April Showers of Savings the sequel - 2015 Frugal Chatter

[Crochetlady]

Happy Saturday everyone. Haven`t been around much...I`ve been busy crocheting.

@Avon Your DH has been through so much. Hope the latest round of antibiotics work. You are both in my prayers.

[bobbiegirl2010]

Question of the Day

Does anyone have any tips for surviving a sudden drop in income?

This week I had one full-time child leave on Friday (Mom was advised to take early Mat Leave - I was expecting to watch him until end of May). Then I had another parent notify me today that they can no longer afford to pay daycare for their 2 children and Grandma has offered to watch them. They are giving me 2 weeks notice for their full-time child but would like me to continue watching their school age child for the remainder of the school year (so he doesn't have to change schools as they live in a different district). I live in a small town so filling daycare spots can take several months

[coupon girl]

bobbiegirl-here are a few tips for you
-make a lot from scratch you already do thou
--try to take advantage of points -shoppers ,checkout51 ,p.cpoints -maybe if you were saving them for xmas use them now on food
-I know when my hubby was laid off-or on strike years ago -our parents had use over for supper
-maybe try to trade your coupons for ones you need on the trading forum -i just traded for a 3.00 gift card the other day -its not much but it adds up
-buy thift clothing -I do and talize and value village have stamp card or a donation incentive this week talize wil giveyou a 30% off card if you donate
maybe post few items on kijiji or a facebook mom to mom site-maybe you can clear out a few toys
-try to price match most everything -I price matched a shovel at lowes today and they beat the price by 10% -I saved 4.00

-so sorry about your loss in income we are down to one income

[SassyAshley]

Nancy you are so right about the price of Beef, Mom and I actually discussed the other day that for most Beef applications we will start cutting it with pork as we can get pork at Costco every day for just over $2.00/lb, She doesn't like the idea of just switching to pork because of the texture so this is our meet in the middle solution.

Bobbiegirl sorry to hear you have lost daycare spots. Not sure if I have much to offer you do not already do. Do you have any items you could try selling even if it is just small amounts. This weekend I sold a few things I found the house we no longer need it was not a large amount but this weekend alone I have made about $12. Like Coupongirl said every little bit helps.

[SassyAshley]

Well we got one freezer done today but than ran out of bins. Need to buy more, they are just cheap dollar store bins but they are working out exactly as we wanted. We now have everything sorted from the one freezer sorted so you just have to find the bin and you need and get what it is your are looking for. Also discovered we are completely over run with pork, so I guess pork will making many appearances on our dinner plans.

Need to let out some of my frustration. In the past 6 or so months my Mom has been offered a full position quite a few times and each time it has been disappeared. She was recently again offered one and spoke up and mentioned how many times she has been told there was going to be a full time position only for it to disappear. Was told not to worry this time it was a done deal only thing was the job would not be available until June or July. Okay sucks to have to wait but we can make it work. Well this week yet again she was told the job has fallen through and yet again her hours have been cut she went from 30 hours last week which got cut to 26 to now this week she has I think 12. I feel like I am sinking fast she has yet again started looking for a full time job but cannot find anything she is qualified for. On top of it I have had a number of unexpected expenses pop up I have had to cover and just feel there is no end in sight. It seems like no matter what we do money is bleeding out of our house and I cannot figure out how to stop it. Every time I think we are back on track something else unexpected happens setting us back again. Sorry for my rant but I am just at a loss it feels like right now the harder we try to not spend money the more money flies out the door and I just cannot seem to make it stop.

[coupon girl]

just sold an ikea lamp was asking 7.00 but a young couple came and she said would you take 6.25 -it was for babies nursery -I said no problem (oh ikea doesn't make it anymore and she has one allready she wanted two ) see what you find on kijii
6.25 for me oh yeahgonna look around house for a few more items

[jasperandchar]

Question of the Day

Does anyone have any tips for surviving a sudden drop in income?

Firstly sorry for the drop in income.

I really am no help other than what the others have suggested, it's tough these days getting ahead, I feel like a dog chasing my tail sometimes, hope you fill your spots quickly.

[jasperandchar]

@SassyAshley great that you and your mom have found a system that works for the freezer.

i can so relate and I think others can as well when it comes to finances, I honestly feel like a dog chasing it's tail, the insanity is driving me crazy.

just when you think okay there will be a few bucks left at the end of the month or payday....bam....sh*t happens, I'm trying to survive the ups and downs BUT it's so frustrating at times.

I think the biggest hit these days is the stupid Hydro rates (delivery fee to be exact....sigh) and groceries, everything is getting more and more expensive. To be honest I spent all my grocery budget last week, yep crazy as I still had 3 weeks to make do with the exception of milk and only milk to purchase for the next 3 weeks. Of course i went and stocked up on chicken breast AND I'm glad I did because the meat prices are out of this world the last year things have just gone up in ridiculous amounts.

It's funny how we were driving by some older prominent neighbourhoods that when i was a kid these places were well kept and mansion and now these same places are so runned downed, just goes to show show the economy is taking it's toll of everyone regardless of their locations.

They had something on the news last night cheap date, they had a mcdonalds dinner, a movie in theatre with a popcorn, 2 beers as a nightcap and a taxi and found that the most expensive cheap date was in Vegas and cheapest being 3 cities in Indida, craziness, who would think that a cheap date in Vegas would be $130 and the same cheap date in India was under $28....

