Rolling in the...

money!

Now THAT'S tempting fate isn't it?  I think I can hear the car falling apart this very second! However, I do feel fairly confident that I'm going to reach the end of the month before I reach the end of my money!  And I feel darn right ecstatic about that!

Although I had a few extra expenses - ink cartridges for our printer ($82), oil change and new air filter for the car ($67.00), the final payment to Reliance for new pipes to connect our new hot water tank ($302.00), a new Netflix charge ($7.99) and a wildly insane $27.00 splurge at Giant Tiger two days ago (a shower liner, a $3.00 hat, $6.00 for new socks and a $10 summer top for MOI!) I still have about $110 left for the month!! I usually NEVER have $$ left at the end of the month so I think I'll celebrate by putting more gas in the car and doing a little extra grocery shopping! My life is so thrilling these days!

I had a few little "bonuses" this month that helped me pay for those other expenditures: my Line of Credit interest was lower than anticipated, my Union Gas was $22 less than budgeted for, my condo fee was a little less than I thought, my London Hydro was $6 less than budgeted for, Kazi and Michael helped out with the printer cartridges and gas for the car, AND I stayed out of TALIZE (my neighbourhood thrift shop) AND out of CHAPTERS (my local bookstore)!!  I really did have good control over my spending this month!

Oh, and I almost forgot!! I put an extra $88 on my mastercard this month - it was my financial goal for Carla's Double Challenge and I did it! I will put $88 on my mastercard every month til June which is when we'll pay off our new TV that we purchased at Tepperman's. So Carla my dear - I have met all of my challenges for February. My challenge for March is just to stay on budget for the month. And hopefully get my taxes finished. Just waiting for Kazi's tuition credit. My refund will be around $1,000 and I plan to pay down my line of credit with it. This time next year it will be completely and utterly PAID OFF leaving me with only a small mortgage on my PEI home as debt. I have NO car payment and NO credit card debt and NO mortgage on my current home. I am in the final couple of years before retirement and am right on track with debt reduction and savings. Come September my SEVEN year plan becomes a TWO year plan.

I'm getting there!

Early morning mist at Crofters Lane, PEI

Challenging Challenges

Besides Carla's double challenge of No/Low Spending and Decluttering my little piece of the universe I am taking part in two other challenges - The 10 Pound Challenge with Erika at Newlyweds on a Budget and The Sealed Pot Challenge with Sft at Travel, Mortgage Freedom, 101 and Life Goals. Also, once Little Lamb at Little Lam Wants to be Debt Free  becomes debt-free (very very soon!!) I will be joining her celebration by dedicating a 25km bike ride to her amazing accomplishment!

You could say that I'm challenged.

Here is a look at my Sealed Pot:

Now, I don't weigh mine like some people I know (Carla), but then $5.00 bills don't weigh very much! I'm keeping it well fed. I have a feeling I might need to make another pot or find something a little larger. But I'll wait and see. I've been thinking a lot about what I'll do with the money and I think I've finally decided. I'm going to put the money into something I really need for my home in PEI. I don't know what that'll be yet, but by December I will have made up my mind. Some possibilities are: a tankless hot water heater, new deck, new fence, leveling the driveway, commissioning a headboard from Jeffery Kerras at Back Road Folk Art, or another piece of furniture for the house.

I'm glad I didn't make a firm decision right off the bat about how I wanted to use the money once opened. It's nice to have something to dream about and I can keep changing my mind right up until December.

The 10 Pound Challenge is a different story:

I haven't been as successful with this challenge as I would like. There have been a lot of ups and downs, lots of temptations - invitations to dinner, eating out, Valentine's Day dinner and so on. I would say that 5/7 days per week I'm sticking to my "eating plan" (stole that from Gill - it's so NOT a diet!!)  Hence the ups and downs.

Now, if it were a TRUE eating plan I'd be able to stick to it even when I eat out, but I haven't been. I've been indulging myself. My only saving grace is I still have until April  16 to lose the ten pounds. I have lost a solid seven pounds and do notice the difference in the waist band of my clothes. I would like to lose at least another seven pounds for a total of fourteen pounds. Sooooooooooooooo I will keep trying. And trying. And trying. I won't give up. I'm pretty confident I can get to ten pounds by April 16. Then I'll try for another four to five pounds more by summer. I have hung onto a big pile of summer clothes from skinnier days - if I can't wear them THIS summer then out they go. I really don't to do that, hence the CHALLENGE!

Sigh......OK, time to get my but in gear...I think I need to go have some lunch...I'm suddenly feeling very hungry!

Double Challenge Month Update

Time for a little review (gee, I sound like a teacher don't I?). Just what HAVE I accomplished so far this month? It's a good thing I wrote down my goals on a separate page at the top of my blog!! LISTS are NOT for the feeble-minded, they are for the PRODUCTIVITY QUEENS like US - ya hear that Carla? - I said PRODUCTIVE!!
1. Financial Goal - set aside $88 towards the $440 I need to save for my half of the new TV! DONE!! (In fact I might end up saving a little extra and if I do I am going to put that money on my Line of Credit! Although the month got off to a rocky start (had to spend over $80 on ink cartridges plus my income has decreased by $500 per month) I have to say the last two weeks have been much better. I've had quite a few No Spend days AND I've stuck a few $5.00 bills into my Sealed Pot!

