Saving4Later

Prefer to laugh about it.

2012-01-28T23:40:00.004-04:00

So this morning I woke up to quite a bit of ice, the roads were snow/ice packed on the way to work (it made for a very rough ride, not terribly slippery, just bouncy like on muchly uneven terrain).

When I pulled my car into my parking spot at home, my key was stuck in the ignition!! I didn't want to pull too hard for fear of breaking it, but I saw $$$ signs thinking of how in the heck I'd get this fixed.

Did you know you can't pull the key out of the ignition when the car is still in Drive??

And after spending a good hour, hour and a half on a batch of cupcakes for my sister to take to work tomorrow, a good coconut recipe with a marshmallow frosting (very similar to boiled icing), complete with cute little flowers, and 3 different type of sprinkles, the icing ran down the sides of the cupcakes after I put them in the carrier. I have never had this happen before. For sure I'm not sending them now :-( The only thing I can figure out is the frosting might have still been a bit warm, and when I put the cover on (which I almost never do right away), it created more heat in that little "chamber". The cupcakes themselves had been cooling for about 3 hours.

Argghhh. What a day. No, what a WEEK!

2012 travel plans & budget

2012-01-27T14:51:00.000-04:00

I am the type of person who always has travel on the brain... I get back from a trip, decompress for a few days, and then I'm wondering where to next. This year the itch wasn't too bad until beginning of January when I started throwing around some possible destinations. I usually have these 3 preferences:

Europe
Ideally somewhere with just 1 stop between my local airport to destination
Can visit a lot without needing a car (I'm a terrible driver in Canada, can't see tackling big cities in a rental!)

At first, I had thought of Vienna... I would have loved to rent an apartment and just soak in the Viennese life for a couple weeks. Then my sister said she was interested too, but couldn't we see more?? Since the rail system seems pretty good, we thought perhaps we could venture to Budapest for half the time, then maybe do a day trip to Bratislava... and you can't go to Vienna without going to Salzburg. When that got to seem a bit much, I started researching to the west of Vienna.... starting there and ending in Munich with time spent in Bavaria.

Those 2 trips sounded awesome, but a lot of moving around, a lot of train travel and possibly missing out on some great things because we wouldn't have a car.

Then I realized Iceland is very close to us... if I drive down to the Halifax airport (3 hours), I can catch a direct flight and be there in 4h15! The more I researched, the more interested I became, and when I ran it by my sister, she was all for it.

Everyone says Iceland is very expensive. Some say it's the 2nd most expensive country in the world after Japan. So far the flight seems to be about 40% cheaper than my usual Paris or Brussels flights, apartments seem cheaper than Paris, a lot of the nature stuff is free ! (no admission to the northern lights!) but prices are sky high for food and rental cars. Hopefully if we get an apartment we can buy some food from the grocery store and then treat ourselves to a few meals out.

How will I save money for my 2012 travels?

The last few years I've not touched a lot of my main income for my travel, instead I mainly try to fund with these sources of extra $$:

money from part time jobs (currently getting $360/month from pt job #2)
survey money
tax refund
work bonus ( a lot of stuff went on at my workplace in 2011, so this bonus is doubtful)
GST credit (won't be getting this again. It's not a bad thing, it means I make too much to qualify)
any other money that comes my way (lottery winnings, gifts)

I may also add a good chunk of my 2 extra paychecks in 2012 (March and September) as well as 50% of my baked goods sales.

These things all added up usually cover all my travel expenses, then I can allocate more of my regular paycheck to savings and the house renos.

Dates are not set in stone yet, no reservations have been made, although I do have tentative dates and an apartment in sight. Just have to figure out extra nights outside Reykjavik and car rental.

For Las Vegas, this most probably will be booked at the last minute, on the cheap, depending on deals. Also, my sis will want to go see Celine Dion (for like the 12th time!), so our dates have to coincide with a concert date.

This is the plan for 2012 so far, but details are bound to change as it's still very early.

Do you have any planned vacations or is it too early to decide yet?

Thursday things

2012-01-26T21:14:00.003-04:00

After the downer post I left on Tuesday, I have more positives today! After 3 days of no communication, my friend texts me this afternoon. Conversation goes like this:

Her: Are you mad at me or what??

Me: Are YOU??

Her: ???

