The Horrid B-word

That's right, budgeting. In the past I have attempted to record all my monetary transactions so that I'd be able to regulate my spending. This has worked... for a few weeks, and once as long as 6 months. Unfortunately it's time consuming and not really as helpful as it should be for the effort put in.

That said, in a few days I'm going to start again. This time it will be for a pre-set time(one month) and I will use that data documenting my new frugality as a starting point to set rules for myself that I can actually live with for 2-3 years. I figure that if I do this right, I can set most bills to automatic including transferring money to the savings account. That way only the non-automatic things like groceries, bus tickets, laundry, and cat litter will need to be paid by hand. I'll set myself a budget for those items and keep track of groceries as it's the only thing I can really chose to spend less on if needed.

I'm hoping that by making myself some easy to follow guidelines I won't have to stress about each and every transaction while still becoming a super-saver.

Getting Back into the Groove

Got back into the farm frame of mind the past couple days and I've gotta say I missed this enthusiasm in myself. It all started when I stumbled across this podcast about a Quebec market gardener who grows and sells a variety of vegetables on his 1.5 acres. The biggest thing that caught my attention was that he's doing it organically, without tractors, and just with himself, his wife and two employees they make a decent living for everyone involved. You can visit his site HERE and I'm seriously considering buying his book.

Seeing that level of success in a place that is similar to my current location fills me with hope. Every where I looked I saw stories from California, Florida, or British Columbia and they usually had over 10 acres. Knowing that it's possible in this climate, and with so little land is..... very encouraging and opens up so many options. It got me dreaming again and with dreaming I tend to get a bit carried away so I started looking at land available for sale to see what kind of price range I'd be looking at in Ontario. Looks like in northern Ontario I can get 75 acres for the same price as 3 acres down here in SW Ontario.... but who on earth wants to live up in blackfly country.(probably why it's so cheap)

After an evening of land hunting, figuring out that I could afford the payments for a $20,000 mortgage on top of my current rent and have it paid off in 5 years when I'd actually be ready to start the farm........ mom talked some sense into me and suggested I save my money with the highest interest rate I can find and let it grow til I'm ready to actually start the farm.

She's right. I know she's right, so I talked to my bank today to see if there was something sensible I could do to increase my interest for my savings for the next 3-4 years. At that point I'd have not only the down payment set aside but also some starting money to launch the farm full time without worrying about trying to work a job at the same time.

Turns out my TFSA(tax-fee-savings-account) has a fairly good interest rate. Mutual funds are no good for such short term investing and things like GICs and government savings bonds only give decently higher interest rates if I lock them in for 4 or 5 years so that's really not going to mesh with my little bit out of each pay check style of saving.

I'm anxious about how LONG every thing is going to take but I have to say that saving up for 2-5 acres is going to be much faster than saving enough for 10-25 acres like I thought I needed/wanted.  The main reason I want over two acres is to have room for pasturing animals as well as some woods for firewood. If, when I get to that point, I find an amazing 2 acre plot, I'm not going to let it get away on the off chance an equally amazing 4 acre plot will come along.

So all there is for now is for me to get back into the groove of frugality. It will be a bit harder for me this time because it's personally imposed and not forced upon me by outside circumstances but... I can do this. I've already run the numbers and I know what I need to pay in bills monthly, my personal comfortable levels of  pocket money and "buffer" in case a bill is higher than expected, and therefore what I can put in the savings account to never touch for anything not farm related.

The only thing I haven't done yet is send away for my credit report. There may be some things I need to clean up there and the sooner I know about it the better. I just have to wait for my new ID with my new address to arrive and I'll sending for it right away.

The whole point of moving in with mom was living frugally and I need to get back to that idea. I've been negligent with my disposable income and I've been almost literally disposing of it. I'm making a commitment to myself to be better. I deserve it.

Physical Shopping Spree

(I just realized how this looks but I'm not an affiliate and I don't get paid for anything. I'm just showing you what I got.)

Yesterday I did a lot of walking, and got quite a bit done. Megan was headed the same direction as I was so we shared a cab to the south end of town and I walked my errands and bussed home.

The route I walked.

First stop was the bank. I wanted a separate account for household expenses and I needed to switch my savings account to a TFSA. With that out of the way I walked north east to Sears and ordered our appliances for delivery. We chose these ones for several reasons including maintenance and reviews.

Kenmore 5.1 cu. Ft.

Eureka AirSpeed One Pet

Hamilton Beach 10-Cup

After sears I headed east again and by the time I hit Wellington I was starving so I stopped into a place called Dick and Jane Eggs and Fruits. The food was absolutely delicious.

Recharged, I headed south to PetSmart to get the cats Feline Pine Cat Litter and a High Sided Corner Litter Box. Unfortunately they didn't have the small bag of Feline Pine so I hauled the big litter box and the 20lb bag of litter from the southern most blue dot on the map to the bus stop marked by the red pin (about 1 km)....and then the 1.5 km(one mile) from the other bus stop to home.  My shoulders are fairly upset with me today and I don't really blame them; I haven't done any heavy lifting in more than a year.

Today? I've done very little other than poke around on the internet and a load or two of laundry. 

How's your weekend going?  :)

Mental Shopping Spree

I'm really excited about living with my family and it's keeping my brain busy with ideas for the housewarming party and ideas for day to day life and ideas about shopping. Now the rest are harmless planning ideas that will be gauged against my mom and sister's interest levels...  The shopping daydreaming however tends to get carried away. 

I start thinking about how we've already planned on buying a freezer and vacuum, and how I'm going to need a new bed cause my current bed won't fit in my room, and then I realize I'm going to need new sheets for the bed, and if I can get them at the KingsMills sale then I might as well get some good bath and dish towels, and then I start thinking about getting a food processor because (at the very least) my blender just doesn't cut it for making hummus, then I start looking at pressure cooker/caners, and the idea of fresh herbs crosses my mind, and I start thinking about a table for in the front window and wondering if the light from that window's going to put glare on the TV and if it does we should get a pleated divider to block the light, and omg that would look so good if we had a painted fan hanging over the TV, and I think I have one in my box of nic-nacks, and speaking of nic-nacks, maybe I should get a glass display case so they don't sit in a box the whole time I live here like every other place I've lived in London...

 

Freezer, Vacuum, Bed, Sheets, Towels, Food Processor, Pressure Cooker, Potted Herbs, Table, Pleated Divider, Display Case...

 

Okay so you can see this is getting a bit out of hand. I know the first six on the list are the most important and even the towels are kind of superfluous, so the rest will have to sit in their own list of maybe-if-theres-leftover-money.