Decluttering Goals: (Carla - I did my decluttering challenges in a slightly different order - I hope that's ok!)
1. Personal Space Challenge: I chose to organize and declutter the ROOM OF MY OWN!  DONE
2. Family Space Challenge: I decluttered and organized our TV Room/guest bedroom/cat's room/my dressing room. DONE
3. I did the Dreaded Challenge in the 3rd week as I just wanted to get it over with! I chose to clean my itsy bitsy teeny weeny linen closet which of course doesn't come close to being as huge or messy as Kim's was but I still dreaded it all the same!! DONE!
4.  The Productivity Challenge: I chose to change my laundry habits by a) co-mingling my laundry with Kazi's and Michael's and b) doing it after 7pm on week nights instead of spending my Saturdays doing it. Partially DONE - happily I still have another week and a bit to change this habit. I only did a load of laundry Thursday night - I had one ready to go last night but something came up (plans changed - we went out!) so here I am again on Saturday doing my laundry (though it is co-mingled!)  HOWEVER, you wouldn't believe how PRODUCTIVE I'm being Carla!! In addition to laundry I've made a huge pot of soup, have cooked up a 1/2 package of chicken bacon (Carla - I could eat bacon everyday too!) AND have made a new batch of oat squares (this time I used brown rice flour instead of whole wheat) AND I've read two newspapers!! This is even more AMAZINGLY AWESOME AND PRODUCTIVE because I didn't go to bed til 2:30am AND got up to drive Michael to work. Maybe that's the answer to my productivity challenges - I should sleep LESS! So...next week I will continue with the productivity challenge and do my laundry in the evenings thereby leaving my weekend free for other things - like listing some items for sale on kijiji! 


Mini-Challenges:
1. Donate food to the foodbank or a similar needy program or family. DONE! I donated juice boxes and granola bars to our breakfast program at school.
2. Write a card/note/letter to someone using snail mail. DONE! I sent out two cards to my sisters who both live in Bracebridge.
3.
4.

Carla - have you given us the 3rd and 4th mini challenges yet?

I can see the light at the end of February! We're quite well stocked up on food and Kazi and Michael have been paying for gas for the car we all share. I think that overall February has been a great month thanks to Carla's challenges - I've been pretty frugal, I've spend my time organizing and getting rid of unwanted stuff and I've had a lot of fun besides! So Carla - THANK YOU!!

Saturday Befores and No/Low Spend February Update

I have been extremely fortunate so far this February. The only extra expense has been the purchase of ink cartridges for my home printer. That $80.00 expense has been counteracted by having several other bills come in under estimate AND by Michael and Kazi both contributing to the purchase. My heating bill was under estimate by $22 due to a mild winter and low natural gas prices; my electricity bill was under estimate by $6 and my PEI electric bill was under by $22. I have set the $88 aside that I needed to save this month towards the cost of our new TV and still have $234 left for misc spending for February. So, unless something really unexpected happens this month I should be able to meet my financial goal.

Our Valentine's Day plans include going out for wings (we will split the cost) and then going to see "Safe House" for $4.00 as it's cheap Tuesday at Rainbow Cinema. While I haven't had many No Spend days this month I have had many LOW spend days. I can live with that. My Sealed Pot hasn't seen much action this month as I've been using my debit card or PC points mastercard for purchases, but since I didn't go out this morning for a newspaper and coffee due to the bad weather I put the $5.00 I would have spent into my pot instead. I guess we just can't have it ALL!


Today's challenges have been set up and photographed for the "before" shots.  They are:

...sending someone a card or letter using "snail mail" so here are the three cards I'm going to send to 3/4 of my siblings.  Why only 3 of my 4 siblings you ask? Well, because I am going to email my brother Gord as I need to ask him a question requiring a more immediate response.

These three cards were made from photos of my friend Jule's much larger sized artwork. They were chosen by Reforest London for the purpose of making note cards to raise money for planting trees in our city.

One byproduct of this challenge has already manifested - I store my cards in the bottom drawer of a wicker filing cabinet. Sorry, no before shot but while looking for cards to use I ended up sorting and tossing cards received over the past...oh.....twenty years or so!! Then I matched up cards with proper sized envelopes so they'll be ready to use when I need them. So a little bonus decluttering project for today:)

After getting the cards written, addressed and stamped I'll take another photo for tomorrow's "After Shots" post. The decluttering challenge for today is my "dreaded challenge" which for me is the upstairs linen closet. Here are the before photos:

 This is the stuff that doesn't FIT INTO THE LINEN CLOSET so it sits on top of a bookcase beside the linen closet!!

 The dreaded closet....

...the stuff that falls on my head...

 ...a mishmash of lotions, potions and notions....

...sheets, pillow cases, and sundry other items that DO NOT belong there...

...the sleeping bag is covering up a number of sins...and somewhere in there is my sewing machine and who knows what else??

All right... the dreaded moment has arrived. The laundry is done, the dishes are done, the garbage has been collected so there are no other procrastinations I can manufacture!  I am going to take myself up there (cue spooky music) and face the monster once and for all!!