Money Madness

I reluctantly had to part with some cash...well, truth be told it wasn't all necessary spending, in fact, I caved and bought myself a wig.

I had to spend $6.99 to get a prescription renewed, and I just happened to walk down the "seasonal" aisle at the drugstore and noticed they had their Halloween wigs on sale.....

If you've noticed how short I wear my wiry silver hair you will understand Michael's wish to see me in a wig once or twice a year. Last year I borrowed a wig for Halloween from a friend and he thought he'd died and gone to heaven - he got to spend the night with a NEW and MYSTERIOUS woman:)

So I decided to fork over $10 of my misc. spending money and will build my costume around my long black hair...I could be a witch, Pocahontus, Frankenstein's bride etc etc

P.S. Pictures to follow ha ha hee hee ha ha .....

P.P.S. Left in misc spending til Oct. 31st - $80

P.P.P.S. See, I should just stay OUT of stores altogether...

The Year I Didn't Buy Any New Clothing

My "New" Alfred Sung Sweater



On Sept. 22nd I declared this "The Year I Didn't Buy Any New Clothing" and almost a month has gone by without making a purchase. That's not to say the thought never crossed my mind - it did and still does almost everyday.

It's been an interesting process so far. I saw some really nice winter coats at Costco - great for hiking in the snow, making snow angels, skating outside at Victoria Park and so on. Then I said to myself - "self, you can continue to wear your daughter's lovely castoff she gave you last winter when she bought herself a new coat - you don't NEED a new coat, you just WANT a new coat."

Whew! Made it over that hurdle.

As the weather started to get colder I thought about new gloves and new boots. Then I thought I could stitch up the hole in last year's gloves and start polishing up my collection of boots. Yes, there is the odd scuff here and there but they can certainly get me through another Canadian winter. Suck it up Jane...and I did.

Now Halloween is looming and we've been invited to a party.  Ideas of costumes started running through my head and I envisioned myself out shopping at the local Talize but then I wised up and decided I would rummage through the house and be "creative" instead.

Betcha thought I'd forgot about that picture up there of me (squinting into the sun) with my NEW black Alfred Sung silk/cotton sweater on that absolutely fits me to a TTTTT! I love it and it's just what my wardrobe needed. And it didn't cost me a penny.  I found it.  In my condo complex parking lot. I had walked by it once or twice and just thought it was a rag. Then I picked it up to see what it was (luckily it wasn't a dead skunk!) and saw it was a sweater. So thinking that it was perhaps my daughter's and she had dropped it getting out of a car I brought it inside and washed it.

Well, turns out it wasn't hers so I was faced with the dilemma of going door to door to ask everyone in my neighbourhood if they'd lost a sweater or I could just keep it as a reward for my discard rescue efforts.

I tried it on and of course decided to....keep it! Yay me!

Springwater Conservation Area

First off - yesterday was another beautiful day in the neighbourhood so Michael and I took ourselves off to explore a new (to us) trail near Aylmer, Ontario called Springwater Conservation Area. It's only 40 minutes away yet we'd never been there before - had never heard of it in fact - it was recommended to us by another hiker met upon another trail. We took snacks and water with us and other than gas it was another NO SPEND day. (That $10 I had left after Friday night's movie rental is still in my wallet :) I think one of these weeks we should have a challenge where we each put a $20 bill in our wallet and see how long we can make it last - the winner wins $20 ha ha!!

As you can see by the photos Springwater is a natural treasure - full of maples and beech and very tall, very straight white pines reminiscent of the Group of Seven paintings.

For the first time I have spent all of my allotted money for food as I took advantage of a lot of specials while shopping on Saturday: sirloin tip roasts at $1.97/lb., pork loin at $1.29/lb., shrimp, talapia and haddock all half price and so on. So while I spent a lot we will be rolling in meat for several weeks to come.

This week looks pretty busy - meetings on Wed., parent/teacher interviews on Thursday, and a P.D. day on Friday so won't be much opportunity for spending temptations. Just the way I like it!

