Debit Card Woes

My debit card was skimmed the other day and the credit union called me to tell me they were mailing me a new card.  If I needed one faster I could go in to my branch for a temporary one.  Friday was such a short day that I didn't have time to go in and they were closed for the remainder of the weekend by the time Shabbos was over.

This kind of messed me up in a couple of ways.  First, I was supposed to transfer some money from that credit union to the one in the Interior that I pay bills for the house out of.  No card, no way to withdraw cash (and I wanted cash rather than a cheque because I think the hold comes off faster for cash than a cheque).  Second, I couldn't get any groceries, even essential ones without a card.

Anyway, I went in today.  They gave me a new card, a copy of my statement for the past month (no money missing, Thank G-d), I withdrew money from my city credit union, deposited cash and a small cheque (really small, like about $13) into the rural credit union, then went to the grocery store on my way home from work.  I only bought the bare necessities: a protein drink, sour cream, a minestrone soup mix, a box of 6 year old approved cereal, a bag of chips and a bag of cookies (the last two for use in Dear Child's lunches this week).

We had latkes with sour cream for dinner and tomorrow will be minestrone soup.  I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, so that's all for now.

Wednesday Once Again

Today was Wednesday and payday. Usually I'm busy getting things done, paying bills, figuring out what needs to be taken care of and so on.



Today, not so much. I'm still having a hard time getting off my rear end and doing anything. My resistance is getting worse, if that's possible. I wrote a lot of cheques the other day and in some way my mind is telling me I've done a lot and to chill. There's money in the bank to pay the cheques that are coming through right away so that's fine, but I have bills I should have paid and I haven't done so. That really sucks.



I finally forced myself to go look at my account online and it's not too pretty, for a couple of reasons. First, the cheque I wrote for the dentist came through just before my paycheque hit the account and put me in the red. Luckily for me, they just charged me a few cents interest and didn't hit me with an NSF! The $360 or so is a problem because I won't get any of that money back from extended medical. The second issue is the money I've been spending on physio. Now, I will get most of that back, but I need to get the receipts together, fill out the form and send them off. This is a task I'm definitely not good at and I know it. Paperwork, especially financial paperwork and I are not the best of friends. But, if I don't send it in, I won't get any money back. It's a pretty simple concept. And I can't keep spending $100 to $200 per month on physio if I'm not going to do what I need to do in order to get reimbursed.



So, I can tell that I don't have enough money in the bank right now to pay all the bills and that makes me crazy. It's lucky that this month is one of the two times a year that I get 3 paycheques. That will help get me straightened out but I need to do more.



I need to cut down some spending. I know that the one area where I'm really bad is with food I eat out of the house. It's probably lucky in some respects that we keep kosher because I can't just eat out anywhere. There are only 5 places in the city where I can eat a real meal. Four of them I never to seldom eat at. Ah, but that fifth one is a killer! It's the cafe in the building where I work. I always used to have breakfast before I went to the office, mostly my protein drink, which costs about $2.50 per serving. Then I started "forgetting" to buy it or not having enough time to have it at home but "forgetting" to bring it with me. And, wonder of wonders, I discovered how much I liked the coffee and giant cinnamon bun at the cafe. Of course it costs more than my protein drink. I think it costs $4.25 but I'm not positive because, worse than having it on a regular basis, I also tab my breakfasts and pay my tab (or pay it down) when I get paid.



Okay, that's bad enough. Then there's lunch. When I'm home I usually make myself a couple of pieces of cinnamon toast and a cup of coffee. Sometimes I have a couple of cookies or brownies too. Other times I barely remember to eat.



When I work the better part of the day at the office I'm usually ravenous by about 11:30 am. And the cafe has really nice food. Sushi ($7.50), a great sandwich ($7.50), salads ($4.95 to $6.95). I think even the cheese pizza is now $2.95 (and I'm not really full afterwards) and the cold drinks are about $2.50. I've been gradually spending more and more money at the cafe, particularly when I have both breakfast and lunch there and I realize that it can't continue at this rate.



No, I'm not going to suddenly start brown bagging it. Sorry. I've tried it and it doesn't work well for me. I never have the time to make it, we don't keep a lot of food on hand like fruits, veggies and salads because They. Always. Go. Bad. Always. In fact, that's probably my second biggest waste of food money. I keep thinking that "this time" I'll really eat that bag of salad (and I'm not talking the family size bag, just the one for one or two people) but I always end up throwing out a half empty bag of liquified lettuce! I'm wasting both food and money. At least, when I eat at the cafe, I'm eating every bite.



