Lovely Easter Weekend

(Hubby's Iphone pics - Ochre Sea Star)

Mom is currently over spending two nights with us for Easter.  Instead of cooking a big feast this weekend we decided on BBQ easy meals of fish and chicken.  The weather has been unusually wonderful - sunny and warm.  I dug out my summer clothes and today we went to the ocean and discovered the tide was way out displaying many of these beautiful purple starfish(Ochre Sea Star) waiting for the tide to return to cover them up.  

We also spent some time looking at property - an offer was made and accepted on a condo for her to live in only two blocks from our house!  Now we have to ready her home for market and sell it as soon as possible.  Very exciting times!  I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend, what ever you choose to do.  Cheers!

Café Oiseau Rare (Rare Bird Cafe)

According to the 1966 Golden Field Guide Birds of North America (gifted to me by Mom)  this little guy sitting out the rain at our feeder is a Skylark, common to Vancouver Island.  He is very fat and often comes with his girlfriend but today he was solo, perhaps she is back at the nest sitting on eggs.  I love watching them-usually they avoid coming in the rain though.  He must have been hungry.

These little birds were introduced to Canada from Britain in about 1900.  Since the 1970s their numbers have declined and the only place in North America you still find them is on Vancouver Island.  I read one article that stated most are near Victoria and there were only about 100 pairs left.  

Apparently we are extremely fortunate to have these guys feeding at our cafe!  After taking these pictures  three were spotted later in the day feeding together.  They must have decided there were too many tourists in Victoria and flew the 300km North to the Comox Valley.

Yesterday coming back from the thrift store I saw my first baby fawn of the year, still sticky from birth.  We have tons of deer around here and he was with a group of four deer by the side of the road.  I need to start carrying my camera in the car!

****UPDATE**** I have been corrected - it is a Pine Siskin!  This bird is not in my birding book so I was going on  a Vancouver Island Birding Website but The Rambler is correct, this is definitely a Pine Siskin.  Not so rare but definitely beautiful all the same and he is currently singing his brains out in my backyard.  Now to find a better birding book!

The Little Thrift Store That Could

Earlier this week I visited two thift stores and came home empty handed with exception of two small taper candle holders for .30 cents that I needed after my last pair cracked.

Yesterday on the way back from picking up groceries I decided to stop of the smallest of Thrift Stores in my area.  Although very tiny I continue to find lots of goodies there.

Vintage Watercolor Unknown Artist

Japanese Lotus Shaped Bowls

Two Handcarved Masks

Vintage Myrtlewood Condiment Set

All of these were bought with the idea of reselling at my next flea market.  I always buy things that I would like to display in my own home.  Hubby immediately loved the Myrtlewood and the masks.   We are keeping the masks as they go with a small African themed area in our dining room.  The total bill for this shopping trip?  $8.80 Canadian.  

I have also converted hubby to buying thrift store clothing (a very long process) as yesterday he wanted a fleece jacket that he could use for working outside but nothing too nice in case it got wrecked.  I did not go with him as was in the middle of putting together a casserole but directed him to which thrift store had the best selection of mens clothing in our area.  He came home with a Northface fleece jacket and a brand new pair of mens shoes.  He cannot always buy his clothes there as wears a lot of suits and dress shirts that we purchase new for the business but for casual clothing he is now open to it.  He came home saying what a great store that was.  Ten years ago when I met him he was great at saving money on things like used vehicles but wouldn't be caught dead in a thrift store.   A major breakthrough and a great week of thrifting for both of us.

Linking up with Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Mondays - check her out!

On The Sly

Even though hubby is pretty thrifty of the two of us I take the cake for frugality.  I do lots of things he doesn't even know about to save money.....

1.  This week I turned down the heat on our hot water tank by one notch.  He has taken a couple of baths plus a shower in the last three days and didn't even notice.

2.  Go around the house unplugging things on a regular basis.  When you leave items plugged in that are not used very often they still consume some electricity.  This is a very painless way of saving money on your utility bills.

