William Morris and Organizing Coupons the Canadian Way.

As part of this whole effort to be more frugal, I have taken on the task of clipping coupons.

Fortunately, this is not as overwhelming a task as it seems it is in the States. Look at this:

source

That's a lot of coupons! My hat is off to all you Coupon Queens in the States. I've seen e-books written on the subject and even, a course offerred. It seems an enourmously complex undertaking. I couldn't do it.

I avoided it for years, actually. Not only did it seem overhelming and complicated and impossible, but it also seemed, well, desperate. It seemed like an admission of failure, of poverty.

Yes, I was an idiot.

Couponing in Canada is a much more modest affair, thank goodness. And my thoughts have obviously changed. I'm probably still an idiot, though, just not about this.

My book:

Still, one needs a way to keep things organized, so being brand new at this, I went to sites like the above to figure out my categories. I have mainly five:

1) household (including cleaners and paper goods)
2) personal care
3) medical
4) food
5) miscellaneous. (clothing, entertainment, restaurants, etc.)

The first page in the binder is actually a list of these categories and what goes in them. I'll give my daughter a stack of coupons I've printed from the computer and ask her to put them away for me.

At first, I used whatever page protectors I had on hand--and soon I had a mish mash of coupons going every which way. Some were even folded which made it difficult to know what they were for.

So, I decided to customize my page protectors using my sewing machine. I got the idea from Ali Edwards back in my scrap booking days. I settled on five kinds.

1) Pages divided horizontally into thirds (right),

2) Pages divided into sixths (left),

3) Pages divided horizontally in half, (right) then

4) vertically again into quarters (left),

and,

5) Pages divided into ninths, like baseball card holders.

The first two are my favourites.

I highly recommend using already divided page protectors, if you can afford them. It was fairly tedious to mark,

sew,

and slit them.

But, I wanted to use what I had--and I've more than a hundred page protectors on hand!

(A long time ago, I put a few years worth of magazine pages into page protectors to create my own recipe binders. I never referred to them. When I found the binders during the Big Basement Clean Out in January, (or was it February?) I took all the magazine pages out and recycled them.)

The woman behind the western Canadian site, Simply Frugal, usually correlates the coupons with the advertised sales in the flyers--resulting in some terrific savings. She also keeps her readers abreast of coupons available on-line for printing. She has just had a baby girl, though, so I'm using another site Extreme Couponing Canada as back up.

I check the sites, print stuff off, get stuff mailed to me, and clip from inserts which arrive every month or so from a free local paper.

And that's it. There is no more. No coupons in newspapers to worry about, no coupons in flyers I need to track down. We can't use more than one coupon per product (no doubling store plus manufacturer, here) so it's easier to keep track of.

That's coupons in Canada.

Modest.

Doable.

Linking to Jules and the other wonderful William Morris Projects at Pancakes and French Fries.

The Food Project

I have spent the last two weeks making up my menu for March.

(green = meatless; blue = pork or beef; orange = chicken; teal = seafood = only on sale!)

It's all part of the effort to spend less money wherever we can-- shaving down the food budget to as little as possible. It was a challenge, too.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I did research and found all sorts of new recipes. I consulted as many Mark Bittman tomes as my husband would cart home from the library for me and Leanne Ely's Saving Dinner the Vegetarian Way. (I credit Ely with teaching me to cook!) I looked things up in google and I started buying bags of beans, then soaking, cooking and freezing them. I found out legumes, peas and lentils are also called pulses and that they are grown right here and in the province next door--yet the grocery store labels say they come all the way from China. Why? I've discovered how ruddy cheap cabbage is and I'm trying to cook with it more often, but not too often.



I decided, as a way of ritualizing our new way of eating, to clean out my so-called pantry.



So-called because it is really a shelving unit in my basement with a long and noble family history: it used to hold record albums in my parent's living room when I was fourteen. That should also explain its colour blocked colour scheme.

So, I washed all the cubies: it was really dusty. I removed two binders. They were full of magzine pages, carefully and patiently removed from years of Canadian Living Magazine and put into page protectors. I've never looked at them since I did that. It's overwhelming to think about them now.