But here's what I'm planning to do. Cut out the breakfasts. Just drink my protein drink. It's cheaper, better for me and probably has less calories! For lunch I'll either have a slice of pizza or a $4.95 salad. This again is cheaper than a full meal because I won't buy a pop or a lemonade or Snapple to go with it and it's healthier (the salad at least) because I never eat veggies at home. And it also has less calories. Do you think that possibly those 2 pounds that snuck onto my body recently could have come from all that food I'm eating at lunch?



So, for now, this is the plan. We'll see if it works or if sometime next week I suddenly crack and start stuffing cinnamon buns down my throat! If I just save $5 per day, that's $100 or more every month! And, just maybe, I might finally be able to lose a pound or two.

November Financial Goals

Back on October 26th I wrote that my financial goals for November are:

1. Not to charge anything during the month.
2. To pay off IKEA.
3. To start paying down my MasterCard.

It's 5 days into the month and I've already put money towards MasterCard and have made plans to pay off the IKEA bill a week from today. That feels good. I'd like to put another $100 toward the MasterCard by the end of the month but I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to, what with the other things I need to do.

I also haven't charged anything in the month of November but there's still plenty of month left, so I shouldn't get all proud of myself yet. Besides, until I paid that $83 and change I was so close to my limit that I didn't dare charge anything.

But I did encounter a situation where I might have otherwise been tempted to use my credit card. As you may have heard, Linens N Things is declaring bankruptcy and closing all their stores. I took my Eldest Daughter to IKEA to return something on Sunday and to get some missing parts for something else and we saw the massive signage at LNT (very close by) so we went to check it out.

Prices will probably drop further before people get really excited. Right now things are anywhere from 10% to 30% off, with only things like duvets at the 30% discount right now. I wanted three things and I got two of them. First, I was looking for a wedding present and I found something I liked at a decent price. Second, I needed a curtain rod for those living room curtains I charged a month or two ago. I found a nice, slim rod and some matching finials. The whole thing was 10% off and the finials were also already marked down $10! (Now I just need Hubby to get handy with a drill and put the rod up!)

What I didn't find were comforters in a pattern that will complement the sheets we bought previously at LNT. I was hoping for 2 full/double comforters and there were only a couple of twin size and a king. They have something that looks like a cross between a blanket and a duvet (but very, very thin) in the right colour and size but far too thin to be using instead of a duvet or comforter. Plus, I think they were regularly $79 each, with a 10% discount. The comforters were only $99 each regularly and much warmer and more useful. Of course, that's probably why they're all sold.

Anyway, I bought the items I needed and nothing else! Plus, I used my debit card for them so there's no worrying about how I'll pay for them.

Let's Have an Upbeat Post

I could write lots of doom and gloom stuff right now. The world financial markets seem to be melting down and things aren't any too hot at my house right now either. The car won't be ready until tomorrow because they found something else wrong that has to do with the water pump (more money!) and they had to order the part. I've been doing some financial work in Excel and our money situation is worse than I'd thought. (Denial, it ain't just a river in Egypt....)

But I thought I'd like to write about something a little happier.

Let's talk about smoked turkey instead. I bought half a smoked turkey for Rosh Hashana dinner. It was literally cut down the middle so it included a wing, a leg and half a breast. Since it was already cooked all I had to do was heat it up in the oven and it fed 7 adults and 3 kids (along with half a salmon and a bunch of other food). My youngest son took a plate home as well.

The 3 of us (me, Hubby and DC) had grilled turkey sandwiches after the Fast of Gedaliah (the day after the 2nd day of Rosh Hashana) and they were great. I cut a round challah into slices, we put in heated smoked turkey (my hubby just sauteed it in a little olive oil) and used margarine on the outside of the bread. We grilled them in the frypan (the way you'd do a grilled cheese sandwich) and when they were toasty I opened them up and added mayo and jellied cranberry sauce. Yum! Hubby & I had 2 sandwiches each and Dear Child had one.

