All Kinds Of Random

The job search continues ... nothing back from the most promising leads yet, but I refuse to give up!  Sooner or later something will happen for me, even if it's only something to pay me a living wage while I look for something better.


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I'm happy to report that the food waste for the last two weeks consisted of one-half a baked potato skin  -  we were just too full to stuff & eat the last one  -  and the skin off my share of last weekend's barbecued salmon.  And even that wasn't really wasted, since Big Guy ended up giving it to the Dog.  I don't count the few wilted veggies from the back of the fridge, since the guinea pigs happily gobble those up.


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It rained for a few days, so I spent a lot of time catching up on my blog reading, and following links from old favourites to a number of new favourites.  Isn't that always the way?  One link leads to another ... and another ... and another ... and before you know it, there goes the weekend!

Funny thing, though.  There are a gazillion "green" blogs, and a gazillion "frugal" blogs, but surprisingly few that put the two things together other than in an incidental "oh-by-the-way-this-might-save-money-too" kind of way.

Why is that?  Yes, I know that organic is more expensive than non-organic, and truly green cleaning products and recycled paper products are too.  But isn't there some way to do as much as we can afford to?  Do we have to choose either green or frugal?

Granted, with both of us unemployed, Big Guy and I just can't afford to go all-organic/all-natural/all-recycled in the grocery store... but we still manage to combine green and frugal in lots of ways:

Bar soap  -  we buy whatever non-scented, non-added-to soap is on sale ... and when the pieces get really small, I collect them and tie them into one of those mesh bags our fresh garlic came in, and hang it by the basement sink for grimy-from-the-workshop-or-garden hand washing.

Paper towels  -  are only used for draining bacon.  Which we buy in bulk slabs and slice ourselves, for about half the price of sliced bacon.

Pest control  -  we put out cat chow for the local skunk, so we don't have rats or mice.  We encourage ladybugs in the garden.  We scatter coffee grounds around the base of the rhubarb and tomato plants, so we don't have much snail/slug damage.  Fruit trees are patrolled by the cats. so the birds and squirrels are (slowly, I admit) learning to leave the fruit alone.  And I plant marigolds between the veggies to deter other bugs.

Laundry  -  we've never used fabric softener because of Big Guy's allergies.  Everything gets washed in cold water and whatever enviro-friendly detergent was on sale  -  and a lot less of it than the "recommended" amount!  -  and hung up to dry; towels do go in the dryer once they're dry, but just a few minutes on the no-heat "fluff" cycle to beat the stiffness out of them.  Because if I don't do that ... well, next time you shower, dry yourself off with a cedar shingle and you'll know exactly why I do that!

Groceries  -  we do buy in bulk and stock up at case lot sales, but I won't let him put anything in the cart unless all of the packaging is recyclable.  And I always have our reusable canvas bags handy  -  no plastic bags, thank you!

I guess my bottom line is that life is full of compromises, and I have to find the best compromise I can between what's completely "green" and what we can afford to do.


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It looks as though I'm going to have to bite the bullet and either a) leave my herb garden until next year, or b) break down and buy bedding plants instead of starting from seeds.  Sigh.  If I can find the bedding plants, I'll probably get them; I don't want to wait another whole year and a half for my own homegrown mint tea.  (There are times when I think the universe just doesn't want me to have a garden ...)


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A couple of weeks ago, Big Guy scattered a whole bunch of lime on the front so-called lawn, trying to kill the moss.  Well, as of today the moss is still there, but instead of greener grass in most of the yard, we have a beautiful lush cover of new clover!  I wonder if I can persuade him that the entire lawn should be clover, not grass?  More clover means more honeybees, which means more fruits and vegetables get pollinated ... plus it wouldn't need to be mowed nearly as often, and the cuttings make great guinea pig fodder ... hmmm.  I'll work on that!

It's Official

We got it in writing on Wednesday ... the office is closing much sooner than we expected.  My last day at work will be December 30th.  Happy New Year.

