May 2012 Budget Challenge

[carebearhamm]

I was looking for a trampoline for the kids and had saved $400 for it and i found one at superstore $280 tax in (I really don't enjoy superstore I can't stand there lack of customer service - but they have a great walk in medi clinc). the left over $$ is going towards my garden boxes and storage for the craft room.

[Shwa Girl]

The neighbour's dog and I are getting to be friends. When I'm out puttering in my backyard or having a cuppa on my patio, it likes to come up close to the fence and lie down, and we keep company.

I guess the dog realizes that you are not a threat to his property. He was probably defending his turf.
You painted a nice word picture of you and the dog.

My neighbour's dog barks at us when we mow the lawn. He came up to the fence too. When we stopped the lawnmower and just stood and looked at him for a while, he sized us up, thought we were "o.k." and went about his business - guarding his property. Now when we mow, he doesn't care.

[Valiant]

New update on my first post.
It's been a good week for me, with some resolution on personal matters, bringing me some peace.
Today I walked to the library, mostly without using my third leg (my cane). The air quality is so good this morning after the rain, along with the subtle scents of lilac and spring crabapple blossoms, it makes one's own spirit well up with exultation and joy.
I'd like to visit the local greenhouse and check out all the flowers; I'm looking for a 6-pack of different-coloured impatiens for my backyard. Possibly, I may also buy 1 large tomato plant, for early fruits. Prices have gone up to $2 per 6-pack, and I have no idea what the single plants cost, so will have to see before I spend. I have 11 planters to fill in my backyard for tomatoes, and 6 small ones for flowers. My own tomato seedlings will fill my planters, but I want one large plant to grow in a border. My potato plants are starting to flower, so I must set them out asap. Anybody else here doing some gardening?

[Shwa Girl]

@ Valiant
About your gardening question, we put out some potted geraniums we got on sale at Food Basics. That's it. If the tomato plant prices are good, we may do some cherry tomatoes this year. Most of the time is taken up with mowing and keeping up with the weeds, with all the rain we had for the first part of May.

Glad that you had some resolution to your personal problems

[Valiant]

Well, my budget this month is going well so far. I got my phone bill, and the deductions came off it correctly, and left it at about $16 this month!
The reshingling renovations on our units will pose a problem with noise in my music studio, and a general mess of my yard and possibly some damage to my garden. But it's just one of those things a person has to deal with as best as they can; and sooner or later, it will be over, and my roof shouldn't leak any more.
The robins have been pecking in my planters, to get mud for their nest-building, so I packed a big planter-saucer full of mud for them and set it where they can see it; sure hope they take the hint.
I'm hankering to be off a-fishing, but need to check out the fishing at the river first, to see if it's worthwhile; licenses have gone up again.
When in doubt, cherry tomatoes usually make it through all the ups and downs of patio gardening. I remember seeing 1 plant on a Yahoo Video...some guy grew it in his backyard, fed it strictly on his garbage-compost, and staked it high, and it grew as tall as a small tree, and yielded hundreds of tomatoes...a truly amazing feat!

[carebearhamm]

My buget is not going well at all I have over spent - I have $20 bucks in the wallet and $200 in the bank till the end of the month - I planned a kids party for this weekend early this month and i have a jumpy house that i bought a groupon for and i up graded so i owe the $90 I need to buy hot dogs, buns and gift bags for 15 kids (the other parents are bringing the chips and drinks and deserts - I hate to say i might have to ask the husband for $$$ - I hate doing that because his pay check pays the major bills and i cover my own spending, savings and food for the house.

[bobbiegirl2010]

I overspent this month too and haven't been keeping very good track of my spending. Looks like I'm going to be short $300 this month and will have to take it from the emergency fund. Next month we will be doing 2 major projects on the house: fix the roof (again) and install a chain link fence for the playground area in the yard. We will have to borrow the money for both which I hate to do but don't really have a choice because both have to be done asap.

One of the daycare children I watch in the evenings has turned 12 so I will not be watching him anymore at the end of June. Luckily I just got a call today that there is a possibility I will be getting 3 more children on a part time basis which could work out to be an additional $1000 per month. This would increase my income $500 more than I am making now which would really come in handy to help pay off the house repairs.