It was wonderful getting outside again yesterday. When I am able to put myself into such inspiring surroundings I totally forget about the daily challenges of balancing the books, ironing the big stack of clothes sitting on a chair in my bedroom, vacuuming the cat hair or the disaster area my daughter calls her room.

Blessedly all of that inner noise is drowned out by the soft sighing of the wind in the branches 100ft. above my head, birds chirping, frogs glugging, children laughing and me snapping away with my camera. Life is good.

Although there were a TON of leaves on the ground there were still enough left on the trees to ooh and ah over.

Those pine trees are humongous!!

Can you see tiny little Michael on the other side of the bridge walking on the path?

He walks a lot faster than me:)

Westminster Ponds - Saturday's Hike

 Cost of today's walk through Westminster Ponds = $0.00
Value of today's walk through Westminster Ponds = Priceless!!

 Having a pretty "low spend" weekend so far: last night we rented "Splice" (a very disturbing and creepy movie - my favourite kind:) and we had a $2.00 off coupon. NO WINE!! (See? I'm trying:)

 This morning I thought I was going to get away with a "no spend" day as my partner bought me a coffee and a cookie while we hung out at the market but I decided to buy a National Post to read.  I cancelled my daily newspaper in August buy like to get the Saturday paper. Then, because I forgot to get my parking ticket validated at the market I ended up paying $4.50 for parking which really annoyed me.

 But I'm over it now. I had a great grocery shopping day - we have so much food it should last well into November instead of just til the end of the month. I prepared by going through the flyers and finding the best bargains at three different grocery stores.  While Michael worked at his friend's restaurant I did a major shop and bought up all the meat bargains, fresh fruit and veggies, bread, bagels the works! And still have about $30 left in the food budget. The great thing about my grocery shopping today is it was all spent on FOOD - no inedibles like kleenex and dish detergent this time around.

 Took out just $20 for this weekend's misc. spending - so far just spent $ on the movie rental and the newspaper. Have $111 left in misc. spending until the end of the month - should be ok.

 It was a glorious day today in London, Ontario. Sunny and high of about 15c - perfect for hiking.

 For dinner I had bought a roast chicken at Costco (only 6.99) and Michael made one of his famous "medleys" of vegetables and leftovers, fresh bread, fresh tomatoes - have I told you he does ALL of the cooking? It means everything I eat has either curry powder or cayenne pepper in it (or both) which tends to increase the number of hot flashes I have in a day but the enjoyment of being cooked for seriously outweighs a few sweaty moments:)

 Tonight we are staying in again and Michael is treating me: he rented "The Killer Inside" with Casey Affleck (the more talented of the Affleck brothers IMHO), Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson. We've seen the trailers and it looks so good.  Then after he dropped my daughter and her friend off downtown he stopped at DQ and bought us both a Pecan Mudslide Blizzard!!! The muffin top just got a wee bit bigger but what the heck - it's the weekend! And yoga pants are stretchy!

 Tomorrow we are hiking again so I'm going to work off a few of those blizzard calories. Not sure where we'll end up tomorrow - there are so many great places for hiking around London.

 I bought Starbucks coffee beans at Costco (2 pounds for $10) so we'll make our own coffee instead of wasting $10 on lattes or fraps or whatever else they tempt us with. I've only read two sections of the Post so I'll finish that off in the morning with my own Starbucks brew. So hopefully I can keep that other $10 in my wallet.

 Michael flashing his million dollar smile.

 There are still a few flowers to be found:)

I love being outside!

If you stayed with my nature shots to the end you get to see the bonus shot of my daughter (on the right) and her friend before they headed downtown to celebrate her friend's birthday. Aren't they cute?