I rearranged everything: but I didn't label the cubbies, though I thought about it. Things are changing. I'm not sure labels would be that useful.



Linking to The William Morris Project at Pancakes and French Fries. Thanks for stopping by-- I look forward to reading about your projects.

Making the Adjustment.

I made pizza for the family. I thought it would be a lovely treat. And it was. I used Mark Bittman's pizza dough recipe--and I cheated, I gave it a quick kneading after I'd let it rest for about 15 minutes after I first mixed it.

I didn't have six to 12 hours to let it rise on its own.

Pizza used to be something we had on nights I was tired, nights I didn't want to stand, let alone cook. Pizza was a meal for the brain dead and bone tired. It filled a need. It did the trick.

But this pizza? This pizza took planning and forethought. I made the dough the instant the thought occured to me and hours before we'd need it. I made a list of ingredients I knew we'd like. I had my husband pick them up on his way home. He helped me by shredding the cheese as I sauteed week old mushrooms with a little onion so they wouldn't go to waste.

I spread the dough out on the cookie sheet: we each got a quarter to dress as we liked. It was delicious. Everyone loved it--and though I was worried there wasn't enough--now, nearly two hours after eating my bit, I am still comfortably full.

But that wouldn't have happened with my "let's order in because I'm too tired to think" pizza. That pizza, I noticed, left us feeling empty and we were all foraging in the fridge after a few hours. I had been getting concerned, actually, thinking we needed to order more than a large and a medium--and knowing that we really couldn't afford it anymore.

But it sure was convenient.

As is debt.

Planning ahead and thinking about how I am going to cash flow every darn little thing is extremely inconvenient, tiring and time consuming. I have to buy printer ink tomorrow: I have no idea how I am going to pay for it: I didn't put it into the budget when we made it up for this month. No biggie. It just takes figuring it out.

This is not a mature or polite thing to say, but, living my life in debt was like living with frozen pizza. I got what I wanted when I wanted it.

For the most part.

It's hard to give up convenience. It's hard giving up giving in to being brain dead.

It is hard to grow up.

But it may taste better--and keep me happier, longer.

We'll see.

First (Successful) Loaf!

We ran out of bread on the weekend.

The children were away at camp, so I decided to figure out how to bake my own.

I tried making a "no knead" bread from Mark Bittman--all I got as a bitter brick.

For my second attempt, I spent some time on the internet reading about yeast and so on. I found this lovely article in the Guardian and decided to try the recipe at the end.

(I didn't have a Vitamin C tablet, so I left that out.)

It makes the most delicious toast.

I made another loaf yesterday--and it was even bigger. I'm not sure how long I'll keep this up, but it is nice to know that I don't have to worry about running out of bread ever again.

The February Budget: done!

Like making the menu plan, it seems that I will now spend the last weekend of every month making up the budget for the following month.
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The budget is only one aspect of Dave Ramsey's financial program. His take on it is a bit different. It's not based on averages, or projections, or anything about what you should do. Instead, you look at your take home pay and spend it on paper before you touch a penny of it.
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The budget, then, is simply a spending plan for that month.

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It is a scarey thing to do because, now that I've done it, I can clearly see there is no money for painting the bathroom, for example. (Not unless I take it from my personal "blow" money allocation). I can live with that this month. But next month? This could get oppressive fairly quickly. But the goal is to avoid the credit cards --no matter what.
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That's why it's really important to have set up what Ramsey calls the "baby" emergency fund of $1,000.00. We will actually have to use ours this month to help pay for some dental work. In the past, I wouldn't have touched that fund--but simply used the credit card. We have a dental plan which will reemburse most of the cost: so our Emergency fund won't be depleted for long. My husband says he likes the idea of being his own lending institution. The rates are certainly better!
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The best part of the budget, for me at least, is the Allocated Spending Plan. Each expense is listed down the side as before: but the sheet is divided into four columns, each representing a pay period. It's perfect for us as my husband is paid weekly and one of my biggest challenges was keeping track of what to pay when.
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Here's an example from the book:




I don't know how well you can see it, but basically, when the first expense is deducted from the pay cheque the amount remaining is written beside the expense--separated by a slash. Keep doing that down the column and you have a running total of how much money is left from that pay cheque after paying each expense.

