July 2015 Frugal Chatter

[jasperandchar]

Inquiring Minds Want To Know!!!

Thoughts, concerns, worries and/or benefits of the BOC (Bank of Canada) lowering the rate by .25% today.

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2015/07/fad-press-release-2015-07-15/

A gentle reminder for those that recently renewed their mortgages in the last 6 months check out the rates, you may be able to get a better one by calling your bank

It really concerns me as it's my opinion that we are in a recession the BOC was reluctant to say so much on what I saw but again a lot could have been edited out of the blurb I saw on the news. I truly believe we have been in a recession for the last 1.5 years again just my opinion.

It amazes me that they can still estimate inflation rates which I shake my head at because again my opinion many folks are in debt and don't have the cash flow that once was. When I go out to the grocery store people don't have carts full they have the "make do" items in their carts again my opinion.

I am on a fixed income (I receive the same amount each month) and I am truly grateful for that as it's scary to think of what could happen. Job losses and the costs of everything are so high and always increasing.

It will ticks me off that the energy board for example keeps giving hydro increases every 6 months or back dates the increases.

Our mortgage is up for renewal in October 2016 and I'm hoping that rates remain low atleast until I can do the 6 month lock in price guarantee. I just don't know what we will be up against as our mortgage will be a much shorter and hopefully the last renewal, however, we are borrowing for much less the number of year ie. 25 year mortgage. Does anyone know how that works if you finish x amount of years less than the original mortgage???

Anyways that's my 2 cents on the matter

[lilo0003]

Finishing early will be ok. We always had a 25 yr term, never switched banks and renewed early each time as the rates always went down. The last renewal was a 5 yr term that we paid off in three and the mortgage was paid off in 16 yrs with no penalty for not going the full term. It is nice to put that baby to bed.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning All,
Thursday, the weekend is insight. I was slightly bad last night and did nothing when I got off work. I woke up exhausted yesterday and it took pretty much everything within me just to get through the day so by the time I got home I was done. I was hoping Mom would take on reins and handle dinner as I have been very proactive and making sure we do not turn to take out. Well Mom went out yesterday and picked up Chinese on the way home, probably should have fought it and cooked something but yeah I gave in.

Kind of surprised Mom said she was going to clean the fridge today, empty it, scrub it. I had planned on doing this on Saturday well she was at work but hey if she does it today I will just find another task to do on the weekend, let's be honest one whole house one big to do project. What I would really like to get done since I am driving a different vehicle right now is get the 10 bags of clothes we have in our upstairs hallways out and donated. I could easily fit these in my car but getting them in and out of my trunk would be a pain but my car had to go back in for service so I driving a spare SUV which would make the loading and unloading so much easier. Maybe I will tackle that this weekend.

Hope everyone has a great day, back to work I must go

[Frugalbigmama]

It's almost Friday! Yeah! Went to Costco last night before DS's game. We had one roll of Toilet paper left in the house. Hard to share between bathrooms lol. I decided to buy the Costco brand TP and I think I may continue to do so. It is great quality and the rolls huge and worked out it beats my sale price. (usually I would buy on sale at SDM on 20X the pts day) I also bought my oldest Calvin Klein boxers- 4 pairs for $10.99 which I thought was a pretty great deal for fancy undies lol

[Andit]

Good morning, everyone.

Going to play hometown tourist tonight & go check out some of the PanAm activities at Nathan Phillips Square with some friends. I'll be exhausted tonight, but I can always sleep through tomorrow. Sigh, I remember the days when this was my mantra:



Off to finish organizing the first third of the closet (yeah, I found my summer clothes & sorted them, now to deal with where to put the winter stuff ).

Hope everyone has a wonderful day.

[walkonby]

oops! we were away for a few days, DH needed to get his Museum and Art Gallery stuff out of his system! Thank gawd there was some other fun things to see there ( Quebec, Ottawa). My speed was more sitting on the river boat cruise, with a breeze blowing across my face.
Good news is today I went to Metro to stock up with my FPC's and a couple of dollar off coupons and came away with $54.82 worth of food and treats for just $3.28!!
Bad news is we've made a dent in our slush fund for that getaway, but all things considered I think we look happier!! ha ha

[Angela273]

We had a friend visit for a couple of hours yesterday morning, we hadn't seen her in months. Afterwards LO and I spent the next 2.5hrs doing errands. He got his hair cut. We went to Peavy Mart, Dollarama, Sobeys pharmacy (got my new meds), Service Canada, CAA, RBC, and No Frills. Glad we were able to accomplish so much. When dh was home from work we dropped my truck off to get a few repairs done that I could have been done a long time ago. The parts are costing a lot more than the actual labour, but it needed to get done. I was feeling ok enough to make that noodle dish for supper last night.

The reason that I stopped by Service Canada was because my Sick Benefits still hasn't been processed yet, even though I started the claim on June 22. Turns out that I have to wait 28days before they can submit a ticket to get someone to look into it, so I will likely be back at Service Canada again on Monday. I'm wanting to get this sorted out before I leave to Sasaktoon next Thursday.

