Saturday, January 15, 2011
Friday, October 15, 2010
Pause Button Pushed
I'm having to put the blog on "Pause" for a little while. Between learning the new job, dealing with some extended family issues, and waiting for my new motherboard to arrive and be installed, I just can't give the blog the attention it needs right now. Plus I'm having to cadge time on Daughter's computer to do anything, and that's a royal pain in the whatsit for both of us.
I'm still trying to decide whether to keep it as is, re-title it, or start a new blog and link back to this one. Whatever I decide, you'll know in a couple of weeks.
In the meantime, I'd like to thank the kind people who took time to post comments :-) They are like the cherries in fruit salad - not plentiful, but always greeted with gladness.
I'm still trying to decide whether to keep it as is, re-title it, or start a new blog and link back to this one. Whatever I decide, you'll know in a couple of weeks.
In the meantime, I'd like to thank the kind people who took time to post comments :-) They are like the cherries in fruit salad - not plentiful, but always greeted with gladness.
Friday, October 1, 2010
At Last!
I GOT THE JOB!!!!!
I start on Monday morning! I couldn't be happier - not only is this job in my field, but it's with people I've worked with before, really like, and get along really well with. I've been doing the happy dance since I found out last night.
I really want to keep on with this blog, though. I enjoy it immensely and it has helped keep me on track with goals other than getting a job ... decluttering, green living, managing my money ... the weight loss & non-smoking not so much (so far). Let's just call me a work-in-progress there, okay?
So since I definitely don't want to give up blogging, I have a question for anyone who's interested:
Should I keep the blog as is?
Should I re-name it (if that's possible) and keep going?
Should I put it to rest and start a new blog?
Please let me know what you think - thanks!
I start on Monday morning! I couldn't be happier - not only is this job in my field, but it's with people I've worked with before, really like, and get along really well with. I've been doing the happy dance since I found out last night.
I really want to keep on with this blog, though. I enjoy it immensely and it has helped keep me on track with goals other than getting a job ... decluttering, green living, managing my money ... the weight loss & non-smoking not so much (so far). Let's just call me a work-in-progress there, okay?
So since I definitely don't want to give up blogging, I have a question for anyone who's interested:
Should I keep the blog as is?
Should I re-name it (if that's possible) and keep going?
Should I put it to rest and start a new blog?
Please let me know what you think - thanks!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Waiting
I seem to be having a couple of weeks of sitting on my hands waiting for one thing after another ...
Finally made it over to Daughter's place again to use her computer ... I could have gone to Mom's place and used hers, but the constant negativity there really weighs me down. She just got a prescription for a new anti-depressant, so we're all waiting to see how well it works for her.
The job fair was kind of a bust ... not a total waste of time, but pretty close. I did connect with a former co-worker who provided a couple of possible leads; I've applied to both, and now - as always - I wait. I also got a call from another former co-worker last Friday; she's now managing a shipping agency, and one of her people just gave notice. She asked for my resume, which I promptly sent her, and said she'll be pushing upper management to let her hire me. Here's hoping!
After much telephoning back and forth, the retailer has provided me with a readable copy of the invoice for my dead motherboard. Tomorrow I'll take it in, request the new one, and arrange for the retailer's tech department to switch over the processor and heat sink. That's a trickily delicate job I'd rather pay a pro to do. I wonder how long I'll be waiting for that? And once I get the new one home, I'll be waiting for my friend the computer builder to get back into town and install everything for me.
I guess my frustration comes from not being able to do the things I feel I should be doing, because I have to wait for other things to happen first. I can't get on with my craft fair projects, or my Christmas gift projects, because there's a disembowelled computer spread across my work surface. I can't get started on next spring's garden planning until Big Guy decides where he wants to put the camper, which can't come off The Truck because it is waiting for him to locate the parts he needs, without which it can't move. I finished a knitting project, but can't start any of the next three until I get downtown to track down the DPNs I need for them. At least I can do that tomorrow, once I'm finished (I hope!) at the computer shop. Then I can really get moving on gifts.
The craft fair stuff, though, is starting to look a little iffy. The deadlines for reserving tables are fast approaching, but I don't want to book and pay for tables when I may not have anything to put on them ... and until my computer is restored I have no space to work on anything saleable. Then again, if any of my recent job applications pan out, doing the craft fairs becomes much less necessary. I like doing them, but it would be nice if I didn't have to do them.
In the meantime, I'm working hard on not taking my frustrations out on my loved ones.
Finally made it over to Daughter's place again to use her computer ... I could have gone to Mom's place and used hers, but the constant negativity there really weighs me down. She just got a prescription for a new anti-depressant, so we're all waiting to see how well it works for her.
The job fair was kind of a bust ... not a total waste of time, but pretty close. I did connect with a former co-worker who provided a couple of possible leads; I've applied to both, and now - as always - I wait. I also got a call from another former co-worker last Friday; she's now managing a shipping agency, and one of her people just gave notice. She asked for my resume, which I promptly sent her, and said she'll be pushing upper management to let her hire me. Here's hoping!
After much telephoning back and forth, the retailer has provided me with a readable copy of the invoice for my dead motherboard. Tomorrow I'll take it in, request the new one, and arrange for the retailer's tech department to switch over the processor and heat sink. That's a trickily delicate job I'd rather pay a pro to do. I wonder how long I'll be waiting for that? And once I get the new one home, I'll be waiting for my friend the computer builder to get back into town and install everything for me.
I guess my frustration comes from not being able to do the things I feel I should be doing, because I have to wait for other things to happen first. I can't get on with my craft fair projects, or my Christmas gift projects, because there's a disembowelled computer spread across my work surface. I can't get started on next spring's garden planning until Big Guy decides where he wants to put the camper, which can't come off The Truck because it is waiting for him to locate the parts he needs, without which it can't move. I finished a knitting project, but can't start any of the next three until I get downtown to track down the DPNs I need for them. At least I can do that tomorrow, once I'm finished (I hope!) at the computer shop. Then I can really get moving on gifts.
The craft fair stuff, though, is starting to look a little iffy. The deadlines for reserving tables are fast approaching, but I don't want to book and pay for tables when I may not have anything to put on them ... and until my computer is restored I have no space to work on anything saleable. Then again, if any of my recent job applications pan out, doing the craft fairs becomes much less necessary. I like doing them, but it would be nice if I didn't have to do them.
In the meantime, I'm working hard on not taking my frustrations out on my loved ones.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Sigh ...
My motherboard has toasted itself. It's still under warrantee, though, so all I have to do is disembowel the computer, take the board back to the store where they will replace it, bring it home, and rebuild the computer. In the meantime I have limited use of Daughter's computer. Very limited.
For the first time ever, on Tuesday I will actually be paying to attend a job fair. Only $5.60, and part of that will go to charity, but still ... it just doesn't seem right, somehow. How many good people are going to miss this opportunity because they can't wring another $5.60 out of the grocery budget, or the rent money? Telling myself that the attendance cost cuts down on the competition doesn't make me feel very good either, because anyone who can't afford the entry fee (or the transit fare) is more desperately in need of a job than I am. So I'm trying to just think of it as a necessary investment.
I've printed a few copies of my resume and references to take with me, since there will apparently be spaces set up for on-the-spot interviews, and I also plan to carry a thumb drive with both loaded on it. I've learned that when it comes to job hunting, there's no such thing as being "too prepared". I'll be touching up my roots tonight, and fine-tuning what I'll wear; it will have to be both professional and comfortable, because I may very well be there all day. The hardest part of the process, I think, will be maintaining a positive, upbeat attitude the whole time. Even though I have nothing to lose and possibly a great deal to gain.
For the first time ever, on Tuesday I will actually be paying to attend a job fair. Only $5.60, and part of that will go to charity, but still ... it just doesn't seem right, somehow. How many good people are going to miss this opportunity because they can't wring another $5.60 out of the grocery budget, or the rent money? Telling myself that the attendance cost cuts down on the competition doesn't make me feel very good either, because anyone who can't afford the entry fee (or the transit fare) is more desperately in need of a job than I am. So I'm trying to just think of it as a necessary investment.
I've printed a few copies of my resume and references to take with me, since there will apparently be spaces set up for on-the-spot interviews, and I also plan to carry a thumb drive with both loaded on it. I've learned that when it comes to job hunting, there's no such thing as being "too prepared". I'll be touching up my roots tonight, and fine-tuning what I'll wear; it will have to be both professional and comfortable, because I may very well be there all day. The hardest part of the process, I think, will be maintaining a positive, upbeat attitude the whole time. Even though I have nothing to lose and possibly a great deal to gain.
Friday, September 10, 2010
A Medley Of Updates
Some good, others not so much ...
The garden. Heavy Sigh. Our final crop tally (now that summer seems to be over for good and what isn't already ripe never will be):
Four apples.
Three hazelnuts.
A lifetime's worth of chives. Apparently you can't kill these little suckers with napalm.
Four black currants.
Four stalks of rhubarb. Hey, it got almost-red, that has to count for something ... doesn't it?
Eleven green beans.
One strawberry. One.
A gallon ice-cream pail full of lovely Italian prune plums. Yeah, surprised the heck out of me too - we planted the tree three years ago and were told not to expect fruit from it for about five years! I'm most gratified (and the plums are almost all gone already).
Enough small, rock-hard green tomatoes to make a couple of gallons of my great-grandmother's green tomato mincemeat, if someone can find the recipe.
On the upside, we have the fattest, happiest squirrels and Stellar jays you've ever seen. Next year I think I'll just plant raspberries. Or maybe chives.
In other news, my daughters have told me that since the job market is still so depressed - and consequently so am I - I should write a book. Something along the lines of "Being Dead Flat Broke Is The Best Way To Live Green" or "How To Squeeze A Dollar Till The Loon Lays Eggs" ... Personally, I suspect that a more appropriate title might be "How To Survive Making Horrifically Bad Choices In Life" ... But maybe they're onto something. I'll give that some thought.
Men and trucks. What is it with men and their trucks, anyway? Big Guy loves his truck. He bought it new in 1975. No, that's not a typo. 1975. He has kept The Truck running for 35 years, he loves The Truck, he will never sell or scrap The Truck; I'm pretty sure he wants to be buried in The Truck. Or maybe pass it down to our grandson, like a beloved family heirloom. The running not-so-funny joke around here is that if Moses showed up with another stone tablet saying Big Guy had to choose between me and The Truck ... he'd miss me.