From doing ours, for example, I realised that I have even less money available for groceries in week two than I thought I'd have.

Good to know.

If you are interested in these forms, there's a collection of them here in both word and pdf format at the Byrd's Nest.

The Big Shop: The Frugal Edition

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I shop the first Tuesday of every month for all the meat and pantry items we need in a month. Grocery stores here offer consumers 10 % off the entire grocery bill. I've been making monthly menu plans and shopping this way for years. It's supposed to save us money.

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But for the past few months, this has been costing us money--not saving it.

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That's because I've been stupid and using my credit card to pay for them. If we're "a little short," it's no biggie, right? My husband gets paid on Thursday--every Thursday--so we'll just transfer the money right over.

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Except I forget.

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Or there isn't quite as much as I'd thought would be there.

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Or something.

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So, as part of this whole Dave Ramsey thing we're doing, we decided that though I would do up the menus and go shopping as usual, I would check my bank balance and not spend any more than we had available. (Novel concept.)

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I usually spend about $350.00 after the discount.

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Today, I had a little over $200.00 to work with.

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I came in under--far enough under, actually, that I could have purchased those two cans of coffee I left behind because I was a bit anxious. (I really wish I'd got them, actually. But, I do have enough to last until the next shopping trip on Sunday.)

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I also left behind the lovely hams: we usually have at least one in a month--and use the left overs for another meal--but I couldn't do it.

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I also found that I didn't pick up any extra. I bought one bottle of ketchup--not two. I got just one can of tomatoes even though they were on sale and "I can always use tomatoes." I have some in my pantry. I didn't buy the pre-shredded or the pre-sliced cheese.

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I have no idea how the rest of the month is going to go. But we seem to be off to a good start.

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The next thing I need to do is write up our budget for the month based on Ramsey's method.

Frugal? Cheapskate? Poor?

Image from this site which has a divine sounding recipe for H.C.


What will it be?

I grew up "poor." We could never afford anything.

I hated it with a passion. I had sandwiches made with Baloney--or Spam. (And we never fried the Spam--slicing it would be a "waste"--actually--we didn't even have "Spam"--we had some cheaper Spam knock-off called "Kam") It was mashed, mixed with relish and mayo, spread on brown bread (no butter) and wrapped in waxed paper. Add an apple (oranges were too expensive) and that was lunch. Oh--and I used the same paper bag over and over until I inevitably forgot to bring it home.

Supper, because my Mom had no time to cook (and doesn't cook anyway) was canned soup and sandwiches. I don't remember breakfast. Usually Mom wasn't home (working the early shift) or sleeping (from working the late shift).

I was reminded of all this one day when I recently read a recipe for hot chocolate in The Tightwad Gazette.

The recipe:
1 teaspoon cocoa,
1 teaspoon sugar,
1/3c skim milk powder
6 oz boiling water.

And I suddenly remembered--for years and years I had had skim milk and whatever was the bulk foods cheap equivalent of Nestle's Quick as my hot chocolate mix. I never knew how much of anything I was supposed to use--so for years I skimmed globs of undissolved skim milk from the top of my mug.

I was telling my Mom recently about finding this recipe and as I was thinking out loud about trying it on my kids (who have only ever had Carnation their whole spoiled lives) she quickly interjected, "Make sure you pick up the cocoa from the bulk food bin."

And all the old anger came back.

Two Steps Forward and One Step Back Equals One Great Leap Forward*

(patience, we'll get to it.)

1st STEP FORWARD:

I noticed I hadn't paid a utility bill I thought I had--and I owed this month, last month, and the month before. Turned out I had paid the wrong company! So, I sat down and figured out how much money I would have between now and the next pay cheque if I paid it and all the other bills which come due between now and then.

I'm ashamed to say, this is the first time in my life I have ever really done this! I will be doing this from now on--on a schedule in accord with my husband's pay cheques. I feel a spreadsheet a'comin' on.


2nd STEP FORWARD:

I went to a second hand store I have always loathed and hated (Value Village) and found my daughter a winter jacket (with hood) in her favourite colours (pink and purple, shudder) and coordinating snow pants. Cost: $15.00. I was absolutely thrilled!

