February 2012 Budget Challenge

[Valiant]

February 2012 Budget Challenge: $ $ $ $ $

If you are participating, please post below, thanks.
All the best as you work through your goals!

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February 2012 Budget:

Expenses:
Rent (+ utilities): PAID (as per rate)
Phone & Internet: $77.92
Water: $7.92 (reverse osmosis: cooking/drinking)
Food & Stockpile: $77.45 (3 bags bargain-bin oranges, 1 milk, 2 HH pasta, 1 milk, 1 ketchup, 2 doz. eggs, [2 yogurt FREE w/fpc's; but no more regular Source at my store, they switched to Splenda brand], 1 Purex tp, 2 doz. eggs, 2 Welch's: 1 w/fpc; 10 bread; 10 bread, 4 Welch's grape juice, 1 milk, 1 milk, 1 bag Dempster's bagels w/fpc)
Miscellaneous: $8.33 (garden seeds, office page protectors, face powder)
Pharmacy: $41.51 (4 x Vitamins, 1 Tide LD)
Other: $15.44 (DS birthday gift postage costs/Valentines to GrandKids: another example of Canada Post overcharging customers, of course the teller picked out the biggest, most-expensive envelope to mail my tiny, light-weight package, and wouldn't see it otherwise; it's rattling in there like the last cookie in a cookie jar; same teller that always charges me NSP before I can collect my envies!)

Total February 2012 Expenses to date: $228.57 (plus Rent)

Coupons Used: $21.76
Change Found: $0.11

SPEND Days to date: 9/29

NO SPEND Days to date: 20/29


Goals:
- maximize work
- essential expenses: rent/utilities, phone, R.O. water
- spending cuts on everything else, including phone LD, internet?
- exceptions: stockpile additions (minimize for Feb.), emergencies
- add to Emergency Fund

To-Do List:
- work
- send birthday gift to DS/Valentines cards to GrandKids (Done: CP overcharged me!)
- utilize all my resources
- spend spare time on crafting for gift-giving: 31 more rug rolls DONE; 1 rag-rug DONE
- OAMC&B (Once-A-Month-Cooking & Baking): peanut butter cookies; meat/pasta/veg casserole
- ACCOUNTS for Income Tax
- get a fishing license this spring
- make plans for starting seeds for tomatoes, herbs, flowers, etc.


Living within my Budget: (updates)
- Feb.1: worked on rug craft preps, baked cookies
- Feb.4: a nice find of 3 bags of oranges (in bargain-bin) for $3
- Feb.5: finished up the rug-strips on the ironing board & now working on ironing and sewing up a big bag of rumpled rag-rug strips, nice to see more room in that laundry-basket of little projects and mending
- Feb.8: finished sewing and rolling up the last bag of rug strips; next project: finish the 2 rugs by adding the borders.
- Feb.9,10: working on finishing 1 rag-rug now by measuring & pinning for sizing; sewed 3 more rolls of rug-strips; cut apart a cotton skirt to make 4 dish towels. Also prepped a SC trade today.
- Feb.11: worked on the rug today, measuring and cutting off all rug-strip ends; next step, measure & pin the borders onto the rug; also cutting up other skirt fabric for more dish towels & dishcloths (chose 3 colours to match my kitchen decor from my choice of garment-fabrics, all medium-heavy cottons).
- Feb.12, 13: cut raw beef roast into steaks & refroze 2 of 4 pks.
Now freezing 2% milk in the fridge-freezer compartment in 2 clean Smucker's jam jars, & then thawing 1 per night inside fridge, which gives me cream for coffee & tea, plus milk for my oatmeal. This leaves the milk jug in the fridge for baking, frees up space in the freezer, and is much more manageable than freezing a whole milk jug. Must do some OAMC&B asap, because the whole top of the freezer is empty...making it perfect for stacking layers of cooking & baking.
- Feb.16: working on the rug again, want to finish today. FINISHED
Now working on border-preps for the final rug.
- Feb.22: working on income tax these days; bought 10 bread and froze 8 & they filled the entire top of my empty freezer space.
- Feb.24: made essential stockpile purchases, will update later because I'm busy with housework, income tax and errands
- Feb.27: budget update completed today; I'm having trouble with my computer hard-drive, so if my computer crashes, this will be my final post till I can get to the library and resume connection.
- Feb.28: moved & re-sewed sleeve-buttons on a good blouse, so it's now wearable again. My illness has swollen my wrists for the past year, so can't wear a watch or jewellery, but have noticed some improvement, though very slow to heal. Also been losing weight, so can wear 2 of my good skirts and former blouses again. Want to work intensively on my wardrobe for the next while, using home-tailoring sewing methods to refit my clothes. BTW, putting fewer clothes in the drawers works great; it's easier to find something, take it out, and put fresh clothes back in.