So she called and we both thought the other was mad. Talk about a silly misunderstanding! I hate any and all conflicts, fights, tension, etc, so when any of that happens, it upsets me. At my age I'm too old for that stuff anyway :-)

On to the bad fall I took, I am now close to 100%. They are calling for more cr@ppy weather tomorrow (I can take snow, but ice scares me!) so I better be careful I don't have repeat of Tuesday.

I am excited about the new challenges for February, (check out Carla's blog for more info!), I have good ideas of what I'm going to set as my goals. Unless I screw up majorly in the next 4 days, I will have met all my goals for January plus put the amounts I wanted to my emergency fund, my car loan and made my monthly charitable donation.

This week was my goddaughter's 22nd birthday, I gave her cash as she is now a student (after a 3 year break) and on the weekend we'll be celebrating my sister's birthday (it's on Tuesday). Not sure about the meal, but there will be cake! Yum. The next birthday I have is in February, my Dad's, thankfully after the 4 in a month I have a 7 month break!!!

No idea what the movie of the week will be... I'm always open to suggestions... I could do a PPV, for $5.99, but hate parting with the money when there's so many I haven't seen on Rogers on Demand.

And finally, 2 months after everyone else, I should be ready to start my sealed pot challenge soon!!! I have the "pot", which I'll decorate a bit before taking a picture of. I haven't spent my change since December, so will have healthy balance to start with :-)

Oh, a few asked about the oatmeal-flax chocolate chip cookies I made the other night. They are as healthy as chocolate chip cookies can be I guess... they were delicious, but probably won't make them again since I can't just grab 1 or 2 or 3... I have eaten most of them!!!! Click here for the recipe.

I'm off to bed, I notice a big difference in my energy levels if I can get to sleep by 10:30 instead of after 11 (often closer to midnight!).... maybe I should make that into a personal challenge for February too...

Ouch

2012-01-24T20:03:00.003-04:00

We had ice and rain overnight, so it's not surprising that I wiped out majorly on my way to my car this morning. I had coffee on my coat, a very wet butt (had to go back in to change) and while I fell hard on my left hip, it's the right hand side of my lower back that hurts....... I see a very hot bath, epsom salts and a couple Tylenol PM a little later tonight. I'm so clumsy!!!

On top of this, my good friend at work (different office, but we keep in touch by text or phone) is mad at me for a misunderstanding. GREAT!

All this happened this morning... I thought I might as well have stayed in bed.

There were some good things to come out of today though:

a new recipe for healthier chocolate chip cookies (from Food Network magazine... they have oatmeal and flax in them). I'll have to share or freeze cuz it made like 4 doz!
I cashed out another gift cards on Swagbucks, making it 5 x $5 amazon.ca gift certificate and a $25 PayPal this month (the secret is letting swagtv run while I watch tv)
a no spend day
my retired coworker's replacement is still great to work with... we're the same age so it's neat too (have a lot more in common than ex-coworker who was 26 years older!)
faith enough that I won't overspend before my next pay (Feb 2nd) that I sent another $250 to my car loan and an extra $130 to my emergency fund. I'm meeting most of my January goals already!

Can we fast forward to the weekend now??!!

No/Low spend January, days 15-21

2012-01-23T12:57:00.001-04:00

Wow, January's going by really fast, isn't it??? Week 3 on the challenge went pretty well.... here are the numbers:

[A reminder of my 3 rules for the month:

Track every single day in my notebook (small enough to fit in my purse, so no excuses!)
No eating out unless it's 100% covered by a gift card
Keep grocery spending below $350 for the month, ideally below $300]

Here's the daily breakdown:

January 15: no spend

January 16: $58.37 groceries; $48.01 gas (still around $1.25 per L!)

January 17: no spend

January 18: $21.32 groceries, $54.34 birthday gift (from Freedom account). This is one of 3 birthdays in 12 days in January! I made this extra trip to the grocery store for fruit (cherries were on sale under $3/lb! so bought 2.5 lbs) and to buy a few ingredients for a cupcake order (2 dozen).

January 19: no spend

January 20: FREE 12 inch pizza from Pizza Delight (coupon I had for buying gift cards for Christmas, still have 2 left to be used before the end of February). Nice FREE treat on a snowy Friday night :-)

January 21: no spend

The grocery total so far is $216.29, which looks good for being 3/4 into the month, but I think this week's totals might be higher as there are great sales, especially on baking items (butter @ $3/lb!) Plus next weekend we'll celebrate my sister's birthday, I"m sure there will be a nice meal planned for that, so more $$$$$$.