[Valiant]

Paid a visit to my local greenhouse yesterday, and bought 1 large Early Girl (bush-type) tomato plant, and 1 6-pack of mixed-colour impatiens. The tomato plant already has blossoms on it, so shouldn't take long to produce, depending on whether or not the roof reshingling causes any planting delays or damages. Oh my, it was so nice to browse the greenhouse...the geraniums were gorgeous! For a long time now, I've been developing my capacity to totally enjoy things...'owning very little, but posessing all things'. I didn't buy any geraniums (they were almost $5 apiece), but I did enjoy looking at them, and imagining how they'd look around my yard and garden. Then I walked away happy.
Today I signed my housing lease for another year; that's always a relief...I get to enjoy my home for another year (if all goes well).
The robins are still pecking in my flower pots, so I added different mud to their mud-container (I'd been using some empty 6-packs which contained mostly peatmoss, and they must not like it as much as plain mud.) I'm contemplating making a good slingshot (a fairly powerful weapon...check the internet for videos) to defend my garden against the more destructive birds, mostly robins, but really don't want to resort to that yet, and am not even sure if its legal. Will have to check that out. Also, if I really needed meat, on any given day I could actually harvest my backyard which has abundant birds, squirrels and rabbits...(just a survivalist thought), depending on whether or not I could catch them. The library has many good cookbooks/recipes for wild game and birds.
One dream I have is to be able to canoe a river again, for a few weeks, camping out, fishing and living off my provisions. Haven't had a canoe for quite a few years, but will always remember those wonderful outings (in all weather), and the times of refreshing they gave me.
This summer I plan to try to recapture as much as possible some of my former pastimes which this illness took from me. It gives me nothing, but robs me of my strength and ability, and makes me pay a terrible toll of constant pain.
I've been reading "The Old Man and the Sea" by Earnest Hemingway again (it's part of my personal collection of favourites), and always find it an amazing novel with the counsel I need.
How's everybody doing with plans for the summer?

[carebearhamm]

The robins are still pecking in my flower pots,

My suggestions:

Go top your dollar store and get a cap gun - they don't like load noise and also you can try puting spikey things so they can't land till the pots can grow.

[lekate]

My budget went very well this month! Overspent a bit in 'going out to eat' but everything else was under!

I almost had a nervous breakdown today, I thought a slushie might help, but it just upset my stomach....

[lekate]

Expected income - 1500$
Actual income - 1578.31$
Variance Spent 147.15$ (sitting in chequing account)

Expenses
Cell phone - 40/40$
OSAP - 71$/71$
MC Interest - 30/30$
Alesse - 21/21$
Transit - 94/94$

Variables
Groceries - 232.86/300$
Cats - 69.61/100$
Misc./other - 93.98/100$
Eating out - 140.38/125$
Entertainment - 5.08/50$

Savings and Debt payments
TFSA - 0/200$
Savings - 0/68$
MC - 232.25/200$
I owe taxes so dipping into savings and 200$ from this month. Poop. 400$ on this this month.

Goals
- Stay on top of budgeting, I'm using Google Documents so I should be able to update and access from any computer, to see where I'm heading.
- Keeping bringing lunch into work, and not buying a bagel for breakfast from Tim Horton's.
- Use up the instant coffee I was given at work instead of buying coffee out and work on replacing morning coffee with tea.
- Buy ticket to go to Montreal in the summer (OSHEAGA!)
- Yard sale this month

I've been doing sooo good at not buying material items. It's been almost a month since I last bought a non-food/drink item. No books, no magazines, no clothes, nothing 'just because'. It feels great! I know I'm not helping to be a good little consumer like the economy would like, but hey I don't get paid well enough to be one!

This month went by all right. I started having emotional problems, I wish I had something to numb the pain, but that would just be running away from them.

I've decided to do a project on finding my 'passion' in life! There will be more on that later!

Signed up for TESOL, 1000$ on that Oh well, teaching abroad will be awesome.

[matrix82]

After 3 years of making payments our car is paid for :O. So that is one item out of the budget, which means adding some money to debt repayment on student loans

[carebearhamm]

I was looking for a trampoline for the kids and had saved $400 for it and i found one at superstore $280 tax in (I really don't enjoy superstore I can't stand there lack of customer service - but they have a great walk in medi clinc). the left over $$ is going towards my garden boxes and storage for the craft room.

So update ontrampoline - set up on Friday night and kids had a blast on Saturday and Sundaywe had a terrible wind and it flew it across the yard and sheared the metal inhalf.

[lekate]

So update ontrampoline - set up on Friday night and kids had a blast on Saturday and Sundaywe had a terrible wind and it flew it across the yard and sheared the metal inhalf.

I can see that happening. I set up a tent in my uncles backyard once. We were inside since it was super windy and all of a sudden my tent was in the pool and that was a giant 6-8 person tent!

[Valiant]

So far, I have a deficit of -$24.14 for May's Budget.
This is due to my Pharmacare deductible, which took up a large portion of my income, and which was also absorbed by April's surplus. I have several dollars left to pay on my Pharmacare, so that's a huge relief. No surplus this month, but overall, I'm quite pleased with my budget results.
My household contents insurance came in the mail today, due in July; premium has gone up again by $5, went up last July by $40 due to the Manitoba flood; my Income Tax refund will cover this bill, with a few dollars left over.

Well people, it's been a busy month, hasn't it? And certainly it's had its' share of ups and down for us from what I've been reading in your posts. Way to go on facing and handling all these difficulties, and let's keep our chins up as we move into our June Budget!