tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80614053919749139192024-03-19T08:34:56.101-04:00Preserving PenniesOne Canadian family's journey to financial independence by increasing income and decreasing expenses.Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-80950193864340513262012-02-24T05:00:00.000-05:002012-02-24T05:00:08.886-05:00New Job: I Get To Work From Home!My husband and I both work at a motorcycle dealership and have always worked retail hours. Over the years we've managed to wrangle our way out of working Saturdays and have managed to cut off the later hours but we were still working at least 9-6 every day. <br />
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Since I've been on maternity leave I've been stressing out about what I would do once it was time to go back to work. I knew I wasn't going to be able to work my old hours if I wanted to remember what my kid looked like awake. I avoided thinking about it because I didn't like any of the options I could think of. <br />
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I love my job. I manage a shipping and receiving department (among many other things...) and I enjoy what I do. We have benefits now and I can't get another job that pays me a wage that's even close at least to start. <br />
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The best solution I could think of was to continue working 20-25 hours at my current job (just enough to keep the benefits) and then pick up some weekend work (maybe as a server) when my husband was home to watch the baby. The only problem there is that I would have to find a way to get my full time hours back when we wanted to have another baby in order to get full maternity leave benefits. I thought about going back to work pregnant (I'd have to get on that now as my mat leave is up at the beginning of June) but I don't really want to have another baby yet. I just want to enjoy the one I have a little longer... This was all weighing very heavily on me and time just seemed to be flying and I was getting a little panicked.<br />
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A couple of weeks ago my husband texted me and told me to call my boss. I said, 'What does he want?' and husband said, 'Something managery.' OK. So I called my boss and he suggested that when I come back I become more involved in the management of our online store and website. I was a bit taken aback at first as I wasn't sure if he was trying to push me out of my current department or what. I had actually been pushing for the online stuff to be taken care of by my department for some time already but I didn't think it was ever going to happen. I told him I'd think about it. At that point it didn't really appeal to me.<br />
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Over the next few hours though the idea really began to grow on me. It occurred to me that if the bulk of what I was doing would be web based, I might be able to work from home for some of the time! The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. I developed a pitch and sent my boss an email to look it over. I proposed that, when my mat. leave was up, I would come back for 5 days a week from 9-1pm and then work from home another couple of hours each day. I still was quite unsure that he would even consider it. This type of arrangement is not one that our workplace really sees much of. <br />
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To my surprise, he completely agreed that it would work. I am able to work a few hours currently while I am on maternity leave without losing any benefits so I have begun working a few hours a week for now and will be returning to a 30 hour (or so) work week at the beginning of June. I am so stoked that it has all worked out this way!! I can't wait to be making a more regular amount of money again as well so we can really see some progress in our finances and well, save some money up for the next kid! :)<br />
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<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-91784881991807284062012-02-23T05:00:00.000-05:002012-02-24T13:36:40.478-05:00Baby On A Budget: How We Avoid Unnecessary Spending<i><a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/search/label/baby%20on%20a%20budget">Baby on a Budget</a> is a series of posts that I'll be doing to share all
the ways we've managed to save money while bringing up our baby. When I
read the stats about how much money new parents supposedly spend
getting ready for a baby and caring for a baby in its first years, I
cringe! I can certainly see how it happens though.... These posts are
meant to help you stay away from that awfully high number!!</i><br />
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While it's certainly difficult to keep from buying every single thing your kid might possibly be able to use when you're still expecting, it's near impossible to exercise a reasonable amount of restraint once your child is actually born. Suddenly, nothing is too expensive for that cute little face! Every piece of baby clothing becomes essential. $500 photo shoot? Completely necessary!<br />
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Luckily, I've devised a way that has become so effective in keeping me from spending excessive amounts of money on my child that it surprised even myself: <b>I make my baby pay for his own stuff</b>.<i> </i>(And he's much less likely to buy yet another pair of pants to add to his overflowing collection.)<br />
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This method came about somewhat by accident. If you've read the post explaining <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-we-budget-simple-and-easy-to.html">how we budget</a>, you know that we use ledgers to delineate how our money is to be spent. When our son was born, I started a ledger for him intending to save for his education in this fund. I also put any monetary gifts that he received from family onto this ledger and thanked our family members for contributing to our son's education fund in our thank you notes. The money that we receive from the government for having procreated goes into this fund as well as a small amount from us each paycheque (when I realized how little our kid costs us I brought this amount down to $10 every two weeks).<br />
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By lumping the money for his education in with the money for his daily needs in together, <b>when I spend money on him I feel like I'm robbing his future!</b> The first time I realized this I was browsing the baby section of our local Gap store. Their clothes are gorgeous and I do like to make sure that we have one nice outfit for each size that my son can wear for special occasions but as I've mentioned before, <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/baby-on-budget-hand-me-downs-and-second.html">we've already hit the jackpot when it comes to baby clothing</a>! I picked out a few nice items and walked around with them as I browsed and that's when I started to feel a bit guilty. I realized that my son didn't need the clothing; he had plenty of other nice clothes. I couldn't justify spending his money on clothing he didn't need when it could be put towards his future. I put the clothes back and left the store feeling great. I didn't regret not buying the clothes and since I hadn't bought them, I didn't have to regret buying them afterwards!<br />