For Shabbos lunch I took the carcass, broke it to fit in the crockpot, added a whole onion, about 3 potatoes cut in chunks, 6 to 10 baby carrots, and a little rosemary. I covered the carcass with water and left it in the crockpot overnight on low. It was the best soup. Ever. DC had a 2nd bowl. She has never done that. With anything, especially anything containing meat. I had a 2nd bowl too.

The turkey wasn't cheap. It cost $46 but it gave us 17 servings of food, which works out to $2.71 per serving. I think that's pretty darn good!

Time to Get Real

One of the things about being a compulsive reader is that when I pick up the mail at work I always scan quickly through any papers or magazines. Today my Executive Director got a copy of a paper, Business Edge, and I found a full page ad in it for a Real Estate Income Gain program with the headline: They've discovered the key to aging gracefully. Money.

Okay, then. I guess I won't be aging gracefully because I realized today, more than ever, that I. Don't. Have. Enough. Money. Put. Away.

Coincidentally, today The Simple Dollar featured a reader's mailbag post that inspired the following comment from me:

Hmm. What about if you figure out what you really want from life in the next 15 years (i.e. retirement time), add up how much you need, subtract what you already have put away, divide it to end up with a monthly amount to set aside and discover that this amount is larger than your entire family take home pay for the month?

Admittedly we aren't saving enough right now (about 3% of our gross when we're allowed by the Canadian government to save 18% for retirement plus $2,500 for educational purposes plus $5,000 annually in a tax free savings account, let's say a total of 30% of gross) but even if we saved half our money we still wouldn't be in the ball park (and we'd still have to pay taxes on that other 20%).

That's a little depressing, even leaving aside how unrealistic it would be to go from saving 3% to 30% or 50% overnight. What would you do?

So, let's be clear. I cannot turn around and start saving a lot more money than we're saving right now. For one thing, if I were to do so (or, conversely to somehow increase our income significantly) the money we pay for tuition would go up until we reached the point where we were paying at scale.

So, does that mean I just throw up my hands and give up? Accept that we'll be at the mercy of Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Pension, plus my $100/month annuity and abandon all hope of buying land, etc.? Should we just quit now and move to the country, taking our DC out of school and homeschooling her? Do we just abandon the rest of our family (the adult kids and the grandkids)?

No. I just can't accept that. There has to be another answer. I have to find a way to save at least some more money on a regular basis. I have to make some money getting rid of the things that are stacked beside the front door, waiting for a new home. I have to find a way to pay off our debt and get back into balance so we're not spending more than we make. And I have to find a way to take baby steps continually towards my goals without having great piles of cash.

I don't think there's a quick and easy answer for this, but I'd welcome suggestions that don't violate my religious beliefs.

In the meantime, I'm going to concentrate on the advice in one of Trent's posts from yesterday and make a list of 10 goals to achieve over the next several years and start setting microgoals towards them. I figure if I just keep actively moving in the direction of my goals I have to achieve more than I'm doing currently, even if I'm taking teeny tiny baby steps!

Still Talking About Grocery Prices

I'm still thinking about the cost of food after my last post about things that were cheaper at Superstore. And, as often happens when something is on my mind, I came across a couple of related articles (in this case, on MSN Money about buying groceries for less). Some of the information in the articles shocked me.

First of all, I do always take American data with a grain of salt when I compare it to Canadian costs. Even when the dollar is roughly at par and even when we live about 40 miles from the border, costs are never the same. Some things are cheaper, some pricier, some the same. But it was still an eye opener.

The first article Can A Family Eat on $100 A Week? was a one week trial for a family of 4 to eat on $100 per week. The author, Melinda Fulmer, said she knew it wouldn't be easy because the food stamp allowance for a family of that size is $117! She admitted to regularly spending close to $250 per week, somewhat above the $182 Uncle Sam considers "moderate" for a family of 4. I've been trying to reduce my spending after I realized we were regularly exceeding my budgeted $150/week, totalling about $800 per month. So, I'm actually close to the "moderate" category and spend less than the Fulmer's usual budget even though I buy exclusively kosher foods and a fair bit of junk.

What were the ground rules for the experiment? Well, there were a few. The food all had to come from major chain stores, not Costco or ethnic markets. She couldn't use coupons and the food had to be relatively healthful. Plus, non food items like paper towels didn't count.