There have been times when my love for him has been all that kept me from taking a cutting torch to The Truck and not stopping until there wasn't anything left big enough to use for an ashtray.
Big Guy went fishing with a buddy for a week or so. It was all good, until ... something expensive broke in the suspension of The Truck. At Lillooet Lake. Which, if you are fortunate enough to have BCAA, as we do, turns out to be only a $280 towing distance from here. "Only", he said. I bit my tongue and did not say what I was thinking, which was I would have just put a bullet through its head and rolled it into the river. Instead, I patted his shoulder comfortingly and reminded him that in all its 35 years of faithful service, this is the first time The Truck has ever had to be towed home, and isn't that some kind of world record or something? Cheered him right up. Men are strange about their trucks.
Nice things have happened, too.
A friend sent me a lovely ten-colour sampler pack of Fimo; she'd heard I was getting back into the craft fair stuff and wanted to cheer me on. Beautiful, clear, bright colours, and I smile every time I look at them.
I notified the extended family that the only Christmas gifts I'd be giving this year would be made by me, for obvious reasons. Various requests are starting to trickle in, and I went trolling the internet for patterns ...
Oh. My. Gosh.
Not only am I overwhelmed with the volume and variety of what's out there - and I only googled "FREE patterns" - but why didn't somebody tell me how many knitting websites and blogs there are? Good gravy, I could sit here around the clock for the next century and never get caught up! The internet, it turns out, is hog heaven for knitters! Who knew?
And - I found a local knitting group within a reasonable distance, and when I tentatively e-mailed them asking if they were open to new people, I got such a warm welcome! They meet every Thursday evening at a local (well, fairly local) coffee shop, so guess where I'll be? I've been feeling like a bit of an inadvertent hermit lately, and I think this will be good for me. I'll get out of the house for something besides necessary errands, I'll make new friends who actually understand when I mutter no, idiot, it's k2 then psso, and I might even get some Christmas gifts made. At least, that's the plan.
Do you think they'll still like me if I tell them I get all my yarn at Value Village?
The garden. Heavy Sigh. Our final crop tally (now that summer seems to be over for good and what isn't already ripe never will be):
Four apples.
Three hazelnuts.
A lifetime's worth of chives. Apparently you can't kill these little suckers with napalm.
Four black currants.
Four stalks of rhubarb. Hey, it got almost-red, that has to count for something ... doesn't it?
Eleven green beans.
One strawberry. One.
A gallon ice-cream pail full of lovely Italian prune plums. Yeah, surprised the heck out of me too - we planted the tree three years ago and were told not to expect fruit from it for about five years! I'm most gratified (and the plums are almost all gone already).
Enough small, rock-hard green tomatoes to make a couple of gallons of my great-grandmother's green tomato mincemeat, if someone can find the recipe.
On the upside, we have the fattest, happiest squirrels and Stellar jays you've ever seen. Next year I think I'll just plant raspberries. Or maybe chives.
In other news, my daughters have told me that since the job market is still so depressed - and consequently so am I - I should write a book. Something along the lines of "Being Dead Flat Broke Is The Best Way To Live Green" or "How To Squeeze A Dollar Till The Loon Lays Eggs" ... Personally, I suspect that a more appropriate title might be "How To Survive Making Horrifically Bad Choices In Life" ... But maybe they're onto something. I'll give that some thought.
Men and trucks. What is it with men and their trucks, anyway? Big Guy loves his truck. He bought it new in 1975. No, that's not a typo. 1975. He has kept The Truck running for 35 years, he loves The Truck, he will never sell or scrap The Truck; I'm pretty sure he wants to be buried in The Truck. Or maybe pass it down to our grandson, like a beloved family heirloom. The running not-so-funny joke around here is that if Moses showed up with another stone tablet saying Big Guy had to choose between me and The Truck ... he'd miss me.
There have been times when my love for him has been all that kept me from taking a cutting torch to The Truck and not stopping until there wasn't anything left big enough to use for an ashtray.
Big Guy went fishing with a buddy for a week or so. It was all good, until ... something expensive broke in the suspension of The Truck. At Lillooet Lake. Which, if you are fortunate enough to have BCAA, as we do, turns out to be only a $280 towing distance from here. "Only", he said. I bit my tongue and did not say what I was thinking, which was I would have just put a bullet through its head and rolled it into the river. Instead, I patted his shoulder comfortingly and reminded him that in all its 35 years of faithful service, this is the first time The Truck has ever had to be towed home, and isn't that some kind of world record or something? Cheered him right up. Men are strange about their trucks.
Nice things have happened, too.
A friend sent me a lovely ten-colour sampler pack of Fimo; she'd heard I was getting back into the craft fair stuff and wanted to cheer me on. Beautiful, clear, bright colours, and I smile every time I look at them.
I notified the extended family that the only Christmas gifts I'd be giving this year would be made by me, for obvious reasons. Various requests are starting to trickle in, and I went trolling the internet for patterns ...
Oh. My. Gosh.
Not only am I overwhelmed with the volume and variety of what's out there - and I only googled "FREE patterns" - but why didn't somebody tell me how many knitting websites and blogs there are? Good gravy, I could sit here around the clock for the next century and never get caught up! The internet, it turns out, is hog heaven for knitters! Who knew?
And - I found a local knitting group within a reasonable distance, and when I tentatively e-mailed them asking if they were open to new people, I got such a warm welcome! They meet every Thursday evening at a local (well, fairly local) coffee shop, so guess where I'll be? I've been feeling like a bit of an inadvertent hermit lately, and I think this will be good for me. I'll get out of the house for something besides necessary errands, I'll make new friends who actually understand when I mutter no, idiot, it's k2 then psso, and I might even get some Christmas gifts made. At least, that's the plan.
Do you think they'll still like me if I tell them I get all my yarn at Value Village?
Monday, September 6, 2010
Labour Day Thoughts And Thanks
Ah, Labour Day. The day when everyone strives to labour as little as humanly possible. Especially me ... the most energetic thing I did today was make a pot of coffee. Oh, and clean up that hairball Big Guy was pretending not to see, but that only took thirty seconds.
This is it, folks - the last long weekend of summer. Our last chance to spend a guilt-free Monday lounging in the back yard with a cold what's-your-pleasure, scarfing down potato salad and whatever's on hand to barbecue. Our last chance to hit the you-pick berry farms before they all turn into pumpkin patches. Our last chance to hit the beach and add one more day's worth to the tan we're hoping won't fade until after Christmas (okay, Halloween). In short, our last chance to hang around soaking up sunshine and doing as close to nothing as we can get away with. And ...
It's raining. Worse, it's not even the kind of thorough, windy, driving rain that fully justifies a roaring fire and a gallon of hot chocolate ... no, it's the dull, drab, not-really-really-raining-but-still-soaks-right-through-you stuff that's too nasty to do anything outside in, only you still have to go to the store but it's not raining hard enough to justify taking the car instead of walking. That kind of rain.
And my car is full of donations I can't take to the thrift store until tomorrow, so my living room is full of bags of donations that I can't put in the car until I drop off what's already in it, and Big Guy (home from the fishing trip - don't ask, it got ugly) is complaining because there are bags of donations all over the living room.
And I still have no job and no money, and no working space to make craft fair things because of the Domino Effect (the attic does look much better now, but the workroom hasn't changed much except for the nice neat organized bookshelves), and even though I have no money I have to come up with gifts for three family birthdays in the next five days.
But it's still a holiday Monday, which is still a good thing in my book.
So since I can't get any sunshine outside, I'd like to say a big "Thank you!" to a few of the bloggers whose virtual sunshine has kept me so well distracted from the weather, the state of my house, and the state of my finances this weekend:
Wise and compassionate Donna of Surviving and Thriving , whose encouraging comments never fail to renew my optimism, and remind me that no matter how low I'm feeling, I'm not alone.
Deanna of Crunchy Chicken , whose dedication to the environment puts me so far in the shade, and who is such a terrific inspiration whenever I start feeling that one person can't make a difference.
Abigail of I Pick Up Pennies , who deals with staggering challenges with such grace and determination that I'm ashamed of ever feeling sorry for myself.
Stephanie of Yarn Harlot , who is funny, brilliant, warm-hearted and charming, and who has inspired me to dig all my UFOs out of the knitting basket and actually find a knitting group to join. I might even get something finished ...
There are a lot more wonderful bloggers out there (see my sidebar for a few of my favourites) but these four ladies in particular have really brightened up the last few days for me. Thank you, ladies, for turning the grey, drizzly gloom into something a little warmer and brighter!
This is it, folks - the last long weekend of summer. Our last chance to spend a guilt-free Monday lounging in the back yard with a cold what's-your-pleasure, scarfing down potato salad and whatever's on hand to barbecue. Our last chance to hit the you-pick berry farms before they all turn into pumpkin patches. Our last chance to hit the beach and add one more day's worth to the tan we're hoping won't fade until after Christmas (okay, Halloween). In short, our last chance to hang around soaking up sunshine and doing as close to nothing as we can get away with. And ...
It's raining. Worse, it's not even the kind of thorough, windy, driving rain that fully justifies a roaring fire and a gallon of hot chocolate ... no, it's the dull, drab, not-really-really-raining-but-still-soaks-right-through-you stuff that's too nasty to do anything outside in, only you still have to go to the store but it's not raining hard enough to justify taking the car instead of walking. That kind of rain.
And my car is full of donations I can't take to the thrift store until tomorrow, so my living room is full of bags of donations that I can't put in the car until I drop off what's already in it, and Big Guy (home from the fishing trip - don't ask, it got ugly) is complaining because there are bags of donations all over the living room.
And I still have no job and no money, and no working space to make craft fair things because of the Domino Effect (the attic does look much better now, but the workroom hasn't changed much except for the nice neat organized bookshelves), and even though I have no money I have to come up with gifts for three family birthdays in the next five days.
But it's still a holiday Monday, which is still a good thing in my book.
So since I can't get any sunshine outside, I'd like to say a big "Thank you!" to a few of the bloggers whose virtual sunshine has kept me so well distracted from the weather, the state of my house, and the state of my finances this weekend:
Wise and compassionate Donna of Surviving and Thriving , whose encouraging comments never fail to renew my optimism, and remind me that no matter how low I'm feeling, I'm not alone.
Deanna of Crunchy Chicken , whose dedication to the environment puts me so far in the shade, and who is such a terrific inspiration whenever I start feeling that one person can't make a difference.
