I updated my sidebars and we are over halfway to our first goal of $1,000 in our EF! Yay us! I'm so stoked right now.

We are for sure going to car pool with the other couple on our camping trip. In light of this I am cutting our gas budget in half from $50 to $25. It will be a tight squeeze in the car, but worth it for the Earth and our pocketbooks to carpool. The ride is only about an hour and by the time we go Andrew will be in a booster seat so that will make more room in the back seat.

We'll borrow my mother's Jetta wagon because of the large trunk. 5 people and stuff for a weekend would never fit into our little Echo!

Carpooling brings the budget down from $240 to $215! :)

We currently have $94 saved or 43% of the trip.

I'm such a geek that I've even started making a grocery list in an attempt to cut down on food costs and to plan ahead.

Stuff we already have and won't need to purchase: Tin foil, Bacon, Sausages, S&P, Spices, Pasta vs. Texas Toast, Chilli Fixin's vs Meat Sauce, Margarine, Condiments, Andrew's Stuff, Tea, Coffee, sugar

Stuff to buy: Steak (15), Eggs (2), Bread (3), Hot Dogs (2), Buns (4), Potatoes (6), Carrots (3), Mushrooms (4), Milk (4), Beer/Booze (40), Chips (8), Sunflower seeds (3), Cookies (4), Pop (6) = 104 bucks

We haven't discussed how we'll split up the food. Maybe I'll suggest that we'll bring the meat if they bring the veggies/fixings. Maybe I'll even ditch having Saturday Lunch on the menu. My husband is not a big eater and we tend to not be very hungry at lunch because we've had a huge breakfast and will have a big supper...

Anyways...we are in a very good position for this trip. :) The advance planning is actually fun!

Did you participate in Earth Hour yesterday? We did. We had friends over for supper and it was 8:30 just as we were finishing up eating (lasagne, ceaser salad, and garlic toast--yum!). We turned out the lights, light some candles and just sat around the table talking until 10:30...well past the 1 hour for Earth Hour. Once we had the candles lit no one wanted to blow them out and turn the lights back on. It was quite nice. & we need to pull the candles out more often and turn out the lights.

Bulk Barn is my new favorite store. I am in love with everything about it. For example:

• I love that I can buy as little or as much of something that I want. I was able to buy just enough chili powder to fit the little spice jar (about a handful). Buying that amount ensures that I won't be stuck with a huge package of chili powder that has gone stale and tasteless because I've had it for 3 years. & best of all the chili powder was .57 cents!!!
• I love that the packaging is one plastic bag (which can be reused) and 1 twist tie. Awesome! Our garbage has gone down substantially. Even the items that require a container (ie. honey) are reusable!
  
• I love that the tellers magically know exactly what I have in the bags...even when it is just a brown powder. How do they do that?
• I love that when I asked where the wheat germ was the employee knew what I was talking about and took me right there.
• I love that the store is bright and nice and super clean.
• I love that we will now have a use for empty mason jars, tomato sauce jars, tins, containers because we are storing the items we've purchased. I've also bought quite a few lovely jars from Value Village. I love buying used and reusing items.
  
• I love that we can get a little bit of chocolate, and a little bit of sweets, and a little bit of chips for a good price!
• I love that you can grind your own coffee there!
• I love that they often have $5 off coupons in flyers. Love that!
• I love that when I told the teller that I had my own re-usable bag she didn't sigh and glare at me, but rather smiled and said 'Great!'
  

I've started taking part in a Spare Change/Penny Challenge on Frugal Village. While I am hardly frugal, I find their challenges and ideas awesome. I'm getting so many ideas from their threads. I think this spare change challenge is such a great idea that I've started it on another forum that I frequent.

I'm saving my spare change and pennies for Christmas presents. So far I've got $11.17 in my jar. I started on March 9. I'm going to aim for $15 a month to go into the jar. That would give me $150 for Christmas presents which is about where I want to be.

This is a totally fun challenge. I see a penny now and I get giddy. A nickel and I'm excited. A dime and I'm ecstatic. lol. I've only been putting in the odd loonie or quarter. My savings have been stricktly pennies, dimes, and nickels.