My total no spend days is 15, which is 7.1% of my goal of the year :-)

Most (all?) of my spending has been on food, gas and household necessities (except the gifts but that is planned spending in my freedom account). I hope to keep this up well into February and throw a bunch of $$ to savings :-)

How did your 3rd week go??

Sunday Night Chit Chat 1/22/2011

2012-01-22T20:41:00.007-04:00

While I love joining the Sunday Night Chit-Chat, I'm not too happy it's Sunday night again :-( Why can't we have 1 long weekend per month??? My next day off is the first Monday in March...........

What are you reading?

No new book yet :-(

Store flyers to plan my shopping strategy for tomorrow! My store is having a $1, $2 and $3 sale... I especially plan on stocking up on butter :-)

What are you watching?

I am still doing my Friday night movie event (I watched L'Invité that I've PVRd a couple Sundays ago... it was very funny). I watched another one this afternoon that I highly recommend, it is actually available for free on Rogers on Demand if anyone has that. It's called Incendies:

What are you listening to?

I hear hockey in the background... in the car during my commute to work I am listening to Alex Cross' Trial by James Patterson. I never read the book but as an audio book it's not bad.

What are you cooking/baking?

I made a double batch of spaghetti and sauce for lunch today and lunches tomorrow (for my sis and I) and for dinner I made 2 bar clam casseroles (bar clams, cream of mushroom soup, milk, cheese over a bed of mashed potato scoops) and a loaf of bread ... my mom is sick with pneumonia (but doing much better since Friday) so I figured my dad would enjoy this.

Happy you accomplished this week?

I'm proud of my low spending, plus I got lots done around the house. I also wrote up a report on my trip to France, almost ready to post it (just need to stick pictures in!)

Looking forward to next week?

A warm day (+9 C on Tuesday!), starting my new exercise regime (treadmill) and my new TV might show up!

Thankful for today?

A nice day at home... sleeping in til 9, a quiet morning sipping some coffee, a captivating movie, laundry all done and I was able to help out my parents... Also, my back pain is gone, so a much better Sunday than last week!

I hope you all have a great week :-) Anyone who wants to join this chit-chat can go to Carla's blog for more info :-)

First splurge of 2012

2012-01-18T20:53:00.003-04:00

I may regret this in the future, but I ordered a 32 inch flatscreen tv last night for my bedroom. It was soooooo not a need, but I'd been wanting one and the price was right.

This is the tv in question, a Samsung, reviews were good:

And the price:
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$0!!!!

Yes , that's right, FREE :-) With my Airmiles! I had a lot of them and never seem to use them for flying, so I used them for a big splurge, just like I did for my KitchenAid mixer back in 2010.

Love free :-)

What do you do with your Airmiles/Aeroplans??? They might be good for domestic flights, but seem to be a not-so-good deal for international travel, which is what I've been doing the last 4 years...

No/Low spend January, days 8-14

2012-01-16T15:17:00.000-04:00

The second week has been pretty good, not as much as last week, but I'm still pretty happy with my results:

Here's a reminder of my 3 rules for the month:

Track every single day in my notebook (small enough to fit in my purse, so no excuses!)
No eating out unless it's 100% covered by a gift card
Keep grocery spending below $350 for the month, ideally below $300

Here's the daily breakdown:

January 8: no spend

January 9: $64.46 groceries; $50 gas (it's gone up to $1.25 per L!)

January 10: no spend

January 11: no spend

January 12: no spend

January 13: $26.40 groceries

January 14: $75 from my household Freedom Account for bar clams. We buy them ready to chop and can... it works out to about $6.20/pint, which is much cheaper than what they sell in fish markets. These were ordered before Christmas so it was a surprise that they were ready now.

Right now groceries stand at $136.60 so halfway through the month, I've spent less than half of my budget, yay! My total no spend days is 10, which is 4.8% of my goal of the year :-)

How did your second week go??

Sunday Night Chit Chat 1/15/2011

2012-01-15T20:34:00.001-04:00

Another Sunday night!! The weeks go by so fast, we've already got January halfway over with! This is another edition of Sunday night Chit Chat that my friend Carla is hosting... you can see her great blog here.