What sorts of things did Fulmer buy and which purchases seemed questionable to me? The article made a big deal out of the fact that all the meals had to be carefully planned, with allowance for snacks and it had to appeal to everyone. Some of her "healthful" food items caused me to raise my eyebrows: pretzels and luncheon meat in particular. And some things weren't things I would consider inexpensive, like cheese (I pay about $7 for 8 oz, but I do know that cheese in general is cheaper in the US than in Canada and that kosher cheese probably costs twice what non-kosher costs) or meat. She bought boneless pork shoulder, chicken breasts and round steak on sale (though she didn't say what the price was or how much she bought). Other than possibly the round steak, are any of those really economical cuts of meat?

I obviously know less than nothing about buying pork, but boneless anything always costs more. And chicken breasts are the most expensive part of the bird. I was looking at chicken for Friday night dinner last week and almost bought a pack of 4 thighs because they're the cheapest cut (other than the packs of necks, which I don't think are safe with a small child and all those little bones). All the packs of thighs were in the $8 to $9 range but they were much cheaper than the breasts. I ultimately bought B fry, which is beef sliced like bacon, cut it up into little pieces and fried it up with purple onion, garlic and mushrooms and served it over seasoned couscous. I think it was about $4/lb (I'm not hunting for the receipt right now). For our other meat meal I bought 2 turkey legs for under $9 and cooked one in the crockpot with potatoes and carrots. That means I have another meal left from that pack so I spent under $10 this week on meat (less than my usual $15 to $20).


Did they manage to stay within the $100 limit for the week? No, but they came close. She only spent $105.03 and was only over because of 2 splurges. However, she didn't feel they could replicate this week in and week out. I agree. For one thing, she was able to use food already in her pantry, such as flour, oil and spices. Eventually, the food you already have on hand runs out and you have to buy something that takes a disproportionately large bite out of the budget. Besides that, it was too drastic a change from what the family was accustomed to. Fulmer herself said she overspent (over the $250/week mark) the following week but that a regular budget of $175/week might be fairly realistic and doable. Making that change alone could save her $3,600 per year (or $108,000 in 30 years)!


The second article featured MP Dunleavy's attempt to cut their $400/month grocery bill (for 2 adults and a 1 year old) in half! Now, Mia is sometimes discussed in fairly dismissive terms by financial bloggers and commenters because of her sometimes imprudent spending (given her position as a paid financial columnist), so it was pretty surprising to see just how little she spends on food. Cutting that amount in half successfully seemed unlikely.

How did it go? Right from the start it seemed clear that Mia and her hubby were not on the same page regarding this experiment. He went out on the very first day and spent $48.85, but not on the things they'd discussed! About a week later he went to the store with strict instructions to spend no more than $40 and spent $73! He also seemed to have a bit of an attitude (expressed as, "I'm not going to eat Kraft Dinner"). Well, lah di dah. If you run out of money before you run out of month what are you going to do?

Then there's the small matter of cheating. They "found" $26 in her hubby's pants and used that for beer, lime Tostitos, expensive cheddar and breakfast out but didn't count it towards their total. Why? They spent it on food. The "windfall" aspect of it shouldn't matter. Presumably they weren't cutting back to $200 because they were short $200 that month. It was an experiment in trying to cut back.

Their final total was $300.77, including about $80 over Thanksgiving. Plus the $26, of course. But they didn't feel like they'd failed. Really? You normally spend $400, but want to spend $200. In the end you spend just under $327, only a $73 saving for the month instead of a $200 saving. But you haven't failed? Their rationalization was that they'd saved $100 (instead of the $73 they'd actually saved) and that would add up to $36,000 in 30 years. Her hubby, Matthew Perry, actually said "That's a chunk of our son's education money." Umm, your son is already a year old. Won't he be going on to university some time before his 31st birthday?

So where does all this leave me? I'm not sure. I mean, maybe I should feel better about the amount I spend since people on food stamps get $117 per week and they're sure not buying kosher meat and cheese! But, really, what does that have to do with my bottom line? If I can't afford to spend $700 to $800 per month on food then I need to cut back because I'm tired of my outgo exceeding my income! It doesn't matter what someone else pays. I should do the best I can, not base my spending on any kind of average.

If the Price is Right

Last night I meant to write about price differences. Differences in grocery prices and gas prices and how difficult it can be at times to keep up and get the best deal. But, by the time I did the shopping and came home I was too exhausted to write about it.