It's official we are going 'camping' the last weekend in May with another couple. I put camping in quotes because it's not exactly camping. I've reserved the same rustic cabin that we stayed at last year with S's parents. It is so much easier with Andrew. There is flush toilets, 2 bedrooms, cold running water, a fridge, a stove, and a very nice deck. It is $70 a night (split in half). It's at Camp Morton, which is just a little further north from Gimli and about an hour from Winnipeg.

Camp Morton is a Provincial Park in Manitoba. It's lovely and small and usually is not very busy. I like that it's not very busy but still closeish to the city. They have about 14 rustic cabins, 5 Yurts, 5 Group Use Camp Areas, and a small campground further down the road. It's also close enough to Gimli that we can go into town if we have forgotten something or for a stroll along main street. It will be very nice to go in May because hopefully there will be no mosquitoes. We might car pool with the other couple so that could potentially save us more money on the trip. Yay! Firewood is free at Camp Morton so that is another plus! I hate having to shell out $6 to $10 bucks for a bag of wood that burns in hours. The free wood is always kind of sucky and needs lots of attention but that's okay because our male friend that is coming is a good wood chopper.

The Budget so far:

Cabin - $85 for 2 nights
Gas - $50 (there and back--could be halved if we car pool) Food - $100 (quite generous amount) Park Pass - $5

Total of $240

Already we have $66 saved up (as of 23 March 09). By the time we leave for the trip we will have saved approximately $303 dollars, which is well over the generous budget! What's left in the holiday fund will go towards our UK 2010 trip.

I've also been real nerdy and already made our menu for the weekend.
It's not that hard, because I usually make the same things when we go camping.

Friday Night Supper - Campfire Chili with garlic cheese toast (I'm looking for a real rustic and kick ass Beef Chilli recipe so if anyone has one let me know please!) If we don't do the chilli we'll bring frozen meat sauce and have spaghetti and meat sauce.
Saturday Breakfast - Sausages and eggs and toast Saturday Lunch - I'm thinking hot dogs Saturday Supper - Steak, potatoes, mushrooms and carrots Sunday Breakfast - Bacon and eggs and toast

Even though the cabin has a stove I'll still try and cook everything over the fire. I love cooking over the fire. Everything tastes so much better when it's cooked outside.

Does anyone have any different ideas for cooking while camping before I finalize the menu? I'm always looking for new things to make/try.

While I was booking the cabin for May I also booked a YURT for the long weekend in September at Camp Morton. They are brand spanking new there. I've never stayed in a yurt before, so I'm very excited about that trip too! The costs will be about virtually the same for the May trip. So we will have our beginning of summer trip and then our end of summer trip. It will be lovely.

Alabama 3's Woke Up This Morning (aka the Sopranos Theme Song)
No Specific Time Frame.

I don't have a specific memory to report for this song. It's just an absolutely kick ass song that I have an unhealthy love for and always gets me moving.

My favorite part is the spoken word intro that is oft overlooked--so over looked that I can't even find a YouTube video with the intro. It's a wonderful little bit of prose...


"And after three days of drinkin' with Larry Love
I just get an inklin' to go on home
So, I'm walkin' down Coldharbour Lane
Head hung low, three or four in the mornin'

The suns comin' up and the birds are out singing
I let myself into my pad
Wind myself up that spiral staircase
An' stretch out nice on the chesterfield

Pithecanthropus Erectus already on the CD player
And I just push that remote button to sublimity
And listen to the sweet sculptural rhythms of Charles Mingus
And J.R. Monterose and Jackie Mclean
Duet on those saxophones

And the sound makes it's way outta the window
Minglin' with the traffic noises outside, you know and
All of a sudden I'm overcome by a feelin' of brief mortality
'Cause I'm gettin' on in the world
Comin' up on forty-one years

Forty-one stoney gray steps towards the grave
You know the box, awaits it's grissly load
Now, I'm gonna be food for worms
And just like Charles Mingus wrote
That beautiful piece-a music, 'Epitaph for Eric Dolphy'

I say, so long Eric, so long, John Coltrane
And Charles Mingus, so long, Duke Ellington
And Lester Young, so long, Billie Holliday
And Ella Fitzgerald, so long, Jimmy Reed
So long, Muddy Waters, and so, long Howlin' Wolf"

**Contrary to popular belief this song was NOT written by Leonard Cohen**

Some updates for blogland...