What are you reading?

Ughhhh still on this book:

What are you watching?

I just finished Rizzoli & Isles that I'd pvr'd Tuesday. LOVE that show. It came highly recommended by a friend, but for the longest time we didn't have it... it's now on Showtime on Tuesday nights. And by looking at the fan website, I see the series was based on books by Tess Gerritsen, definitely worth checking into!

What are you listening to?

Nothing in the house, but in the car I'm listening to Going Rogue by Sarah Palin.

What are you cooking/baking?

Yesterday I made a yummy lasagna with enough leftovers for tonight and tomorrow's lunch. Also, I made 2 loaves of bread in the machine.

My back hurts a lot, I slipped on Friday going into work (didn't fall though) and later had a spasm that caused some pain. It's getting worse throughout the day, so I didn't do as much cooking as I usually do on weekends. I even had to cancel cupcakes for my sister's coworker's birthday :-( They got a cake at Costco instead for work, and my sis brought some back yum.

Happy you accomplished this week?

I put in a lot of hours of research and it seems we have come up with 2 smaller vacations for 2012... here are the hints:

September 2012 for my 40th:

Sometime in November or December 2012:

More on this in a future post. I'm VERY motivated to save!!!

Looking forward to next week?

Another Friday night movie (on Friday I watched The King's Speech.... it was VERY good!) and it's the start of 3 birthdays from January 19 to January 31st.... so I'll get to give gifts to my loved ones :-)

Also, I'd like to book a hair cut as I haven't had one since late September!

Thankful for today?

I'm glad today was a day off... I lounged in bed (til 11:30!!!) and took it easy.

I hope everyone has a great week !

Friday free (or cheap) fun night

2012-01-13T18:42:00.003-04:00

It's been a busy week so my blogging has suffered, but I haven't forgotten about my low (no) spend challenge and goals. While I didn't get 6 no spend days like last week, it's been a really good one so far (details to follow on Sunday).

I have great motivation to save... after much discussion and lots of flip flopping over vacation destinations (last weekend I thought we'd do Vienna and Budapest, then beginning of week we were going to land in Vienna and move west towards Bavaria, depart from Munich and since Wednesday we've decided on not just 1 but 2 trips later in the fall... more on this Sunday too! I'll post a clue in Sunday Night Chit Chat ;-)

We had a small snow storm last night, +7 C today! Unreal the fluctuations we've had this winter so far. I'll take it over snowmageddon we had last year!

Friday nights in 2012 are going to be fun... I still have to work Saturday mornings, but usually I'm fine staying up til at least midnight. We have a million channels on tv including Rogers on Demand, can get free newish releases and oldies, then pretty cheap new releases ($3.99 to $5.99). When you don't have to leave the house, and can eat your own snacks, I find it's a relatively cheap evening.

Another favorite thing is to head to the city after work and stop at Chapters and Starbucks. I'm sitting on a $50 Chapters gift card and a $55 Starbucks gift card, so can make a few trips for free, except for the price of gas.

Tonight will be some gourmet popcorn, a nice cold soda (some nights it'll be a spiked coffee ;-)) and a FREE movie... there's lots to watch before I decide to splurge on a pay per view!

Do you have any weekly rituals that you look forward to ? I can't do date night but this sounds like a lot of fun :-) Happy weekend!!

Sunday Night Chit Chat 1/8/2011

2012-01-08T20:10:00.005-04:00

I've missed Sunday night Chit Chat the last couple weeks, glad it's back on! Thanks again, Carla, for doing this. Check out her great blog for links to other participants' Chit-Chats!

I always put a picture of something that I like... Here's one of a place I hope to visit in the fall... do you recognize it? Hint: It's in Europe, NOT in France though (shock, shock!)

What are you reading?

As part of my goal of reading 12 french books in 2012, I started out with this one. I actually got it for free from Quebec Loisirs (French language book club) for buying 10 books in 2011 from them. Most of those were given as gifts.

What are you watching?

Nothing right now, I'm going to choose between 2 french movies though, at 9, either Le Bonheur de Pierre or on TV5 Canada, Une folle envie. I admit I do miss not having Amazing Race to watch.

What are you listening to?