I went grocery shopping last night to 2 different stores. I had a very short time frame for getting to Superstore and shopping there after I finished working at 10:30 pm. Actually, even being able to get to Superstore after work is something new. They used to close earlier but recently started staying open until 11 pm. I arrived about 10:45 pm and moved as quickly as I could inside the store.

The Bolthouse protein drink I have every morning has always been $1.10 cheaper at Superstore and is one of the reasons I went there. I bought 4 big bottles, which would have cost $4.99 each at Safeway. I was expecting to pay $3.89 but the shelf sign actually said 2/$6. So I got 8 breakfasts for $12, or $1.50 each (for 20 grams of protein).

The other things I buy at Superstore on a regular basis are European style bread, butter, sour cream, pistachio nuts, packaged cookies and foil pans. Last night I bought all of those except the foil pans. Some of them (the bread, sour cream and cookies) are only available there. The other items are a better buy. For example, a pound of Lactantia butter is cheaper at Superstore than Safeway, but the President's Choice brand (also kosher) is even cheaper.

Last night I checked the prices of a few other items I needed and bought them there. Kleenex tissues are $4.07 at Safeway. Here they were $2.37! Goodies (a candy coated licorice candy) are $2.65 at Safeway and $1.85 at Superstore. I also bought President's Choice mayo instead of Kraft for at least $2 cheaper but I've never tried it before so we'll see how it tastes.

Prices like these make me want to shop there but Superstore comes with some big drawbacks too. I don't like the produce, the lines at the checkouts are long and many people have heaped carts, so it takes forever to go through the checkout. They don't bag your groceries and you have to pay for plastic bags or bring your own. Besides that, it's out of my way, so it costs more in gas to go there, plus I spend more time standing in line.

But I want to save money, so I think I'll start planning to go to Superstore every 2 weeks. That way I get the better prices, but don't spend too much on gas, etc.

As for gas, the prices rise and fall on a regular basis, much more quickly than the price of a barrel of oil changes and with little visible reason. Since we buy our gas by the litre a change of 4 or 5 cents is equivalent to something like 16 to 20 cents per gallon, so the swings in price are actually pretty significant.

When I went to Superstore I drove past a Chevron station where the advertised price was $1.379. I didn't stop because then Superstore would have closed, but I headed back about half an hour later. As I left the Superstore parking lot, I saw another station with a price of $1.426 and started worrying. Then I passed a Petrocan advertising $138.8 but the Chevron was now also $1.426. I turned around and headed back to the Petrocan.

Let me just interject for a moment and explain a peculiarity of gas pricing in the Greater Vancouver area. A number of years ago the price on the sign used to be the same as the price at the pump. Then a few stations started offering a 3.5 cent discount to "members" (this was actually Petrocan, if I remember correctly). Shortly all the other stations were also offering 3.5 cents off the posted price but without requiring any membership. This has carried on to this day, but only in the Greater Vancouver area. If you go further out into the Fraser Valley gas prices drop slightly (due to less taxes) but the posted price is now the price at the pump.

Are you confused yet? I got to the Petrocan and discovered that the $138.8 they were advertising was the price at the pump. Another 3.5 cent discount was available only to persons with a Petrocan points card. If you also paid with a certain specific credit card you could get yet another 2 cents off. By this time it was almost 11:15 pm and I couldn't be bothered going elsewhere but I was somewhat ticked off. The $1.426 at Chevron would have actually been $1.391 so my "saving" at the Petrocan was really only a small fraction of a cent. Still, it was a far better price than I'd seen recently, so I put in $40 (my tank was almost completely empty).

Then I had to drive in a somewhat convoluted way to get to Safeway. On my way there I passed another Chevron and another Petrocan. They were both advertising gas for less, so I stopped at the Petrocan and the pump price was now a) 3.5 cents below the sign and b) it was for $136.9! I put in another $20, which finished filling my tank. But I was mad that I'd put in the rest at the higher price.

This morning, some 8 or 9 hours later, gas was selling everywhere at a posted price of $144.6 ($141.1 at the pump). So the rise and fall of gas prices is like a game. It goes down at night and then back up in time for rush hour. When our new 2.4 cent carbon tax went in at the beginning of the month almost all our local stations were advertising gas over $1.50. Now I can get it again under the $1.40 mark if I watch the signs like a hawk. Plus, what was this nonsense with two Petrocan stations (10 minutes from each other) not only selling at 2 different prices but one only offering the 3.5 cent discount to "members"?

