August 2015 Frugal Chatter thread

[Lynn49]

^ Lynn, there is nothing better than crabapple jelly - my mom made it every year. We had two big trees in our backyard. She also canned the apples whole, I loved those!
I just recently bought some apple jelly - I know it won't be the same, though.

Good morning, everyone! I'm just going to head to sleep - hoping I can get a few hours!
It's another scorcher today.

Gas just went up to 1.25 here - up from 1.10, so that's just awful. Gah!

Enjoy the day!

I hope you get some sleep, Nat!!! Sweet dreams!

As for gas, we JUST got below the 1.20s around here...1.10 would be considered a miracle around here and there'd be line-ups at the stations!

[lizzie bargain]

QOTD- if you have children, what are you spending your increased UCCB on if you care to share?

In our case it is just $60 for one child and is just going into our general account.

[Lynn49]

QOTD- if you have children, what are you spending your increased UCCB on if you care to share?

In our case it is just $60 for one child and is just going into our general account.

Do you have an educational savings program for your kiddies? That would be a considerable amount to stuff into it..

[Granger]

Love all you ladies!!!

Lump UCCB went into general fund for expenses. We are finally spending money in the account rather than the next pay check. We also put $100 for each girl into RESP. The increase will depend on what the finances look like when DH is full time and my EI starts.

It will either go to general ($ that allows one of us to stay home and raise our kids) or be split btwn home reno and RESP.

Have a good one!

[lizzie bargain]

Yes Lynn our RESP contributions are done but for those who are able, it would be great to put in an RESP and get the gov't 20% grant. As Granger said some parents need it for general child costs and others to enable one parent to stay home with little ones for a time which is also well worth it I think.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning All,
Frugal Shopping week, not because we did not need anything but because everything we wanted was sold out when we went last night. So we now have 2 weeks where we did not grocery so we did end up with the surplus I have been trying to achieve for months.

I must say so ready for this week to be over Tuesday I was in another branch and on my feet for 9 hours (SO not used to this anymore) yesterday I had a few meetings left at 11:15 did not get back to office till 5:20 and then we still needed to go out.

Normally when I sell things I do not do deliveries if they want it they can come and get it as most of my stuff is prices to sell and delivering it would cost me more in gas. I had a person really want something and since I was working out of town I would be driving right by their place so I agreed to drop off. I went on Tuesday there was no money left out, asked if there was any way I could come back another night against my better judgement said I can try again Wednesday since we were going to pick up something close to that area. So we went again Wednesday and still no money, I could not get a message to go through on my phone so I waited till I was home to message and the response back is oh I was here why didn't you knock. When you do porch pick ups or drop offs if someone says it porch pick up or drop off would you have knocked?

[sweet sparrow]

One day i hear scratching at the back screen door i thought it was the cat wanting to come in,instead it was a big rat,i nearly crapped myself.

Yesterday I saw a large dead rat on the sidewalk and it really creeped me out. Those things are huge! Now I'll have to walk by it every day until the city takes it away.

We've had mice around our home in the summer so we've been "borrowing" our neighbour's cats. Each time we see one of their five cats, we offer a bit of kibble in return for them to scent our yard. We only offer a little so we don't spoil their dinners. I don't know if it's working but we do see less mice around!

The podiatrist told me you should replace your shoes every 1,000 km as the cushioning wears down-I am sure I am not the only one who does not.

Well maybe if I had distance counters on our shoes.... My running shoes might last two years at the most, but then they become my walking shoes on the weekends, then my gardening shoes, before I finally pull out the shoelace as a spare. It takes a long time to get to 1000 km though.

I don't wear them at work, and it's 9.7 km home. If I go home 4 days a week (if there is no rain) that's about 40 km during the weekdays then maybe 2 km on the weekends. Since we're in Canada, that's maybe six months out of the year, so 1092 km. That's a year and a half with me putting on almost 10 km per day, four days a week. In winter, I'll be wearing boots, so I guess it's a different counter for those.

Hello...just being nosey and poking my head in for a while...gosh, so much going on in your lives!! I don't feel I'm frugal enough to hang out here, LOL....on the other hand, with me still not in top form, my hubby does all the shopping so I don't have a handle on what goes on there, how much things cost anymore...but I am finally making a few meals, or..at least helping my hubby out.

I wasn't aware there was a Miss Frugalista competition. I think I'd lose. Sadly, I toss out so much food that DH won't eat, LO won't eat, or LO gets tired of, or we have no time to make.