February 2012 Budget Balance & Update: $-23.39
Another deficit, this time due to the stockpile purchases of Vitamins, bread, Welch's grapejuice. However, this is justifiable investment, which will save $ for the next year.

February Budget surplus allotted to Emergency Fund: 0

[bobbiegirl2010]

January/February Budget 2012:

Mortgage and Fixed Expenses: PAID

Variable Expenses:
Hydro: $106.90/$90 -16.90
TV/Internet: 118.57/112.86 -5.71 (rates went up)
Cell Phones: $8.71/$61.81 +53.10 (changed plans - will get double bill next month)
Home Phone: $29.00/$22.59 -$6.41
Visa: $87/$87
Line of Credit: $463/$463
HBC CC: $32.50/0 -$32.50 (tax due for bbq purchased on deferred payment)
Emergency Fund: $223/$200 was able to add an addtional $23.00
Groceries: $813.89/$800 (Jan 12-Feb 13 CC statement) -$13.89
Gas: $410.03/$400 (Jan 12 - Feb 13 CC statement) - $10.03

Miscellaneous: $282.05/$300 +$18.00
Misc Cash Purchases: $98
DH's new skates: $50.84 (Jan/Feb cc statement)
Misc purchases on HBC card: $31.03
Donation for Jump Rope for Heart: $20
B-day Gift Cards and Gift Certificate for nephew: $27.26
B-day Gift #1 for FIL: $11.29
Misc Stuff at Dollar store: $10.74
B-day Gift #2 for FIL: $17.00
Postage Stamps: $10.31
Dentist (amt not covered by ins): $5.58

Car Plate Renewal: $74.00/$75.00 (used carpool money to pay) +1.00


Daycare related expenses: $45.18/$50 +$4.82
Printer Paper: $5.64
Printer ink: $21.46
Craft Supplies at Dollar Store: $18.08


Cat Expenses: $908.03/$900 - $8.03
Cat Vet Bill: $213.57 (Jan/Feb cc statement)
Cat Adoption fees: $250.00 (Jan/Feb cc statement) (will get back $231 rebate in March)
New Cat House/scratching post: $135.55 (Jan/Feb cc statement)
Cat Food: $43.49
Cat Vet Bill: $258.82
Cat Food: $6.60

My Extra Income this month: +65.55 (worked extra day in Jan)
DH's Extra Income this month: extra paycheque Mar 1st
DH's Carpool income: $85
Finish Dishwasher Cleaner Rebate: $6.25

Coupons Used:$162.08
PC Points Used: $30.00
SDM Optimum Points Earned: 17000

Actual Budget Results: +$301.00


February Budget Surplus Allotted to:

- $18 in cash added to Misc Cash budget for March
- $60 left in chequing account to use towards double bill for cellphone due in March
- $223 added to Emergency fund

Goals:

- work towards being debt free in 4 years (must pay at least $550 on visa + line of credit per month to achieve this)
- build up emergency fund by saving at least $200 per month
- tighten up grocery spending for next month. Canned/Dry goods stockpile in good shape. Will be looking for meat deals to restock freezer.
- use cc only for gas and groceries. Use cash and keep better track of misc spending (cat vet bills will be the last on cc. Hopefully then use cash from then on)
- make more meals from scratch and eat healthier while staying within budget
- work on advertising so I can build my home daycare business (I would like to make an additional $800 per month)
- get paperwork organized for income tax

Jan 31:

Daycare update: Posted some advertising online on a few local websites to promote daycare business. Will also post ad on grocery store bulletin board tomorrow. Hoping that this will generate some interviews

Cat expense update: The reason there we have a lot of expenses this month for cats is that our cat Luna passed away last month . So we have a vet bill that was charged on my cc for her final expenses. Then last weekend we adopted 2 new cats . Probably should have waited until the grief had passed and we saved up the money before adopting another cat(s)... Luckily DH will be getting an extra paycheque this month so we can afford to pay our cc bill. Our goal from this day forward is to not purchase anything with my credit card (including pets) and save up the money in cash first.

Feb 4/5 wknd:

- made triple batch of chili using 3 crockpots
- Looked on kijiji and freecycle for cork board for free or cheap to use for hanging children's art projects (still looking...)