I don't want to buy another car. This one is paid for and runs well. I don't need to add a car payment to our financial situation. But I would like a car that is super-economical on gas because playing these gas games is really irritating!

Tempted by the Sidewalk Sale

I had to stop at the mall today on the way home and they're having a sidewalk sale. In order to get to Safeway I had to run the gauntlet of all the tables and racks and I was very, very tempted.

A high end dress store that sells mostly wedding and special occasion ware had a few racks out and one skirt caught my eye. It was a filmy, iridescent dark blue skirt that was cut shorter in the front (a little below knee length) and floor length behind. It had lace and sequins appliqued on it and it was just gorgeous. Regular price? A hair under $400! I think it was marked down the first time to $150, but it had been marked down a second time to $59.99.

I wanted it. It was marked as being a little smaller than I normally take, but it didn't look like it was really that small. I almost picked it up and tried it on. But if I had and it had fit me, I would have had to buy it and I don't have any money right now. (In fact I'm in overdraft because I didn't transfer money out of my ING vacation pay fund to cover the 3 days of vacation I took last pay period.)

I had my credit card on me, but I've promised myself I won't use it unless it's necessary (like the time I had to charge $3 for parking at a government building because I don't carry cash and they didn't take Interac). I wanted the skirt but I couldn't convince myself that it was necessary even though I know it won't still be there on Wednesday when I get paid.

So, then I went by the book store and bought a book from one of the remainder tables. But that's okay. I paid $5.66 for a hard cover book that will give me something interesting to read on Shabbos (when I can't watch TV or be on the computer). Speaking of which, I'm off to prepare the dinner I tried to start last week by mistake.

We're having salmon with mayonnaise, dill and parmesan cheese, potatoes and green peas with butter. Challah buns and white grape juice. No wine this week because I can't afford to spend $15 or more. Tomorrow we have BBQ chicken and homemade potato salad.

Shabbat Shalom!

Feeding Frenzy

There is no getting around it; we spend way too much money on food. I’ve been going through our receipts and, even though I don’t have my hubby’s receipts yet, we’ve already spent at least $760 on food this month! That includes grocery (food) items, meat, liquor, junk food and food eaten out, but not household products or grooming products (so not toilet paper or hair gel). Since I only want to spend $600 or less that means we’re incredibly over budget.

This is why entering everything you spend into a spreadsheet can be so helpful. I had no idea we were going over by that much. It’s crazy and we have very plain meals during the week (things like tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, French toast, pasta, noodle soups and tuna melts). I usually buy meat (or occasionally fish) for Friday night and Saturday dinner (midday) but that’s a maximum of about $20 per week. We definitely need to cut down on junk food and I ought to eat out less (although I usually only eat lunch out twice a week and we seldom go out as a family).

We haven’t been able to figure out why we’re so short of money and it’s obvious that black holes like our grocery “budget” are contributing to that. And, yes, kosher food is expensive but that’s not the whole story. We’re all about the convenience. I do most of my shopping at a Safeway because it’s directly on my way home from work and it’s open at the strange hours I tend to shop, but prices for certain things we buy regularly are more expensive there than at the Superstore (about 30 blocks away). I know it costs more in gas (another black hole that I was just discussing the other day) to go to Superstore but it might still make sense to go even once every 2 weeks and buy the things that are notably cheaper.

For example, I drink half a Bolthouse protein drink every morning for breakfast. The big bottles cost 4.99 at Safeway and I occasionally end up buying a small bottle for 2.99 (or 2.50 on sale) if they don’t have the large bottles in stock. Mornings that I’m out of my drink I spend more money on an inferior breakfast at work ($3.75 for a decaf coffee and chocolate muffin that taste great but don’t provide anywhere near the 20 grams of protein I get from the Bolthouse drink). But, if I go to Superstore, I can get the big bottles for $3.89 each. For 7 large bottles (a 2 week supply) the difference would be $7.70 and there are things I have to go to Superstore for anyway because they aren’t available kosher at Safeway.