Being frugal is as individual as our own budgets. To some people, being frugal is pulling their Acura SUV into the Tim Horton's line instead of the Starbucks. If you're saving $3 each time you go for coffee, that's more than one extra coffee at Tim Horton's so that's a pretty good deal!

We all try our best, but there's no gold medal at the end of the month. Just meeting ends meet or having a few more dollars iin the bank is reward enough.

To give an eg I bumped into a good friend at the grocery store today. She has 3 children attending 3 different private schools( one boarding) and I am sure her school fees are higher than our annual income and presumably her family has a good income to support that. However she did comment to me that she had been paying closer attention to grocery prices lately-I assume that means she is trying to cut in some areas to pay or save in others. Up until a year ago she had all 3 kids in the same school so got a family discount. I am sure her fees have gone up, especially with a boarding school. Not to ramble on but no matter your income most people I think( except maybe Bill Gates) will be frugal somewhere to either save or spend on something else more important to them.

Actually, I do think Bill Gates is pretty frugal! He spends/donates quite a bit of his money to others and I think he's credited as giving the highest percentage of his money to those less fortunate. Though I imagine if you're Bill Gates, everyone on Earth is less fortunate to you.

I also know someone who sent her child to private school. She couldn't afford it and borrowed heavily to send him there. She's now paid down the mortgage and maxed out her RRSPs. The son is in his 20s, has his engineering degree from Queens and working on getting his Master's. While he's working at his full time job on programs for NASA and Canada's space program, he's giving back 75% of his income back to his parents to pay down the debt quickly. And that family is pretty frugal. They waited on major purchases, drove an old clunker of a car, dollar store gifts at Christmas, clothing shopping at WM, etc. They just didn't look like it during the week with the fancy posh private school.

He'll be starting out in life with a high income that's sure to rise and getting the full budgeting learning experience with living off of 15-20% of his earnings. Once that debt is paid off and he invests 80%, he'll be one of those people that can retire fairly early, but chooses not to because he loves his job.

Frugal comes in all the colours of the rainbow!

Now to think of what to make tomorrow I'm thinking Korean beef, anyone ever make this, this recipe calls for ground beef via pinterest but time will tell.

I don't think I've ever had Korean with ground beef. Are they substituting? Is it bulgogi? I'm thinking it's definitely not galbi.

Wow, awesome savings for something we know you will use a lot of. Learning to knit is on my bucket list. I am not sure how many scarves my kids can handle, but I think it would be calming after I figure it out of course.

If I can knit scarves, anyone can do it! You have to work a bit at getting the tension consistent, but when you do, I found it fairly easy to knit with mittens on, even standing outside while waiting for the bus! The only pain in the bottom is if you have dropped stitches and I'd swear the cold makes needles extra slippery. A crochet needle is great for that.

I'm so jealous of everyone's apples! Only 1 out of 3 of our apple trees produced apples and then the squirrels ate them all

I'm jealous you all have even the property large enough to grow apples! I was dreaming about at a dwarf tree and decided we couldn't even get that. I really want one of those trees that grow four different kinds. My sister bought a cherry one but she said the only branch that survived was the rainer cherries and the birds and squirrels got them all. First world problems.

[sweet sparrow]

Love all you ladies!!!

@Granger : We love you too!

QOTD- if you have children, what are you spending your increased UCCB on if you care to share?

It's going into the general account but DH and I each put $100/month into LO's RESP for now. I figure we'll do as much as we can now so if I ever need another mat leave or DH loses his job, we won't feel badly about cutting back because we gave during the times that we could.

When you do porch pick ups or drop offs if someone says it porch pick up or drop off would you have knocked?

@SassyAshley : I've never bought anything off kijiji but I would always knock even just to thank the person and let them know that the correct person picked up the item. If they weren't home, I would leave a sticky note on the door. I guess no one else does that?

[lizzie bargain]

SS-we do have a good size city back yard( virtually no front/side yard as it is a reverse pie lot which works for me as we don't really use the front)-it would be miniscule in the country! Admittedly it is mostly grass although we do have the small apple tree and some raspberries in the back corner. We also have a small vegetable patch but do not usually plant in years we are away on summer house exchanges. Usually too I will have a couple of pots of tomaotes on the back deck.

I really admire those who can stretch their money a long way through various means-whether by necessity or choice. Agreed that people are frugal in different ways-my friend I mentioned yesterday was thrilled when I gave her a one year membership to homeexchange.com last year as she would love to travel more frugally( perhaps more necessary now that they take less and cheaper trips) and is intrigued with the idea and intended to sign up anyway. I even told her I got an offer for free to share with a friend for a year and she appreciated that my gift to her was free! Off to watch a friends little girl for a bit.