Abigail of I Pick Up Pennies , who deals with staggering challenges with such grace and determination that I'm ashamed of ever feeling sorry for myself.
Stephanie of Yarn Harlot , who is funny, brilliant, warm-hearted and charming, and who has inspired me to dig all my UFOs out of the knitting basket and actually find a knitting group to join. I might even get something finished ...
There are a lot more wonderful bloggers out there (see my sidebar for a few of my favourites) but these four ladies in particular have really brightened up the last few days for me. Thank you, ladies, for turning the grey, drizzly gloom into something a little warmer and brighter!
Friday, September 3, 2010
The Domino Effect
We've all had times where the Domino Effect wreaks havoc with our plans. You know what I mean - you set out to do something, but before you can do it something else needs to be gotten out of the way, but when you go to put it away, there's nowhere to put it so you need to clear space for it, and so it goes.
This week the Domino Effect happened here - but it turned out to be a good thing in a way. I did get a lot more done than I would have if I'd been able to just finish what I started ...
As you may recall, I set out to clean, declutter, and organize my itty bitty workroom (you can see the "before" pictures here ). One of the things I particularly wanted to do was weed through all the books and get the bookshelves properly organized, so I started by sorting all the fiction into three stacks: keep, donate, and books I haven't read yet. The books to be donated are mostly science fiction; they've been set aside for my best book-sharing buddy to go through, and whatever he doesn't want will go to the library or the thrift store. The ones I haven't read yet went onto two shelves for easy access when I get some free reading time. The keepers were packed up to go to the attic, where they'll stay until we get the family room downstairs finished.
And that's where the Domino Effect took over.
The attic was a disaster zone. Between Big Guy moving stuff around last winter to find out where the leak was, and then the roofers moving stuff out of their way to install the new vents, and then Big Guy just opening the hatch and blindly tossing stuff up in the dark, absolutely nothing was still where it was the last time I was up there. Boxes on their sides spilling their contents, Rubbermaid bins upside down so that when I tried to move them they shed their lids and emptied themselves, sawdust and shingle fragments and shreds of insulation everywhere ... honestly, I wanted to sit down and weep.
I hauled every single thing down out of the attic and piled it all in the living room. Then I re-packed every box and bin and bag, resisting the temptation to weed and purge everyone's stuff and confining that process to my own belongings. Once that was done, I hauled everything back up the ladder - not an easy feat, and that part took much longer than the rest of the process - and grouped stuff according to whose it was. So Big Guy's goods are to the west of the hatch, mine to the east, Youngest Daughter's to the north, and general household stuff, like holiday decorations, winter blankets, luggage, and so on are to the south.
Three days later I can finally cross the attic off the "declutter" list ... but the living room is now worse than before, since I found quite a few things I want to see if I can sell via Craigslist. Oh, well, I'll get to them once I've finished the workroom. Besides, I found the boxes of gorgeous slate-blue navy-rimmed Denby stoneware I'd stashed "for when the kitchen gets reorganized" and decided that now's as good a time as any to dispense with the cheap Chinatown-dollar-store plates and bowls we've been using and get the nice stuff into the cupboard. (The Denby was a thrift store bonanza - I could never have afforded even one place setting new, but I got eight each of dinner plates, lunch plates, and bowls for less than thirty dollars!) So the Denby is in the kitchen, and the old dishes are stacked on a table in the living room; I don't dare just get rid of them (much as I'd like to) without Big Guy's approval, since the kitchen is more or less his domain. I have a feeling they'll end up in boxes in the attic ... hoarding runs in his family, and while he's not as bad as most of them it's a major battle to convince him to let anything go.
By the time all the dishes were changed out, I was getting pretty hungry, so I took a microwave chicken pot pie out of the freezer. While it was cooking, I got fed up with the mess the cookbook shelves over the microwave had become, so I took them all down and re-shelved them properly ... which in turn created more clutter to go through - all kinds of odd things had made their way onto the shelves at the hands of Mister I'll-just-set-this-here-until-I-get-around-to-putting-it-away. Not my clutter, though, so it's all in a box waiting for him to sort through it when he gets home from his fishing trip.
So, the Domino Effect in action: decluttering and organizing my workroom turned into decluttering and organizing the attic, which turned into decluttering part of the kitchen, which turned into more clutter in the living room and a car stuffed full of stuff to drop off at the thrift store ... but although it may not be immediately visible, progress is being made.
This week the Domino Effect happened here - but it turned out to be a good thing in a way. I did get a lot more done than I would have if I'd been able to just finish what I started ...
As you may recall, I set out to clean, declutter, and organize my itty bitty workroom (you can see the "before" pictures here ). One of the things I particularly wanted to do was weed through all the books and get the bookshelves properly organized, so I started by sorting all the fiction into three stacks: keep, donate, and books I haven't read yet. The books to be donated are mostly science fiction; they've been set aside for my best book-sharing buddy to go through, and whatever he doesn't want will go to the library or the thrift store. The ones I haven't read yet went onto two shelves for easy access when I get some free reading time. The keepers were packed up to go to the attic, where they'll stay until we get the family room downstairs finished.
And that's where the Domino Effect took over.
The attic was a disaster zone. Between Big Guy moving stuff around last winter to find out where the leak was, and then the roofers moving stuff out of their way to install the new vents, and then Big Guy just opening the hatch and blindly tossing stuff up in the dark, absolutely nothing was still where it was the last time I was up there. Boxes on their sides spilling their contents, Rubbermaid bins upside down so that when I tried to move them they shed their lids and emptied themselves, sawdust and shingle fragments and shreds of insulation everywhere ... honestly, I wanted to sit down and weep.
I hauled every single thing down out of the attic and piled it all in the living room. Then I re-packed every box and bin and bag, resisting the temptation to weed and purge everyone's stuff and confining that process to my own belongings. Once that was done, I hauled everything back up the ladder - not an easy feat, and that part took much longer than the rest of the process - and grouped stuff according to whose it was. So Big Guy's goods are to the west of the hatch, mine to the east, Youngest Daughter's to the north, and general household stuff, like holiday decorations, winter blankets, luggage, and so on are to the south.
Three days later I can finally cross the attic off the "declutter" list ... but the living room is now worse than before, since I found quite a few things I want to see if I can sell via Craigslist. Oh, well, I'll get to them once I've finished the workroom. Besides, I found the boxes of gorgeous slate-blue navy-rimmed Denby stoneware I'd stashed "for when the kitchen gets reorganized" and decided that now's as good a time as any to dispense with the cheap Chinatown-dollar-store plates and bowls we've been using and get the nice stuff into the cupboard. (The Denby was a thrift store bonanza - I could never have afforded even one place setting new, but I got eight each of dinner plates, lunch plates, and bowls for less than thirty dollars!) So the Denby is in the kitchen, and the old dishes are stacked on a table in the living room; I don't dare just get rid of them (much as I'd like to) without Big Guy's approval, since the kitchen is more or less his domain. I have a feeling they'll end up in boxes in the attic ... hoarding runs in his family, and while he's not as bad as most of them it's a major battle to convince him to let anything go.
By the time all the dishes were changed out, I was getting pretty hungry, so I took a microwave chicken pot pie out of the freezer. While it was cooking, I got fed up with the mess the cookbook shelves over the microwave had become, so I took them all down and re-shelved them properly ... which in turn created more clutter to go through - all kinds of odd things had made their way onto the shelves at the hands of Mister I'll-just-set-this-here-until-I-get-around-to-putting-it-away. Not my clutter, though, so it's all in a box waiting for him to sort through it when he gets home from his fishing trip.
So, the Domino Effect in action: decluttering and organizing my workroom turned into decluttering and organizing the attic, which turned into decluttering part of the kitchen, which turned into more clutter in the living room and a car stuffed full of stuff to drop off at the thrift store ... but although it may not be immediately visible, progress is being made.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
While You Wait ...
I'm still feeling grumpy and sorry for myself. But it'll pass ...
In the meantime, check out this week's Festival Of Frugality here . Lots of good stuff!
In the meantime, check out this week's Festival Of Frugality here . Lots of good stuff!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Unhappy Anniversary
Yesterday was the anniversary of my becoming unemployed. I have now been without a paying job for one year and one day.
I'm angry. I'm depressed. I feel worthless. My ego is bruised and bleeding. My self-esteem is in the toilet. When I remember how long I originally thought it would take me to find another job, I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or throw up.
Yes, I know there are a lot of people who've been out of work a lot longer. I know that it's not my fault there aren't enough jobs to go around. I know I'm doing all the right things to find another job. I know that sooner or later, I will be working again.
But none of that makes me feel any better right now.
Maybe tomorrow.
I'm angry. I'm depressed. I feel worthless. My ego is bruised and bleeding. My self-esteem is in the toilet. When I remember how long I originally thought it would take me to find another job, I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or throw up.
Yes, I know there are a lot of people who've been out of work a lot longer. I know that it's not my fault there aren't enough jobs to go around. I know I'm doing all the right things to find another job. I know that sooner or later, I will be working again.
But none of that makes me feel any better right now.
Maybe tomorrow.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Getting On With It
Brace yourselves. This is what my workroom looks like right now:
This room is where a lot of my life happens. It's my sewing / knitting / crafts room. It's the home office from which I blog, run my home "direct sales" businesses, do all the family banking and bill-paying, and conduct a fair bit of my social life. It's my library and reading room. It's where I do all my garden planning and stash all my Christmas shopping. It's where my "work" wardrobe lives, and where - when I have a job to go to - I get ready in the morning. It's where my altar (not shown) resides. And if I'm in here, chances are at least one cat is, too.
It's six feet by nine feet, plus a very small closet.
As you can see, it's gotten a little bit out of control ...
This room is going to be my number one project while Big Guy is off fishing. I plan to:
1) Catalogue the library, weed and purge (and donate to the local public library), re-shelve the reference books, and box up all the fiction to go to the attic for now - with the exception of the books I've acquired but not had time to read yet.
2) Sort every piece of paper in the room and file, recycle, or burn (no shredder) as appropriate.
3) Sort, purge & donate, and properly store what I'll keep of all the office and school supplies. I have a feeling that even after I'm done I'll have a lifetime supply of pens, pencils, notebooks of all sizes, and file folders and hangers. Right now a lot of local stores and businesses are collecting donations of school supplies, or I can take them directly to the local elementary school.
4) Organize all of my home business supplies and stock in one place.
5) Sort, purge, and organize all of my knitting, sewing, and craft supplies and materials. And then finish the current pile of mending before I start any new projects!
