How We Saved Money Jan 10-16, 2016

As I've mentioned, it is a goal of mine to stick to a tight kitchen and household budget in 2016. Reporting my spending here on the blog has proven to be a great motivator and really holds me accountable, if only to myself. So I'm going to make an effort to report each week on 1) how we saved money 2) what we spent on groceries and 3) weekly menu plan.

1. We have a humidity problem in our home (totally rare on the prairies as it is usually too dry here in the winter. The problem stems from the home being built elsewhere and moved here, onto a concrete basement that had barely enough time to cure before having a house plopped on it. The cement basement floor is poured after delivery of the home, resulting in a LOT of moisture that must go somewhere as the concrete dries out over the next few years). This is all fodder for a future post regarding Ready-to-Move homes (RTMs) but for now my issue is keeping a fan blowing on the glass exterior door that leads from our master bedroom onto a small deck. The humidity inside combined with the cold temps outside is a lethal combination that sees water drip down the door and freeze, eventually rotting the wooden door casing. Now to the point: we have 3 portable fans and suddenly all of them were seized up and wouldn't turn. The larger ones are used by the basement wood stove to circulate the hot air and warm the entire basement (and thus the floor of the main floor). Without these fans functioning my floors are cold and water runs down the glass door. Husband was able to dismantle the 3 fans and remove dust and grease the tiny parts so that things work again. I almost gave in and went and bought new fans as it is important to circulate the air here, but we have bought some time with our old fans instead.

The kids broke a blade off one fan last year. We kept the motor and cage part because the blades and stand from our other fan fit, so we have a back up motor. Both of them quit at the same time (they run constantly) but they are now back in action. To the right of the fans you can see the table that was fixed. Durned kids! LOL

2. My son (3) climbed onto my Duncan Phyfe coffee table and broke one leg off it before Christmas. Husband was also able to fix the leg, saving me from taking it to a furniture repair shop in town.

3. Cauliflower has skyrocketed to $7 a head here. The Canadian dollar is in a tailspin as is our oil-based economy. I am checking the "quick sale" rack in the produce department before I buy anything and got a perfectly fine head of cauliflower for 30% off. The cauliflower is still too expensive but nice to have for a stir fry. You can bet that I will be comparing bags of frozen next time I am in the store!

4. My mom's chickens are laying eggs like gangbusters and she has instructed us to quit buying eggs in town. Having free eggs will save us over $5/week, at least, and gathering eggs is one of my kids' favorite chores at the farm. Win-win!

5. (edited to add) I finally put our satellite TV subscription on a seasonal break. We have 180 days to decide if we will cancel it altogether. I should have done this a year ago and we have talked about it many times. This saves us $75/month--$900 a year!--and we were only really keeping it out of habit. I don't like to let the kids watch much TV (basically a show while I do outside chores) but we do have Netflix and they usually have a show while I make supper. That $75/month can now be used for groceries, bills or an emergency fund.

6. I'm returning to menu-planning and checking the flyer before I get groceries, and am sticking to a strict list. More posts to come!

Have you noticed an increase in the cost of food where you live? Have you been able to save any money this week?

Beating the Winter BLAHS

No, I'm not going to start barking about the weather, the short days, the grey sky. I'm saving that for January...FEBRUARY....when I can barely put one foot in front of the other. Today I thought I would share how I pulled myself out of a funk.

After a week of letting housework slide in favour of more important, more urgent matters, it can be hard to get back on track and feel like laundry or dusting matters. To keep from dwelling on things out of my control, I decided today's mission is to make our home feel more comfortable. So I took this:

And turned it into this:

And I did it in under an hour (unless you count the time spent retrieving tools from a 20 month old helper)!

After finding the tools I needed (hammer, drill, drill bit, screw driver, anchors and screws, level and measuring tape) I just measured centre of the wall and centre of where the hooks go on the back of the shelf. I made sure those points were level and marked on the wall where to drill. After making a hole I gently pounded in the anchors and screwed into those the screws (thus ensuring the screws and shelf won't just pull out of the drywall).

I left enough screw sticking out for the shelf bracket to "grab"

 Then I repeated the process again. It took longer to find things to put on the shelves than it took to hang them!

I am glad I got motivated to cheer up one small space in our house. In the process I managed to cheer myself as well! What do you do to keep from getting down in the winter?

Keeping Busy

A refresher: we purchased a Ready-to-Move home (RTM) and planned to move it onto family land near my parents'. A Ready-to-Move home is a completely finished home, in one piece, with no frame beneath it, that is built at a construction site and then hauled to its destination. It is painted, light fixtures and doors, cupboards, windows etc all installed. Ours did not come with appliances and we are building the attached garage on-site, although some homes come with the garage attached. In our part of Canada (AB/SK) the building boom continues despite reports of economic decline, and it is impossible--impossible--to hire contractors and all the trades out in the countryside where we now live. In the nearby city of 30,000 residents, one building suplies store told me over 900 houses are being built right now. Phenomenal. But absolutely impossible to hire trades outside city limits. We opted instead to have the actual building built in town and hauled out here. That left the basement to build, all the services to install, a road to be built, not to mention all the tree-planting and landscaping plans that we have. To sum things up: it is a pile of work but well worth it! As our RTM was being built I put the home that we were living in up for sale. You can read more about that here and here. Lucky for us, our home sold in a flash and we could move on to our next project. I have a wonderful, patient and generous family that welcomed Husband, the kids and me to live with them for the summer. It went well. Ther were moments with a three and one year old where I regretted ever putting us in such a position, but it has passed and we are in our new home and the lasting memories will be fond ones.

To pass time while the kids were sleeping, and to pass some rainy afternoons while they played inside the workshop, I busied myself with refinishing some furniture.

We purchased this old medicine cabinet at an auction sale and, with the kids along and the huge crowd there, we did not get to preview it before we were caught up in the bidding process. We bought it only to find the back was rotten. We stripped several coats of old paint, replaced the board on the back and I repainted it with a slightly distressed finish. This medicine cabinet will likely hang in our ensuite and I will update with photos when it is up. Do you refinish old furniture? Do you prefer older, repurposed pieces or would you rather shiny and new? I am finding that I like a mixture of both!