So today LO and I will be home without a vehicle, which is part of why I wanted to get all those errands done yesterday. It rained some last night, so the garden looks a little too wet to try weeding this morning. I've created a basic plan of what I need to do each day before I leave to Saskatoon in a week's time. I'm still taking a nap most days and try to pace myself. I plan on posting baby bump pictures after I get the CD from our Saturday photo shoot. Some people still comment that I am not that big and they are surprised that I am 35wks pregnant with twins, but I'm ok with that.

[Natalka]

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

[Frugalbigmama]

Youngest DS is enjoying a fun day with his Aunt! They are at the waterpark at Wonderland right now. Glad he gets to have a fun day while I'm at work. His brother made tacos for breakfast this morning lol great smell in the house while getting ready for work. He wasn't hungry for them last night for dinner since he had a very late lunch. So I guess he was craving them since he knew they were available and ready in the fridge. Mama shredded the cheese and lettuce and had everything ready lol

[jasperandchar]

oops! we were away for a few days, DH needed to get his Museum and Art Gallery stuff out of his system! Thank gawd there was some other fun things to see there ( Quebec, Ottawa). My speed was more sitting on the river boat cruise, with a breeze blowing across my face.
Good news is today I went to Metro to stock up with my FPC's and a couple of dollar off coupons and came away with $54.82 worth of food and treats for just $3.28!!
Bad news is we've made a dent in our slush fund for that getaway, but all things considered I think we look happier!! ha ha

@walkonby looking and feeling happy is needed and with your shopping and out of pocket shop you are already on your way to building back on your slush fund

[jasperandchar]

Afternoon all,

I woke up at 845am to Dh & Jaden discussing who would use the loo first. FIL woke the guys up at 6am at the cottage to hit the road, Jaden was peeved and said what do you work at 930am (lol) nope FIL works at 2pm this afternoon (haha), I think FIL got the point but didn't care.

Since dh is home I'm going to get him to help me pull out some heavy items to be photographed and post for sale in time for the weekend.

DH & Jaden picked up some driftwood pieces that will also be posted for sale as there is another person charging an arm a leg for the pieces so the guys can make some extra cash.

Supper tonight is marinated chicken breast on the bbq with rice and salad ($5) and there will be tons of leftovers. I will turn the leftover chicken into chicken fried rice for lunches for the rest of the week.

Hoping to make it to the dump on Saturday am as they have a hazardous waste depot their where they put out items such as paint, cleaners, etc that are free for the taking, yes there are perks to living in the bush (atleast in my neighbourhood). Hoping to get enough paint to paint the kitchen/living room at the cottage, we'll be mixing a bunch of colors to get something that we are satisfied with as the price is right.

Well wishing everyone a wonderful & frugal afternoon and evening.

[walkonby]

wow! I Love the idea of getting a " new " colour by mixing free paints! A cottage paint job that does not impact the budget! priceless! Good luck!!

[SassyAshley]

Nancy you reminded me of quite a few years ago we were up in Collingwood, it was the end of the weekend and we were all just laying around until it was time to head home when my brother comes out of his room and goes you know Joe (his friend who came up for the weekend) needs to be at work in an hour and half. Well my brother being my brother did not pass on this info and we were easily a 2 hour drive away maybe more depending on traffic. So reverse of your FIL but along the same lines.

[Angela273]

LO has been requesting to bake cookies, so we made molasses oatmeal mini-chocolate chip cookies this morning. It made 3 dozen cookies that are currently cooling in the kitchen. While getting these ready for the oven I received 4 phone calls between the house and my cell. First call was from the shop telling me that they were wrong about the type of mirror my truck takes and that this one costs an extra $70, but it still needs to be replaced. Second call was from an electric company that we have been waiting for a quote from in order to get a new breaker box, etc. While on that short call my cell phone rang. It was the Catholic school division. It turns out that she submitted my ROE as maternity leave, which was messing with the fact that I am on medical leave. She will call them back and get this fixed. The fourth call was just spam.

I also folded and put away a load of laundry and washed the dishes. That's about it. I'll have to get lunch for LO and I. I'm thinking leftovers with a glass of milk.

[missmaggs]

It's almost Friday! Yeah! Went to Costco last night before DS's game. We had one roll of Toilet paper left in the house. Hard to share between bathrooms lol. I decided to buy the Costco brand TP and I think I may continue to do so. It is great quality and the rolls huge and worked out it beats my sale price. (usually I would buy on sale at SDM on 20X the pts day) I also bought my oldest Calvin Klein boxers- 4 pairs for $10.99 which I thought was a pretty great deal for fancy undies lol

Thanks for the info. I've been wondering if the costco brand TP is any good. Do you recall how much it is and how many rolls you get? I try and keep the cost of TP to between $0.28 and $0.33 a roll. I love Cashmere but costco sells 40 rolls for $20 which I find to be a little pricey