Surprisingly, nothing right now.

What are you cooking/baking?

I tried my first new recipe of 2012 (goal is 50 new ones) , a yummy yogurt lemon bread. I often buy lemons on reduced for quick sale, 6 for 99 cents. They always give so much juice and zest and I don't feel guilty for using so many in a recipe.

I also made yummy baked chicken with homemade dipping sauce, very fluffy mashed potatoes using my ricer, and green beans. Along with the pizza I made yesterday, I will have leftovers until at least Wednesday!

Happy you accomplished this week?

I put away most of the 2011 stuff at work. I am very limited on storage space, so it was quite a struggle to make everything fit! I also am pretty proud of my 6 no spend days!

Looking forward to next week?

I'm going to start a Friday movie night... one week a new release (relatively new) and one week a classic. complete with popcorn or a nice little treat.

Thankful for today?

Sleeping in, lounging, preparing a nice meal. I love all Sundays where I don't have to work at my bookkeeping job ;-)

I hope everyone has a great week !

No/Low spend January, days 1-7

2012-01-07T23:44:00.005-04:00

Along with many bloggers, I joined Carla's No (Low) Spend Challenge for January. If you haven't visited her great blog and heard about the challenge, you can find it here.

I only made 3 rules, as I didn't want to feel overwhelmed:

Track every single day in my notebook (small enough to fit in my purse, so no excuses!)
No eating out unless it's 100% covered by a gift card
Keep grocery spending below $350 for the month, ideally below $300

Here's how I made out in the first week:

January 1: no spend

January 2: no spend

January 3: $9.04 household items, $45.74 groceries

January 4: no spend

January 5: no spend

January 6: no spend

January 7: no spend

I'm admitting it wasn't easy. On 2 of those days I stayed in at lunch, instead of going to town, so it made my supersized lunch hour seem even longer (I have 1h45 min for lunch). I think I need to plan better and use that time to exercise instead of shop.

My goal for 2012 is to get 212 no spend days, so I'm starting well with only 206 to go! I hadn't set a goal for household spending, although I don't anticipate it to be too high... will just take from miscellaneous. And groceries are at 13% of my $350 goal and 15% if I want to stick to my $300 goal.... My overall expenses are 50% of the total amount since I bill my sister for the other half.

I'm not showing any gas purchase, I stretched it a bit since I didn't have to drive anywhere on Monday, but I will need to get some at the beginning of the week.

How is your month starting out so far?

Five things on Friday

2012-01-06T21:30:00.002-04:00

Back to reality this week, I'm not too crazy knowing our next holiday is on April 6th (Good Friday). I am going to try and schedule a few days off between now and then. Here are a few things for this Friday evening:

My retired coworker's replacement and I hugged with joy on Tuesday when she came in! I am not a hugger, so this proves how happy I was ;-) I only see her about 30 minutes/day, and so far she is extremely nice and I hope she gets the job when the competition comes out.
There is not one snowflake on the ground. A big big difference compared to last year at this time. We're getting a bit overnight, but nothing much in the forecast.
One of my new favorite shows is Ice Road Truckers in the Andes!! I can't stop watching even if it's terrifying to watch.
I've only spent 1 day since January 1st, hoping this becomes the norm, not the exception!
I was asked to make cupcakes for a wedding, about 150 of them... I am flattered but think it would stress me out too much....

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

My 12 goals for 2012

2012-01-02T16:59:00.004-04:00

photo source

I am going to set some goals for 2012, mostly measurable ones, as it will be good to see my progress throughout the year.