My first thought was "I'm glad I didn't do much Christmas shopping yet."  My second was "I'm glad Big Guy is still working."  I'm ashamed to say it took me until the third thought to feel badly for N (our office manager / supervisor), who has a little one at home and whose husband's work has been somewhat sporadic lately (not his fault in the slightest, the work just isn't there).

So, here I am again  -  job-hunting in an economy that's as unsettled as it was the last time I was laid off, with even bleaker prospects in my particular field.  

And in a corporate move that really adds insult to injury, I get to spend part of my remaining time at work training my replacement!  Now, I'll do the very best I can with her in the inadequate time I have  -  because honestly, even if she spent a month sitting with me all day every day, it wouldn't be enough to teach her everything.  But a couple of hours a day on the phone isn't going to cut it, and I feel badly for her.  I'll do everything I can for her  -  none of this was her doing, and I'm certainly not going to throw her under the bus just because I'm not happy with upper management.  I have to admit, though, that there's a not-so-nice part of me hoping that said management will shortly come to realize how badly they shot themselves in the foot with this particular decision.  I'm also deriving a bit of satisfaction from hoping they all lie awake every night through the holiday season, feeling guilty about their execrably poor timing and the effect it's having on all of our families.

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Yesterday's gathering went really well, even though there were some last-minute no-shows.  We talked and laughed and ate  -  and  ate  -  and ate  -  and enjoyed each others' company.  I ended up pressing containers of food on everyone to take home, because there was so much more left than I expected.  There are still enough leftovers that Big Guy and I won't have to make work lunches until at least Wednesday, and today I asked him to please not make anything large for tonight's dinner because there is no space in the fridge for any more leftovers!

Now it's time to get creative with gifts.  The stocking stuffers will be easy  -  traditionally, everyone gets socks and a chocolate orange (addictive, those!) in their stockings, so there isn't too much space left to fill.  A trip to the dollar store will take care of the stockings nicely, and with luck provide a few other gifts.  Thrift stores are always good too  -  in fact, Value Village is daughter P's first choice for gift cards!  I raised her well ... I just wish I'd known a couple of months ago that the layoff was coming; I would have made time to make more gifts myself.

I'll spend this afternoon redoing my shopping list, and shop on my way home from work every day.  We have Friday the 23rd off, so anything I haven't acquired yet will have to be picked up then.  Friday evening is Chinese food and Miracle On 34th Street with Mom and sister S, and Saturday is for wrapping and tree-trimming, and watching White Christmas and The Muppets' Christmas Carol and the original Grinch and Alistair Sim as Scrooge.

So ... my house is cleaned and decorated (except for the tree), I have plenty of homemade goodies on hand, and a plan for an affordable holiday.  I'm more determined than ever to enjoy my family, count my blessings, and not let a little thing like unemployment stop me from having a wonderful time!

Things I Learned The Hard Way Part One: Shopping

There are so many things I had to learn them the hard way ...  Basic, frugal tips and techniques that I had to figure out for myself; some based on the principle that price is not always the bottom line, others relating to doing instead of buying.  Today's post is the first of several "roundups", if you will, of the things I wish I'd been taught before I left home instead of having to figure them out on my own.

For example, dollar stores.

Dollar stores (at least in Canada) are great places to pick up stationery, school and office supplies, gift wrap/bags/boxes, cards of all kinds, insulated lunch bags, cotton swabs, cotton balls, bar soap, travel sized shampoos/conditioner/lotion, razor blades, sport socks, storage containers, laundry baskets, plastic or wooden hangers,clothespins, sewing notions, craft supplies, tea towels, facecloths, hand or kitchen towels, freezer bags, glassware, candles, incense, matches, foil products, party supplies, ashtrays, ice trays, sponges and cleaning brushes, hair ties/clips/pins/bands, combs and hairbrushes, toothbrushes, kids' party favours, toothpicks, and all kinds of housewares, kitchen gadgets, and holiday decorations.