It’s actually going to get worse because our youngest goes to kindergarten in the fall and will have to start taking a formal lunch, complete with 2 snacks, a sandwich and a drink. This is a real pain because she’s a very picky eater and doesn’t really like much in the way of sandwiches (and, of course, there are no nut products allowed in school because of allergies). She also often doesn’t like whatever we’re having for dinner, much less want to have it cold the next day, which pretty much kills leftovers. Making school lunches she’ll eat is going to be another real challenge as I try to get a handle on our grocery spending.

I think I’m going to have to do a follow up post on this after we get home and I have a chance to go through hubby’s spending too. I’ll post some new goals for July (and look at how I did with June’s goals) once I’m home and have access to everything.

I know Krystal’s Transportation Challenge for July is going to be just that—challenging—but I’m really glad she’s been doing them. I’m learning a lot.

Putting a Price on Paradise

Intensely blue sky, little puffy white clouds, sagebrush and pine. That’s the picture out of my dining room window. There are days I can look out and see mountain goats climbing around on the hilltop and pretty well every day I can see big groups of quail running around and Stellar’s Jays flying from fencepost to tree branch. In late May the big hedges of lilacs were in full bloom, scenting the air.

This is why I love the country. This is why I want to retire here and grow lavender and grapes and have a big English style garden. I’m happier here than anywhere else, which is no small thing in life.

But there are bills to pay to make that happen and it seems there are more of them every time I turn around. I got my Rural Property Tax assessment the last time I was here and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was only $123. I got here yesterday and discovered the reason it’s so low is that the garbage disposal costs had been removed and billed separately, along with the water. Now, the water I knew about but the extra $120 bill for the garbage was unexpected.

The property tax is due in July; the garbage bill is due in August. I’ll manage to dig up the money for them but after that I’ll have to start putting $20/month away so I’ll be prepared next year.

The water is a flat rate of $345 per year or $28.75 per month. I become responsible for that in October and will have to pay it monthly. So, my costs for this house, including the cost of the land, will be a total of $257 per month plus electricity (and gas, if we ever find a gasfitter to get the fireplace hooked up). Add to that the cost of fuel oil (about $50/month, based on a little under 2 tanks per year) and we’re paying $307 per month for our little slice of heaven.

That would be incredibly economical if we were living here full-time (even though our electric bill would go up and we’d end up putting in satellite and high speed internet) but it’s a bit pricey for the amount of time we actually spend here. We can’t spend long stretches of time here due to work and childcare issues plus the cost of gasoline has increased dramatically since we first started looking for property.

The car takes roughly 50 litres of gas and we use 1½ tanks on average actually driving here and back, plus driving around while we’re here. When gas was $0.79/litre our cost was $59.25. Gas is currently around $1.45/litre, so the same trip now costs $108.75! It hasn’t quite doubled, but it’s getting close. And coming by myself on the Greyhound costs $118.76, so I don’t save any money that way.

I’d love to come here every weekend in the summer and every 2 to 3 weeks in the winter (when we can generally only stay for one day). But the reality is that I can’t possibly afford to do so. We’ve been spending close to $10/day for gas in town recently, or about $250/month. Add even 2 trips to the house per month and that brings our gas expenses to almost $470/month! Coming every week would run us a stunning $700 per month! That is so not possible for us.

Now, we are going to try to cut back somewhat in town but it remains to be seen how much we’ll be able to save there. If we can save $5 per workday that would be about $110 per month (the equivalent of one trip to the house) but we’d also have to pay for a bus pass out of that, so our real saving would be about $40 per month.

What’s the solution? In the short term, it’s to make more money and use the cash to pay the credit cards back down. Once we no longer have payments to make to them we’ll be able to redirect the money we’re spending there in other, more life-enhancing ways. I also want to find ways to reduce the cost of some other things, notably our cell phones and bank charges. I was stunned to realize that bank charges on our 3 bank accounts (well, four, but ING doesn’t have any charges) total a minimum of $42.35 per month! If I actually use my overdraft protection I also pay overdraft interest but that’s the least of my worries. The last time I used it, I was charged a whole $0.12! Twelve cents I can handle, but paying just over $500 per year merely to have our bank accounts is outrageous.