Bring my Tax-Free Savings Account balance to $15,000 by December 31, 2012. Sadly, I haven't been able to get my $5,000 in there last year, and I doubt I will this year if we go forward with the kitchen renos. Current balance on January 1, 2012: $12,139.75. Left to fund: $2,860.25/12 = $238.35/month.
Bring car debt below $6,789.00 by December 31, 2012. I am only paying 0.99% on this, as I did a credit card balance transfer, but I still want to see it paid off sooner rather than later. Current balance: $10,506.91 . I wanted it below $10,000 by the end of 2011, but because of the low interest, I concentrated on other things with my extra funds. Left to pay off: $3,717.91 to goal, divided by 12 is $309.83/month.
Read 12 french books by December 31, 2012. I went from reading 50+ books/year to not being able to finish one in the last 4 months. I'd start and have the best intentions, but I'm just not getting it done. I want to read in french to keep up with good grammar and spelling, as I tend to speak a less than perfect french !!!
Have 212 no spend days in 2012.
Earn an extra $8,080 in 2012. This is any extra money other than my regular full time job paycheck. I will count my part time job income, survey money, won and found funds, income tax refund, bonuses, etc. I earned $5,253.99 extra in 2011, so aiming higher for 2012.
Get rid of 12 things per week. This can be running around with a garbage bag on garbage night or donating items.
Try to keep monthly grocery spending below $312. We've always averaged closer to $350 but starting off with a full pantry and freezer, so hoping for the best. This would make my share only $156, not bad at all!
Donate $2,012 by December 31, 2012. Has to be cash, in kind donations don't count in this total. I am a firm believer that the more I give, the more I receive. I've been very blessed when I give from the heart.
Try 50 new recipes in 2012. Mostly these will be made for Sunday dinner.
Organize my cookbook collection and only keep the ones I will truly use in the future. I have 2 overflowing book cases and stacks of cookbooks in a few places throughout the house, so it's time to organize and donate what I don't need!
Blog 12 times per month. This will help keep me accountable.
Buy no more than 12 books during all of 2012, even if I can get them for free at amazon.ca (through Swagbucks.com). I have TOO many that I haven't read yet plus I am at the library a minimum of 3 times per week to use their wifi.

I am very excited about these goals. I know there's a lot of them but I feel they will help keep me focused throughout the year on what's important to me. I plan on saving a lot more than that as we're in the early stages of planning both a kitchen redo and a trip to Europe in the fall (trip will mostly be funded by my p/t job income). I was going to skip it this year but I'm turning 40 and it would be fun to go somewhere for that :-)

Happy New Year!!

2012-01-01T09:02:00.001-04:00

Wow, 2012 is already here :-) I am celebrating my 4th anniversary of this blog, I started in 2008... kmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm99 (oops the kitty is in my lap!) The time goes by super fast. I wish everyone a wonderful year and hope it is a great financial one for all of us :-)

No Spend January, my way !

2011-12-31T20:16:00.003-04:00

I decided to join my friend Carla's No Spend January challenge after I wrote some of my 2012 goals down on paper (will put these up in a future post). I hope to be able to save a lot this year, so I better get started on the right foot in January!

Carla has very specific rules for reaching her goal of saving $1,000 in her emergency fund for the month. I am a single person with different financial circumstances (share most/all expenses with my roommate, aka my sis) so here are the rules I'm setting for January:

Track every single day in my notebook (small enough to fit in my purse, so no excuses!)
No eating out unless it's 100% covered by a gift card
Keep grocery spending below $350 for the month, ideally below $300

Simple rules, but the tracking will help keep me focused on every cent being spent (or wasted) and hopefully I'll be able to save enough $$ to make good progress on my 2012 goals, which will be posted very soon.

Thanks Carla for getting us started on the right foot, and good luck to everyone as we start a brand new year and get a totally clean slate :-)

Oh happy day!!!

2011-12-30T15:56:00.001-04:00

The naggy coworker is officially retired!! As soon as she left I did a happy dance, and plan on celebrating more this weekend! Yay :-)

Post Christmas thoughts

2011-12-26T21:52:00.004-04:00

I hope everyone had a great Christmas? Mine was, but it went by too fast... just Tuesday off then back to work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning........

I was very spoiled as far as gifts go: $100 restaurant gift cards, $200 cash, many really nice kitchen things (finally got a potato ricer!) , some cupcake things, a nice storage ottoman and candles. I got gift cards to Winners/Home Sense, Michael's, Wheaton's and Starbucks. I also got 2 bottles of homemade wine, and lots of chocolates (I always get a big Toblerone, mmmm) and a few other boxes from work.

With the cash I was going to go on a spending spree at Lush.ca at 4 am this morning but it didn't quite work out the way I wanted... the site was super slow (probably thousands of Lush fans trying to get in on the buy 1 get 1 free deal) and by the time I went to check out, not one of their wrapped boxes was available. I still got the wonderful snowcake soaps, but that was a disappointment. And I still can't believe I got up at 4 am to shop online!!!