We had our taxes done today. We went to H&R Block...and I know what everyone is thinking, "Why would you do that? They are so easy to do yourself...what a waste of money..." (I know because I got the earful from my father). But every time I have done taxes I have made mistakes and ended up owing myself or ended up making my spouse owe money. It's just not something I'm doing myself anymore.

Anyways...We got the return it's being distributed in this way:

We paid this months (and a little of next months) Hydro Bill. That was quite nice as it was large because of the dreadfully cold winter we've had. We each are getting $100 for spending money (clothes, Wii Games, lunches out, beer, that kind of thing), we threw $100 onto the LOC, and added $20 to our EF. I will also be paying for the mistake that I made last years taxes when we did them on our own (about $260 bucks). Anyways...taxes always stress me out and I'm glad that this years are done.

Adding the $20 bucks onto the EF today brings it to the grand total of.......(drum roll)....$473.05!!!! that is sweet! I am so pleased with our progress. :) We are 47% to our first goal of $1000 dollars! Our camping trip fund currently has $43 in it or 14.3% of our (liberal) $300 goal. I have plans to start saving for a general house fund too in the next few weeks. Starting small again and building slowly.

I have started participating in a Frugal Village Challenge. It's a spare change/penny challenge. So far I have $9.11 in my spare change jar. The money I save in this jar is going to go to wards Christmas Presents. I started taking part in this challenge about 2 weeks ago. Normally I used to scrounge all our change to pay for Tim Hortons...so I'm hoping this challenge helps me to curb the Timmies addiction.

Today is my 3rd week of being a smoke free human being. I am feeling very proud of myself for not smoking for 3 whole weeks. It hasn't been as hard as I imagined it would be. I've slowly eliminated the places I smoke at and the less I've smoked the more I've noticed how gross it really smells. I've stopped smoking before for months at a time...but I've always restarted. The key for this time is to recognize situations that would make me start again and find some kind of alternative to smoking.

On the weekend I did bake. I made mini-muffins & granola bars! I was quite the Martha Stewart on Saturday afternoon. The muffins are great (they are organic oatmeal with banana).
The granola bars were yummy...although they did not stick together. I don't know what I did but I ended up with granola instead of bars. That was OK though because they were heavenly! I loved them. S gobbled them all up on Sunday night. Andrew, however, would not eat them because he 'only likes granola bars with marshmallows and chocolate in them'. Spoiled little bugger. :P So, I did achieve one goal! The other goal...has not happened yet. I've got the mailer, the items, and labels all lined up...I just haven't found her address and mailed it. I'm getting there...slowly but surely. lol.

Tomorrow we are recommitting to doing the Money Jars. We are going to do CASH ONLY for 1 month and then re-evaluate. It should be interesting. I hope we don't crash and burn like we did last time.

The big thing I have to decide now is...what to spend my money on!

I have not mailed J's item (although I did bring home a used mailer that i rescued from the recycling bin from work) and I have not baked anything. I was thinking of baking tomorrow afternoon. We have lots of frozen bananas in the freezer so I could make banana bread. Or I was thinking of making granola bars after being inspired by Saver Queens post about them. The last time I made banana bread Andrew didn't really like it but S sure did! Andrew LOVES granola bars though. He loves them and could eat them 3 or 4 times a day if I'd let him. Although he often cons us into getting them multiple times in a day. He can be quite crafty when he wants to be.

Oh decisions, decisions, decisions.

We went to the lawyers this morning and signed the paperwork to refinance the mortgage this morning. We were in and out in less then half an hour. I was quite impressed. Our lawyer is this funny old man that looks stuck in 1982. He has book cases upon book case of the old fashioned seals for businesses. He's got binders on shelves that are covered in dust and have probably been there since 1982. He still has ashtrays and smokes in his office! Anyways...I am so excited to have taken this step and I can't wait for the money to be paid out and the bills. The lenders requested that our lawyer pay out the car loan, small cc debt and of course the mortgage. After those are paid out there will be a cheque for us for the remainder of the monies (about 10K). Out of that we'll pay the mortgage penalty and the lawyers fees. The remainder will go towards our Consolidation Loan and hopefully slash it in half. By snowballing our payments onto the Consolidation loan it looks like we could easily be free of this debt in 10 months! I am going to do further figuring on all this once I know exactly how much we will be able to put on the Loan, but I'm excited!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Our EF is currently sitting at $432.05 (43% of our first goal of 1K). I upped our weekly contribution by $1 to $21 a week. I know it's not much, but it's something and every little bit counts, right? $1 a week is $52 in a year. We're going to do $21 a week for 10 weeks and then re-evaluate.

