We are still alive: An update.

Wow.  Time flies!
This past year has been crazy busy.  It’s funny how we are on a quest for a simpler life, but to get there we are straining to keep up with life.  I got that little part time job last year and it has turned into a full-time, long hours, high responsibility position.  I feel like it is out of hand since I didn’t accomplish a lot of my personal ‘to do’ list last year.

We have had some minor fails, major fails, minor successes, and major successes over the past year, and from each we have learned a lot.

Minor Fails:
Not completing the canning I wanted to do
Getting behind on our financial plan
Couponing
Selling my car

Since I started working more hours at work, I had less time off to do the canning I wanted to do.  However, I did get several batches done.  I canned applesauce, plums, pickled fiddleheads, dilly beans, beets, nectarines, salsa, jam, bhut jolokia hot sauce, and mixed pepper hot sauce (only a couple litre jars of these since it takes a lot of peppers to make a jar).   The beans, beets, hot peppers, and ingredients in the salsa were grown in our garden.  The nectarines, plums, and apples are all from the farmer’s market, and we picked the fiddleheads in the forest in the spring. 

We had a couple setbacks where we had to spend some cash instead of applying it to debt.  Our bed sprung a spring and was injuring us if we forgot about it.   It was 12 years old – Time for a new one.  Little things like this happened all year long, but thank goodness we saved a little cuishon (over and over) because it made life so much easier than having to use credit.

I love couponing.  Love, love, love.  But between working, cleaning, and replacing things I haven’t had the time to coupon.  It makes me really sad.  I have, however, acquired enough stuff from couponing last year that most of the toiletries and cleaning products I got have lasted me until now, with more to spare.

As for my car, I listed it over and over on classified sites and had a couple bites but those people never showed up at the times they had scheduled.   By my calculations, as of May I shouldn’t be upside down in my loan anymore so I will give selling it a try again.

Major Fails:
Spending enough time together
Allocating enough time to the things that are important to us
Building our house
Keeping up with my blog

In past years, hubby and I spent a lot of time doing things together.  This includes camping, fishing, taking long drives, vacations, walks at the park, movie nights, and so on… While this whole experience was meant to bring us closer together, we have been working so hard to accomplish our goals that we have not taken as much time to be together as we had in the past.  This is a mistake.  We have purchased a daily devotional for couples to help ensure we spend more time with each other, even if it is for a given amount of time each day.

A major fail for us was not breaking ground on our house.  We were denied permits by the township because the location where we wanted to build the house is a green zone and protected for deer migration.  A house can still be built there on a different spot, there are just many, many restrictions – not my kinda deal.  We’re out.

And finally, the last major fail has been not keeping up with this blog.  I really enjoy writing, and this blog is a great way to document my journey.  I wish I had written about a lot of things over the past year that I didn’t have time to document.  I would love to have the opportunity to look back and reflect on the past year, hopefully this is something I can change going forward!

Minor Successes:
Our garden!
Some Canning
Learning new skills

We got a lot of fresh veggies from our garden this summer.  We had four small to mid-sized gardens this past summer.  In our smallest we grew radish, pumpkins, and watermelon.  In the next one we grew carrots and cucumbers.  Our second largest garden was for peppers: jalapeno, scotch bonnet, bhut jolokia, and chilis.  And our largest garden was a raised garden with kale, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, beans, squash, cauliflower, celery, beets, green pepper, onion, leeks, and cabbage.  The cauliflower and cabbage rotted but everything else turned out beautifully, especially the kale.  Hubby brought home some locker platforms that he was going to strip the wood from, but we decided to flip them over and use them as a frame for a garden.  It looks kind of crappy but it worked great! We also had a pallet garden in which we grew some herbs, and pots with mojito mint and parsley.

 

When I did have a free moment in the past months, I really enjoyed learning how to do new things.  I found a food dehydrator on clearance for $30 and it has been great fun learning how to preserve foods with it.  In the winter we made maple syrup!! This was a blast.  Tapped some trees, collected sap every day, then boiled it down.  We got several litres of maple syrup from it.  Some trees didn’t produce, but when we went back to them in the summer we realized that those ones were oak trees.  Rookie mistake.  lol.

Major Successes:

Paying off 3 debts!

We have managed to get rid of a lot of debt.  We are down to one card, a car, and a student loan.  Hopefully we can sell the car in the spring, that will leave us with, by that time, a student loan and a very small chunk of credit card debt.

 

We are excited for what the new year brings.  I have a lot to share and document of what I can remember of the past several months and while we are behind on moving on with our lives and into our forever home, I think the choices that we made as a result of our experience will be for the better.

Makin’ Progress on our Financial Plan!

