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!!