My pay was also adjusted to match the new pay scale (finally!) and so I get a bit more on each cheque now. Because of this I've upped our "Planned Spending" contribution as well from $10 a week to $18. We are still continuing with the $15 that gets deducted right off my paycheck and goes into a Payroll Savings Bond. Right now this account is for saving for our camping trip in May. After the camping trip goal is reached we will begin saving for a trip to England in 2010. S's friend is getting married and he wants to be there....so we are going to try to get all 3 of us there. This savings account is moving from the original idea of saving for house/car/stuff and is soley becoming the HOLIDAY fund.

The next step in the savings plan is to open a savings account for house repair/maintenance, car repair/maintenance and miscellaneous items that might need purchasing that are 'big' ticket items. Like all things we do, we are going to start small and then slowly increase the amount every 10 weeks. We seem to have the most success this way. Start small, watch it grow, then make it a little more as the weeks and months go by. Hopefully we will make it to a PC pavilion this Saturday morning and we will be able to set a savings account up to get started.

I've gotten rid of all the Goals I had lined up in the side bars.

It was too much and it was hard to keep up with...so instead of trying harder...it just made me stop trying altogether. I make goals that are too big and too abstract and then I can't follow them and I get confused and I will forget about 1 and then it just all falls apart. It also get's impossible because every time I post about new goals I make them bigger and better and shinier and more impossibler for me.

I'm going to start small (for real). & I'm going to keep them small (for real) and manageable (for real). I'm also going to keep them for short time frames (for real) and extend as necessary (for real).

This weeks goals (March 10 to 14) -
1. Mail item for J
2. Bake something this week (maybe banana muffins? or banana bread?)

My mind gets muddled very easily and I get discouraged very easily. Sometimes I need to see success everywhere I turn or else the things I fail at overwhelm me and throw me into a state of non-action/spending/binging/feeling sad/feeling anxious/bitching/whatevers.

After a silly series of mishaps I got my back pay cheque last Thursday. It was for just under one thousand dollars. I was quite excited to get it and dpeosit into my bank account. I'm proud to say that we paid of our Hydro Bill which had a balance of $575 on it and we put $160 onto credit cards, we each got $60 bucks for play money and we ordered in wonderful chinese food.

It is such a relief knowing that the hydro bill is sitting at ZERO now. Such a big relief.

What I did with my $60 -

Went for lunch on Friday to Subway with co-workers ($9), bought wallet ($4), purse ($5), crochet magazine ($1) and storage jar ($2) from Value Village, bought nice Spring Jacket ($21) from Value Village as well, and took Andrew, my mom and myself out to McDonalds Sunday afternoon for lunch ($16) and I still have a toonie sitting in my wallet for whatever tickles my fancy!

We also should be getting a lump sum payment before 31 March that is a result of our union settling the contract. The money we get from that will be going towards S's British Loan and paying all that off. Another relief!

This morning we made coffee. Our own coffee in our own coffee maker for the first time EVER. We got the coffee maker as a shower gift when we got married 4 years ago and we have never used it. The only people who ever used it before were S's parents when they were visiting here last year. Otherwise it just sat in the basement....looking all sad.

Last night I programmed it and put the coffee in the filter and the water in the holder and BANG the coffee started making itself at 6:40 this morning and was ready for us to take in the car this morning. It was wonderful...and best of all we did not stop at Tim Hortons and spend $4 to $10.

We're gonna load it up and make coffee again tomorrow. :)

I love camping. I grew up doing it and I can't imagine a summer without camping. S didn't grow up with and doesn't always see the beauty and splendor of camping but will usually humor me enough to go camping two weekends of the year. It's a good, fun, and cheap way to get away from the city and the busy-ness.

In the past we have never planned for our camping trips. They have mostly been spur of the moment activities or if they were scheduled in advance we never saved up for the trip. We always just went and took the money out of our normal budget or put the rest on the charge card.

