An Unexpected Propostion...

While shopping at Costco on Saturday, while I was standing in line, the lady behind me started chatting about this and that, and during the course of the conversation she mentioned how much she liked my leather jacket, that I had on. She inquired as to where I had bought it and when, so I told her. After some more random conversation she came back to how much she liked my coat, then she asked if I would sell it to her. I was totally shocked, I mean, I like my coat, but it's nothing that spectacular. So I politely declined her offer to buy my coat, but for a few seconds, I have to admit, I thought, wow, some unexpected money could go towards savings. If I really needed the money, I probably would have sold it to her.

Financial book from library

I've started reading one of the financial books I got from the library. It's called "Miserly Moms - Living Well on Less in a Tough Economy" by Jonni McCoy. I had never heard of this book before, but thought I would check it out, even though I am not a mom. So far I'm really enjoying the book, it's easy to read and understand and you can take away from it, what pertains to your own situation. She works on the concept of 'Eleven Miserly Guidelines' some of them that resonate with me are:

1. Don't Confuse frugality with depriving yourself.
2. Remove little wasters of your money.
3. Cut back on meats.
4. Cook several meals at once and freeze them.

I like to think that I already do these things, but it's always a good reminder and motivator to keep on track. I need to keep telling myself that in order to retire comfortably in 22 years, I need to make these changes now.

March is a long month...

In more ways than one. I can't wait until Spring and to see some off our heaps of snow start to melt. I wrote out our budget, and because of the extra week this month seems to have, we must be extra diligent, with watching where our money is being spent. On top of the tight budget, I had to end up going to the Dr's as the back pain returned but it just didn't feel right and sure enough, after some tests it's come back that I have an infection in the area of the back pain (Dr said that it's either bladder or kidney) so I'm on some antibiotics - which of course cost some money that will now have to be worked into the budget.

But all in all, I am so pleased with Hubby and myself for sticking to our reduced spending over the past year. I really love seeing our savings grow and becoming more aware of where and how we spend our money. Over the past year, some of things we are proud off is: cutting our gas bill down by being more efficient when we are out running errands; using the library resources for books, music and movies which has allowed us to cut down on our entertainment budget; not buying "precut" vegetables and salads - I used to be guilty of this, but have since changed my ways; reduced the amount of meat we eat in a week; there are more, but that is all I can think of right now. Sometimes I think we all need to stop and reflect on what positive changes we have acoomplished and in return that will help keeps us on the right track with our financial journies. Due to the changes we've been able to establish, March may be tight, but it's doable and we won't be going into any debt or getting stressed out, by bills.

Friday is here, Yahoo!!!

I'm glad Friday is here - but...lately I'm finding it very hard to resist spending a little extra here and there on the weekends in the form of hubby and I going out for a coffee at Tim Hortons or getting take out. I can usually "save" in other areas of our monthly budget, so in the end it seems to work out, but I don't know what's gotten over me - the last month. Work has been really busy and my usual routine has been disrupted with my back pain from last week, but still...I should have more discipline. This journey is such a balancing act, that I guess it is something that I will always have to be mindful of.

Back Pain Equals Spending?

I threw my back out last week so I was basically out of commission most of the week. It happened when I lifted the vacuum cleaner - no joking. I must have twisted the wrong way. The pain was extreme which is unusual for me and it lasted a week - a very long time for me as well. The last time I had thrown my back out was back in 2006 and so I still had 2 pills that were prescription muscle relaxants - again they were from 2006 so probably not very effective in 2011 but I took them anyways. I also had some T3's that I had left over from a fall (yes, I'm very clumsy!!!) back in 2008, again it's now 2011 and not exactly sure how effective they were in the pain department as I still had major pain, but I thought I would try them. I also found some Robaxisil (not sure on the spelling)they too had expired in 2008 but I took them anyways.

Yesterday was a much better day and my movements are almost back to normal and without pain. Since, I obviously didn't spend money on medication, LOL - Now how does this lead to spending? Well, I sure didn't feel like cooking and I didn't want poor hubby to have to do it when he came home from a long day at work, so it became very easy over the week to just tell him to pick something up on the way home. It wasn't expensive stuff, but it was more than we would have spent if I hadn't have been hurt. I missed 2 days of work, but I fortunately still get paid for those days. Surprising, we still came in right on budget for February, even with all the "extra" eating out over the last week of February. I'm not sure how we did it, but I did like always and tracked every expenditure down to the last penny and voila! Still came in on budget.

Birthday Money...

Last week was my birthday and I received some money along with gift cards from different family members. I deposited some of the money into my own money market (this fund is to cover gifts for family, oil changes, etc)and then the rest, I deposited into our Vacation money market fund. I realized, that I now find it hard to spend any of the money I get - I would much rather save it and the same goes with the gift cards. I received (2) gift cards for Chapters/Indigo Book stores, but since I'm now using the library to read "free" books and watch DVDs, I had a really hard time using any of the gift card money. After about an hour, I ended up using about $26 of the gift cards on a box set of music and one of those lap desk/tray thingys that you can put on your lap to put stuff on while your watching TV or in bed. I still have $49 left on the gift cards - I had looked at some financial books, but I just kept thinking that I could read them for free from the library. I still have a $100 gift card from Christmas to another store, that I haven't used yet either. I'm very appreciative of the gifts but, I'm also happily surprised that my "spending" habits have changed for the better. Who would have thought...

Sold My Silver Yesterday

I've been missing in action, as this is my work's busy time. I had mentioned before that my boss in 2009 had given me as a Christmas present of 1kg of Silver. He follows the markets regularly, so he said that this week, he thought would be a good time to sell it as it's made a nice gain. So yesterday, Silver was up, so I sold it. After the all the fees associated with it, I ended up with $889.07. It would have been tempting to buy a snowblower with it - but I didn't - I put $440 into my TFSA (Tax Free Savings Account) and $440 into hubby's TFSA account. The remaining $9.07 will go towards the parking I had to pay in acting on this transaction. I love seeing our accounts grow - it may not be by leaps and bounds, but at least it's moving in the right direction.