I haven’t posted in a while because our computer kicked the bucket and we had to save up to buy a cheapie to get us by for now.  We depend on it for all our budgeting, banking, price matching, couponing, and research on our new home — so finding time to go out of our way to do these things without a computer has been challenging.

We are feeling so good about where our finances are heading!

We have completed our first baby step of saving $1,000 in an emergency fund and are currently working on Step 2: Pay off debt using the debt snowball.

Our first debt, a $750 credit card balance will be paid off on Tuesday.  It was the smallest of our debts but it feels good to get rid of it.  I called last night and closed the account so it truly is a goner and cannot sneak back into our lives.  Our second, a $1900 Visa, will be paid off in 4 more weeks!  During the first two months of budgeting we felt like we were going to be doing this forever since my job didn’t begin until mid-February.  Now that I have had a couple cheques come in we are feeling like there actually might be light at the end of the tunnel.

My little job has earned us an additional $3800 ($3200 after tax) since I started exactly 2 months ago… I am so, so grateful for the opportunity since it has really helped to push us along.

I am hoping that after I get my house re-organized in the next week or two I can take some time to get this blog caught up… So much has gone on over the past month or two – some good, some bad… but I can’t wait to share it all!

Don’t Lend What You Can’t Afford to Lose

Gambling with your Emergency Fund… Lending Money to Family

We have been trying to complete our first baby step, saving $1,000 for an emergency fund.  This has been a slow process due to financial challenges over the past couple months, but we are almost there.

Last week a family member called us when her car window had been smashed and her purse stolen from her trunk.  She was able to get her debit card back but she said she had no money in the bank and that she was depending on her credit cards to finance her life.  This person makes 15% more money on her own than my husband and I do as a family, so when she called to ask for a loan until her new credit card came in, we were somewhat taken aback.

Over the past couple years, this person has borrowed twenty dollars here, and forty dollars there to get by for the week until her pay came in, but when her pay came in we didn’t get paid back.  So when she asked to borrow $500 to fix her window and purchase some food, we were really nervous.

This is when my heart took over and decided to gamble $500 by lending the money to her.  I love her very much and I felt bad for her situation.  Maybe it was a karma thing, but I was hoping that if I was ever in a tight situation myself that someone would be there for me.

As soon as we sent the money, my mind started spinning.  This is MY emergency fund… for MY emergencies!  A wise friend once told me, “Don’t lend what you can’t afford to lose.”

“Oh my goodness!” I thought… I can’t afford to lose this money.

When we sent the money on Monday, she said we would have it back by Friday.  Once Friday came and went, I became very worried.  I didn’t say anything  because I wanted to give her the opportunity to come to me about it.  Nothing was said all weekend.  Luckily when Monday came, my repayment came with it.

This is the most stressful money situation I have ever been in.  We have been working so hard to save this cash and I could have thrown it all away.  I don’t want to be in the position again where I am faced with this type of moral dilemma.  By lending our emergency fund, we were putting ourselves and our own stability at risk.

What do I say when someone asks for help?
Do we say we don’t have the money?
Do we lie that our money is tied up?
Do we put ourselves at risk to help others?
Do we not even think twice and help them?

Budgeting is Good for Our Health

Especially our mental health!

The two of us have been getting along incredibly well sine we started budgeting.  We are both working toward a common goal and we just kind of click.  We did not have an excessive amount of disagreements prior to starting our budget, however, our bickering, and the disagreements that we did have, have decreased dramatically and we have become closer than ever before.

There are no longer any money arguments as we both know where all the money is going every month.  Overall, the feeling in our home has been cheerful and happy.  The place is clean, organized, and everything just seems like it is falling into place as it should.  Although we have not yet advanced on our baby steps in a big way, things are certainly looking up.  We are still waiting on our tax return, and on Friday I will receive my first pay cheque from my new job!

January was such a long, drawn-out month, that I didn’t think we would make it through the month of budgeting, especially with having the week of extra payments, but we did.

February is flying by so fast!  We are getting cozy with our budget and feel so much better about the direction in which things are heading.  I have been working this job part time for two weeks and it has been going well.  It is nice to get out of the house and have fun with other people for a few hours each day, while making a little money while doing so.  Budgeting is becoming so simple now so we are excited to continue on our journey to becoming debt-free and saving to build our new home!

I now strongly feel that creating a budget together and sticking to that budget will decrease many of the stresses in marriages and relationships.  Aligning your goals, bonding over those goals, and following a plan together will leave behind very few things to argue over.

This Week’s Coffee: Ashanti Coffee Estate Medium Roast

These coffee beans are Zimbabwean-grown Arabica and are locally roasted in Thornbury, Ontario.  We have seen it many times over the past several months and decided to give it a try since it was on sale for $11.99 for one pound.