When I'm done:
1) I should have a lot more room to work, and a lot more time to work, since I won't be spending so much time looking for what I want and then trying to clear a space to work in.
2) I'll be donating things that can't always be found in thrift stores, but that a lot of parents, sadly, can't afford to buy new for their back-to-school kids.
3) I'll be saving money, because I'll no longer be running out to buy something I already have but can't find.
4) I'll be saving more money, because I'll be making nice new clothes from materials I already have instead of shopping.
5) I'll be making money, because I'll be able to get a lot more things made in time for the fall / winter craft fairs.
6) I'll be making more money, because I'll be able to run my home businesses more efficiently.
7) I'll be taking a lot of donations to the local thrift store, thereby decluttering my home and keeping stuff out of the landfill.
It won't all happen overnight. But it will happen.
Just wait till you see the "after" pictures!
This room is where a lot of my life happens. It's my sewing / knitting / crafts room. It's the home office from which I blog, run my home "direct sales" businesses, do all the family banking and bill-paying, and conduct a fair bit of my social life. It's my library and reading room. It's where I do all my garden planning and stash all my Christmas shopping. It's where my "work" wardrobe lives, and where - when I have a job to go to - I get ready in the morning. It's where my altar (not shown) resides. And if I'm in here, chances are at least one cat is, too.
It's six feet by nine feet, plus a very small closet.
As you can see, it's gotten a little bit out of control ...
This room is going to be my number one project while Big Guy is off fishing. I plan to:
1) Catalogue the library, weed and purge (and donate to the local public library), re-shelve the reference books, and box up all the fiction to go to the attic for now - with the exception of the books I've acquired but not had time to read yet.
2) Sort every piece of paper in the room and file, recycle, or burn (no shredder) as appropriate.
3) Sort, purge & donate, and properly store what I'll keep of all the office and school supplies. I have a feeling that even after I'm done I'll have a lifetime supply of pens, pencils, notebooks of all sizes, and file folders and hangers. Right now a lot of local stores and businesses are collecting donations of school supplies, or I can take them directly to the local elementary school.
4) Organize all of my home business supplies and stock in one place.
5) Sort, purge, and organize all of my knitting, sewing, and craft supplies and materials. And then finish the current pile of mending before I start any new projects!
When I'm done:
1) I should have a lot more room to work, and a lot more time to work, since I won't be spending so much time looking for what I want and then trying to clear a space to work in.
2) I'll be donating things that can't always be found in thrift stores, but that a lot of parents, sadly, can't afford to buy new for their back-to-school kids.
3) I'll be saving money, because I'll no longer be running out to buy something I already have but can't find.
4) I'll be saving more money, because I'll be making nice new clothes from materials I already have instead of shopping.
5) I'll be making money, because I'll be able to get a lot more things made in time for the fall / winter craft fairs.
6) I'll be making more money, because I'll be able to run my home businesses more efficiently.
7) I'll be taking a lot of donations to the local thrift store, thereby decluttering my home and keeping stuff out of the landfill.
It won't all happen overnight. But it will happen.
Just wait till you see the "after" pictures!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Getting Things Done
For the first time in weeks, today I felt as though I was actually getting things done. And it's a good feeling.
For months now I've had a "to-do" list of things that I wanted to see to around the house, but I could never seem to cross anything off. No matter what I set out to do, it always seemed as though the universe was conspiring to prevent it. If I got up in the morning determined to declutter a room, Big Guy would have something going on in that room. If I wanted to shift furniture and deep-clean the living room floor, he'd pick that day to rack out on the sofa channel-surfing all day. If I wanted to spend the day getting all the errands done, he'd suddenly disappear with the car for hours, or Daughter would need to be taken shopping or to the dentist or somewhere transit doesn't go. If I wanted to start a sewing project, I'd find someone else's stuff all over the table ... It was getting to be the story of my unemployed life - no matter what I wanted to do, someone wanted / needed something else to happen.
Until yesterday afternoon.
I've already mentioned that Daughter is working out of town, probably until mid-November. Yesterday, Big Guy and a friend loaded up the camper and drove away for a week (at least) of fishing up the valley. So I have the house all to myself. For literally the first time in over thirty years, I have the house all to myself for more than twenty-four hours. It's eerily quiet ... nobody is talking, unless you count the cats; nobody is crashing around in the kitchen or the basement or the workshop; nobody is yelling every five minutes for me to do something, or find something, or fix something, or clean something; the television hasn't been turned on all day. And I'm loving it.
So what am I doing with all this unaccustomed peace and quiet?
Last night I was lazy; didn't do a darn thing except finish a library book and start another one while the cats took turns purring in my lap. Bliss!
So far today I've gone online and applied for three jobs, touched up my grey roots, washed and hung up two loads of laundry, rearranged the living room and steam-cleaned the floor, got all caught up on e-mails and online surveys, and got half the pieces for Other Daughter's quilt cut out. I also gave our downstairs tenant the perfectly good mattress from our dying sofabed to augment hers, and had the city garbage truck take away the frame. The living room looks twice as big and just as comfortable; once I find time to reassemble my Ikea armchair, I think even Big Guy will see what an improvement it is to have the old sofa gone for good.
This evening I'll be mending while I watch a lecture series on the origins of civilization. I've always regretted having to leave college halfway through, and never having the funds to continue; and I've always looked for ways to keep studying the subjects I'm interested in, outside the framework of "formal" education. So when Mom started getting university-level lectures, on DVD sets, with study guide books, I was delighted - especially since we have very similar interests. So far I've studied my way through a series on the origins of religion, and when I finish the set I have now, I'll return them to her and borrow the set on the origins and evolution of language.
Tomorrow? If it's nice out, I'll probably spend a good part of the day gardening and cleaning up the yard, possibly stacking firewood. If it rains ... well, there's always that quilt.
For months now I've had a "to-do" list of things that I wanted to see to around the house, but I could never seem to cross anything off. No matter what I set out to do, it always seemed as though the universe was conspiring to prevent it. If I got up in the morning determined to declutter a room, Big Guy would have something going on in that room. If I wanted to shift furniture and deep-clean the living room floor, he'd pick that day to rack out on the sofa channel-surfing all day. If I wanted to spend the day getting all the errands done, he'd suddenly disappear with the car for hours, or Daughter would need to be taken shopping or to the dentist or somewhere transit doesn't go. If I wanted to start a sewing project, I'd find someone else's stuff all over the table ... It was getting to be the story of my unemployed life - no matter what I wanted to do, someone wanted / needed something else to happen.
Until yesterday afternoon.
I've already mentioned that Daughter is working out of town, probably until mid-November. Yesterday, Big Guy and a friend loaded up the camper and drove away for a week (at least) of fishing up the valley. So I have the house all to myself. For literally the first time in over thirty years, I have the house all to myself for more than twenty-four hours. It's eerily quiet ... nobody is talking, unless you count the cats; nobody is crashing around in the kitchen or the basement or the workshop; nobody is yelling every five minutes for me to do something, or find something, or fix something, or clean something; the television hasn't been turned on all day. And I'm loving it.
So what am I doing with all this unaccustomed peace and quiet?
Last night I was lazy; didn't do a darn thing except finish a library book and start another one while the cats took turns purring in my lap. Bliss!
So far today I've gone online and applied for three jobs, touched up my grey roots, washed and hung up two loads of laundry, rearranged the living room and steam-cleaned the floor, got all caught up on e-mails and online surveys, and got half the pieces for Other Daughter's quilt cut out. I also gave our downstairs tenant the perfectly good mattress from our dying sofabed to augment hers, and had the city garbage truck take away the frame. The living room looks twice as big and just as comfortable; once I find time to reassemble my Ikea armchair, I think even Big Guy will see what an improvement it is to have the old sofa gone for good.
This evening I'll be mending while I watch a lecture series on the origins of civilization. I've always regretted having to leave college halfway through, and never having the funds to continue; and I've always looked for ways to keep studying the subjects I'm interested in, outside the framework of "formal" education. So when Mom started getting university-level lectures, on DVD sets, with study guide books, I was delighted - especially since we have very similar interests. So far I've studied my way through a series on the origins of religion, and when I finish the set I have now, I'll return them to her and borrow the set on the origins and evolution of language.
Tomorrow? If it's nice out, I'll probably spend a good part of the day gardening and cleaning up the yard, possibly stacking firewood. If it rains ... well, there's always that quilt.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Working The Job Market
I know, I know ... I'm still trying to get the links from the Festival of Frugality to work. In the meantime, here's something that's been on my mind for a long time now, and I'd be happy to hear any suggestions you care to offer.
When I was first laid off, I didn't panic. I'd been expecting it for a while, and I had my strategy firmly in place. I was going to be optimistic but realistic; in other words, I was hoping to find another job right away, but not counting on it. I'd acquired a lot of valuable, marketable skills and experience over the years, and while I knew how badly the economy was tanking in the States, I didn't think things were that bad here in Canada.
I was wrong. Massively, stupendously wrong.
The first clue was finding out how long my E.I. was good for. I'd expected the usual - seven or eight months of benefits (after the waiting period engendered by my severance pay). But seventeen months???? Wow, I thought, maybe getting another job isn't going to be as easy as I counted on.
The second clue was finding out how many hundreds of other applicants there were for every job posting in my field. And ninety-plus percent of them were younger than I am. Much younger. They don't have any experience, but they all seem to have diplomas; a combination that made them far more attractive to potential employers. The diplomas meant they knew all the industry terms and buzzwords, but their youth and inexperience meant that they could be offered a much lower wage.
Okay, time to look for ways to counter that.
Training credentials added to resume? Check. Grey hair dyed back to my original colour? Check. Stated salary expectations modified in my cover letter templates? Check.
Experience understated in my resume? No, no, and no. Why not? I look at it this way - if an employer can get someone with my level of skills and experience for what they'd pay a relative newcomer, surely that makes me a more attractive prospect. Doesn't it?
And sure enough, I'm getting a lot more calls and interviews ... but none of them go anywhere. And whenever I ask - politely, of course! - if there is some particular reason I wasn't chosen, I get variations of the same answer. They didn't believe that someone with my experience would be happy working for the salary they were offering.
So my question is: Why can't any of these people figure out that if I wasn't prepared to be satisfied with what they were offering, I wouldn't have applied for job in the first place?