Dollar stores are not a good place to go for first aid items (other than elastic bandages and the cheap bandaids the kids go through a gazillion of), food, or anything else that goes in your mouth, such as toothpaste, vitamins or supplements, or OTC medications.  They are also not a good place to get your blank cd's/dvd's/videotapes/audiotapes, batteries, light bulbs, extension cords, or anything that plugs in or uses batteries.

Then there are the supermarket store brands, and the "no-name" or generic items.

Store/house/generic brands can be good value for the money, but you have to try them and compare them with the brands you used to buy.  What at first looks like a great price may not work out so well in the long run ... 

I found that while the generic frozen vegetables were just as good as the higher-priced brands, the canned vegetables were not; they were usually mushier, saltier, and had much less flavour.  Generic canned soups, though, are generally good, as are generic dry soup mixes.  Generic spices are just as good, and can be bought in bulk in most supermarkets here.  The same goes for soup mixes, pastas and noodles, baking supplies, pickles, nuts, raisins/dried fruit, peanut butter, hot and cold cereals, rice, beans, dried vegetables, holiday candy of all kinds, and syrups.  Generic ketchup is thin and watery; don't waste your money.  I'm still looking for generic soy sauce, which we go through at an astonishing rate.  Generic dryer sheets (if you use them) are good value as long as you get the unscented ones.  Generic vitamins, supplements, and OTC medications are by law  (at least in Canada) exactly the same as name brands.

The no-name products I find to be a waste of money:

Any liquid cleaning product  -  dish soap, laundry soap, shampoo  -  they are all so watered-down that by the time you've managed to get the job done, you've used so much more than you would have with a good name-brand product that it's actually costing you more.

Almost all paper products  -  toilet paper, paper towels, tissues  -  so thin and skimpy, and so much less in the package, that again you will end up using more and so spending more.

Pet food.  Mostly cheap fillers.  If you love your animals  -  and if you don't, you shouldn't have them in the first place  -  do not cheap out on their food.

I'm not going to mention thrift stores or yard sales today  -  they're for a later post.  Some of the other topics I'm planning to cover are:

Making do and making it work
Learn to do it yourself
Get creative with what you've got

Stick around!  You might even learn something  -  or teach me something!  Questions, comments  -  share your less-than-common frugal tips, tricks, and insights.

Debates & Decisions

When it comes to money, Big Guy and I are not always on the same page ... sometimes I don't think we're even in the same book!  This can often lead to what I prefer to call "spirited debates".

Our television is twenty years old.  Granted, that's still two years younger than my car and fifteen years younger than the freezer, but it's starting to suffer from electronic senility; the picture wobbles now and then, the vertical hold is losing its grip,and volume control is becoming a sometime thing.

However ... the big chest freezer, as noted above, is almost twice as old.  And it is also starting to show its age.  The gasket is starting to leak (unless you lean really hard on the lid when you close it), it takes longer to freeze things all the way through, and doesn't freeze anything as rock-hard as it used to.  This is rapidly  -  in my view  -  going to become an active health hazard due to incomplete/insufficient freezing of food, and I can see myself very soon simply refusing to eat anything that was in it.  Plus, due to its age, it cost a lot more to run, even full, than a new one would.

Now, we rely very heavily on that freezer.  We buy in bulk on sale, we cook and I bake in bulk, he hunts, we go fishing, we have a garden and fruit trees  -  we need a freezer we can depend on.  And this one is rapidly approaching the point where we can't depend on it.

Here's where the "spirited debate" ensues ... 

He sees the television in the living room every day.  He doesn't see the freezer in the basement every day.  Therefore the television takes up more space in his conscious mind, and so to him is more of a priority on the list of things needing replacement.  Every point I try to make about food safety versus mere entertainment is countered with "There's nothing wrong with that freezer" or "A little freezer burn never hurt anybody" or "Ice cream is supposed to be scoopable" or "That just means things don't take as long to defrost, that's not a bad thing".