I need to decide where to allocate an $840 check I received from part time job #1. I've held on to it for a few days now and think I'll just send it to ING in one of my subaccounts that is sitting empty right now (not used for anything) and decide what I want to do with it. All of my part time job #2 income ($360/month) goes to vacation, so I'm not sure I want to send all of the $840 there too. Suggestions??

And finally, on Friday my coworker FINALLY retires! It's been a major countdown and some disappointment when she put it off in September, but the moment is just around the corner. Yay!!!! As far as work experiences go, this will be as important and exciting a day as when I finished the job from he!! in 2006...

Hope everyone enjoys the rest of the holidays :-) As usual, there's been too much food bought here so I'll be eating very well for another week!!! I buy for 12 yet feed only 4 most of the time!

Merry Christmas/Joyeux Noël!

2011-12-24T14:21:00.003-04:00

Well it's been such a busy last few weeks, but hopefully now that the end of our busy season at work has passed and Christmas preps are 95% done, it will calm down. I had done much better at blogging since September, and I hope to get back to it regularly in January. Gotta start the new year on a good note :-)

We got snow overnight so it'll be a white Christmas after all! Our Christmas celebration will be very low key, just my parents and sister for the gift opening (tonight around 11) and then we get together for what we eat EVERY Christmas: breakfast is overnight blueberry cream cheese french toast casserole and brown sugar bacon (oven baked), lunch is lobster rolls and dinner is turkey. We are less traditional on Christmas eve, that varies a lot, this year it'll be shrimp, lobster (great price this time of year @ $5.99/lb) , lots of baguette, munchies, prosciutto, and the return of an old favorite: PUNCH :-)

I have a few days off and will probably do a whole lot of nothing. Christmas is so calm and quiet here compared to New Year's, and I love it like this...

I hope everyone has a great holiday, with lots of time spent with loved ones, eating great foods :-)

Sunday Night Chit Chat 12/18/2011

2011-12-18T20:50:00.005-04:00

I'm back doing Sunday Night chit chat! The weekend's winding down, and I am relaxing before a busy week....

This is last year's Christmas tree... I loved it, and miss it terribly this year. The tree itself is in its usual spot, but it's bare naked :-( Because of the 2 ~~terrors~~ kitties, we thought it was safer to go without decorations this year.

Cooking/Baking…

I made some Oreo cupcakes for 2 of my sisters' coworkers (part of her gift to them) and also a full batch of vanilla/ganache/caramel swiss buttercream ones for an order. I personally don't like the swiss buttercream too much, way too buttery for me. My mom made dinner, my favorite meal that she makes (spare ribs and mushroom rice). Nice treat!

Watching/Reading…

I will start Skating on Thin Ice by Donald Bain (and Jessica Fletcher). I don't know if I'll have much time to read it until my break.

Survivor finale is on in a few minutes, I missed so many episodes this season I might just skip it altogether. I want to soak a bit in a nice bubble bath, so probably will just catch the end of Christmas Vacation instead. I watched The Sound of Music earlier, always great!

Listening To…

I heard about this awesome rendition of Little Drummer Boy on the news last night. It is so amazing. If you haven't seen it, here's Sean Quigley from Winnipeg. He did all the music and editing, while his sister helped with the video.

Looking Forward to this week…

Spending Christmas with my family.. I love to give gifts and eat great food. We're also making punch this year, so will be a bit of liquor to go with the great eats :-)

Happy You Accomplished this Weekend…

I worked at my part time job this afternoon, am alll caught up. I left an invoice for my hours so should get that check this week :-)

Please check out Carla's blog for her Sunday Night Chit Chat and a link to others' posts too :-)

I hope everyone has a great week!

Mini break

2011-12-14T23:09:00.002-04:00

It's been a bit more than a week since I've posted.... things are great, but quite busy so I'm not going to stress over posting this week. I do read my favorite blogs when I get the chance (love my iPhone for reading whenever I have 5 minutes) so know even if I don't comment I'm still keeping up :-)

I'm off next Saturday (24th) at noon until Wednesday morning, then I go back for 3.5 days and off for New Year's and January 2nd. Not as long a break as my 11 days last year, but I'll take it.