When I was first laid off, I didn't panic. I'd been expecting it for a while, and I had my strategy firmly in place. I was going to be optimistic but realistic; in other words, I was hoping to find another job right away, but not counting on it. I'd acquired a lot of valuable, marketable skills and experience over the years, and while I knew how badly the economy was tanking in the States, I didn't think things were that bad here in Canada.
I was wrong. Massively, stupendously wrong.
The first clue was finding out how long my E.I. was good for. I'd expected the usual - seven or eight months of benefits (after the waiting period engendered by my severance pay). But seventeen months???? Wow, I thought, maybe getting another job isn't going to be as easy as I counted on.
The second clue was finding out how many hundreds of other applicants there were for every job posting in my field. And ninety-plus percent of them were younger than I am. Much younger. They don't have any experience, but they all seem to have diplomas; a combination that made them far more attractive to potential employers. The diplomas meant they knew all the industry terms and buzzwords, but their youth and inexperience meant that they could be offered a much lower wage.
Okay, time to look for ways to counter that.
Training credentials added to resume? Check. Grey hair dyed back to my original colour? Check. Stated salary expectations modified in my cover letter templates? Check.
Experience understated in my resume? No, no, and no. Why not? I look at it this way - if an employer can get someone with my level of skills and experience for what they'd pay a relative newcomer, surely that makes me a more attractive prospect. Doesn't it?
And sure enough, I'm getting a lot more calls and interviews ... but none of them go anywhere. And whenever I ask - politely, of course! - if there is some particular reason I wasn't chosen, I get variations of the same answer. They didn't believe that someone with my experience would be happy working for the salary they were offering.
So my question is: Why can't any of these people figure out that if I wasn't prepared to be satisfied with what they were offering, I wouldn't have applied for job in the first place?
Festival Of Frugality
I'm so excited! I just found out that my first-ever submission to the Festival of Frugality was actually accepted! You can see it all here, hosted by Frugal For Life:
Festival of Frugality
I'm having problems making links work, but please go check out the Festival! With thirty-five bloggers contributing, there's enough really good stuff there to keep you busy for days! Shopping, saving, spending, food, diapers, taxes, call phones, insurance, traveling ... no matter what your situation is or what you're most interested in, you'll find something worth reading and thinking about here.
And a huge, heartfelt "Thank you!" to Dawn for hosting!
I'll be back once I figure out what I'm doing wrong with links, to talk about the Festival some more.
Festival of Frugality
I'm having problems making links work, but please go check out the Festival! With thirty-five bloggers contributing, there's enough really good stuff there to keep you busy for days! Shopping, saving, spending, food, diapers, taxes, call phones, insurance, traveling ... no matter what your situation is or what you're most interested in, you'll find something worth reading and thinking about here.
And a huge, heartfelt "Thank you!" to Dawn for hosting!
I'll be back once I figure out what I'm doing wrong with links, to talk about the Festival some more.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
When Opposites Attract - And Clash
Let me start by saying the I love the Big Guy with all my heart and have no desire to be without him in my life, ever. We've been together for three decades, and I'm hoping for at least another three or four. Or five ...
That said - there are, as in any domestic partnership, times when he makes me want to pull my hair out (or his, except he doesn't have much left and I can grow more) in frustration. Almost all of these occasions arise from how different our respective attitudes are when it comes to money and debt.
Just to be clear, in this post I use the word "debt" to mean specifically consumer debt, be it credit cards, car loans, or any other debt acquired in the course of acquiring things. I don't include mortgages or student loans, as I consider them to be investments in one's own and one's family's future well-being. And in the case of our neighbours to the south, I don't include debt arising from medical emergencies or chronic illness, since these are not deliberate choices. Clear? Okay, onward ...
I grew up in a family where both parents worked, budgets were made and followed, savings were important, and debt was something shameful to be avoided. Charge accounts were acceptable only as long as their use was budgeted for ahead of time and they were paid in full each month.
Result: I am very, very conscious of exactly how much money I have, where it's going, and what I'm getting for it. I comparison shop, I wait for sales, I look for discounts, I shop at thrift stores and dollar stores, and if I can't pay for something in cash, or know I can't zero out the credit card before the end of the month, I just don't buy whatever it is. I'll make an exception only for emergency repairs to the house, or emergency vet bills. He tells me I "worry too much".
He grew up in a family - and a culture - where fathers worked, mothers stayed home with lots of kids (he's one of eight, and that was not considered a "big" family), and debt was just a part of life. Everyone had debt, everyone would always have debt until the day they died, and parents who didn't have any debt were seen as "cheap bastards" who didn't want to "do right by the kids" no matter what the cost.
Result: If he sees something he wants, he whips out the credit card. He wants what he wants and he wants it now, and he'll "find a way" to pay the bill later. And if he can't get what he wants even with the credit cards, he moans and growls about how he "can never have anything he needs" until I want to gag him with a rusty tire iron.
So ... I am dead set against our having any debt whatsoever apart from our mortgage, and would like to find ways to pay that off as quickly as possible. He expects to be in debt until his dying day, finds that acceptable as "just the way things are", and doesn't understand why it's a big deal. It bothers him, but not enough that he's willing to do anything he doesn't like doing to get it paid off.
For example: We both smoke, I love my coffee, and he loves his cold beer at the end of a long day. So we're kind of the same there, yes?
Well, no.
When he wants beer, he buys beer. He doesn't care what it costs, he works hard, he deserves it, his life would suck moose teats if he couldn't even have a beer when he wanted it. In other words, he isn't willing to give up beer, no matter what.
When I want coffee, I buy coffee - sometimes. I know which brands I like and which ones I consider a waste of money; I watch and wait for sales and coupons that I can combine to get the coffee I like for the lowest possible price, and then stock up. If I can't get what I want at a price I consider acceptable, I'll cut way back and stretch the stocks I have as far as possible, or I'll live without it for a while.
He won't even think about trying to quit smoking. He says he knows he ought to, but he "just can't".
I'm trying to quit on my own, because our extended medical doesn't cover any programs, cessation aids, or medication, and they're not in the current budget. Watch my sidebar for my results ...
So how do we make such wildly divergent attitudes / money "styles" work together without one of us killing the other over it?
1) The only joint account we have is the mortgage / HELOC (joint tenancy with right of survivorship). We each put in half of the payment every month, without fail. That comes first. We each throw in as much additional money as we have available, to get the HELOC paid down faster. And we each pay half of the property taxes and insurance.
2) We are each 100 % responsible for our own credit cards. We each have our own chequing account and it's none of the other one's business what's in it. He runs a huge revolving overdraft, and his credit cards ... well, let's not even go there, or I'll start frothing at the mouth. I always have a positive balance in my chequing account, and my (one and only) credit card is always back at zero before the billing date. The personal debt in the sidebar is the balance of a loan from my Mom for $6000.00 worth of unavoidable dental work.
3) Since he does all the cooking, he buys all the groceries (except for the coffee). We do make a list, go through all the fliers, look for coupons, buy bulk on sale ... well, see my earlier post on that (Variations On A Frugal Theme). But ... if he sees something he likes that's on sale, he will just go and buy lots of it on impulse, and if he's hungry he'll go out intending to get just milk, or eggs, or whatever, and come home with bags and bags of stuff we don't need. Even our shopping trips together are liberally seasoned with my repetitions of "We don't need that / that's not on the list, put it back."
4) The HELOC was used to replace all the old, decaying plumbing in the house, replace the old water heater with a tankless "on-demand" one (an incredibly good decision!), replace the old roof, and put in a legal one-bedroom basement suite. The rent from the suite is paid to me; half pays the household bills - gas, Hydro, the cable/internet/landline package - and the rest goes to pay down the HELOC. (This is not as unfair as it might sound, because even on E.I. his income is quite a bit higher than mine.)
5) This is the sneaky one ... I have a savings account that he doesn't know about. Because every time I've had savings that he did know about, he found a reason why they had to be gutted to cover his butt on something. Like the snowy, icy week when - granted, through no fault of his own - he killed two transmissions in two days.
I consider that savings account to be our emergency fund. Right now it's dreadfully low (again, watch the sidebar), and will stay low for another month, but once the year's house insurance is taken care of I'll be able to start throwing money into it again. He won't know it's there at all until there's absolutely no other way to deal with a real emergency, because he and I define "emergency" in such different ways. My idea of a real emergency is the roof collapsing, or not having funds to pay the property taxes. His idea of a real emergency is not having funds to go fishing for a week, or wanting to do something expensive but not entirely necessary to his truck.
And in case you were wondering ... yes, his personal debt is the reason I won't marry him. It's not that the debt itself horrifies me - and it does - it's that he's more or less okay with it and sees no reason to change his lifestyle to get rid of it. It's the way he accepts it as part of a normal life.
It doesn't have to be "just a part of life". I wish I could make him see that.
That said - there are, as in any domestic partnership, times when he makes me want to pull my hair out (or his, except he doesn't have much left and I can grow more) in frustration. Almost all of these occasions arise from how different our respective attitudes are when it comes to money and debt.
Just to be clear, in this post I use the word "debt" to mean specifically consumer debt, be it credit cards, car loans, or any other debt acquired in the course of acquiring things. I don't include mortgages or student loans, as I consider them to be investments in one's own and one's family's future well-being. And in the case of our neighbours to the south, I don't include debt arising from medical emergencies or chronic illness, since these are not deliberate choices. Clear? Okay, onward ...
I grew up in a family where both parents worked, budgets were made and followed, savings were important, and debt was something shameful to be avoided. Charge accounts were acceptable only as long as their use was budgeted for ahead of time and they were paid in full each month.
Result: I am very, very conscious of exactly how much money I have, where it's going, and what I'm getting for it. I comparison shop, I wait for sales, I look for discounts, I shop at thrift stores and dollar stores, and if I can't pay for something in cash, or know I can't zero out the credit card before the end of the month, I just don't buy whatever it is. I'll make an exception only for emergency repairs to the house, or emergency vet bills. He tells me I "worry too much".
He grew up in a family - and a culture - where fathers worked, mothers stayed home with lots of kids (he's one of eight, and that was not considered a "big" family), and debt was just a part of life. Everyone had debt, everyone would always have debt until the day they died, and parents who didn't have any debt were seen as "cheap bastards" who didn't want to "do right by the kids" no matter what the cost.
Result: If he sees something he wants, he whips out the credit card. He wants what he wants and he wants it now, and he'll "find a way" to pay the bill later. And if he can't get what he wants even with the credit cards, he moans and growls about how he "can never have anything he needs" until I want to gag him with a rusty tire iron.
