Tuesday Tidbits

 

Not too much has been happening around the old Phillips homestead. Just me spending time getting caught up on those tasks I have spoken about before.

The garden is still a bit wet so no harvesting was done. Good thing I had shopping to do, and cutting up that recycled fabric into 4 1/2" squares. Both things are completed, and I am slowly but surely getting caught up. I now only have the 2 1/2" squares to finish. Just a bit more decluttering done in the sewing/craft room.

Shopping was a surprise as things have gone up once again in price. My bread flour on sale was almost $15.00 for a 5kg bag, the same price as the regular flour on sale this week. Still I plan on purchasing another bag or two and putting them in the freezer for winter baking.

Since I didn't purchase meat my costs were low for what should be my last purchase of the month. My bill was only $172.00 about $100.00 less than usual (this is in Canadian dollars). I picked up some pantry items as well that were on sale. 

Hoping that our garden produces enough veggies to see us through the winter months, or that I can purchase items at a reduced rate. Really want to come in under budget for the year here as medical/dental expenses for me will be pretty darn high this year.

I think that this year is going to finish off as a challenge to almost everyone on keeping costs down as much as is possible. Really, my thoughts behind this are to keep our savings at a decent level as much as is possible, and trying to leave a much smaller carbon footprint so as we can travel a bit more before we are too old. 

There will be pictures of the weeks happenings come Saturday, well at least I hope. 

Everybody have a wonderful evening. 

God bless.

Saturday Roundup

 

I was in a great deal of shock today when I went shopping. Prices have risen once again. I was very surprised at how much higher certain items were. Eggs went up over a dollar for 18, flour (the least expensive) and already risen two dollars for a large bag. Never mind the cost of meat. I am worried at how those that don't know to budget or have a stocked pantry are going to be able to eat. I know I am lucky in that Harvey pretty much eats whatever is put in front of him, and is willing to try new things. 

This uptick in prices will make budgeting an adventure, but one that I hope to excel at eventually. Also looking forward to getting our garden in and producing.

The week has been one of going over costs, trying to find ways to save a penny here and a dollar there. Small savings add up.

Now that the sun is shining more our gas bill should go down, and that will be fairly large savings. Today however the sun just came out at 4:00 pm so the furnace ran a few times even though it is fairly warm out. 

I finished a scarf this week, started the second one (about 3" completed now), worked a bit on my cross stitch, baked an apple strudel using up more of the frozen pie filling and the remainder of the phyllo pastry sheets. Bread has been baked twice this week and a package of store bought bagels eaten (one left in the freezer that had been bought on sale, but the new price is one that makes me want to try making them at home). 

No real waste this week, and tonight I will use up the remaining mashed potatoes making potato cakes tonight to go with our porkchops and salad. 

I have checked out the Kobo store and there are a couple of frugal living books that are fairly decently priced, so tonight I will download those onto my reader and see if I can find any new tricks.

As far as grocery spending today, not all of this is for food stuffs. I bought some supplements, candles, some stuffing for cushions and a sheet set as well. In Canadian funds I spent $461.13 total. Changed into American funds that is $361.95 and in pounds it is 277.65. While this might sound pretty outrageous, this is for two weeks and in some cases even longer. Some of the supplements I will not have to purchase for over a month. Still I plan on working this down even lower over the coming months. We really do not have great sales here in my city and finding coupons is very difficult. Hence why I try and cut other bills in some fashion. 

Tonight I am doing some appliance cooking once again. Our porkchops are being baked in the toaster oven, salad is resting in the fridge (should be enough made to eat on it for a couple of days), the bread machine was used to make the bread and even bake it (makes a horizontal loaf). I will have to use the stove top to make the potato cakes, but that is only for a few minutes. 

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Thursday Tid Bits

Well I thought perhaps it was time I filled you all in on how things went on the decluttering front last month, and budget costs overall.

First off the budget. We came in at $767.00 under budget, thanks mostly to decreased electric bills, and my grocery budget. Of course some things were over like truck plates (they seem to have gone up this month due to taxes), phone costs (estimated low for the year) and a couple of other areas.

The cost of fuel is higher now and so I want to figure out ways to keep this budget line in check. Could be a bit difficult.

Decluttering went not too badly. I managed to remove a few more items from the house, so now my total for the year at the end of April was 127 items. I do hope to add a great many more to this at the end of this month. Things have started out well and I hope they continue to do so. Less clutter and more room for the things we both enjoy.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Month End

Here it is the end of the first month of 2018 and time to see how well I did budget wise, decluttering, and using up the stash.

I'll start with the things I did well, or at least pretty good at.