[Crochetlady]

How disappointing, CL. A few years ago hubby picked a big basket of crab apples from our tree and I made crabapple jelly...a big job, but oh, what lovely tart-sweet jelly! I hope you get a good crop of apples this year! Do you bake and freeze or make jellies and butters?

We have Mac and Courtland trees so we eat a lot and also freeze them. We`re both diabetic so i don`t bake much but we love applesauce.

[Crochetlady]

Fantastic, Crochetlady! Yep, you won't be running out of things to do, that's for sure. Is the yarn for your gorgeous afghans?

I picked up two of those huge balls of yarn at WM yesterday...you've probably seen them, the yarn feels like chenille, uses size 8 needles. I bought a variegated pink/lilac/white one, and a blue/green/white one, both for baby hats for charity....I'll be busy at camp this weekend in a more constructive way when everyone gies hiking!

Thank you for the warm welcome, everyone, and you're right: each of us, in our own way, has a budget, and no one arbitrarily tosses money around buying "stuff" we can do without.

I tried to post a pic but couldn`t get it. It is yarn for the baby afghans. One is for the gingham ones, the dark blue I do in a ripple pattern with a few white stripes.

That yarn sounds interesting...what is it called? Sounds like it will make beautiful hats.

[Lynn49]

@Granger: We love you too!



It's going into the general account but DH and I each put $100/month into LO's RESP for now. I figure we'll do as much as we can now so if I ever need another mat leave or DH loses his job, we won't feel badly about cutting back because we gave during the times that we could.


@SassyAshley: I've never bought anything off kijiji but I would always knock even just to thank the person and let them know that the correct person picked up the item. If they weren't home, I would leave a sticky note on the door. I guess no one else does that?

Um. What? What's a "porch pick-up"? I have so much stuff to get rid of and thought I'd start with Kijiji but it always makes me nervous about having people come to the door, and meeting at a Tims seems just so weird, lol....fill me in, please? And we're off to camp so I'm not ignoring anyone, we have no wifi unless we go to the recreation building or our kids' trailer with my ipad...have a great weekend, everyone!!!!

[Lynn49]

I tried to post a pic but couldn`t get it. It is yarn for the baby afghans. One is for the gingham ones, the dark blue I do in a ripple pattern with a few white stripes.

That yarn sounds interesting...what is it called? Sounds like it will make beautiful hats.

Oh, CL, your afghans are a work of art! So happy for you, getting that yarn at such a bargain!

That yarn I purchased is loaded in the van, so I can't tell you now what it is...just a sec...I'll check the WM site to see if it's there......gah...had to go to the US WM to find the name of those yarns!

Here it is......that's the boy one. Now...the one I purchased is a HUGE ball...larger than the usual Michaels' balls of Bernat yarns, and to be honest, I'm not even sure it says "Bernat" on it, but all the colours are identical...I think they're done up for WM in particular. They sell for $10 a ball and make the softest little hats!
I made just over a dozen kids' and adults' hats (adult yarns) last year before I ran out of time...this year I'm getting a big head start!

[thriftygranny]

Jealous of all of the knitters, on my bucket list too!!!

I just put Jayden's UCCB into savings, his RESP is maxed for this year and he will be 18 in October. I will not donating it to the NDP government as they suggested we do with it!!! Honestly I think I am giving his lump sum to him to buy really good winter tires for his vehicle. Will save me a lot of worry!!

Not shopping except for fresh fruit and veggies and milk again this week, Husband is leaving for the coast to go Halibut and Salmon fishing, hopefully he brings home as much as last year, we just ate the last salmon this week.Not frugal but it is his yearly trip with his high school buddies , what can
I say he is a guy of many hobbies.

Enjoy the day, going to be a scorcher here again , will be sewing in the basement!!

[thriftygranny]

Um. What? What's a "porch pick-up"? I have so much stuff to get rid of and thought I'd start with Kijiji but it always makes me nervous about having people come to the door, and meeting at a Tims seems just so weird, lol....fill me in, please? And we're off to camp so I'm not ignoring anyone, we have no wifi unless we go to the recreation building or our kids' trailer with my ipad...have a great weekend, everyone!!!!

I am hesitant to sell things as well. I did it about 6 years ago with great success but my brother and his wife had a garage sale last year and 5 days later they were broken into and robbed of all jewelry and valuables.The police say this is getting quite common especially for people who live outside of town. I just don't want strangers coming to the door and checking our home out!!