So ... I am dead set against our having any debt whatsoever apart from our mortgage, and would like to find ways to pay that off as quickly as possible. He expects to be in debt until his dying day, finds that acceptable as "just the way things are", and doesn't understand why it's a big deal. It bothers him, but not enough that he's willing to do anything he doesn't like doing to get it paid off.
For example: We both smoke, I love my coffee, and he loves his cold beer at the end of a long day. So we're kind of the same there, yes?
Well, no.
When he wants beer, he buys beer. He doesn't care what it costs, he works hard, he deserves it, his life would suck moose teats if he couldn't even have a beer when he wanted it. In other words, he isn't willing to give up beer, no matter what.
When I want coffee, I buy coffee - sometimes. I know which brands I like and which ones I consider a waste of money; I watch and wait for sales and coupons that I can combine to get the coffee I like for the lowest possible price, and then stock up. If I can't get what I want at a price I consider acceptable, I'll cut way back and stretch the stocks I have as far as possible, or I'll live without it for a while.
He won't even think about trying to quit smoking. He says he knows he ought to, but he "just can't".
I'm trying to quit on my own, because our extended medical doesn't cover any programs, cessation aids, or medication, and they're not in the current budget. Watch my sidebar for my results ...
So how do we make such wildly divergent attitudes / money "styles" work together without one of us killing the other over it?
1) The only joint account we have is the mortgage / HELOC (joint tenancy with right of survivorship). We each put in half of the payment every month, without fail. That comes first. We each throw in as much additional money as we have available, to get the HELOC paid down faster. And we each pay half of the property taxes and insurance.
2) We are each 100 % responsible for our own credit cards. We each have our own chequing account and it's none of the other one's business what's in it. He runs a huge revolving overdraft, and his credit cards ... well, let's not even go there, or I'll start frothing at the mouth. I always have a positive balance in my chequing account, and my (one and only) credit card is always back at zero before the billing date. The personal debt in the sidebar is the balance of a loan from my Mom for $6000.00 worth of unavoidable dental work.
3) Since he does all the cooking, he buys all the groceries (except for the coffee). We do make a list, go through all the fliers, look for coupons, buy bulk on sale ... well, see my earlier post on that (Variations On A Frugal Theme). But ... if he sees something he likes that's on sale, he will just go and buy lots of it on impulse, and if he's hungry he'll go out intending to get just milk, or eggs, or whatever, and come home with bags and bags of stuff we don't need. Even our shopping trips together are liberally seasoned with my repetitions of "We don't need that / that's not on the list, put it back."
4) The HELOC was used to replace all the old, decaying plumbing in the house, replace the old water heater with a tankless "on-demand" one (an incredibly good decision!), replace the old roof, and put in a legal one-bedroom basement suite. The rent from the suite is paid to me; half pays the household bills - gas, Hydro, the cable/internet/landline package - and the rest goes to pay down the HELOC. (This is not as unfair as it might sound, because even on E.I. his income is quite a bit higher than mine.)
5) This is the sneaky one ... I have a savings account that he doesn't know about. Because every time I've had savings that he did know about, he found a reason why they had to be gutted to cover his butt on something. Like the snowy, icy week when - granted, through no fault of his own - he killed two transmissions in two days.
I consider that savings account to be our emergency fund. Right now it's dreadfully low (again, watch the sidebar), and will stay low for another month, but once the year's house insurance is taken care of I'll be able to start throwing money into it again. He won't know it's there at all until there's absolutely no other way to deal with a real emergency, because he and I define "emergency" in such different ways. My idea of a real emergency is the roof collapsing, or not having funds to pay the property taxes. His idea of a real emergency is not having funds to go fishing for a week, or wanting to do something expensive but not entirely necessary to his truck.
And in case you were wondering ... yes, his personal debt is the reason I won't marry him. It's not that the debt itself horrifies me - and it does - it's that he's more or less okay with it and sees no reason to change his lifestyle to get rid of it. It's the way he accepts it as part of a normal life.
It doesn't have to be "just a part of life". I wish I could make him see that.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Garden Woes
Last fall we decided that this year we were going to greatly expand our garden. We wanted to grow more vegetables and herbs, and if possible expand on the "mini-orchard". Well, I'm sure you've heard all the old sayings about people who make plans ...
Early in the spring, Big Guy put in a raised bed along the side fence. The bed is two feet deep, and about thirty feet long. He even bought what was supposed to be really good topsoil for it - didn't even need compost dug into it, according to the seller. We planted peas, green beans, wax beans, zucchini, pickling cucumbers, pumpkins, and onions along the fence side, and in front of those we put in basil, chives, dill, oregano, parsley, rosemary, garlic, thyme, and sage. As always, we filled the long planter with tomato seedlings, and the round planter got new rhubarb rootstock to replace what the squirrels killed last year. We even got two hazelnut tree seedlings from his brother and put them in the sunny side of the front yard, near the old Gravenstien apple tree. We fertilized the young fruit trees in the back yard (Queen Anne and Van cherries, Italian prune plums, and Bartlett pears) and the blackcurrant bush, and I sowed lavender under the front windows. The weather was shaping up nicely and it looked like we'd have another good long growing season - just like the one we failed to take advantage of last year.
And then it got cold. And it rained, and rained, and rained ... and it stayed cold. And it rained some more.
Almost everything drowned ... and the few seedlings that didn't drown first were eaten by cold, wet, hungry squirrels.
When the sun finally came out again, we replanted everything. Well, everything but the fruit trees - on which almost every single blossom had been battered to death by the rain before they could be pollinated, since the poor bees couldn't fly through all that nasty weather. And we rounded up all the spare tomato cages and wire hangers we could find and twisted them all into frameworks to keep the local wildlife from eating our efforts again.
If - and it's a really big "if" at this point - the weather and the local fauna cooperate, we might just get a modest harvest this year, but it's not looking good. As far as I can tell, right now we can expect a grand total of five apples, about two dozen plums, eight hazelnuts, and a liberal supply of chives. The tomato plants have only just begun to blossom, the green beans are about six inches high, and the rhubarb looks like half a dozen spindly green sticks with palm-sized leaves at the ends.
Everything else got an inch high and gave up. We were totally baffled, since according to all our gardening experience we'd done everything right. It wasn't until we got talking with a neighbour who was having the same problems that we found out what's wrong ... and we are absolutely livid, especially since this late in the year there's not much we can do about it.
The neighbour had bought his topsoil from the same place we got ours. When his second plantings died he got suspicious and had his soil tested, and discovered that it's not good topsoil at all; apparently it was "fill" from a construction project. The supposedly reputable garden centre had found a chance to make money on the same dead, worthless dirt twice - first they got paid to haul it away, and then they sold it as "good" growing soil! We were all able to get our money back, but it doesn't begin to make up for what we won't be harvesting this year. I can't even begin to describe how disappointed we are right now.
We're planning to dig in all the compost we can muster this fall, mulch the raised bed and planters, and dig in more compost and peat moss in the spring. With that, judicious use of Miracle Gro, and cooperative weather and bees, we might coax some good crops out of the garden next year.
Now, if I can only figure out how to get the squirrels, raccoons, possums, and blue jays to stay out ... the wire cages by themselves just aren't doing it and we can't keep critters out of the fruit and nut trees. But at least the chicken wire over the soil keeps the cats from using the garden ...
Early in the spring, Big Guy put in a raised bed along the side fence. The bed is two feet deep, and about thirty feet long. He even bought what was supposed to be really good topsoil for it - didn't even need compost dug into it, according to the seller. We planted peas, green beans, wax beans, zucchini, pickling cucumbers, pumpkins, and onions along the fence side, and in front of those we put in basil, chives, dill, oregano, parsley, rosemary, garlic, thyme, and sage. As always, we filled the long planter with tomato seedlings, and the round planter got new rhubarb rootstock to replace what the squirrels killed last year. We even got two hazelnut tree seedlings from his brother and put them in the sunny side of the front yard, near the old Gravenstien apple tree. We fertilized the young fruit trees in the back yard (Queen Anne and Van cherries, Italian prune plums, and Bartlett pears) and the blackcurrant bush, and I sowed lavender under the front windows. The weather was shaping up nicely and it looked like we'd have another good long growing season - just like the one we failed to take advantage of last year.
And then it got cold. And it rained, and rained, and rained ... and it stayed cold. And it rained some more.
Almost everything drowned ... and the few seedlings that didn't drown first were eaten by cold, wet, hungry squirrels.
When the sun finally came out again, we replanted everything. Well, everything but the fruit trees - on which almost every single blossom had been battered to death by the rain before they could be pollinated, since the poor bees couldn't fly through all that nasty weather. And we rounded up all the spare tomato cages and wire hangers we could find and twisted them all into frameworks to keep the local wildlife from eating our efforts again.
If - and it's a really big "if" at this point - the weather and the local fauna cooperate, we might just get a modest harvest this year, but it's not looking good. As far as I can tell, right now we can expect a grand total of five apples, about two dozen plums, eight hazelnuts, and a liberal supply of chives. The tomato plants have only just begun to blossom, the green beans are about six inches high, and the rhubarb looks like half a dozen spindly green sticks with palm-sized leaves at the ends.
Everything else got an inch high and gave up. We were totally baffled, since according to all our gardening experience we'd done everything right. It wasn't until we got talking with a neighbour who was having the same problems that we found out what's wrong ... and we are absolutely livid, especially since this late in the year there's not much we can do about it.
The neighbour had bought his topsoil from the same place we got ours. When his second plantings died he got suspicious and had his soil tested, and discovered that it's not good topsoil at all; apparently it was "fill" from a construction project. The supposedly reputable garden centre had found a chance to make money on the same dead, worthless dirt twice - first they got paid to haul it away, and then they sold it as "good" growing soil! We were all able to get our money back, but it doesn't begin to make up for what we won't be harvesting this year. I can't even begin to describe how disappointed we are right now.
We're planning to dig in all the compost we can muster this fall, mulch the raised bed and planters, and dig in more compost and peat moss in the spring. With that, judicious use of Miracle Gro, and cooperative weather and bees, we might coax some good crops out of the garden next year.
Now, if I can only figure out how to get the squirrels, raccoons, possums, and blue jays to stay out ... the wire cages by themselves just aren't doing it and we can't keep critters out of the fruit and nut trees. But at least the chicken wire over the soil keeps the cats from using the garden ...
