Random Can Be Good

It's been a really random day so far ... but in a good way!

The day started with a call out of the blue from a company I sent a resume to over a month ago.  They're looking for someone for a one-year temp contract, and would I be interested?  YES!  Well, then, did I have time do a telephone interview right now?  YES, YES!!  It went quite well, and the lady I was speaking with said that she really liked all the information I'd given her and would pass my name and resume to her head office, and I would hear back from them within a week.  A year's temping at $15 - $16 an hour is nothing to turn my nose up at.  It wouldn't include benefits or vacation time but that's okay  -  we have medical coverage through the Big Guy's union, and I can take a vacation when the year is over.

My plans for the week have pretty much gone out the window, for a number of reasons.  I've come to the conclusion that I'll actually get more done if I just "wing it" ...

For example, one of the items on my original to-do list was cleaning up my workroom so I'd actually have room to work.  Since I didn't make it to the consignment store yesterday after all (daughter needed my help with a few things), I decided to do the cleaning today instead of Thursday, do my hair, nails, eyebrows, and more wardrobe weeding tomorrow, and hit the consignment store on Friday on my way to Mom's for our weekly movie night  -  thereby saving two transit tickets, aren't I smart? 

Within five minutes of when I started in the workroom, I realized there was a lot of stuff in here that I just don't need or want any more.  So I headed to the basement to look for boxes I could put all the "donate" stuff in ... but wait!  As long as I was going downstairs anyway, I took a load of laundry with me and threw it in the washer.  While doing that, I noticed the litter box needed cleaning ... after which cat litter needed to be added to the shopping list, since I emptied the bag into the clean litter box.

The addition of cat litter makes the list long enough to justify a trip to the store (better remember to put the canvas shopping bags by the door!).  Which is next door to the library, so I'll pop in and see if the books I requested are in yet.  Oh, and the bank is across the street, so I'll take all my rolled up coins to deposit.  And the bottle depot is across the parking lot, so I'll throw that big bag of pop cans and bottles in the car ... and they also recycle dead electronics, so I can drop off the dvd player we're never going to get fixed because it was cheaper to replace it.  A block further down is the local farmers' market ... we need celery and carrots ... wonder if they have peaches at a good price?

That will put me only two blocks from the thrift store where I want to donate all this extraneous workroom clutter, so I'll fill up a couple of boxes while I wait for the washer to stop so I can put the laundry on the clothesline before I go out.  The real trick will be to drop off my donations at the back and then not go into the store; it's my favourite place to find all kinds of lovely clothes at rock-bottom prices!  I must keep reminding myself that I want to use up my fabric-and-yarn stash first.

If I were running these errands just one or two at a time, I'd be walking, but the combined weight of what I'm donating would break the bottom right out of my shopping cart, as would the weight of what I'll be bringing home.  Combining as many close-together errands as possible into just one trip in the car is the next best option in terms of gas money and the environment.  I'll just have to go for a nice long walk this evening ... and take a bag with me for the deposit containers I'm sure to find!

A Progress Report, Sort Of

It's nice to be feeling closer to human again ...

It's not so nice to still be facing almost everything I had planned to do over the weekend.

Out of everything I talked about doing, I've managed to actually do only two things; I did get the Big Guy to cut my hair after my shower yesterday, and I did make it to Pennington's today for new bras and knickers.  On sale.  Thereby spending a little more than half of what I'd budgeted, and getting more items than I'd planned to buy.  Now that's something to make a girl feel better!  I felt guilty about forgetting my canvas shopping bag, until I realized that the plastic bag the store gave me is not only sturdy enough to use for groceries over and over again, it's also just the right size for the bathroom wastebasket once it starts to wear out (the bag, not the basket).  So my guilt is somewhat alleviated by being able to get so much use out of the bag.

Big Guy is cooking a turkey tonight ( on sale for $1.19 a pound).  We love turkey, and we'll get quite a few meals out of this one:

Tonight, a standard roast turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, veggies, cranberry sauce, and stuffing.
Tomorrow, cold turkey sandwiches and a green salad.
Wednesday, turkey shepherd's pie, with the leftover veggies thrown in, topped with the leftover potatoes.
Thursday, hot turkey sandwiches with the leftover gravy, and the rest of the salad.
Friday, stir-fry and rice.
Saturday, everything edible left on the carcass will go into the soup pot, along with onions, peas, green beans, celery, carrots, fresh garlic and ginger.  At the end we'll take out at least half to freeze (in one of my re-used peanut butter jars), and then decide whether we want to add rice, potatoes, or egg noodles to the soup we'll be eating right away.