In the long term, the solution is to arrange our lives so that we can move here permanently. That’s not something I expect to happen overnight. We’re scheduled to retire in 15 or 16 years and that would be the longest time before we could move here. The minimum would be 4 years (when my youngest granddaughter will go to kindergarten full-time) but the most realistic assessment is probably about 8 years from now when our youngest Dear Child will be entering high school. At that point it’s fairly likely we’d be sending her away to school anyway so where we live matters much less.

Even if there is a suitable girls high school in our city by that time she could potentially stay in the city with her sister (seeing as we live in the same house already anyway) while we lived in the country and we’d bring her back and forth every other weekend or so and she could spend the summer and other holiday times with us.

So, I’m facing eight more years of living my life in bits and pieces. Can I handle that? I guess I can deal with fragmenting my life so long as the costs to do so don’t increase too much more. But I look out at the sunshine and that beautiful blue sky and, for now, it’s worth it!

I’m off to relax before Shabbat, which doesn’t start until just after 9 pm tonight (the latest it ever gets). We’re having an easy dinner. Honey garlic chicken wings that will just take a few minutes to reheat, potato salad and coleslaw tonight. Roast beef on challah buns with potato salad and chips tomorrow (when it’s supposed to be very hot). I’ll pick up a bottle of wine on my way home now from posting this, so I’m not sure what I’ll get. The liquor store here does stock a number of kosher Israeli wines but I don’t know what’s actually on the shelves at the moment.

Shabbat Shalom!

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Spending Less

Yesterday I talked about earning more money. Today I want to think about ways to spend less.

This is not easy for me. I looked at my budget recently and I was hard pressed to come up with any areas where I could reasonably expect to cut back. That's not to say that my budget is so lean and mean that I have no unnecessary expenditures. Frankly, my family is loath to give up our few creature comforts and I don't have the ability to impose a restrictive regime unilaterally.

We both have cell phones and my husband requires his for work. In fact, he receives some kind of allowance towards the cost of it. I find having a cell is important to me, especially when we go to our other house (where we have no land line). I recently made changes to my plan to try to optimize it for the types of calls I make and for the coverage I needed to improve my service (although that seems to be only marginally better).

What about giving up the land line? Well, I've read a number of posts on VoIP and I'm not convinced that this is the solution for us. The 911 issue is very troubling to me, especially when you consider that I spend about half the week alone all day with 3 active little girls. And my cell service in the house still leaves much to be desired. One second the connection is fine. The next second I have no service and I haven't moved an inch. I'd hate to be relaying important medical information and lose the connection. And this is not purely theoretical. One of the girls just got a cast off. She broke her arm mountain climbing on the couch.

Cable TV? Over my hubby's dead body! He's a huge hockey fan and watches all the games (plus football, plus...) and he wouldn't be pleased in the least if we even cut back on our service. Of course, the cable and satellite providers are very clever and put many of the most popular channels in the premium tier. Anyway, the subject is pretty well moot now that we live in the same house as my adult daughter and her family. We combined our cable when we moved in together and they'd have to agree too (the service is in their name and we just pay our share of the bill). Considering that they just bought a big screen HDTV LCD TV I'm thinking the answer is "No".

We only have one car and my husband uses it for sales calls so we can't get rid of it, although his office is in the process of moving and I think he'll ride his bike to work at least part of the time (when he doesn't plan to be out of the office during the day and when the weather co-operates). We also drive back and forth to the other house anywhere from once a week to once in 6 weeks. I spoke to my hubby about doing small things to improve gas mileage, although he seemed to feel it wasn't worth it.

We're not going to downsize our home. We've been seriously underhoused for several years and have only just moved in with my adult daughter and her family into an adequately sized area (between 800 and 900 square feet for me, hubby, DC and Dog). The good thing is that we've now eliminated the 3 storage containers we had previously. It's nice to finally have all our possessions accessible. It'll be even nicer when they're not all in boxes!

So, what can I do? Well, the one thing I've just done is to cancel my community centre membership. That's $43 and change every month we'll save. I know we need to cut down on the amount we spend on eating out (which includes eating at work and buying junk food) and so I'm going to take part in krystalatwork's June Dining Out challenge. We need to get better at paying things in a timely manner, so we're not paying late fees!

Over and above all of that, we need to just need to pay off the credit card debt so that we're not making those payments every month! It's frustrating because we've been credit card debt free at least twice in the past. I want to get back to that point and then not go back into credit card debt!