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Don't Just Sit There, Fix Something!
I've never been able to just sit and watch television. Maybe it's because I learned to read before my parents got a television set, or maybe it's just a personality quirk. Either way, the only exceptions are Friday night movie nights with my Mom and sister, Saturday night movie night with friends (and sometimes we play board games instead), and the rare times when I'm just too sick to care. Even when there's something I've been waiting / planning to see, like a new Dr Who episode or a new Discovery Channel or History Channel documentary, I still need to be doing something while I watch it.
The result is that I get a lot of things done in front of the television ...
Knitting. Paperwork. Coupon clipping / organizing. Garden planning. Writing. Quilting. Wrapping gifts. Grooming the cats. Doing beadwork / embroidery / Fimo work for the craft fairs. Folding laundry. Rolling coins. Reading.
I also love to do challenging crosswords and jigsaw puzzles.
But my personal favourite - the in-front-of-the-idiot-box activity I get the most satisfaction from - is mending.
Yes, mending. By hand.
Mending really warms my frugal soul.
Replacing zippers. Replacing buttons. Repairing buttonholes. Patching jeans. Fixing gaping seams and sagging hems. Replacing worn-out pockets (Big Guy is really bad with pockets, for some reason). Re-hemming frayed linens. Fixing snagged sweaters. Altering thrift-store finds. Even darning socks.
Last night I was asked why I bother, and it got me thinking. Why do I bother?
First of all, I love to sew. I always have, ever since I was a little girl - I think I was about five or six - and Mom got tired of my constant demands for more doll clothes and started teaching me to make them myself. I was hooked from the very first lesson!
I hate waste in any form. I just don't understand a mindset that says it's okay to throw something away that only needs a couple of buttons, or a new zipper, or a few minutes with a needle and thread to make it perfectly good again.
As strange as this will surely seem to many people, I hate shopping. I especially loathe shopping for clothes. I'm kind of an odd shape - extremely short-waisted, short-bodied, short-armed and long-legged, and also quite overweight - and it's unbelievably difficult to find off-the-rack clothes that fit properly. So being able to stretch my wardrobe budget by fixing things instead of replacing them has a lot of appeal.
I feel a deep sense of accomplishment whenever I turn a basket full of unwearable garments into a neatly folded pile of clothes that are good again. Especially when Big Guy comes to me complaining that he doesn't have any heavy work socks, or any coveralls, and I can say "Oh, yes, you do!" and hand him half a dozen pairs of socks or a stack of coveralls with newly reinforced side seams and nice new hole-free pockets.
I'm contributing to my family's financial well-being by getting more of our money's worth from our clothes and linens.
I'm improving our living conditions by keeping our sheets and towels from getting ratty.
I'm keeping more things out of the landfill.
So the next time you're faced with an evening (or morning, or afternoon) of so-so shows, boring reruns, or that vague nagging feeling of guilt over "wasted" time ... don't just sit there, fix something!
The result is that I get a lot of things done in front of the television ...
Knitting. Paperwork. Coupon clipping / organizing. Garden planning. Writing. Quilting. Wrapping gifts. Grooming the cats. Doing beadwork / embroidery / Fimo work for the craft fairs. Folding laundry. Rolling coins. Reading.
I also love to do challenging crosswords and jigsaw puzzles.
But my personal favourite - the in-front-of-the-idiot-box activity I get the most satisfaction from - is mending.
Yes, mending. By hand.
Mending really warms my frugal soul.
Replacing zippers. Replacing buttons. Repairing buttonholes. Patching jeans. Fixing gaping seams and sagging hems. Replacing worn-out pockets (Big Guy is really bad with pockets, for some reason). Re-hemming frayed linens. Fixing snagged sweaters. Altering thrift-store finds. Even darning socks.
Last night I was asked why I bother, and it got me thinking. Why do I bother?
First of all, I love to sew. I always have, ever since I was a little girl - I think I was about five or six - and Mom got tired of my constant demands for more doll clothes and started teaching me to make them myself. I was hooked from the very first lesson!
I hate waste in any form. I just don't understand a mindset that says it's okay to throw something away that only needs a couple of buttons, or a new zipper, or a few minutes with a needle and thread to make it perfectly good again.
As strange as this will surely seem to many people, I hate shopping. I especially loathe shopping for clothes. I'm kind of an odd shape - extremely short-waisted, short-bodied, short-armed and long-legged, and also quite overweight - and it's unbelievably difficult to find off-the-rack clothes that fit properly. So being able to stretch my wardrobe budget by fixing things instead of replacing them has a lot of appeal.
I feel a deep sense of accomplishment whenever I turn a basket full of unwearable garments into a neatly folded pile of clothes that are good again. Especially when Big Guy comes to me complaining that he doesn't have any heavy work socks, or any coveralls, and I can say "Oh, yes, you do!" and hand him half a dozen pairs of socks or a stack of coveralls with newly reinforced side seams and nice new hole-free pockets.
I'm contributing to my family's financial well-being by getting more of our money's worth from our clothes and linens.
I'm improving our living conditions by keeping our sheets and towels from getting ratty.
I'm keeping more things out of the landfill.
So the next time you're faced with an evening (or morning, or afternoon) of so-so shows, boring reruns, or that vague nagging feeling of guilt over "wasted" time ... don't just sit there, fix something!
Monday, August 16, 2010
Job Hunting Surprise
This morning I was going through my daily job-hunting routine - checking all the job boards, looking for possibilities on industry / company websites, checking in with all the placement and temp agencies I'm listed with - I spend an hour or two at this every morning, and the results have been uniformly discouraging.
Until this morning ... on the second job board I looked at, what did I find?
The company I was with until August 2009 is hiring again! Ironically, for every department except the one I was in at this time last year.
Well, I dithered for a while, and then called a friend who still works there to get her opinion. And she advised me to go for it. So I did; in all I applied for five different positions. Of course, there are pros and cons ...
The cons:
A much lower salary than I previously enjoyed, since I'd be a "new hire".
A $151 transit pass to be bought every month.
The standard three-month "probation" before benefits kicked in.
The pros:
The salary would still be substantially more than I currently receive from E.I.
We already have medical coverage through Big Guy's union.
The fact that I'd need minimal training is a point in my favour.
I know the jobs, I know I'd enjoy the work, and I (and they) know I'm good at it. I know the systems, I know the customers, I know the vendors, I know the procedures and company policies.
I know and get along really well with everyone I'd be working with.
The bottom line is that I'd rather go back to work there than start at the bottom at a completely new company where I'd need much more training and be getting it from total strangers.
From my perspective - and I hope it turns out to be theirs as well - hiring me would be a win-win situation.
Wish me luck!
Until this morning ... on the second job board I looked at, what did I find?
The company I was with until August 2009 is hiring again! Ironically, for every department except the one I was in at this time last year.
Well, I dithered for a while, and then called a friend who still works there to get her opinion. And she advised me to go for it. So I did; in all I applied for five different positions. Of course, there are pros and cons ...
The cons:
A much lower salary than I previously enjoyed, since I'd be a "new hire".
A $151 transit pass to be bought every month.
The standard three-month "probation" before benefits kicked in.
The pros:
The salary would still be substantially more than I currently receive from E.I.
We already have medical coverage through Big Guy's union.
The fact that I'd need minimal training is a point in my favour.
I know the jobs, I know I'd enjoy the work, and I (and they) know I'm good at it. I know the systems, I know the customers, I know the vendors, I know the procedures and company policies.
I know and get along really well with everyone I'd be working with.
The bottom line is that I'd rather go back to work there than start at the bottom at a completely new company where I'd need much more training and be getting it from total strangers.
From my perspective - and I hope it turns out to be theirs as well - hiring me would be a win-win situation.
Wish me luck!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Updates
You may have noticed I've added a few things on the side.
The bookshelf is because these are books I've not only enjoyed but find useful to refer back to.
The personal and financial reports are to help me hold myself more accountable, and - I hope - motivate me to do better and be more consistent in my efforts.
The bookshelf is because these are books I've not only enjoyed but find useful to refer back to.
The personal and financial reports are to help me hold myself more accountable, and - I hope - motivate me to do better and be more consistent in my efforts.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Variations On A Frugal Theme
I read a lot of blogs (and books) on frugal living, green living, and money management. I like to see what other "frugalites" and "greenies" are doing and how it works for them. Comparing their methods with mine to see which would work better for me, picking up useful new tips and sharing my own - I feel like I've joined a community that's so much bigger and more diverse than I imagined when I first set out!
There are two strategies that almost everyone seems to have adopted that just don't work for Big Guy and me.
The first strategy is couponing.
I have to admit, I feel more than a touch of envy when I read about how much other bloggers save by using coupons; I especially envy what they can achieve on "double coupon days", on "stacked" coupons, on coupon-plus-store-rebate/reward deals. We can't do those things here; stores in Canada - or at least here in our little corner of Canada - just don't do things that way. The most we can do is watch the store flyers and not use a coupon until the item it's for goes on sale.
Some of our stores do have loyalty programs, though I'm never really sure whether the "member" price is lower than the "real" price, or whether the non-member price has been jacked up a bit ... hmm, maybe more comparison shopping is in order. I have cards for Safeway, Save-On/Price Smart, Shopper's Drug Mart, and Zeller's/The Bay. At the grocery stores, the bottom of the receipt always shows my "member savings" and coupon savings, and as soon as I get home I put that amount of cash in my Can't Touch It jar. (This is also where all the can & bottle deposit money I bring home goes, and all the loose change that comes into the house.) Save-On and Price Smart give points which can be redeemed for staples like eggs, milk, bread, etc. Safeway gives Air Miles; we've never been able to rack up enough miles to actually go anywhere, but the miles can be redeemed for small appliances, various gift cards, and so on. I do quite a bit of gift shopping with Air Miles! Shopper's gives points; it doesn't usually lower the prices I pay, but the points add up fairly quickly and can be used for a lot of non-food necessities such as cleaning products, paper products, and occasional OTC medications. The Zeller's card doesn't lower prices either, but again gives points which add up fairly quickly and are redeemed for Christmas and birthday gifts. Still, I can't help a twinge of jealousy when I read about my American counterparts bringing home free or almost-free groceries and goods!
The second strategy we don't use is full-on meal planning.
I can hear the cries of horror ... so before they get any louder, let me explain why what we do works well for us.