Today's shopping excursion really tired me out, so instead of cleaning this evening, I'll be parked in front of the television with a big pile of mending ... I wonder if one of the reasons I enjoy sewing so much is that I can do it sitting down?

I still need a good suit, though.  Tomorrow, after I've done my daily on-line job search and registered with some temp agencies, I'm hoping to get over to New Westminster to my favourite consignment store.  They specialize in "plus" sizes (read: fat lady), and since I spent so much less today than I planned to, I can be more flexible about prices if they have something I really like.  That's the great thing about budgeting for everything  -  every now and then there's a little more money than expected left over, that can be put toward something else. 

If there's time, I'd also like to check out a couple of used bookstores, to see if it would be worth my while taking in some of the fiction I know I'm not going to read again, to either trade or sell outright.  Who knows  -  since they all came from yard sales and thrift stores to begin with, I might even make a profit!  (I won't buy a book new unless I have a gift card and I know it's one I'll be reading or referring to again and again.)

Tomorrow evening will be "wardrobe evaluation" time.  I'll certainly hang onto a few older, beat-up items  -  jeans, sweats, t-shirts, hoodies  -  for camping and yard work, but apart from that, it's time to be ruthless!  If it doesn't suit me or it's looking worn/tired/dated or I just plain don't like it, out it goes.  If I'd have to lose more than five pounds to get into it again, out it goes.  If I have absolutely nothing it goes with ... well, you get the picture!  Maybe I'll get really brave and go through my purses and totes too ... or maybe not.

Wednesday, if nothing interferes, will be the day for nails, roots, and eyebrows; Thursday will be for cleaning up my workroom and going through patterns, fabric, and yarn.  Then I should be pretty much back on track with my original plans, albeit a few days late  -  I'll let you know.

So Much For Plans

Thursday morning I was hit with a major IBS flare-up.  It doesn't happen often, but when it does, all I can do for a few days is curl up like a pretzel on the sofa, eating painkillers and feeling sorry for myself.  It's easing up at last, so I'm going to go have a nice long, hot shower and then see if I can't get some real sleep.  What would have been today's post will (I hope) be here some time tomorrow.

Time For A Change?

Well, I didn't get any of the jobs I interviewed for over the last couple of weeks.  But hey, at least I'm getting interviews ... it's just so frustrating that none of them are going anywhere.  So after a lot of thought, I've decided to do a few things:

One:  Start registering with temp agencies.  I've temped before, and I liked it; there were always new people to meet and new things to learn (and add to my resume).  I'm seeing an awful lot of employment ads these days for temp jobs that "could become permanent", and I have a suspicion that most of those employers are just trying out one temp after another until they find someone they like enough to keep.  And I want that someone to be me!

Two:  Get some coaching.  There are a few placement agencies that specialize in coaching and assisting older workers  -  and I certainly qualify!  -  and although I don't like to admit it, it's very possible that my "interview skills" or lack thereof are what's holding me back.

Three:  Put quite a bit more work into my appearance.  I do keep up with colouring my hair / touching up my roots on a regular basis, but I think it's time to get the Big Guy to cut it again. (He does a good job, and it keeps him from complaining about how much got cut off ...)  It's also time to get my eyebrows done  -  and then keep them up  -  and try to grow some better fingernails and keep them in shape.  I do prefer to keep them very short, but that (and house & yard work) makes my hands look, well, less than professional.

Four:  Make an investment in my working wardrobe.  There's nothing wrong with my office clothes per se; I've had them a long time but always tried to take good care of them and keep them looking nice. But I've been putting off getting new underthings for too long, and I think it's time to invest in at least one real suit instead of matching up things that almost look like one.  Black slacks and a black blazer are fine for ordinary work days, but the fabrics are visibly different; and my other "suit" is a pair of charcoal slacks with a navy pinstripe matched up with a navy blazer.  Nice, but again, not really professional.  With a real suit, I can wear any nice shell or blouse, and dress it up or down with the right accessories.