3. Buy items close to expiration date-on purpose-at a discount.  Yesterday it was hot dog buns to go with our easy Friday night supper.  We will use the remainder of the buns tonight as garlic toast to go with a hamburger casserole that I am making tonight.  Two months ago I found a whole bunch of cheese that was right at expiration for half price.  People pay extra for aged cheeses.  I cut it into chunks and froze the whole lot.  We are just using using up the last bit now and I just noticed a cheese sale that fits into our budget so will stock up as I will not pay more than $1 per 100 grams of cheese.  A few weeks ago I bought yogurt with two days to expiration that was marked half price. I will go a few days beyond expiration with yogurt and it tasted fine.

None of these things have hurt our standard of living in any way yet each of them added up helps us stay on budget.  We are now living on 1/4 of the amount of money that we were two years ago - by choice.  We are self employed, have time to do the things in life that we want to - and no, we are not retired.  We figured out what kind of lifestyle we wanted to have and live within our means to accomplish that.

Do you frugal on the sly?  Am I the only one?

First Day of Spring!

For those of you still experiencing snow - I am sorry but even if it doesn't look like Spring outside - Spring is here and your snow will soon be melting.

To me Spring means growing things, weeding things, and mowing things.  It also means nearly an end to paperwork(we just finalized our Corporate taxes with the accountant, very complicated as we incorporated, he is also doing our personal taxes once we get a slip or two more, I just issued our first real paychecks, and submitted our GST/HST for the year - lots of government garbage) and planning for the future.

It also means GARAGE SALE SEASON is has started on Vancouver Island and is starting in a month or two in other colder climates.  My favorite!  Happy Spring.

The Liebster Award - Again!

I am not sure you are supposed to win this more than once but now I have been nominated three times - woo hoo!  The first time was last Spring, see the post here for my choices of nominees which I am sticking with.  This will be my final acceptance of this award - thanks for fellow bloggers Shoestring Manor and  Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life for thinking of me.

 In the spirit of the Liebster however I will share 11 Random facts about me.

1.  I moved out from home at age 17 as that was when I graduated high school and I was very independent from a young age - it was not due to a bad relationship with my parent.

2.  I am 7.5 years younger than hubby.  We have been together for 10 years and married for 7.5 years.  Someone once referred to hubby as my Father (he looks young, I have no idea why that happened but he took offence).

3.  I never really started cooking from scratch until age 33 when I met hubby and suddenly had four stepkids - six mouths to feed on a part-time basis!  Now I am 43 and a way better cook.

4.  My favorite color is Coral (cross between pink and orange).

5.  The thing I spend the most money on outside of basic living costs:  Travel - and never regretted a dollar spent.  I plan on enjoying my life and travel is one of the things that makes my heart go pitter patter.

6.  I am a dual USA/Canadian citizen as I was born in the Montrose, Colorado, USA but my family moved to Canada when I was six months old.  When I was 18 I wanted Canadian citizenship.  If you are born in the USA you are always deemed a citizen (even if you want to give it up you can't) therefore I am a dual citizen.  

7.  My eyes are brown.  I only started wearing glasses for driving at age 35 but do not wear them all the time as am nearsighted.

8.  I own a hamster, primarily because hubby is allergic to everything else.

9.  The number 0ne thing I do to relax is walk by the Ocean.

10.  My favorite food is Mexican.

11.  I read two or three books simultaneously.  Right now I am reading Kiss the Bees by J.A. Jance, A Traitor to Memory by Elizabeth George and The Anodyne Necklace by Martha Grimes.  If one gets slow I just read one of the others.  Rarely do I ever quit a book as I feel the need to give the author a chance until the end.

I have no idea why the writing in this post went all small and cannot fix it - sorry guys!

Thanks again!

At The Flea Market

I had committed to a table at the flea market this past Saturday where my Mother sells her hand-tied fishing flies so despite my cold I drove for an overnight visit on Friday to Mom's house. I am still on the fence as to whether I will open an ETSY store due to high Canadian shipping costs but wanted to try the flea market first as an alternative. You can basically sell anything there and are not pigeon-holed to strictly vintage or crafts like ETSY. If I make a buying mistake I can still likely recoup original costs at the flea market.

On the drive Friday I stopped at two thrift stores in towns along the way. What were my scores? A brand new pink blouse for .25 cents (special one day sale - way picked over so only found one item but still a great find!) and a Sharp's Confectionery tin for .50 cents which I believe is from the 1940's or 1950's.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a great day. I didn't take any pictures there - as I didn't want to haul my DSLR camera along with me and my cell phone is a dumb style old school one with a terrible camera. I did sell some of the items that have been collected over the past year and had a really nice time!