Standoff. 

Big Guy's take on things is that we need a new television but I want a new freezer for no good reason that he can see.

My take on things is that we need a new freezer, and a new television after we replace the freezer would be nice if we can afford it.

And people wonder why he doesn't know I have a nice healthy savings account ....

The Return Of Randomness

I haven't posted for a while, for several reasons.

1)  The death of our beloved pet hit me very hard.  She was such an important part of our lives for eighteen years, and we are still devastated and heartbroken.  It's only in the last couple of days I've been able to talk about her without weeping ... and kind words about her from others are still enough to set off the tears.

2)  I'm finally starting to recover from what I thought was just a nasty cold but turned out to be a serious bout of bronchitis.  It started to fade, then came roaring back, and left me with no energy to do anything except go to work, come home, and lie down.  I've finally stopped coughing, but I still get tired much faster than I'm used to.

3)  In spite of everything else, I still had to go to work every day; we are an office of 5, only one of whom could have covered for me.  She was out of province (business), which meant that instead of taking sick days, I was there far more hours than usual covering for her.

You may have noticed that I've rearranged my sidebar items.  I realized that I really hardly ever spend money on anything I don't need.  The cough medicine, for instance, turned out to be the only way I could get even three or four hours of sleep per night, and certainly I never would have made it through a single day at work without it.  So I've removed it from the (renamed) "Extra Spending" list.  You'll see, though, that I've added my annual purchase of coffee direct from the plantation in Costa Rica.  Yes, it looks expensive ... but I don't drink it every day; it's my only real "treat" and believe me, I'll make that twenty pounds of (in my opinion) the world's best coffee go a long way.  I'll also be giving some as birthday or Yule gifts to a select few who appreciate it as much as I do, and sharing it with fellow coffee lovers on movie nights.  Break that annual expenditure down to $13.25 a month for personal treats and gifts, and it's eminently affordable within our current budget.

I've also decided to keep track of what I've labeled "Serendipitous Income"  -  money from unexpected or unplanned sources.  On-line surveys, coupon and club card savings, deposit containers found and redeemed, that kind of thing.  I will include any overtime I get paid for, because I don't go to work planning to stay late.  I will not, however, include my tax refund when it comes in, because I did plan for it, and have plans for where it will go.  The overtime from May alone will cover my new passport and my coffee order, and still leave over $200 to go into savings.

Project update:  there isn't one, really.  The sweater is put together at last, but the darning in of loose ends has still to be done, and the workroom organizing is on hold until I'm healthy enough to haul boxes around without wheezing.  For the same reason, the basement-clearing project is also on "pause"  -  though whenever I go down to do laundry, or tend to the litterbox (yes, we still have one cat), or get something from the freezer, I'll try to remember to do one thing towards the cleanup, even if it's just putting away an empty canning jar or two.  Baby steps.

Spring gardening hasn't even started yet; we've had a month of low temperatures, sunny weekdays, and rainy weekends  -  frustrating, since weekends are the only time we have for garden/yard work.  But we'll get there eventually.  My fruit trees all blossomed nicely, and I'm hoping there were enough dry days for the bees to pollinate well and so get us a good crop.  We don't expect any cherries or pears for a couple more years, but the black currants, plums and apples  -  we hope  -  should do well.  I don't know if the growing season will be long enough, or warm and dry enough, for a decent tomato crop.  The herbs will go in containers this year and with luck I'll find a way to keep the squirrels from nibbling them all down to nothing again.  Rhubarb always does well  -  I don't think we could kill it with napalm  -  and I'd like to put in some raspberry canes.