Feb 6 update: Did not get everything done that I planned to on wknd. We ended up having company over and DD was sick on Sunday. I will not have any daycare kids tomorrow so hopefully this will give me time to do some baking and maybe some b-day gift shopping(nephew and DH's Dad's b-daythis month). Also mailed rebate for cat adoption and pepsi/tostitos mir today. Still waiting for furnace rebate for $250...

Feb 16 update: Got DH's paycheque today and paid some bills. Was able to pay $550 down on debt ($87 on visa and $463 on line of credit) From my calculations, looks like we will have almost $300 to put into savings this month Still waiting of furnace rebate and cat adoption rebate for a total of $481 which will also go into the emergency fund.

Feb 17 update: Got hydro bill in mail and it is over $100 for the second month in a row. It looks like for winter months I need to be budgeting more for this category. At least it is cheaper than last year (good riddance to 30 year old furnace and electric base board heater!). Also got dental claim back (only took them 4 weeks to process ) but am happy we only have to pay $5.58 out of pocket

[sotsuguyou]

Thanks for organizing and keeping us all motivated, Valiant.

Expenses:

Tuition & other school fees: $175.41 / $450 (UPDATE - Feb 16: more transcripts, some postage, and registration fees...)

Everyday savings: $500 / $500

RRSP contribution: $50 / $50 (automatic)

Groceries: $97.47 / $100 (Feb. 13 - $2.53 left - I bought some omega-3s on sale at SDM)

Entertainment/Clothing: $43.53 / $47.24 (Feb 1: I cracked and bought a few ebooks off Amazon.../ Feb 17: Purchased birthday gifts for a friend)

Total budgeted expenses: $866.41 / $1147.24 ($280.83 left)


Budget surplus will be spent as such:

Everyday savings: + $250/ ???

US account: / $300

No spend days to date: 17 / 29

Coupons used:

Income from Kijiji sales: $4.00

Money found: $0.11



Goals:

1) Where January was dedicated to reducing expenses and not having spending splurges, February is dedicated to building up a healthy savings. So the goal for this month is to put as much money away as possible into my savings account. To make this goal possible I've allocated $500 in the expenses line for savings (sort of like paying myself). Feb 5th: $500 DONE!

2) Valentine's Day is around the corner so I need to drag out my crafting bin and make cards for all my loved ones. Completed: 15/15 (UPDATE: Feb 13th - DONE and just in time too!)

3) Since becoming more money conscious I've found myself also seeking a minimalist lifestyle. I've come to the conclusion that all that junky stuff and random knick-knacks I've purchased over the years and collecting dust is doing nothing but holding me back and taking up space. There's also the possibility that I'm moving soon and really don't want the trouble nor the cost of moving it all. So, another goal this month is to get rid of 25 useless items (and no, I won't cheat and throw out 25 sheets of paper or 25 paper clips etc. ) by any means (using, gifting, selling, donating, dumping etc.).

Completed: 10 /25 (old cell phone, purse, pencil case, video game, dress, 5 make up items)

4) Restock my heat-n-eat stash of food (why buy frozen dinners when you can make better ones for less). Feb 27: Made calzones and pound cake.

Whew! Sounds like a busy month but I think I can do it.
__________________________________________________ ______________

Month end summary:

Ended up +$280.83 of which $250 was deposited into my savings account bringing my total saved this month to $750 (fantastic!).

[carebearhamm]

Variable Expenses:

$800 every 2 weeks

Cell Phones: $60 on visa
Car Plates: $60
Auto Saving $50
MC: $200 on the 1st & $100 on the 15th
Savings: $200 per month
Groceries: $335.97/$600 for the month
Candy (spending) : $200 per month

Coupons Used year: $4 january
Change Found year: $0
Extra income:

SPEND Days to date: ?/29

NO SPEND Days to date: 1/29



Goals:
NOT Eating Sugar for Feb. No Fast food - fell off the wagon on the 4th
Want to pay off my credit card this year - pay more spend less
Help grow my saving / holiday money for the family
organize the house - figure out what the house needs to be done.
work more be sick less!!!
keep up on the home cooking

[lovelikewinter3]

Alright, after being lazy in January, I'm back on the sharing-my-budget track.

January was a pretty good month overall, paid 1300$ down on my loan #1, bringing the total down to a current 3200 (and change) *yay!* Less than 350$ spent on groceries. We did eat out quite a bit, thanks to residual Christmas get-togethers and my birthday (mid-January) but I am just not looking at those number right now. Ignorance is bliss, right?

My daycare fees are going up as of March 1st, so I'd like to remove a large chunk of loan #1 again this month. I get 3 pay cheques this month (as does my DW :D) so that should help!