Then, we went to Wally World to buy underwear. I probably spent 15 minutes talking her out of underwear that had "pictures" on it (priced at 9 for $10)so I could buy her 12 pairs for $6.00. I found some with butterflies, so she accepted them.


THE STEP BACK:

The washing machine quit. Well, not entirely. Actually, it simply stopped agitating. Of course it did! I almost laughed at the inevitable timeliness of it.

We did a ton of research on the Internet last night--pulled the agitator out of the machine (with ropes and a 1x2 and all sorts of groans, grunts and drama)--and we diagnosed our problem--as it turns out, correctly! The agitator coupling--or the plastic bit which connects the agitator to the gizmo/gear which actually does the agitating was completelyl worn on the inside where it attaches to the gear/gizmo.

How much does this vital bit of plastic cost? $7.55. The husband bought it this morning and had to buy a new bolt to go with it. Total cost: $10.00


THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD:

Two weeks ago, my husband's Skilsaw stopped working. Just up and quit. He says to me, "You can get me a Skilsaw for Christmas and you know, I'd really like one of those with the base."

Last week, we looked through a few fliers. They are way more than we really want to pay right now.

Late, late last night my one and only says to me: "Hey, look up Skilsaws."

It could just be another $10.00 repair!

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*No references to Communism intended.

PS. The first load of clothes I washed came out cleaner than I've seen our clothes in a long, long time.

The Longest Day

This is from Quitnet--I used the dog's name for a username!

Isn't that neat?
I love it.

Though this day really can't be over too soon.

Tomorrow.

Today is my son's 11th Birthday. He'll get all sorts of great presents he wants--and when the stress of the day is over, I'll give him another present tomorrow. He won't think it exciting. In fact, he probably won't even notice it. And it won't be his gift exclusively, either.

Yep, I'm going on the patch!

Cigarettes now cost about $96 for a carton of 8 packs. I smoke(d) a pack a day. That's $360.00/month.

Wish me luck.

Another Duh Moment...

We're working on creating a budget--and I've set an amount for spending on food.

I'm trying to keep to that--even though I blew 2/3rds of the food budget before I'd read up on Dave Ramsey, reacquainted myself with Ms. Hunt, etc...

Last night I had to go out for dog food and a couple of other things.

For the first time in YEARS, I looked at the receipt when I got home.

There it was: $30.85 for the bag of dog food and $17.85 for a six pack of paper towels. In both cases, I had simply grabbed the wrong package.

So, I took them back to the store again. With tax, I was refunded $50.52

You know what I bought, then?
Tiny baking M&M's to decorate my son's upcoming Birthday cake.
A small bulk food bag of chocolate almonds.
A big brick of cheese.
Two 750g containers of yogurt.
6 Paper towels
dog food
a package of 12 buns
Grand Total: $41.19

Wow.
It's always a good idea to check the receipt. (Duh.) I don't even want to think about what I may have missed over the years.

Not chortling, anymore....

The furnace has been something of a wake-up call for me.

Let's just say, I now fully understand what the husband means when he says, "We can't afford it, we have debt."

In the past, I read Mary Hunt. Last weekend, I read Dave Ramsey. They say essentially the same thing. It's so reassuring. I like Ramsey's plan over Mary's only because Ramsey wisely advises doing things one step at a time. Perhaps I mis-read Ms. Hunt, but when I tried her program in the past, I tried to implement everything at once--it was slow going and very fragile. Something came up, I forget what (probably a repair on an old truck we no longer own) and de-railed everything until we are at the point we are at today.

We are very lucky--the husband has always insisted we not use the credit card for anything except "emergencies." We can pay that off in full by the next statement date. The bugaboo, is, of course, our line of credit (wherein 100% of our debt--of all kinds) resides. It's a Home Equity loan --so it's actually piddly in comparison to the "value" of our home--but it isn't "piddly" with respect to my husband's annual income. If nothing else, this economic crises has wakened me to the precariousness of taking on debt someone else thinks you can afford.

Nu uh. Not anymore.
We get to decide--and so we're taking control.

Wish us luck.
(We've already had our first tiff.)