Cost of the table was a very inexpensive $7 plus $2 for a bottomless coffee each which was money well spent as the hall is not heated and we were there for five hours. Mom took homemade breakfast sandwiches and fruit for snacks. I walked away after expenses with $81 which is going to be split as follows: $6 into the Christmas fund and $75 into the travel fund. About $20 of that was selling household items that should not have been moved but were (like some dvds and books). I priced things to sell, not make tons of money and a couple other flea marketers who have antique malls bought several items. I got to spend some quality time with Mom and had a great time. Not a bad way to make extra money at a hobby that I do anyway. This is more for fun than a big money maker but now I know I can continue to collect thrifted lovelies for the next time I decide to do a sale. I tried to price my items above garage sale prices but below ETSY and Antique mall prices and it felt really good that others thought they were getting a great deal too. Click to see a few of the items that sold like the green and white oil lamp, divided vegetable dish, the vintage palmistry porcelain tray, five vintage glass electricity insulators, silk scarf, coloured liquor glasses and two of four vintage apothecary jars (I kept the best two for my own collection).

I will never make a million dollars at a flea market but I sure had fun and it was a great way to spend some time with my Mom and make money at the same time. Now I get to keep picking!

Sick, Tired & HAPPY!!!

Very short blog tonight, we both have come down with the crud.  Our sale on the Alberta house has been finalized - HAPPY DANCE!  Will post more when I am more coherent.  Cheers!

Tick Tock

Taken at Cowichan Bay BC

What a week.  Monday evening I flew to Edmonton, landed at 1am Tuesday morning, rented a car, drove to our home in Sherwood Park, packed up a full suitcase in anticipation of clearing the house out next month, got 3 hrs sleep, drove to Vegreville to pick up my Mother-in-law, and drove back to the airport for a 1pm flight Tuesday.  Hubby was left to fulfill some business appointments that could not be broken.  Fortunately he was able to adjust his schedule so Wednesday the three of us spent six hours on the road (3 each way) to Victoria for the funeral of hubby's Great Aunt.  Finally Thursday we relaxed and showed my Mother-in-law our new home and town.  She is not afraid of flying but is deathly afraid of flying by herself - it is the process that terrifies her from checkin to security.  On her way back I cleared security with her and watched her walk up the stairs onto the plane-the only part she had to do on her own was the flight and getting off the plane to baggage where my stepson was waiting to drive her home.  Fortunately everything went as planned.  She is back in Alberta safe and sound and I am recovering from exhaustion.

It was extremely fortunate that I had just deep cleaned the house and bought groceries - you never know when your Mother-in-law will be an unexpected guest!

Now we wait for the conditions to come off the sale of our home - Thursday March 14th is the deadline and we are waiting not very patiently - tick tock tick tock.  They did their home inspection today and we know the sale of their house went through which was one of their conditions. 

If the sale does go through there are all sorts of things to be done - book flights, clean out the house, move step-son, disconnect utilities.  Hubby is already making a list of all the things we agreed to do and our new home when the Alberta house sold like build a shed and get a hot-tub.  Our new home is half the cost of the Alberta home but we are doing some upgrades to make it suit our new lifestyle - as we intend to be in it until too old to take care of ourselves (*do you think hubby planned it out to marry a wife 8 yrs his Jr?).

Thanks to everyone's kind words regarding the loss of hubby's 99 yr old Aunt.  We should be so lucky to live a long and prosperous life like hers.  The funeral was a celebration of life and I heard many wonderful stories - even met some more of hubby's cousins who we will likely see again as they only live 45 minutes from our home.

In the mean time, I have the travel bug - dreaming of exotic/tropical/historic places.  I have been doing some armchair traveling via the blog world - spent some downtime this weekend reading on Mexico, RV travels, and Europe.  I see travel in our future - this time just a little bit different as we get to come home to paradise afterwards!

Did I mention we will be mortgage free - 3rd times a charm - for the LAST time!!