The coupon insert in this morning's paper had several good two-for-one offers on laundry detergent, (recyclable) plastic food storage containers, and other household basics.  An hour after clipping the coupons, I found out that a very dear friend and her husband are both out of work and really struggling financially right now.  So I will use the coupons this week, and set what I buy aside for my friend.  And I'll raid my stockpile of toiletries as well, and add some of our homemade jams and pickles from last fall. I know she won't be offended; we've helped each other out like that countless times over the years.  For us, that's always been a really big part of what friendship is about  -  being there for each other.  I'm only sorry I can't do more, and sorry that it's not later in the year so I could take her apples and plums and tomatoes too!

Now I think I'll go do some mending.  That pile has to get smaller eventually!

Connections

Lately I've been thinking about connections.  More specifically, about how a random thought, a phrase overheard by chance, a glimpse of something caught in passing, can lead us to renew connections with people or places or things that we hadn't even realized we'd missed.

I was walking from the Skytrain station to the office last week  -  taking the same route I always take  -  when I looked up at a building I'd been passing twice every day and suddenly realized that was where my friend E was working when I was at my old job.  I wondered if she was still there; later that day I made a call and found out she'd left that job at about the same time I was laid off.  But ... I didn't know that the person I talked to would call E the same day to let her know I'd been asking asking.  End result?  E learned where I was working, called me, and we're getting together next weekend.  As it happened, not long after we lost touch, E had moved out to this area and now lives about a ten-minute walk from my house!  I'm looking forward to renewing the friendship, and I think E is too.

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On the "Projects" front, the sweater is coming along nicely.  I finished the sleeves on Saturday, yay!  So now it's back to the workroom cleanup, with added motivation  -  until it's done, I can't set up the ironing board to block out the sweater pieces before I sew them together.

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Elderly Cat had her every-six-months checkup and blood work done last week.  The vet says she's doing exceedingly well  -  she's even gained weight!  We're all very pleased, even Big Guy who pretends he doesn't care for cats.  She still needs her meds every day; one pill for her digestion, a quarter of another pill for her kidneys, and an eighth of a pill for her heart; I crush them all into her food every evening and so far she hasn't caught on.  She may be eighteen years old, but she's still happy and active; when she thinks we're not looking she plays like a kitten, and I still catch her jumping up on the kitchen counter to drink from the sink on occasion.  Not bad, considering that in human terms she's about ninety and the counter, proportionally, if she were my height, would be about twenty feet over her head ...

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I stopped at Costco on my way home from work today, to pick up a month's worth of my work breakfasts and lunches  -  two boxes of sausage rolls, two dozen apple-oatmeal muffins, a bag of apples, a bag of bananas, and two tubs of yogurt. (I love my wheeled shopping bag!  It folds up to fit into the tote bag I carry every day, and holds a lot.)  My co-workers think my diet is really dull, because they see me eating pretty much the same things every day  -  a muffin for breakfast (the office provides coffee), a sausage roll and some yogurt for lunch, and a piece of fruit mid-afternoon.  S, who goes out and buys her lunch every day, asked me if I don't get bored eating the same thing every day.  The truth is, I don't.  It's nutritious, it's fairly balanced, and it's a huge time-saver in the mornings, when I am definitely not at my best.  I just grab a sausage roll and a muffin from the freezer, a pre-filled one-serving container of yogurt and a piece of fruit from the fridge, and I'm good to go. Plus it's cheap ... I sat down and did the math one day, and discovered that the two meals and snack I eat at work every day cost me roughly $2.10 per day.  That's not much higher than what S spends on whatever pastry she picks up for breakfast in the mall every morning, and about a third (or a bit less) of what she usually spends on lunch.  So while I'm spending $10.50 a week to eat breakfast and lunch, S is spending, on average, $40.00.  And most weeks my total is lower, because sometimes there are some pretty nice leftovers to take the place of the sausage roll.  Then I did some more math, and found out that buying good bread and sandwich makings would cost me closer to $3.50 a day, plus the muffins, yogurt, and fruit.  So I feel both well-nourished and virtuously frugal.