So! February:

Groceries/household:
Eating out: 27.89 (25$ of it was reloading my Starbucks GC to get the 5$ bonus... I love Starbucks)
Entertainment:
Clothing:
*more categories to come*

Goals:
- spend less than 300$ on groceries/household/stockpiling
- pay at least 700$ onto loan #1
- write at least one short story OR add 5 pages to novel (work in progress)
- earn 50$ in extra income
- crochet/knit at least one full project

[sweetproserpina]

February Budget:

Rent: Paid per rate
Propane:
Water
Elec:
Phone/Internet:
Cable/Tivo:
Visas:
Student Loan: Paid 104$

Food: 39.00$

Coupons Used:

Goals:
Continue Menu Planning and Organize once a week shopping better!
Get rid of junk food in kitchen and provide DD with yummy, nourishing, and accessible snacks.
Sew 1812 Dress, pantalets, pinny for DD. Start on 1950s dress for me.

To Do:
-Birthday party for DD this weekend. Keeping costs down by making everything (cake, crepes etc- it's a tea party brunch), homemade gift (bean bag toss game) for DD.
-Get Passport for DD and me.
-Get hair cut. (Bought Wagjag coupon for a local salon at 75% off)
-Paint living room and hall
-Kijiji Uncle's furniture from basement.



January Wrap-Up: Spent a whopping 390$ on food. Really surprised it was as high as that. I thought around 300$. Will have to watch this month more closely. Used 8.25$ in coupons, My sourdough starter is still alive! Opened an RESP for my DD.

[Valiant]

Way to go, people; it's great inspiration to see your progress posted about January's budget goals, and your goals for February.
Let's go for it!

[Valiant]

Today:
- more sewing: I'm down to the last few rug-strips on my ironing board now, only a few more to sew and roll. Then I can work on sewing borders on the 2 unfinished rag-rugs. Also need to iron a bag of rumpled rag-strips for sewing up, then cut and sew up that unusable clothing. I'm sick and tired of these piles of clothing draped over the railing, still not cut up. Making this my priority for the next while to take this clutter down, and repurpose it into something of value.
- check fridge and cook & use perishables
- do a few loads of laundry
- check potatoes and remove sprouts
- other errands
- listen to music, not radio, as I work around the home today.

Radio has been irritating me for some time now. Many stations are partisan, the programming monotonous, and sometimes filled with overt/covert propaganda. And their ideas often conflict with my personal values.

[lovelikewinter3]

Ended up going to shoppers yesterday to grab a few things, dropped 46$ after taxes on coupons (and earned 11k SDM points!). I hate running out of bread... especially when the DW takes 2 sandwiches to work with her 4 days a week.

Today I'm not feeling so great, but I'm going to make an attempt to do some writing and drink a bunch of water in hopes of flushing my system.

Also going to go through my paperwork and sort it/file it/deal with it.

[carebearhamm]

Went to the bank to put in my pay cheque and noticed that i still had extra $$ in the account - great didn't spend all my $$ YEAH!! So i put an extra $200 into savings and still have my $200 in the account for the unexpected stuff!!!

To do: Got the kids cold yuck.
Dishs - Sleep - fold Laundry - Sleep (maybe just sleep)

[ahatt]

I love this thread Valiant, I think I will join in this month!

February Budget:

Expenses:
Mortage & Property Taxes (+ utilities): PAID (as per rate)
Cable & Internet: /$104
Water: (billed every other month, so $0 for this month)
Food & Stockpile: /$200
Miscellaneous: /$75
Student Loans: /$132
Gifts: /$25
Other: /$50 (Valentine's Day)

Total February 2012 Expenses to date: _______(plus Mortgage)

Coupons Used:
Change Found:


Goals:
- Find a nice, reasonably priced birthday gift
- Use up frozen meats and veggies, since my freezer is overflowing
- Put away an extra $200 into savings.
- Stay within my grocery budget. Last month we were over budget by $50

To-Do List:

[EricsMom]

Valiant - what r these rug rolls u keep talking about?

[Valiant]

Nice to see more people joining in here; we're just one big happy family of budget-minded goal-getters!

Explanation of Rag-Rug Rolls:
Take a deep breath, and prepare yourself mentally for a long, difficult project, square your shoulders, and then begin. You look in your closets and dresser drawers, and see a bunch of good, clean, clothing stuff that you'll never use, take it out and try it on one last time, and for sure you'll never use it, so you drape piles of these clothes over your stair railing, lug out your ironing board and scissors and 1 glove for your scissors-hand. Then you lay a garment on the ironing board and proceed to cut it into lengths of strips, some of them 2 1/2 inches wide for making into crochetted or woven rag-rugs, other strips 3 inches wide for sewing borders around the rugs.