Big Guy does pretty much all of the cooking here; he's a much better cook than I am, because he likes to cook while I am about the most reluctant cook you'll ever meet. (I can cook, and in fact did most of the cooking during the early years when I didn't have a full-time job outside the home. But I really, really hate day-to-day cooking.) He's a spontaneous cook; when it's time to start dinner, he decides what he feels like doing and that's what we have. (That's why we try never to be without a microwave, for fast safe defrosting.) The mere suggestion that we think about planning meals a month at a time has him staggering off into the middle distance mumbling to himself ...
We buy almost everything on sale, in bulk, and almost all generics; the only exceptions are milk, eggs, fresh produce, and the odd loaf of French bread or bag of rolls - and even there we look for the best possible price. We have a 24-cubic-foot chest freezer (so much cheaper to run than an upright!) and we try to keep it full. We watch for case lot sales, we keep an inventory of the freezer and pantry contents, we garden, and we do a lot of home canning. We're always on the lookout for good deals and freebies, and we trade with neighbours and friends - this fall, I'll be helping a friend pick all their pears and plums in exchange for a share of the crop, and we hope to be trading tomatoes and apples to the folks across the street for green beans and cherries. Our "big" shopping trips are, on average, once a month; we make a list of what we're running low on that's on sale, and then do the circle: Costco, the other grocery stores, the bread outlet, the produce market, and every six months there's a trip to Bosley's for the sale priced 20-kilo sacks of guinea pig pellets and a big bale of sale priced pine shavings. Oh, and at the produce store we'll score at least three big boxes of free fruit and vegetable "trimmings" and discards - mostly for the guinea pigs, but I'm not going to throw away an orange or a grapefruit just because there's a mark on the skin ... What's not edible at all will go into the compost.
Now, although we don't set a menu in stone, he often cooks with several days' meals in mind. When he cooks a turkey, a big roast, or a ham, he's already thinking of all the meals that will come from it - hot and cold sandwiches, casseroles, soups, stir-fry creations, pot pies ... And he often cooks in bulk; if we're having meat loaf, he'll make three or four more for the freezer; spaghetti sauce gets made by the gallon and frozen; once a year we'll set aside a long weekend and make hundreds of perogies.
On Thursday he found a killer deal on fresh-caught sockeye salmon, so we spent all day yesterday canning salmon in our usual assembly-line fashion - I do all the jar prep while he cleans & cuts up the salmon, then we pack the jars together and run them through the pressure canner. Now we have 25 pints of fishy deliciousness in the pantry, and fresh salmon to barbecue tonight, for $45 (including the cost of the new jar lids, and the power used in the canning process). The same amount (by weight) of canned sockeye in any grocery store would cost, even on sale, at least $180.
Though I don't do the day-to-day cooking, I do like baking and canning. I'll make six loaves of pumpkin bread or lemon pound cake and freeze them; at Christmas I bake massive heaps of shortbread cookies and trade with family members and friends for other goodies. I'll go out back and pick enough blackberries next week for a year's worth of jam and syrup plus some to trade. I'll take a weekend in September to make a year's worth of pickles. We're hoping he gets to go hunting later in the fall; if he does, we'll, skin, cut, and wrap what he kills ourselves. I kind of hope he just gets a deer or two; if he brings home a moose as well, we'll need another freezer!
The results of the way we do things?
We eat whatever we feel like eating, without spending any more than people who do the meal-planning thing.
We always - this part IS planned - have really good, healthy meals, lunches from the leftovers, and sometimes another evening meal or two (or three or four).
We always have a wide variety on hand to choose from.
We spend less per meal than almost everyone we know.
We waste nothing and produce very little garbage, and our compost is the envy of gardeners all over the neighbourhood. (Insert smug grin here, LOL.)
Even though we're both unemployed right now, we haven't had to make drastic changes in the way we shop or the way we eat.
If there's a major emergency - earthquake, long power outage, whatever - we will not only be able to feed ourselves, we'll be able to help friends and neighbours if they need help. And because we have a woodstove, a propane barbecue, a wood-fired barbecue, and large stocks of firewood and canning jars, in the event of a long-lasting power outage we'd simply yank all the meats and vegetables out of the freezer and pressure-can them.
Granted, our methods work in part because we have a lot of storage space and a big freezer - I know that not everyone is so fortunate. But really, for me that's what frugality is all about - doing the best we can with what we have, and finding the best way to make what we have work for us.
There are two strategies that almost everyone seems to have adopted that just don't work for Big Guy and me.
The first strategy is couponing.
I have to admit, I feel more than a touch of envy when I read about how much other bloggers save by using coupons; I especially envy what they can achieve on "double coupon days", on "stacked" coupons, on coupon-plus-store-rebate/reward deals. We can't do those things here; stores in Canada - or at least here in our little corner of Canada - just don't do things that way. The most we can do is watch the store flyers and not use a coupon until the item it's for goes on sale.
Some of our stores do have loyalty programs, though I'm never really sure whether the "member" price is lower than the "real" price, or whether the non-member price has been jacked up a bit ... hmm, maybe more comparison shopping is in order. I have cards for Safeway, Save-On/Price Smart, Shopper's Drug Mart, and Zeller's/The Bay. At the grocery stores, the bottom of the receipt always shows my "member savings" and coupon savings, and as soon as I get home I put that amount of cash in my Can't Touch It jar. (This is also where all the can & bottle deposit money I bring home goes, and all the loose change that comes into the house.) Save-On and Price Smart give points which can be redeemed for staples like eggs, milk, bread, etc. Safeway gives Air Miles; we've never been able to rack up enough miles to actually go anywhere, but the miles can be redeemed for small appliances, various gift cards, and so on. I do quite a bit of gift shopping with Air Miles! Shopper's gives points; it doesn't usually lower the prices I pay, but the points add up fairly quickly and can be used for a lot of non-food necessities such as cleaning products, paper products, and occasional OTC medications. The Zeller's card doesn't lower prices either, but again gives points which add up fairly quickly and are redeemed for Christmas and birthday gifts. Still, I can't help a twinge of jealousy when I read about my American counterparts bringing home free or almost-free groceries and goods!
The second strategy we don't use is full-on meal planning.
I can hear the cries of horror ... so before they get any louder, let me explain why what we do works well for us.
Big Guy does pretty much all of the cooking here; he's a much better cook than I am, because he likes to cook while I am about the most reluctant cook you'll ever meet. (I can cook, and in fact did most of the cooking during the early years when I didn't have a full-time job outside the home. But I really, really hate day-to-day cooking.) He's a spontaneous cook; when it's time to start dinner, he decides what he feels like doing and that's what we have. (That's why we try never to be without a microwave, for fast safe defrosting.) The mere suggestion that we think about planning meals a month at a time has him staggering off into the middle distance mumbling to himself ...
We buy almost everything on sale, in bulk, and almost all generics; the only exceptions are milk, eggs, fresh produce, and the odd loaf of French bread or bag of rolls - and even there we look for the best possible price. We have a 24-cubic-foot chest freezer (so much cheaper to run than an upright!) and we try to keep it full. We watch for case lot sales, we keep an inventory of the freezer and pantry contents, we garden, and we do a lot of home canning. We're always on the lookout for good deals and freebies, and we trade with neighbours and friends - this fall, I'll be helping a friend pick all their pears and plums in exchange for a share of the crop, and we hope to be trading tomatoes and apples to the folks across the street for green beans and cherries. Our "big" shopping trips are, on average, once a month; we make a list of what we're running low on that's on sale, and then do the circle: Costco, the other grocery stores, the bread outlet, the produce market, and every six months there's a trip to Bosley's for the sale priced 20-kilo sacks of guinea pig pellets and a big bale of sale priced pine shavings. Oh, and at the produce store we'll score at least three big boxes of free fruit and vegetable "trimmings" and discards - mostly for the guinea pigs, but I'm not going to throw away an orange or a grapefruit just because there's a mark on the skin ... What's not edible at all will go into the compost.
Now, although we don't set a menu in stone, he often cooks with several days' meals in mind. When he cooks a turkey, a big roast, or a ham, he's already thinking of all the meals that will come from it - hot and cold sandwiches, casseroles, soups, stir-fry creations, pot pies ... And he often cooks in bulk; if we're having meat loaf, he'll make three or four more for the freezer; spaghetti sauce gets made by the gallon and frozen; once a year we'll set aside a long weekend and make hundreds of perogies.
On Thursday he found a killer deal on fresh-caught sockeye salmon, so we spent all day yesterday canning salmon in our usual assembly-line fashion - I do all the jar prep while he cleans & cuts up the salmon, then we pack the jars together and run them through the pressure canner. Now we have 25 pints of fishy deliciousness in the pantry, and fresh salmon to barbecue tonight, for $45 (including the cost of the new jar lids, and the power used in the canning process). The same amount (by weight) of canned sockeye in any grocery store would cost, even on sale, at least $180.
Though I don't do the day-to-day cooking, I do like baking and canning. I'll make six loaves of pumpkin bread or lemon pound cake and freeze them; at Christmas I bake massive heaps of shortbread cookies and trade with family members and friends for other goodies. I'll go out back and pick enough blackberries next week for a year's worth of jam and syrup plus some to trade. I'll take a weekend in September to make a year's worth of pickles. We're hoping he gets to go hunting later in the fall; if he does, we'll, skin, cut, and wrap what he kills ourselves. I kind of hope he just gets a deer or two; if he brings home a moose as well, we'll need another freezer!
The results of the way we do things?
We eat whatever we feel like eating, without spending any more than people who do the meal-planning thing.
We always - this part IS planned - have really good, healthy meals, lunches from the leftovers, and sometimes another evening meal or two (or three or four).
We always have a wide variety on hand to choose from.
We spend less per meal than almost everyone we know.
We waste nothing and produce very little garbage, and our compost is the envy of gardeners all over the neighbourhood. (Insert smug grin here, LOL.)
Even though we're both unemployed right now, we haven't had to make drastic changes in the way we shop or the way we eat.
If there's a major emergency - earthquake, long power outage, whatever - we will not only be able to feed ourselves, we'll be able to help friends and neighbours if they need help. And because we have a woodstove, a propane barbecue, a wood-fired barbecue, and large stocks of firewood and canning jars, in the event of a long-lasting power outage we'd simply yank all the meats and vegetables out of the freezer and pressure-can them.
Granted, our methods work in part because we have a lot of storage space and a big freezer - I know that not everyone is so fortunate. But really, for me that's what frugality is all about - doing the best we can with what we have, and finding the best way to make what we have work for us.
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