I am grateful for what we have and what we have achieved BUT I think everyone is very cautious and rightfully so....sorry I'm babbling (lol)

[Frugalbigmama]

Hi all. We were gone all day shopping. On the hunt for a piece of sports equipment DS needed. Costco. A visit with baby and sister. And a new bike for DS. DS and I went for a walk and bike ride tonight and he loves it. Then we went to store quick to pm shoppers egg sale since we were out. Pulled ground pork and Turkey from freezer to make burger patties in the morning

[bobbiegirl2010]

Thanks for the frugal suggestions everyone

Since I will only have school-age daycare kids starting in 2 weeks I will try my best to take advantage of the extra time during the day to do frugal things I previously did not have time to do. Some ideas I think would work for me are:

- Selling unwanted things - I live in a small town so I will start posting things on FB swap pages and see how that goes
- Shopping the thrift stores - I have never gone to the thrift store in town as it is only open 1pm - 4pm 2 days a week but I will soon have some free time to check it out
- Fixing things ourselves - I convinced DH to "fix" the bbq instead of replacing it. He used free scrap metal to make a replacement drip tray and heat shields. Cost to repair was free )
- Start a vegetable garden (I have never gardened in my life so we'll see how it goes lol). I already have a rosemary plant started indoors and some other herbs in a tray and DH got several packets of seeds for free at work
- Hang laundry to dry (I just need DH to put the clothes line back up as it was taken down when we put some siding up last year)
- Try going as long as possible without grocery shopping and use up what we have
- Start saving pc plus points instead of redeeming everytime we reach x amount and use when we are really short on $$

[coupon girl]

jasper and sassy you are totally right everything Is so much lately hydro -uggg that is why I am hanging clothing out just hung my sheets on the line at 8.00 tonight saving on the hydro by not using dryer
-hubby's brother told him to go to habitat re -use centre today to get cheap lugnuts -I found 3 light switch plates -the flat one today 1.00 each no tax too hubby got his box of lugnuts (jasper our dump has a store when you go in but no clothing just knick knacks ,tables ,albums etc and not free -you are lucky girl)
-today hubby and i went to lowes and got cement for the posts buy 1 get 1 half off
-and I pricmatched a round shovel to home hardware lowes price was 14.99 pricematched to 10.49 -10%=anyway ended up saving 4.00

[coupon girl]

-great ideas bobbiegirl
when hubby's can fix stuff thats awesome -mine is building a new deck (ours was rotted it had been here 30 years)it may take all summer as he has no help -his brother will pop around now and then
- I helped a bit today got one post out-but i dont want to over do it(high blood pressure) -hubby always tells me to stop and i do
-son was working -hehelped the other day when he popped in

[lizzie bargain]

BG-the only other thing I can think of to suggest is perhaps expanding a bit in terms of what you do if possible-for eg could you provide care for a disabled adult in your home( usually tax free income) or could you provide respite care in your home or a disabled adults or child's home-I am not so sure this would be tax free but here in AB it is at a much higher hourly wage than childcare. Or is there a need for elder care close by and something you would be interested in? Try to think outside the box-or could you host a foreign student or? I do realize you are in a smaller town so I realize options are more limited than in the city but I am hoping you can come up with some extra ways to generate some income while still caring for your own little ones.

As well I don't know if you have a garage to rent out for storage or a trailer to rent out etc. Obviously you have lots of patience as you work with children and you have a home so see if you can leverage either of these to come up with any additional ways to generate extra income including the ideas you and the other ladies have already come up with. I hope things improve soon for you.

I agree with what others have said about prices going up especially for food. I just caught part of a newscast about the cost of hydro one in Ontario and it sounds just awful-I feel for any of you dealing with these very high utility bills in Ontario or elsewhere.

[Insane]

@jasperandchar I completely understand. I feel like all I do is manage from one crisis to the next. I keep saying how much we need an emergency fund to deal with these "emergencies" but I can't seem to build one. Seriously, the last time I had one was in 2011 when I used it to fly home for a funeral. I keep saying, next year will be better because daycare will go down. But, inevitably something goes up. I had big plans to put the car payments aside when we paid off the car, so we'd have a slush fund and maybe buy the next car outright. Finished paying the car off in Sept 2012. Guess how many payments I've managed to set aside? 0.

My budget doesn't work anymore. My groceries were budgeted for $450 every two weeks. I'm lucky to keep it at $500. And that doesn't include meat as I buy that as a meat order. My grocery budget is a mess.

We got a huge tax refund. It would make a nice emergency fund. But we haven't been home in 2.5 years. I want to go home. I miss my siblings immensely. I ache to go home. So for my own mental wellbeing, we are going. But I'm guilt ridden as I know that money could be used elsewhere.

So I hear you J&C.

On the plus side, I noticed my Independent Grocer sells amazon gift cards. I could use my points to buy those and use the gift cards to buy stuff we need on there (and get a few swagbucks too)

I went to go use my old navy super cash yesterday and they changed the terms and conditions. Now it can be used on "everyday steals". most of the kids clothes is "everyday steals" So pissed. Waste of a promo.

[Insane]

I sold my ju ju be diaper yesterday for $40. (a little sad. It was my last diaper bag. No diaper bags in this house=no babies. The no baby decision was made permanent a long time ago, but every once and awhile I get rid of something and realize it's another sign there will be no more babies here.)

I also sold a huge bag of mega bloks I had posted for awhile for $30. So that's an extra $70 for my "new mixer fund which is really a we are short this week so take it from the mixer fund fund"