Our Jobs

Being Thankful - In reading a lot of PF blogs, one thing that we are taking away from them, during the past couple of years, is how thankful we are, in having our jobs. Hubby's 2009 income ended up being about an 8% cut from his 2008 income and mine fortunately went up a bit - we have both been with our current employers for 10+ years each, so we are glad and fortunate that, that loyalty and hard work has allowed us to remain employed. We never want to take our employment for granted, so that is why we feel we have implemented ways to live within our means. We definitely put a lot more thought process in our purchases, than we would have before, which is a good habit for us to carry forward with, in our future. We adhere to a strict budget - which is key I believe, in never over extending ourselves. So we never take our jobs for granted. The lessons and resources we have learned and adapted to, with the recent economy, has actually been a good thing for us. I feel we have always been responsible, but even more so now and definitely weighing in on value for money - before we spend our hard earned dollars.

Outdoor Plants

We have not bought any plants for our outside planters this year, nor any hanging baskets - in an effort to save money this Summer. Every time I look at the empty pots, I almost cave - and suggest we go shopping... but so far, I'm able to resist.

Canadian Coupons

One great Canadian coupon site is save.ca, I don't know about you, but I find it very frustrating that many coupon sites only allow American residents to sign up, but this site, save.ca is good for Canadians. Check it out if you like, sometimes there are no coupons that I need, other times, there's quite a few. You sign in and then they mail them to you and I usually receive mine in about a week.

Water & Electrical Consumption

Our Water/Electricity bill is less, which is always a nice thing. We are trying to turn the water off when brushing our teeth, taking only 5 minute showers and using natural light as much as possible before turning on any lights. We know many other people already do these things, but for us, this is a big improvement. We even have a rain barrel (which was free - as it was kindly given to us), that we are using to water all our outdoor plants. Little changes on our part, are helping the environment and helping us save on our bills, gotta love that.

Work Bonus

Bonus time at work, for 1 of us will be at the end of June - as promised from an employer. Can't wait to see how much it is - it will be divided between Emergency Fund savings and Vacation Fund savings.

Travel - Our Splurge

"Don’t ever assume you can go later, Go now as you never know what life's future brings"

memories of our travels mean more to us than we can express. It just reinforces that now is the time to do it - we are not waiting until we retire or when the mortgage is paid off - life is about balance - our balance.

- We've known people who have passed away, far too early in their lives and never got the chance to do the things they really wanted to do, because it was always - "I'll do it in the future" or people we know have become ill and can't do the things they had always planned on doing, because physically, they can't anymore.

Grasp the special moments & opportunities when you can - as one day - they won't be within your grasp anymore.

We really want a stand up freezer - we currently have a small chest freezer - but we could certainly use another freezer and the stand up ones seem really appealing. We have priced them out - and they are more reasonable than we had originally thought.

Since we prepare our own lunches for work, etc and would like to take advantage of some bulk buying, it would be ideal to have more freezer space. When we cook, we try to make enough for dinner (plus enough to pre-portion about 4-6 lunches) as this really helps cut down on buying frozen pre-packaged foods and eating out - though we do like to eat out - but guess what - it's not in the budget! and have limited eating out time for special occasions only.

Sorry, we can't afford it...

We find ourselves saying, "sorry, we can't afford it...", but in reality we could afford it - but's it's not in our budget. Saying we can't afford it, is not really the truth, but what can we say? In reading some other PF blogs, it seems, this is a common topic and one suggestion was to just say, "sorry, it's not in our monthly budget" and leave it at that. - we like that and we are using that now. What is frustrating though, are the people who keep on harping about and don't just let us leave it at that, "what do you mean you can't do it or you must have money or have to live a little or you have to have some fun sometime..." Most of the times the people who are saying this to us, are the ones who are financially strapped - Hmm, they should think about this. Yes, we live on a strict monthly budget - but we are not deprived - we have our priorities and we do have a ton of fun and experiences - we just save up for it and plan accordingly.

- We budget charity into our monthly contributions, in the form of direct monthly contributions to the organization (s) so any requests for charity beyond what we have already set up, unfortunately we can not participate in.

Emergency Fund

Emergency Fund - We are slowly try to build our emergency fund, our goal is $25,800 - to date, we have $5,000 saved (not counting our TFSA Account). We know it won't be an overnight occurance and will more than likely take us years to accumulate - but at least we are on the right track and have something - should an emergency arise.

Annual Property Taxes Due

Property Taxes are due at the end of June. We've already made our payment last week, through interent banking payment - which is so handy, we've been doing this for the last 3 years. We use the money from our tax refunds + any bonus money we get, to pay this each year. Going forward, though, in this economy, bonus money seems to be becoming of thing of the past, so we are putting $50 aside into a Money Market Fund to account for any shortfall we might have for next year, from the tax refunds.

Things we've given up/changed

What have we given up/done with out so that we can redirect those monies elsewhere

(such as into, Retirement, Travel and Emergency funds)

No more concerts

No more buying CDs/DVDs

No going to the movies

No more French Manicures/Pedicures

Longer time between hair appointments

No more buying books

Limiting eating out in restaurants and getting take out to a minimum

Random Rambling...

It's been awhile and a lot has happened. The 30 year old car needed to be traded in, so a 2006 Ford Truck was bought in it's place. This came 2 years earlier that we had hoped, but what can you do. We went back to our monthly budget, made the necessary adjustments and life goes on.

We also had a fabulous family vacation with our parents and it was just as memorable as we had hoped.

Did I mention I love gift cards - to me they are perfect gift to give and to receive.

We have our next 4 years worth of vacations planned out and now the saving has begun - we have itemized what our approximate expenditures should be on a spread sheet.

I finally got a new library card - $12 for the year, but the lady waived the annual fee for this year - so that was a nice unexpected savings. The value of having a library card is very worthwhile - when trying to be financially responsible - BUT - if anyone really knows me, they know I don't like germs - as in touching/reading messy books that have pages smeared with who knows what...but I'm not letting the reading stop - my solution - a bottle of hand sanitizer next to where I read - Hey, I'm doing what I can to make the most of "the situation".