These beans are the opposite of those from Hamley’s – they are the driest beans we have purchased.  We see more husk in the grounds of this coffee than others we have purchased, but it doesn’t bother us.

I have had an odd dilemma with this coffee, being that I can’t get a my cups to taste consistent unless I ground several cups worth into a jar and shake it up.  When I grind coffee fresh each cup, it doesn’t taste the same as the last.  At first, I thought it was all in my head, but I was surprised to hear that DH thought the same thing.

This coffee bloomed more than any other we have purchased.  When we poured water over it, the grounds would look big and fluffy after 30-seconds.

He gives it: 8/10
She gives it: 8/10

Together we give this coffee 8/10

I’m not sure if this coffee scored so high because we were comparing it to the last coffee we purchased or if we did truly appreciate it.  I think we are going to have to give this coffee another try in the future.

This Week’s Coffee: Melitta World Harvest Columbia Supremo

This was actually the coffee from a couple weeks ago but I haven’t had the opportunity to complete the post. Since we are on a budget, we figured we would spend less on coffee and buy this bag of Melitta Columbia Supremo that was on sale for $4.99 from $12.99.  Let me start by saying, for $5 this coffee was good.  But, in general, it wasn’t great coffee.  Had we purchased this coffee at full price, we would have been very disappointed.  It had a burnt smell to it when we ground it and once water was poured on it, it did not bloom nor extract well.  It was often difficult to finish the cup of coffee and it gave us heartburn a few times.

No more Melitta for us.

He gives it: 6.5/10
She gives it: 6.5/10

This is based mostly on the price of $5 for the pound. Next week we try locally-roasted Ashanti Coffee!

Good News for our Budget!

While January felt like it was the longest month ever, it is already the middle of February and I have barely written a thing!

Tuesday was my first day of work!  It is nothing fancy, but it will bring in at least an extra $900 per month to help us achieve our final goal of building our house!

We also got both of our t4’s from last year and it looks like our tax return will be enough to save for our emergency fund, as well as pay off one of our debts!

January was such a tight month because of the extra week of payments, so these little February bonuses are very much welcomed!  They will give us the boost we need to get our savings under-way.

I have a few posts in progress, so hopefully I will be able to get them finished this weekend.  Happy Valentine’s day everyone, enjoy your long weekend!

 

Skill of the Month: Ice Fishing for Survival

Last month’s skill was a total failure.  I made three different types of bread, plus cinnamon rolls (which were too awful to even write about) and I think that I need to redo that skill… I make bad bread.

Since I couldn’t live off bread in an emergency, I decided to see if I could survive off of nature.  I headed up to Lake Simcoe one more time to practice my skills in ice fishing.

I went out several times last month to different spots around the lake and caught only a few small perch… not even the juicy jumbo perch that Simcoe is famous for.

We tried another different spot on the lake again in search of whitefish, and here I caught my first cisco (lake herring)!
The picture was taken with a cell phone and we were trying to take it quickly to get the fish back in the water, so it is not the greatest quality… I was so excited! It was the first time that I pulled something out of that lake that wasn’t a perch, sunfish, or goby (see more on this guy below).

I caught 15 more cisco in the several hours following my first catch.  Some of them were even bigger than this guy!  Unfortunately, the limit on Simcoe for lake herring is zero.  I had to put them all back.

There were hundreds of people on the lake as there were a couple bus-loads renting the huts around us.  On our walk back to shore we saw several people keeping the cisco that they pulled out of the water.  I would like to think they kept them because they didn’t know the difference,  however, they are protected for a reason and ignorance by lack of caring or by just not knowing is still ignorance.

The best part of the afternoon – seeing the sunset over the bay!

(Again, cell phone pic)

The round goby that I mentioned above is this guy:

They look like little alien fish, and are so ugly!  These are invasive, therefore if we catch one of these by accident we are to kill them, as instructed by the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Here is a shot of all the Lake Herring hanging around under our hut:

Saving Money: Update on my Wander into the Coupon World

I clipped my first coupons two weeks ago in order to help save some money on our grocery budget.  I don’t buy a lot of processed foods so many of the items I purchased with coupons were health and beauty or cleaning related.

I found coupons in the local newspapers, on tear pads in grocery stores, and online.  I also downloaded a few apps to my iPad (Checkout51, SnapSaves, and CartSmart) to maximize my savings.  We get our store flyers on Thursday so on those days I would compare my coupons and apps to items that were on sale.  I would then write down the items that I would use at home and were 30% of the sale price or less.