Since the Gimli trip I've learned that part of what made that holiday so good and relaxing was knowing that it was money that WE HAD and that WE HAD SAVED for and that it wasn't going onto a credit card with no plan on how to pay it off. Spending your own money is way better then spending someone else's money who is going to charge you 23% interest every month.

We have made tentative plans plans to go camping with friends of ours in May. Even if they don't go, we'll still go on our own. I did some preliminary calculating and a pretty liberal budget for 2 nights camping is $300. There are lots of variables that I just don't know yet like:

• It would be less if we go with friends--splitting the camp spot and food
• Not sure where we would go so gas could be more or less
• Is firewood free where we go? Something else to factor in
• Depending what kind of camp spot we get the prices are different (electrical, non-electrical, yurt, rustic cabin)

So, these are the deets of the weekend in Gimli:

Friday - We got gas (20 voucher!) and then dropped Andrew off at Grandma and Grandpa's around 1 PM. We got to Gimli at about 2 PM and checked in. They were running a special where you got a suite, breakfast for 2 and supper for 2 for 120 bucks a night so we immediately jumped on that idea ($266 for the 2 nights). We went up to the room and relaxed. We both had showers and watched TV. S went to the beer vendor to pick up some beers for himself ($21) and got some snacks for the two of us ($7). We went for supper at 6 PM and S had chicken curry and I had the beef tenderloin. We had some drinks at supper too ($25) and then went back to the room. The hotel had free movies you could rent so we started to watch "No Country For Old Men". We both fell asleep before it ended. lol. We're old!

Saturday - We went for a late breakfast @ 10:30 ($7) and then went for a walk around town. We went to the used store (which is my favorite used store ever) and S bought 2 winter coats ($4.50 because they were 50% off). We stopped at the local coffee shop/lounge and S had a latte and I had an Apple Cider (~$5). We went to the liquor mart and i got some wine and S got a couple bottles of beer ($21). I got wine in cans and suprisingly it was quite good! We stopped at the pharmacy because I needed razor blades and shaving foam and we got a paper ($9). We watched the last Indiana Jones movie (which I thought was hella lame) and then we had an earliesh supper (we both had the beef tenderloin) and had some drinks ($20). We were going to go back to the coffee shop/lounge for bevvies but it was closed so we just hung out in the hotel lounge and had more drinks and snacks (about $30, I think). Eventually we got bored and went back to our room.

Sunday - We woke up and lazed around watching tv and checked out. we went for a late breakfast ($10) and then headed home at about 12:30 PM. We picked up Andrew and then came home.

So, the approximate total of the weekend was $420 dollars! That's $47 dollars under what we had planned to spend!!!! We rock. We used the leftover money to order chinese food on Sunday night because neither of us wanted to cook and we still wanted to have the holiday feel. lol.

We really like Gimli and threw around the idea of even moving there sometime in the future. I wish we had remembered to bring the camera because I would have loved to show you guys pictures of our experience. All in all we ate too much and drank too much and i think i gained 5 pounds while we were away...but it was all worth it.

Cheers!

I want to start a small garden this year. I'm thinking a cucumber plant, some lettuce, and maybe something else. Simple stuff. Our yard has never had a garden before. It doesn't even have flower beds. Just grass everywhere. When the snow melts I'm going to work on turning the soil in one of the flowerbeds and see how far I get.

I've never really gardened before, but I have recently kept a plant alive in my house for 2 years now so I figure I'm ready for planting veggies.

In brief...

We went to Gimli. We had a smashing good and relaxing time. We saved money because the hotel offered a kick ass deal. We came back. It was hard to do. I'll post more details about the trip another day.

I have started taking the new medication at bedtime so the sleepiness isn't as bad. The meds work wonderfully to help with my anxiety/ocd issues and I want to post more about that another day too.

The refinancing is still not complete. I'm getting ticked about how long everything seems to be taking. *sigh*

I've heard a rumor that my 1.5 years of back pay should be on this week pay cheque. I'm hoping it's true. I've got some things lined up for it, including:

1. Pay a big chunk onto our Hydro bill. I hate Hydro and $290 a month bill in the winter.
2. Pay off the Leonard Cohen tickets (yes that's right I've got Leonard Cohen tickets!!!)
3. Go out for a kick ass nice dinner (because I can)
4. Pay the remainder onto our LOC

I promise to post more on the Blog. I lose focus in life when I stop posting. It makes me sad to lose focus.