Some Good News and Some Bad News

What a whirlwind 12 hours.  We have a signed deal to sell our Alberta house - the conditions come off the offer on March 14 so by then we will know if its a done deal (conditions in Canada are the requirements that would allow the purchaser to finalize buying the property - inspection, confirmation of financing through their bank).  At that time the buyers would sign a document advising the deal can proceed and a full deposit of $10,000 is given to our lawyers.  Possession date is fast - April 23rd.  Fabulous news - a purchase price that is $12,000 less than we were asking but $10,000 more than we were expecting.  Fingers crossed everything proceeds smoothly.

In sad news hubby's 99 year old Aunt passed away in the middle of the night so the next few days will be spent trying to get my Mother-in-law(her sister)out here to Vancouver Island as the funeral is in Victoria, a three hour drive from our home.  His Aunt was a firecracker, a die hard Vancouver Canucks hockey fan and lived a long a fruitful life.  I may have to fly back to Alberta to pick my mother-in-law up and bring her out here as she refuses to travel alone - so I will not be posting for several days.

Such are the ups and downs in life.  

February Budget Roundup

 

February was a short month but most of the grocery budget was spent early on.  The last 8 days were really hard to stay away from the grocery store.  We ate chili that had been previously frozen and had nice cheap meals like ham and macaroni and cheese (if you don't eat it much it becomes a treat).   The cupboards were combed over for items that needed using up like some cherry jello that had moved with us in June(I haven't had jello in years and it was pretty good!). I am happy February is over as really need to go shopping!

Groceries
Budget for two adults $425 Canadian less January overage of $15.22 = $409.78
This budget includes all over the counter medications, personal care products, and groceries.

Actual $400.48.  Under by $9.30 that gets added to the March Budget.  This was only accomplished by avoiding going to the store.  I ran out of items and purposely did without to make it.

We are very low or out of a lot of non-food products so need to do a massive shop on things like vitamins and allergy medicines as suddenly hubby has had an allergy attack-tis the season.  There is plenty of food in the cupboards and the freezers so hopefully the budget can be achieved in March. I keep adding to my price book to record the lowest price seen and what quantity that price was at.  The price book was only started a few months ago so it has taken a while to come together but now it is becoming handy to determine if the price is absolute lowest or a "stock up" price.  Each month I try and stock up on at least one food or non-food item so that I will not have to buy it for a long time while getting the lowest price at the same time. 

Coupons used $26.53.  Coupons are primarily used in our household for non-food items like contact solution that we stocked up on this month which is something I cannot make nor is there a no-name brand version available.  Fortunately there are some high valued $2-5 off coupons that have been matched with a sale price.

This month I need to stock up on beef and pork although it will only be bought it if it is under my maximum $3 per lb.   I am trying to have less meat at each meal so this month will be stocking up on fruit and veggies to try and move to a more plant based diet to improve our health, waistlines, and pocketbook.   I have been prowling the internet for good healthy vegetable soups using little or no meat.  Any suggesetions? 

Clothing
Clothing budget for the year is $200.  This budget is only for myself as we spend what we need to on Hubby's business attire for the business.

This month I bought a shirt at Salvation Army.  Balance remaining for the rest of the year is $187.50.  I really need some new undergarments so need to do a regular retail shop in March as those are only purchased new.  I would really like to find some more socks made of bamboo.   I bought some several years ago and they wore really well and are very soft.  A friend just bought bedding made of bamboo and it feels like cashmere-it made me want to go out and blow $300 for some (not really but hopefully the price will come down on the bedding).

Hair
Budget for the year is $250

I got a haircut and did a home color job on the same day.  I also stocked up on one extra hair color for next time.  Total spent this month $41.47.  A little more was spent on color this time to see if it is any better.  It isn't so I bought the color I have used before for next time on sale.   Total remaining for rest of the year $208.53.

With regard to our house that is for sale in Alberta, it has been on the market two weeks, had about 10 viewings but no takers yet.  It is not a first time home buyers house as is very large and above average cost - I am trying to stay positive as this is the second time we have had it on the market so after this, I will not be blogging about it until it sells.

I have personal goal to lose five pounds each month for the next three months - just putting it out there.  I currently weigh 148lbs and am five foot four.  My eventual goal weight is 133lbs which is the weight I was at ten years ago and feel my best at (coincidentally it is also the weight when I met hubby). This requires moving more and eating less- big shocker that those two things might equate to a weight loss.

Cheers!