Then you slave away day after day and time after time, cutting these piles of strips, neatly piling them up, occasionally attending to your cutting-hand blisters with more and more band-aids. At intervals you sew them together with a diagonal seam, afterwards cutting off the seams close to the edge, always brushing the strips with lint brush to remove threads and lint. When that's done, then fold a strip over several times at one end, and roll up inch by inch the entire lengthy fabric strip, thus creating a rag-rug roll. When it's all rolled up, you secure it with a straight pin, and proceed to snip off the frayed edges sticking out from both sides. Then you put that rag-rug roll aside, and reach for the next pile of rug strips. Repeat procedure until many, many, many rag-rug rolls are prepared for making into rag rugs. Keep these in a great big box.

As well, the unusable garments that are cut up need to be checked over for usable portions: buttons, zippers, elastic, buckles, etc. and these are removed and saved in your sewing notions.


Making Rag-Rugs with Rag-Rug Rolls:
After deciding on your rug pattern, haul out your box of rag-rug rolls, and after sorting fabric rolls with the same type and weight of fabric, choose several complimentary colours to make each rug. Buy or make a large crochet hook for crochetting rugs, or use a hand-made rug frame if making woven-type rugs. Proceed with pattern, using up the rag-rug rolls as needed for the pattern.

If crochetting the rug, the side edges must be rolled inwards during the crochet process, so no frayed fabric edges marr the beauty of the rug. To do this, insert the end of a fabric strip into the hole of an empty spool of thread, and draw the fabric through this hole as you crochet. It should automatically roll the edges inside of the strip.

If you are making the woven-type rug, your sewing is not over. Back to the sewing maching to fold over the edges on both sides, with the raw edges tucked inside, and sew down the center of each long fabric strip. Then proceed to attach your fabric strip to the nails of your hand-loom to make the warp of the rug. Then weave more strips across these, starting at center point, to make the weft of the rug. Then balance rug, so all strips are straight, pin & remove from frame, re-balance on table with yardstick & pins, and then attach the border. Sew borders one a time, checking balance of rug each time. Allow rug to rest flat after completed. Allow yourself to rest flat after completed.

After completion, send to a beloved family member or friend as a gift, or try to sell these cottage rugs at craft sales or Farmer's markets or yard sales for about $40 or more; because after all, one quality hand-made cottage rag-rug takes a tremendous amount of time, work and skill to produce, and is beautiful and durable enough to last 20 years or longer.

Good luck with that.

[lovelikewinter3]

Thanks for the breakdown, Valiant! I've been considering starting to create one of these, but using the "braided" method I've seen all over the internet. Good to have a full description of it all.

Yesterday I aimed to do some writing, and I succeeded, made 5$ and am feeling good about that.

Today:
-write 1 Helium article
-write 1 blog post outline
-sort through and organize expired & new coupons

Happy Friday all!

[Valiant]

Braided rugs are really beautiful to create, and definitely one of my favourite types. There are many patterns on the internet, and often the method is well-explained.

I've crafted several braided rugs in my lifetime, though I didn't mention the method on my last post here. One of them is 24 years old, gets constant traffic, and still looks almost new; it might even become a family heirloom.

The circle is the easiest, because you can blend your colour strips to join naturally, for an eye-pleasing result, and the joins don't look 'stepped'. Oval rugs are harder to create, because you have to taper the joined edges. Rectangular rugs are easier, but must be correctly braided at the corners to keep the rug corner perfectly square. Heart-shaped and half-rug shapes are hardest to accomplish, because they have their own special braiding patterns at the edges and curves. As well, the lacing required to attach the strips must be carefully done, so the rugs will lie perfectly flat, and the linen lacing thread must be pulled tightly enough to sink it into the fabric with each stitch, but still loosely enough to allow the rug to 'give' a little.

All the best with your own rug project!


Links to some beautiful rug patterns:
ENJOY!


Crochet-Type Rugs:
http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/directory/rugs.php


Braided-Type Rugs:
http://www.bing.com/search?srch=106&...aided+rag+rugs


A tutorial for a beginner's braided rug:
http://theadventurelearningcompany.b...-tutorial.html


Another tutorial for a beginner's braided rug, assembled on sewing machine:
http://captaincrafty.com/2011/11/braided-rug-tutorial/


Photo of rugs and the rug-maker from the era of:
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without"
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3141/2...79d_z.jpg?zz=1