Using up the stash went well. Lots of bits and bobs of yarn were used knitting the socks this month. I also managed to use up two cakes of yarn so far on the shawl I am making. Then of course there were the mitts and toques I made for my brother's twins that used up even more of the stash (the leftovers were used on the socks).

I started to go through my fall winter clothing with a ruthless eye. I managed to remove or recycle 29 items. Added to some household things 40 items left my home. I hope to increase that number in the month of February.

Now comes some fails. I did not manage to come in under budget for groceries, in fact I was $40.00 over. Harvey said that wasn't too bad considering that budget line also is used for over the counter medications, pet supplies, paper goods and laundry items. Next month I am going to try very hard to make up that overage and come under once again. It could mean my stock up shop gets put back a month, but we have lots of food and paper goods in the house.

The rest of the budget was mostly under. Fuel for the vehicles, gas to heat the house, electric costs, house maintenance, entertainment, my spending money, clothing, computer supplies, all under budgeted amounts.

Overall we were almost $600.00 under budget for the month, which is pretty darn good. I am hoping that next month will be even better.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Thrifty Tuesday

It has been a pretty thrifty week thus far. Both Harvey and I are busy using up items in our respective stashes. This means we have extended our no spend days. 

Harvey noticed that ceiling paint and the finish he needs for the pine boards were on sale this week so he pulled out his coupon (spend X amount and get 10% off) and purchased them. Now the only things we need once the venting and the electrical are finished is the drywall supplies and the paint for the walls. We have still gone a bit over budget but mostly because of the storage. Boy will I be glad to get things out and back home. I really miss my books!!

Today I cut up an old blanket for the batting in the soup bowl cozies. Now I know that is 100% cotton, but I am not sure about the other fabric that came from my stash. I will just put a card with them stressing that they are not for use in the microwave.

Then after I finished sewing on pair of sleep pants and cutting out the next pair, I cut up a pair of old jeans for patches or quilting materials. I even removed the zipper!! That is something I have never done before on jeans, and I am not too sure if I will do it again. Sure took a long time.

I got a small hole from a nail in my winter coat so I am trying to match thread to the colour of the coat. Tomorrow is mending time (after I sew the second pair of sleep pants and have another Christmas gift marked off my list).

Thrifty really is cool.

Everyone have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

A Bit Of A Break

Not from blogging, but from the extremely cold weather we had for the last couple of weeks.

Today we got to work around the yard a bit, getting rid of snow on the roof, on the deck, and clearing some ice out of the gutters. In fact it got so warm the snow has started to melt, and water was running out the downspouts. I even got my early morning walk in since it was so nice.

The rest of the day was spent working on getting the sewing/craft room straightened out (a never ending task it seems) and those tops cut out. I can now start to sew them up tomorrow, thus finishing another goal.

The cross stitch is completed, and pictures will be posted one of these days soon. I think I will make a pillow out of it as I have another flower type cross stitch ready to go once the sewing is done. Two new pillows will brighten up the living room a bit.

I have been a good girl for the past few weeks. Nothing new has been bought, I have stuck to using things up as much as possible, stuck to my grocery list, and ran around turning off lights in rooms not in use (something Harvey seems to have a bit of a problem with once again). This will continue until the end of the month, we want to make a stock up trip to the capital (get to visit with Kris as well) and it will be a spendy one. We are running low on many basic items and for some reason those basics do not seem to be going on sale. I am also running out of certain thread colours and flosses (not so much fabric and yarn, but one never knows) so I am hoping to run into a good sale at Fabricland and at Michael's.

We also want to look at dehydrators. I would like a bigger one so that the two smaller ones we have can be donated, or in the case of one sent to the recycling depot. The ones I have do not have a temperature control and that is something I could really use when making jerky or drying herbs.

So my list is going to be made over the next few weeks and we will be set for the rest of the winter. I find that this stocking up every three months or so really helps out with the budget overall. The expense for that one month can be scary, but the next few months are very low. I do understand that this does not work for everyone, but it does work for us.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Update On Last Months Goals and Declutter Challenge

Once again I am a bit late, but better late than never.

1.  Get the tree up and decorated.  Done.

2.  Gifts parcel done and mailed to my brothers and nieces. Done.

3.  Cards/phone calls/and ecards done.  Done.

4.  Wash, iron and frame our sons cross stitch gifts.  Done.

5.  Wrap gifts.  Done.

 6.  Finish the Christmas baking.  Done.

7.  Continue with my knitting, sewing and cross stitch projects.  Continuing, each and every day.

8.  Try for as many no spend days as possible this month (I am not going to set a goal, rather I am just going to see how many I can accumulate).   I finished off the month with a total of 24 no spend days. The nasty weather had a great deal to do with this number.