Weekly Wrap & Crofters Lane

Crofters Lane

Today MCM of TO asked me what is Crofters Lane? So glad you asked! Crofters Lane is a magnificent little acreage near Alberton on PEI - it is home. It is the culmination of a years long search for "just the right place" to retire to...an early retirement I hope.  I've spent the past few years scouring the MLS listings, finding many an idyllic home/acreage just to watch it get sold to someone else. This past summer when I saw the homes for offer I impulsively decided to drive the 1626km. there to check them out in person. 
(This was kind of  out of the norm behavior for me - I don't usually do things that spontaneously though I had the foresight to slow down and get pre-approved for a mortgage before I left for PEI! You know, just in case :)

Even though I got the pre-approval I really didn't plan on buying anything, I wanted to check out the island, see if I wanted to live there and have a nice summer holiday. HAH!

View from front porch

Check out August's archived posts for my journey around the island looking at four other properties before finding that house #5 was the one for me. Within hours of arriving at Crofters Lane I was signing an Offer to Purchase.


View looking east from front porch

 My partner and I tossed around a number of names for our new home and we finally decided upon Crofters Lane. I wanted to recognize our .4km laneway which we walked up and down every day while we stayed there, coffee in hand, birds constantly flitting back and forth between the red berry laden trees, and acknowledge the scottish "crofting" way of life that we plan to emulate- a lifestyle that is environmentally friendly, thrifty and sustainable: a few chickens, a few goats,  a large vegetable garden, some fruit trees, a wood stove & some tilley lamps.



The "Lane" part of Crofters Lane all .4km of it

 Until I actually retire I need to be extra-frugal as I carry a mortgage and maintain my condo and my trailer. If I can keep my costs low now and in the future then I plan to take a reduced pension and retire two years early.  So Crofters Lane is my motivation and the reason I squeeze the life out of every penny that I make. Oh no, wait, that's my scottish blood!


View from the lane

 Weekly Wrap:  I made it til Friday without spending the last $20 in my account so that goes into the Crofters Lane Jar. We did really well with spending over the last two weeks and actually had a surplus of $154.69 (didn't spend all of the $ allotted to food and gas) AND I had set aside $50 for my cell phone and the bill was only $33!! So I tucked another $120 into my Christmas fund raising it to $200 and left a bit extra in my misc. spending as I need to cover a $60 bill for winterizing my trailer (forgot about that!)

Two huge raspberry patches behind the house & backed by our forest

My final pay for October is in my account and every cent has a place to go except for $131 in misc. spending for the next two weeks. There's also a good chance that I won't need all of the $80 ear-marked for natural gas as I haven't had the furnace on yet and I usually come in under the $80 I set aside for London Hydro so barring any other forgotten bills I should make it through October in the black!

And that's a wrap!

So How's Your Week Going So Far??

Some scenes from the past weekend - I spent two warm sunny days and gorgeous evenings at my trailer in Bayfield.

A friend just asked me "so how's your week going so far?" I thought I should address that question.  If you're like me, sometimes you just push thoughts about yesterday, today, and tomorrow into a file folder in the filing cabinet known as your brain and focus only on a goal off into the future - that being PAY DAY (Friday) for me.  If I can just get through til Friday....yes Friday all will be fine, my bank account will get a shot of life-saving plasma....I can put a little cash in my wallet again...

So now I will take a moment and examine how things are really going, right now. Actually - not too bad.  I needed "no spend" days and I am having them - nothing spent yesterday, nothing spent today. I was going to take out my last $20 of misc. spending to have a beer tonight after volleyball but I've decided to skip the beer and save the $$. Tomorrow is Thursday, I have a meeting after school and then will come straight home, will NOT pass GO.

Then when I wake up it will be FRIDAY!! YAY! And I'll take out that $20 and put it right into my Crofters Lane Jar! That will be much more rewarding than that icy cold Stella after getting all hot and sweaty playing my favourite game....oh, the sacrifices we make:)

So things are going ok, thanks for asking!

Chile Miners Rescue

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11489439

I am glued to the TV watching the test run of the rescue capsule on BBC World News. This is all I can focus on tonight. I hope and pray that all goes well with the rescue mission and that all 33 trapped miners reach the surface safely.