Have a great rest of the week :-)

Spending report: Nov 27 to Dec 3, 2011

2011-12-06T13:28:00.003-04:00

Here are the numbers for last week:

Sunday, November 27, 2011

no spend

Monday, November 28, 2011

mega spend day:

$122.84 misc (Bulk Barn for baking ingredients, good quality chocolate, hot apple cider k-cups, shampoo, conditioner, etc)

$17.38 gifts (2)

$24.49 lunch @ Boston Pizza

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

$37.70 gift (1)
$45.01 gas

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

$29.79 Postage & mailing supplies

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

$5 fundraising ticket

Friday, December 2, 2011

$10.15 macarons

Saturday, December 3, 2011

no spend

This is really an unusual week where there was something each and every day... except the weekends. I'm weird that way, I get more no spends on the weekend than during the week!

Sunday Night Chit Chat, 12/4/2011

2011-12-04T21:44:00.007-04:00

I really enjoy this feature that gives me the chance to wrap up my week/weekend. Thanks again, Carla, for starting this. Please visit her blog for her chit chat and read comments to find other participants' blogs too :-)

The above picture was taken at Gérard Mulot's in Paris... these pyramids are crazy expensive (like $150-$200) but I'd love to sink my teeth into every single macaron on it!!

Cooking/Baking…

No pics this time, sorry. Since last weekend I tried new cupcakes on Thursday night [vanilla with a very yummy chocolate frosting from the Cupcake Diaries (DC cupcakes from TLC)
cookbook!], some individual cheesecakes with homemade caramel sauce, and a new fudge recipe. I also made 3 large pizzas last night and we'll be enjoying the leftovers until at least Tuesday.

Watching/Reading…

I just finished watching The Amazing Race and turned off the tv. Downstairs I hear another hockey game on...

I'm still on the same book, Cleo Coyle's Murder by Mocha. I've honestly not read more than a few pages all week :-(

Listening To…

Just hockey...

Looking Forward to this week…

My favorite show, a French one called Pékin Express, is starting on Wednesday night. It's similar to The Amazing Race, but much harder as they have no money (well, 1 Euro per day only) and they need to find lodging for the night. This season they are in Africa...

Happy You Accomplished this Weekend…

I spent all afternoon at my part time job... can't say I balanced everything nor did I leave there happy as I misplaced a form I needed. I'm sure it was right under my nose and I'll find it when I go back. Other than that, I thought the weekend went by way too fast :-(

I hope everyone has a great week! I'm off to bed now :-)

Five things on a Friday

2011-12-02T23:41:00.004-04:00

I've been busy this week, not posted much, so I'll end the week with these 5 tidbits:

After a few weeks of several no spend days, I managed to have NO no-spends from Monday to Friday this week. I came very close yesterday, but at 7:30 pm I got tackled at home to buy a ticket for a fundraiser. Grrr.
I found a neat new shop in town selling macarons!! Yes, even if I can make them at home (haven't since Easter though!), I still love to buy some as a treat. First time seeing them east of Montreal. Was worth breaking a no-spend day for them :-)
The job opening I'm waiting on still hasn't happened. The new person starting in the level above (thus creating a possible vacancy I'm interested in) was supposed to start on Dec 1st. Things are delayed. Not surprised!
I received my first Christmas gift at work and it's a miracle I haven't peaked into it yet!
This one is not about me but my sis... on the last day with her old SUV, before taking possession of the $46,500 one (yikes), she had a blow out on the way to work. What a fun last ride huh? I thought it was kinda funny (after I found out she was unhurt :-))

I work tomorrow AM and I'm still up at midnight... hope to catch up on my zzzzs over the weekend... maybe a nap with the kitties tomorrow :-) Have a great weekend, everyone!

Spending report: Nov 20th to 26th 2011

2011-11-29T18:48:00.001-04:00

Here are the numbers for last week:

Sunday, November 20, 2011

no spend

Monday, November 21, 2011

no spend

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

$45 gas
$30.99 groceries

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

no spend
FREE McDonald's Peppermint Mocha

Thursday, November 24, 2011

no spend

FREE sandwich for lunch (used a coupon)

Friday, November 25, 2011

$9.04 misc

$7.67 lunch @ McDonald's

Saturday, November 26, 2011

$13.76 groceries

$11.25 two baking pans (fantastic price)

Again, not bad! I've really kept the spending to a minimum since I got back from my trip :) Let's hope this carries through into December!