 9.  My new household calendar pages need to be made. Done. I ended up buying a daily journal and making extra pages for my monthly menu, appointments and meetings, goals and extra cleaning lists.

This year I actually managed to remove 1005 items from the house. I will be continuing this as I use up more of my fabric, cross stitch and yarn stashes. I think I just might feel a bit lighter.

Tomorrow I will post my goals for the month of January.

One wonderful thing I would like to share with all of you is that we were under our total budget for the year by almost 7k!!! Hope to do just as well this year by getting the grocery budget even lower.

The costs of the new furnace and the basement redo are from our savings account. Harvey calls them capital expenses and has a totally different spread sheet with those expenses on it. Not doing quite as well with this as things seem to be adding up much higher than expected.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Thrifty Tuesday

Today we got our power and gas bill and my questions on whether we are doing enough to lower our consumption have been answered.

After the over payments from November and December bills were added up and our consumption for the past little while actually read, our bill was only $12.38. I was expecting that they would owe us some money, but considering the boys were home and more heat used I am quite satisfied with the result. Seems making sure lights are off, line drying as much as possible, turning down the heat in our room during the day (when it is warm enough to do so) and all the timed thermostats we installed are working. Now just hoping we can keep this up.

Gas was low as well only $94.86. I think this is because of the warm December and the fact that when we have the front drapery open the heat coming from the sun into the south facing living room radiates through the older portion of the house keeping it nice and warm.

It has turned much colder now so I expect that the cost of heating the house will go up a bit, but as winter is slowly drawing to a close I am hopeful that we will be well under budget for the year.

I have also been having fun looking up recipes on the internet to use up our leftovers in wonderful new meals. Some of which will definitely be going into the menu rotation, others will need a bit of tweaking.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Thursday Tid Bits

I am surprised at how quickly this month is passing. Every day just seems to rush by on wings. I will be very sorry to see the end of the summer and the beginning of fall.

I was worried that today we would be spending lots of money to get the air conditioning in our

Buick Enclave repaired.

I got a lovely surprise when I went to pick it up after the repair was done (there was also a seat belt recall so that was repaired as well).

I pulled out my debit card to pay and was told I did not have to pay a cent. Seems that Harvey bought the extended warranty (now 5 years on everything instead of 3) and this air conditioning repair was under that warranty.

Whee, it seems as if my no spend will extend another day or two this week. I may actually end up having 6 no spend days!!!

I am finding it easier and easier to shop at home, repair, recycle and make do every month. Trying to cut the budget is getting to be loads of fun as I figure out ways to save money on everyday items.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Something the Garden Needed

Today the rain arrived.

You can't really tell in this picture but for most of today the rain has been steadily falling. Up until now we have gotten an inch of the lovely wet stuff. The grass is getting green again, and Harvey's garden is getting a nice soaking, something it desperately needed. Not to mention my perennial bed is getting nicely soaked as well.

What to do on a day when you can't get out to do any work?

Well, I did enter a few items in the budget page for this month, even found a bill I forgot to pay!!! Yikes, hope they don't charge interest if I can get it paid on Monday. If they do it will teach me a lesson I won't soon forget.

I also got into the sewing room and started the dreaded jacket.

I did not get it finished, but another hour or so should see it done tomorrow. And this will see the end of another challenge for this month.

This is the simple red knit pullover dress I made a couple of weeks ago. It has been hanging for awhile in order to get some of the wrinkles out from sewing.

I need to clip a few threads and it will be ready to wear.

The cooler weather was perfect for a meal of soup and sandwiches tonight. I pulled some frozen stock out of the fridge freezer and got to work.

A lovely large pot of Chicken Vegetable Soup. Served with Grilled Cheese Sandwiches it was a lovely filling meal. We have enough left over for some lunches or another supper. Once it has cooled more I will divide it up and freeze a container for later on. Planning ahead with meals that can be put together in minutes is a time and money saver around this house.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Another Week Gone

It's Friday once again. Why is it that the older you get the faster the days speed by?

I started entering my receipts into the budget spread sheet today. These are the only ones I have left to do.

These are the hardest ones as I have to break them down into their categories. Most of them have purchases that have to be split apart. These are the ones I really dislike doing. However once they are done I will be able to see if we are over or under budget. One thing I like is that we were under for groceries and household products!!! Love it. Don't know if I undercut the budget by 5% but I have my fingers crossed and will figure that out tomorrow.

We also took our taxes in to be done. We should know very soon if Harvey gets any back. I do know I will end up paying something (not too much I hope).

Hoping to show you a finished sundress tomorrow and perhaps a start on the 6th pattern I cut out (and the one that looks the most difficult).

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.