So here's my plan for the rest of the week:

Tonight  -  clean up and organize my teeny-tiny workroom so I'll have room to work on the weekend's projects.  This is not going to be easy, and I see myself climbing up and down the attic ladder many more times than I'd like ... I'll try to think of it as good exercise.  If I get brave enough (and figure out how) I'll post before-and-after pics on Sunday.

Tomorrow (Thursday):  Go over the budget and figure out exactly how much I have to spend.  Then shop; underthings first, then put on new ones, a nice blouse, and my office shoes before shopping for a suit (or two, if they're on sale and I can afford two).  It's nice that Mom lives right by the mall; I can shop for undies, go and have coffee with her, and change before the suit-shopping ordeal.  I'm glad I bought new office shoes just before the layoff!

Friday  -  Register with as many temp agencies as possible, and get recommendations from them regarding interview coaching and so on.

Saturday  -  Touch up the roots, get Big Guy to cut my hair, get my eyebrows done, and start working on tidying up my nails.  Oh, and find my old gardening gloves and start wearing them religiously again!

Sunday  -  Go through my wardrobe ruthlessly, and donate everything that doesn't fit properly, is visibly outdated or worn, or just doesn't suit me.  Make an inventory of what I have left, make a list of what else I'd like to have, and go through my stash of patterns, fabric and yarn to determine what I can make without spending any more money. 

And then, of course, come back here to report on how everything went!

Greener Is Cheaper

Last Sunday I wrote about our recycling habits, and how they benefit the the environment and our budget; today I'm doing the same as it applies to our electric bill.

We're not yet on Hydro's equal payment plan, where the bill is the same amount every month, based on the previous year's usage, and the difference between usage and payments is calculated and billed or credited once a year; we get a bill once every two months for our actual usage.  After averaging out last year's bills, I thought I had a pretty good idea of how much to put away every month ...

What I failed to take into account was my family's chronic absent-mindedness.

My Big Guy will yell at the rest of us for leaving lights on when we leave a room ... and then leave the television on when he goes out to work in the yard or in his workshop.  In warm weather, he'll also leave fans running in every room when he goes out.  I've developed the habit of checking on his whereabouts every so often and turning off whatever he left on.

Our younger daughter has apparently forgotten how to turn anything off. Most mornings I wake up long before anyone else, and if I tiptoe into her room, she's sound asleep with the computer still on and the monitor lighting up her desk, her television lighting up the rest of the room with the sound muted, and often the stereo playing softly as well.

Until the end of May, our older daughter was renting our basement suite.  She got a puppy early in the spring, and I later found out she was leaving her television on 24-7 "so the puppy won't get lonely".  Well, at that point it was only going to be another month, so I bit my tongue for the sake of family harmony, and looked for ther ways to cut usage.  I cut my own television viewing to about an hour a day, didn't turn a single light on in the house until it was too dark to avoid tripping over the cats, and kept a thermos of milk on the counter for my coffee instead of opening the fridge so often.  What I didn't know was that she was also keeping the electric baseboard heater in her bedroom set at 80 degrees "so the puppy won't get cold".  Hello, he has a fur coat on!  And she forgot to turn it off when she moved out ... and since the weather had been so nice, it didn't occur to us to check it when we looked over the room to make sure she'd cleaned it.  So we didn't find out it was on until our new tenant moved in at the beginning of July and asked us if there was a reason for it to still be on.

Our July 5th electric bill was a little over $300.00  -  more than twice what we'd budgeted for  -  and arrived three days after we paid the year's property taxes.  OUCH.

So I went looking for more ways to save on electricity.

First I went to Hydro's website to see if there was anything we could do that I hadn't already thought of.  Lo and behold, they have something called the "Team Power Smart" challenge ... If I reduce our usage by ten percent between now and this time next year, not only will our bills be lower, but they'll credit an extra $75.00 to our account!  How's that for incentive?

Then while searching the basement for empty boxes for our younger daughter's upcoming move, I found two dozen CFL bulbs!  It turns out that the Big Guy's brother had given them to us when his workplace was going to toss them because they didn't fit the fixtures there, and my absent-minded love had put them down somewhere and forgotten about them.  So instead of one at a time as they burned out and we could afford to do it, I've replaced every incandescent bulb in the house with a CFL.  Sweet!  My frugal soul rejoices at getting 100 watts of light for the price of 7 watts.  And CFL bulbs don't put out heat the way incandescents do ... I wonder how much less heat there'll be in the house on summer nights?  Probably not enough to stop Big Guy from turning the fans on, but I can dream ...