My coupon purchases in the last two weeks were:

Advil – Reg $6.99 – $1.99 after coupons
Axe Shower Gel – Reg $10.98 for two –  $1.49 each after coupons
Degree Deodorant – Reg $6.98 for two – $0.79 each after coupons
Gain Detergent- Reg $5.99 – $1.97 after coupons
Gaylea Sour Cream – Reg $2.99 – Free after coupons (I made a penny!)
Glade air fresheners – Reg $3.87 for three – Free after coupons (I made two cents!)
Glade Wax Melts – Reg $5.49 – $1.49 after coupons
Hershey’s Chocolates – Reg $3.47 – Free after coupons (I made $.53!)
Kotex Tampons – Reg $14.43 for three – $0.31 each after coupons
Kraft Peanut Butter – Reg $11.98 for two – $1.99 each after coupons
Head of Lettuce – Reg $2.47 – Free after coupons
Old El Paso Kit – Reg $3.99 – $0.99 after coupons
Renee’s Mayonnaise – Reg $4.99 – $1.47 after coupons
Scrubbing Bubbles – Reg $8.98 – $0.50 after coupons
Soft Soap Hand Soap – Reg $6.98 for two – Free after coupons
TreSemme Shampoo – Reg $9.96 for two – $1.96 each after coupons
TreSemme Hairspray – Reg $5.26 – $0.47 after coupons

If I had paid the regular price for these items, it would have totalled $115.80.  After applying coupons and App discounts to sale prices, the total cost was $21.04.  That is a savings of almost 82% of the regular price!

The rest of our grocery budget went to our CSA, meat, coffee, and some frozen veggies.

I was skeptical of the cash back apps at first but now I am a huge fan, especially since they allow you to receive a discount on a product even if you have used a coupon.  Checkout 51 has been the best so far.  I have earned $17.50 cash back since opening my account two weeks ago.

Things We Learned after our First Month of Budgeting

1. Money was slipping away in areas in which we never paid attention.  Bank fees, automatic withdrawals, subscriptions, and surprise bills all took from our cash, and from other areas of our budget.  They were things we never thought about before we started budgeting and just dealt with them when we saw they had been withdrawn from the account.

2. Pets need to eat and be healthy too.  We didn’t budget for the pets.  Their food costs us about $25 per month and their vet bills are about $200 per year.  We need to add at least $500/year into our budget for the pets so that they are accounted for and we do not rob other budget categories to care for them.

3. We are cheaters.  When we wanted something we couldn’t afford, we found a way to buy it.  For Christmas we received $100 gift card for fuel.  We wanted to make a large purchase and didn’t have the cash to do it, so we traded our gift cards for $100 of our fuel money.  Or if we wanted to buy something, we would return merchandise to the store for credit to buy the things we want.  I don’t know if either of these are cheating, but it certainly felt that way.

4. (Not to point fingers) He is more of a cheater.  He would use credit and debit cards to buy coffees and donuts then still withdraw his blow money for the week.  I didn’t want to say much because I didn’t want to feel like I was nagging him.

5.  Budgeting is stressful.  While we were getting into the habit of budgeting we blamed each other a lot.  We both tried to be mature about the situation but I was blamed a lot for “taking money away” and he was blamed a lot for “spending too much”.  We are now blaming less and trying to be more of a team but it was a but rocky at first.

6.  We won’t be successful on only one income.  We have too many financial obligations to go anywhere fast on one income.  It will get done eventually, but not as quickly as we would like it to.  Therefore, we need additional family income.

7.  Some months cost more.  January was a killer month for us, in a bad way.  It was the first New Year with only one income and, to make it that much better, it had an extra week of payments!  Our car loan and my student loan are paid on a bi-weekly basis.  This month we had six payments due between these loans compared to the usual four payments which made this month cost more.

8. Friends will be upset with you at first.   We have been invited many places and on a couple vacations and we have had to decline.  Normally we would have been on board with anything, and our friends knew this, so they were upset when we couldn’t afford to do much.  Even though we have explained to them that we are budgeting, they can’t seem to grasp the idea… yet.  Hopefully once we begin to make some progress, they will also be on board with budgeting themselves.

9.  You don’t realize how much you want until you can’t have it.  We need (want) a new laptop.  Can’t have it.  We want to go to Florida. Can’t have it.  We want to stay in a cottage up north for a weekend.  Can’t have it.  We want a lift on our truck.  Can’t have it.  We want a new rug for our house.  Can’t have it.  These are all wants, not needs, that we don’t budget for.  Normally these wants would have been made into purchases without a second thought.

10.  We didn’t budget enough for some things.  We found that we were going over our grocery budget for items like milk and eggs.  We spend a lot of money on our CSA shares and are hoping that we can cut that $120/month out of our budget as of the renewal in April.  We LOVE having local organic produce delivered each week, but since we grow a lot of our own veggies in the summer, we can do without the CSA for at least the spring and summer shares.   Our second month of budgeting will be a little smoother than the first since we can work out some of the problems that we ran into.