Adding It Up

Well, what a summer that was.  It is now officially fall and the grocery tally year to date is $5341 - that means I am over YTD by $171.14.  September grocery budget (includes all OTC meds, nonfood items like cleaners/toilet paper/makeup/hair products) was $575 - I ended up just about $10 lower.  I need to do even better in October if I am going to makeup the overage.  Yesterday I ended up spending over $100 of that budget on OTCs but I timed it with a points event so will end up with at least $10 in free groceries to spend down in October.  The fridge is full/freezer is full to bursting and the cupboards are definitely not bare.  Time to rein in the grocery spending to try and stay on budget for the year.

Buddy enjoying the last rays of summer on the patio (ignore half dead plant in background, bugs got it)

On the "growing my own produce" front I still have about 40 tomatoes, one green pepper and a couple of cucumbers growing.  This week I will remove all, we usually don't get frosts until mid to end of October but it is now moving into our rainy season so it is time.  The strawberries are still blooming although I ate my last ripe one about 10 days ago.  They will be overwintered and then I will decide what to do with them.  Either I will get a better container for growing them (something with height so the mice/creatures can't get at them as I had to share this year) or I will donate them to a friends garden.

Today is the first rainy day after a full week of sunshine.  A good day to stay in, make chili using tomato sauce and green pepper that I grew and eat homemade buns (I didn't make them, bought them at the farmers market $3 for 6, best in the world).

Canadian Thanksgiving is next weekend and we have been invited along with Mom to a friends house.  She doesn't usually do turkey(she is a fabulous cook though so we won't be disappointed)  and we are a turkey loving family so I intend to find a cheap turkey this week for the already full freezer to cook with all the trimmings in late October/early November.  Other than the turkey I have very little on my shopping list:  pop (yes we drink a lot of it, not good for us but oh well), chicken/veggie stock, microwave popcorn.  Ever since Mom quit driving I find we tend to go to the grocery store more often, mainly because I want her to feel like she has a lot of access.  I just have to be sure not to spend too much there.  Me driving her is working out for the best, as we have just found out her eye surgeries won't occur until 2019, so glad she sold her car when she did otherwise it would be sitting there now since she can't drive due to her cataracts.  Fortunately, we enjoy each other's company and it only works out to about 1 more trip a week that I spent with her than before when she was driving.

For those that hate the C word - look away now lol.

The Christmas fund is now fully funded at $1200 cash.  We do not spoil or give gifts to the kids except at Birthdays and Christmas  I probably have oversaved but it never hurts to do that.  My budget for decorations/wrapping is $10 (yes just ten dollars) and I almost never get near to that as buy everything at the thrift store and reuse wrapping/bows/decorations.  My antique Christmas collection grows every year and is entirely paid for by selling some of the old style decorations that I don't collect myeself, it tends to actually make me money every year and I get to keep the best of the bunch.  The remaining Christmas budget is spent on gifts for our large family (4 kids, 2 moms, nephews and now 1 livein girlfriend), traveling to Edmonton in early December for what we consider is our Christmas visit which always includes a large meal out with the kids.  That alone is around $200 but worth it.  We went to a really good Chinese food restaurant last year, I am thinking we likely will go to the same one this year as everyone enjoyed it.

I also have managed to save $160 in amazon GCs from using swagbucks.  Most of that came from booking a certain hotel for business travel that I can't get a rebate through ebates for (but still was able to collect hotel points, a double dip!).  Swagbucks and Ebates.ca are my two favorite ways of collecting points for online shopping.  If you shop at all online, even just to make hotel or car reservations you need to get on the rebating bandwagon.  Yes, those are referral links, click on them if you want to join.  The ebates.ca is just for Canada but they have different ones based on your home Country if you don't live here.  Swagbucks is worldwide.  I save all my amazon GCs for Christmas spending and it sure helps, less hard earned cash spent on gifts.

That's all I've got this rainy day - have a nice quiet relaxing Sunday if you can!