Final result  -  less money spent on electricity, less resources wasted, a rebate next year on the electric bill, and a little less wear and tear on Hydro's infrastructure.  Win-win.

It's The Little Things ...

... that add up where you least expect them to.

When I was first laid off, people would tell me to think of all the money I'd save on office clothes, transit passes, work lunches, and so on.  Those savings sounded pretty good, until I did some mental math (never an easy thing for me).

First of all, as soon as my severance ran out and EI kicked in, my income would be about 40-45 % of what it had been.  You'd better believe I nursed that severance money as far as I possibly could!

Office clothes?  That would be my once-a-year under-$100 binge at the thrift stores and fabric clearance outlet (where I mostly picked through the remnant barrels at 99 cents a yard).  But I am saving money in an unexpected area  -  I'm only doing about a third of the laundry I did when I was working, since there's no dress code at home and the cats don't care if I live in sweats and pajamas.

Transit passes, yes, a savings of $136.  Plus I do much less driving, except when the weather is extremely nasty, since I now have time to do my errands on foot.

Work lunches?  Well, no, since I always took a lunch from home.  Yes, every single day.  Usually "planned" leftovers.  So I'm still eating lunch, I'm just not carrying it around first.  And really, how much money am I saving by washing one or two fewer plastic containers a day?

The real surprise? The list of things I found I was spending MORE on:

Coffee, and milk to put in it.  I got spoiled at work; coffee and fixings were provided by my employer, and I do love my coffee ... so I got into the habit of drinking it all day.  Now that I'm paying for it, I'm trying to cut back.

The gas and electric bills.  It actually took me a while to figure that one out; being home all day meant that I was on the computer more, had heat and lights on all day through the winter, was watching more tv, was opening the fridge a lot more often, the coffeemaker was on all day ... hmmm.  The computer  -  I'm still on it half the day, mostly doing my daily job search.  The lights  -  I try not to turn them on until I start tripping over things.  The heat  -  I dug into my yarn stash and started knitting afghans, sweaters and house socks, got a couple of pairs of thick warm fleece sweat pants from the thrift store, and turned the heat down.  And I now turn the coffeemaker off as soon as it's done brewing, and nuke one cup at a time.  I'm hoping the savings there will offset the cost of running the sewing machine for hours a day when I start making things to sell at this winter's craft fairs.

Toilet paper.  Another "well, duh ..." moment.  Cutting down on the coffee might have a small effect there ... and cutting out stress would have a big effect, once I find a way to do that ... stress is my worst trigger for an IBS flareup.  A lot of the stress, naturally, has to do with money.  And a lot had to do with my Mom's health issues, which are gradually being dealt with and resolved, thank the Goddess.

Cigarettes.  I no longer have to wait for my official break time to have a smoke.  It's time to quit  -  but that's a whole different blog post, eventually.

Fresh fruit.  I'm buying more of it now, since I no longer worry about whether it will still be fit to eat after banging around in my lunch bag for hours.  But canning season is coming up, so if I can find a cheap source for peaches and pears, along with my garden's apples, plums, and rhubarb, I'll be able to eat fruit from my pantry all winter.

Looking back at the few weeks immediately after the layoff, I did a few things which in retrospect were actually pretty smart.

I did NOT assume it would be easy to find another job, and started looking for ways to cut expenses right away.

I immediately made it known to the entire extended family that I was unemployed and would not be able to do the usual birthday or Christmas gift exchanges; there would be cards for birthdays, and I would be making Christmas gifts, not buying them.

I cleaned out my desk on a Monday.

On Tuesday I filed my EI claim, and then spent the entire day on-line just bookmarking every single job search resource I could find  -  job boards, employment resource offices, temp / staffing agencies, every company in my field with a "careers" section on their website, you name it.

On Wednesday I bought the biggest fold-up shopping cart (aka Bag Lady cart) I could find.  It cost me $35, which is how much gas I would have put in the car that month to do all the shopping and other errands if I hadn't had the cart to walk with; investment recouped in less than four weeks.  The additional exercise I get can't be bad for me, either!

