I took with me (900 pounds) - my brother taught me a thing or two about how to be frugal while travelling :) 
• $411 Canadian dollars each - the total for 3 weeks of renting a car plus gas came to $411 each. I tried to put the 145 pounds he gave me towards the rental car but my brother wouldn't let me - he was quite adamant that it go towards my next trip. What a guy...but really, that was quite economical I thought thanks to my daughter who was working at Enterprise at the time and gave us a hefty discount. Thanks Kazi!!
• $1,000 - sent to savings this month.
• $55.97 - electricity which is quite high for this time of year but I was informed that the hot and humid weather lasted all through September requiring the continued use of A/C. Next bill should be lower. I've allotted $45 for November's budget.
• $45 - I've also allotted $45 for natural gas for November which is higher than October's bill as the furnace has started to kick in. My last bill was $33.08.
• $82.98 - my cell phone bill was a whopping $4.00 higher - I turned my phone on a couple times to use the GPS; my fingers are crossed that my next cell bill is back to its usual amount of $79.00. Yes, cell phones are expensive to operate in Canada.
• $280 - my food budget. I know I overspent on food as I stocked up my pantry for soup making, Scottish oat scone baking, crockpot recipes etc. I could find out how much I overspent but I don't really want to know...it was BAD!
• ZERO!! Gas for the car budget line. Yup. I had about a quarter tank when I returned and I had a $25.00 Esso card. Now at the end of October I have about half a tank still. I've been driving a little but still walking and biking a fair bit.
• $86.27 misc spending budget line was quite low this month though I did make a few small purchases: about $20 for a hockey stick, yes for me, I'm now playing ball hockey! Also bought new knee pads for volleyball for $25. I purchased 3 books from Amazon. While away we went to a number of bookstores, used and new, and I took photos of the covers of books I would like to buy as I can get them cheaper from Amazon. That amounted to $33.27. The other thing was $8.00 for a good pair of goggles hoping to stretch out the biking season a little. Cold air makes my eyes water, especially when biking so I'll see if the goggles cut the breeze a bit. Worth a shot. I had allotted $500 to my misc budget so the leftover amount went to paying down my mastercard. 
• $100 - The outstanding amount still on my credit card. $111.00 is what I have left in my chequing account. I am going to pay off my credit card and will have $11 left to spend until Oct. 31 when I get "paid".  That's a bit of a stretch but I've starting putting money in my snowflake tin once again. I was able to stash $200 this month. So if I have any sort of emergency like running out of Miss Vickie's salt and vinegar chips then I'll have to use a snowflake or two!
• 73,000-68,698 = 4,302!!!!!!!!! This is my most significant number as of yesterday. I saw my odometer turn over to 73,000kms. When I purchased my used Honda Civic it had 68,698kms on it. I purchased it in September 2017. So in 13 months I have driven only 4,302kms (which equals 2673.14 miles) The average is 20,000kms per year. I am thrilled with that number! You will remember I wanted to go car free but then decided it would be too difficult. I have achieved a compromise that I can live with....for now.
• 15 - doing all that walking and biking over the past year has helped me achieve one other goal - to lose 15 lbs! Yay me! Those extra lbs have been really hard to shift thanks to menopause, my age and my metabolism slowing way down. 

So that's it for now. I will share more photos after another round of editing..but will leave you this one til then...

Traffic jam on the Isle of Skye!