Preparing for our week off

So yesterday I posted that our August budget would be not the norm, as we had planned on doing a staycation and probably eating out a lot of the week. Hubby and I sat down last night and started talking about the budget and what August would probably look like. We agreed to yes - still treat ourselves to eating out and going to Tim Horton's, etc, but we would also buy extra groceries this week and make some of our favorite meals that we haven't had for awhile or that we are craving. So we made a list of what we needed and it will actually be fun cooking together again and spending time with each other. Yes, the extra groceries will cost more than other months, but I'm sure by halving the times we go out to eat on our week splurge, will save us money in the long run and probably be healthier, as there will definitely be less sodium in what we prepare.

I want to research today, to see what are some free things that we can do around the city for next week. The mosquitoes all of a sudden were terrible this morning, as we discovered on our morning walk - and many bites later. So we will definitely have to see if we have an mosquito repellent at home and if not, then add it to our grocery list - so that we can do things outside next week.

August Budget - Out The Window

So, August is just around the corner and I have a feeling (know) the budget will not be so good - and we're okay with that. As I stated before, our Anniversary is on the 2nd and then we have a wedding to attend, on the 14th. Usually we would go out of town for a week, but this year, we are staying home - much to our disappointment - but we are trying to save on not going on vacation, but instead, do somewhat of a staycation. We have the next week off from work, though I have to attend a course for work on Wednesday, which is a full day 8:30-4:30, on the other side of our city. We will definitely save on gas and hotel rooms for not going away, but we are going to be eating out a lot over this next week. It's going to be our splurge - we might even do take out one day and go to a park or something. We do have some money set aside, specifically for eating out this month and we already have the $50 set aside for the wedding gift. But I am positive we will spend more on eating out than we currently have set aside. Since we are off this week, hubby is hoping to finish our backyard retaining wall and work on some other things around the house, that need fixing. This could lead to money being spent, in order to get things fixed.

Some Nice Surprises...

Our Anniversary is on August 2nd and we received from my parents a card in the mail yesterday along with a $100 cheque. That was a wonderful surprise. We must be on a lucky streak as our elderly neighbour, who has a backyard that consists of a vegetable garden, came over last night and gave us 4 huge heads of lettuce. Once again, that was a nice surprise. Our stars must be aligning, because on our morning walk with our little dog we found a quarter this morning. What nice surprises.

Picking up change

If you see a lone penny, nickel, dime, quarter - do you pick it up? We have started to. We take our little dog for a walk and each day, so we have started looking for loose change on the sidewalk or road - we put it into our at home savings jar. Sure a penny or nickel, etc is not that much, but it does add up over a year,to perhaps buy milk, bread, etc. We never really picked up change before, so it's just one of the ways in which we are attempting to be save money at every chance we get. It won't make us money rich, but it's funny how excited we got when we found a quarter last week. Here's to looking down in parking lots and along walks...

O Magazine Article

I read yesterday an article by Martha Beck in O magazine that reinforced our thinking and helped us explore our relationship/correlation between our goals and saving/spending. The "LOVE" factor of how we allocate our money and the wants vs needs was interesting. I would say hubby and I do this somewhat already, but it was a great article that makes one "think" of course preferrably before you purchase or engage in something, but it also helps to re-evaluate a person's past spending. Everyone has there own lists/ideas of what is important to spend money on and each person's pleasure rating is different for what is important to them. It got my husband and I and talking last night as to what our pleasure "LOVE" ratings were for different things and I'm happy to say we are pretty evenly on board on most things.

New TV

We currently have a TV (not our main one) that is on the verge of bye bye land. It's held out for 10+ years but now it's showing signs of dying. It's located in our bedroom and we are hoping we can get at least 3 more years out of it, this goes along with an earlier post that "before" we probably would have already replaced this bulky TV with a nice flat screen - but we didn't - hooray for us - and now, we are praying that it will last as long as it can. When it does finally die, we are fortunate enough that we have already set aside some money inside of a separate TV Money Market Fund to cover the cost - so the money is already saved and sitting there, but hopefully we won't have to touch it for a long time.

Grocery Shopping

We are heading to Walmart, Safeway and Costco this weekend. It's our 1x to get the majority of stuff we need for the month - It's crazy how much everything is and it's not even technically "Groceries", as it's laundry detergent, garbage bags, toilet paper, deodorant, etc. these we tend to get at Walmart. Usually the actual food part is quite minimal. This is when I wish we lived in the States, as we have found on our travels, that groceries are less in the States and you can get some great coupon savings.

One thing very nice happened the other day,one of our neighbours, who grows a vegetable garden in his back yard gave all his neighbours a big bag of lettuce and green onions from his garden. He recently lost his wife to cancer, so tending the garden he said, gives him great joy, but he has too much for just himself, so he happily disperses it amongst the neighbours.

Aha Moment...

It's funny how a mindset can change, when looking at the bigger picture. When we moved into our house a few years ago, we wanted to get stainless steel appliance (like in our last home) for the kitchen, as our new house came with white appliances, the fridge seemed pretty new, but the stove was older and the dishwasher was even more aged - now thinking in a frugalistic mode - to heck with the stainless steel appliances - I'm hoping our white (older) appliances last 10+ years.

No Bonus

So, hubby didn't get a bonus at the end of June, as promised. An email went out to all the employees about 15 mins before they were to recieve their cheques, telling them that the bonuses would not be given out until the end of July now. I feel sorry for the employees who were counting on that bonus at the end of June. We were simply saving the bonus money between our vacation fund and our emergency fund, so it didn't impact us, but still disappointing. Here's keeping our fingers crossed for the end of July.