On Thursday I bought a slow cooker to replace one that died years ago.  Soups, stews, and casseroles can be nutritious, tasty, filling, and frugal.

On Friday I started my version of a grocery price book; it's a spreadsheet I check before and after every shopping trip, at the same time that I'm making the shopping list from the sale flyers, checking my coupons, and checking the freezer & pantry inventory (which was also started then).

 Maybe those are things I should have been doing all along.  Next post,  I'll be looking at frugal things I've always done, and ways  -  if any  -  I can improve them.

Bits & Pieces, Odds & Ends

Yesterday I finished a book about a woman who made one "green" change in her life every day for a year.  I also read a lot of blogs and books about frugality, and about going green, and I find that I really like the way those two things  -  saving money and saving the planet  -  overlap and complement each other.

It made me think about all the frugal things we do here at home, and the "green" things we do, and how they fit together.  So I'm going to start talking about them here, at least one or two every week ... I've never actually counted them, so who knows where this will go?  It won't be a "one-change-a-day" list as such, but a fresh look at what we do now, what we could be doing, and how "frugal" can lead to "green" (and vice versa) even if that wasn't the original intention.  Some of these were things we decided to do, some were things that just happened, some were experiments that turned out better than we expected, and some had unanticipated side effects.  Maybe I'll even discover some new things I hadn't thought of before.

Let's start with our city's recycling program.

The city provides blue recycling bins free to any household that requests them, and everyone can put out as many filled bins every week as they want to.  It's single-stream recycling, which means we don't have to do any sorting  -  a time-saver!  These bins are for cans, glass jars and bottles, types 1, 2, 4, and 5 plastic, milk jugs, any clean paper,  flattened clean cardboard, and clean aluminum foil such as washed take-out containers.  They don't take plastic bags any more, but the city has set up special bins just for plastic bags at every large grocery store.  We can also be fined for putting recyclables in the garbage, which I personally see as a good thing, though some disagree.

This had some side effects for us.  Now that recycling doesn't require sorting into different bags and bins,  my family are much more cooperative about making sure everything that can be recycled actually goes in the blue bin.  And when we noticed how quickly the bin filled up, we began making more of an effort to shop for products with minimal and/or recyclable packaging.  There's even a frugal benefit of sorts  -  frequently we decide to do without something entirely, or wait until we find another way to get what we want, because we object to paying for the excess packaging.  For example, instead of paying high prices for spices in little glass jars,  we take our own zipper-type plastic bags to the bulk spice aisle and get twice the garlic, parsley, oregano, or whatever for less than one-tenth of the price of those little jars.  The time it takes to rinse out a plastic bag for the next trip is minimal while I'm doing dishes, and the benefits to our budget and the environment are enormous.

We've also developed the habit of looking at something we're about to put in the bin, and thinking about what else it could be used for.  So now the bulk-purchased spices, seasonings, and baking supplies that we use a lot of are in two-kilo peanut butter jars.  The benefits?  We're saving money by buying in bulk, we're saving time by not shopping for them so often, we're reducing the load on our city's recycling system, we can see at a glance how much of something we have and what needs replenishing, we have "canisters" that are uniform in size and shape, and the cupboard is much more organized.  Now I'm saving them for the camper, not just for spices but also flour, sugar, coffee, pasta/noodles, dry soup mixes, cocoa, coffee creamer  -  anything we only want two weeks' worth of that needs to stay dry and bug-free.  The jars are great freezer containers, too, especially since the contents are visible and so don't usually need labeling  -  we just date the containers with a black marker.

What else could we use those jars for?  (We eat a LOT of peanut butter ...)

I could use them in my sewing room instead of the collection of ratty shoeboxes currently stacked on the shelves ... beads, buttons, zippers, embroidery floss, spools of thread, knitting needles & crochet hooks, scissors and seam rippers ...

He could use them in his workshop for nails, bolts, screws, drill bits ... all the things that are currently either in glass jars of odd sizes (breakable = not good) or in coffee cans, which he could then use for cleaning paintbrushes and other dirty chores ...

How about all our rechargeable batteries, currently rolling around in the bottom of the kitchen drawer?  Or all those little packets of condiments that seem to accumulate out of nowhere but are so great for work lunches and picnics?

So how about you?  Do you see an empty peanut butter jar as trash?  Or as a perfectly good container?