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This has worked wonderfully for me. It provides an extra question to ask myself that makes me really weigh how much we actually need the product. It is one thing to steal from my own savings- but my kids? That's not OK with me! I don't feel guilty when I do buy my son stuff because I have thought about it and determined that he does need it. I've bought<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/baby-on-budget-cloth-diapering-101.html"> cloth diapers</a>, disposable diapers, <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/baby-on-budget-diy-wipes.html">supplies for wipes, </a>his halloween costume (OK so maybe that one is a little grey...). I even used this account to purchase his Christmas presents- which might be a little weird but by keeping it all in one account I can tell you exactly how much we've spent raising our son so far... so it helps me out that way.<br />
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Overall, this method is really just a trick to help change your mindset and make you evaluate the purchases you make for your children a bit more than you might otherwise. And when tiny little baby Gap pants are calling your name from the clearance rack, you can use all the help you can get!<br />
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<a href="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_click?lid=41000000030896327&pubid=21000000000520199"><img alt="Save up to 70% for moms, babies and kids" border="0" src="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_impression?lid=41000000030896327&pubid=21000000000520199" /></a>Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-71862082639000204382012-02-22T05:00:00.000-05:002012-02-23T08:31:40.832-05:00Slashing Expenses: Unsubscribing...<i>In order to reach <a href="http://preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/our-financial-goals-where-were-headed.html">our goal of financial freedom</a>, we are increasing
income and slashing our expenses. We will be sharing ways that we've
successfully decreased our monthly expenses in order to help you cut
your own costs.</i><br />
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I really enjoy home design. <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-journey-so-far.html">Since purchasing our home six years ago</a>, <i> </i>we've renovated our house top to bottom and I have loved having the opportunity to redesign our home that is completely our own taste. I love to read design blogs and I have been a faithful subscriber of Style at Home magazine for several years now. <br />
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Style at Home is one of my guilty little pleasures. I love the pictures and while I know I can get much of the same content online, there's just something about sitting down and reading through a magazine. Further, the pictures are much prettier in print than on a computer screen. <br />
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The last couple of years though, I have noticed the time between receiving the magazine and actually taking it out of its package has been lengthening. I knew it had really gotten bad when I found a two month old magazine that I had never even bothered opening! I still love to see it in the mailbox but I just can't seem to make myself find the time to read it.<br />
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When renewal time has come the past couple of years I have struggled with whether I should commit to another year. I want to support my favourite magazine and I do love their content however, it is either getting difficult to find the time to read through it or I am losing interest. (*gasp*) <br />
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This year when the renewal card came I finally decided <i>not </i>to renew. I feel a little guilty because I know that magazine subscription sales are down and I really don't want my favourite magazine to stop publication (not that little old me will single-handedly make that happen..) but currently it is not a good use of my money. I figure I can always resubscribe if I really miss it and in the meantime I can put that money to good use somewhere else. Further, Style at Home does have some really great content online.<br />
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Goodbye Style at Home. *sniff* I'll read back issues and remember you fondly. <br />
<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-28420284999492503542012-02-21T05:00:00.000-05:002012-02-22T14:48:49.974-05:00How We Earn Extra Money: Selling Stuff on Kijiji<i></i><i>I<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-next-big-purchase.html"> recently mentioned</a> that we are saving up for a new vehicle despite having no extra room in our budget. </i> <i>We
have managed to save up about $3000 towards this by finding ways to
earn extra income aside from our regular paycheques. This is one of the
ways we've been earning extra money! You can see the rest of the ways we earn extra money <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/search/label/earning%20extra%20money">here</a>! </i><br />
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A couple of weeks ago, I posted a bit about the <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-we-earn-extra-money-selling-our.html">decluttering campaign</a> that I began once I started my maternity leave. <i> </i>I talked about selling all kinds of our 'junk' on Ebay and how we had sold all sorts of things from DVDs to USB sound cards to used cloth diapers using this method. I love Ebay because it gives me a great platform to sell small items and reach a large audience. What do you do if you have a large item though? After all, it's not very practical to ship a piano across the country.<br />
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In situations like this, I turn to the one and only Kijiji! That's right- not Craigslist- Kijiji. Kijiji (OK or Craigslist...) lets you target a local audience which gives you the option of delivering an item, having the item picked up or meeting the buyer somewhere. This year I've used Kijiji to sell my violin, a huge aquarium (that was given to us for free- yay for $75 profits!), tools and Guitar Hero accessories. <br />
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I personally prefer to sell using Kijiji rather than Craigslist as I
also prefer to buy using Kijiji. Kijiji has a much better interface that
makes searching for items as a buyer much easier than Craigslist. For
this reason I only use Kijiji. (If I were in the States, I guess I'd
just use Craigslist by default.) I don't limit myself to one selling
platform all the time though. I often have items listed on both Kijiji
and Ebay at the same time. If it sells on one, I just remove the
listing from the other. This just requires a good memory or some
thorough notes to remember what you have listed where.<br />
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There are a few reasons that make Kijiji one of my favourite selling platforms:<br />
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<li> I love that there are no fees associated and no shipping fees to be incurred. If I list something for $20, I get to keep all $20 of it! </li>
<li>Kijiji gives the buyer and seller the opportunity to barter. Sometimes I wonder if I lose transactions on Ebay because the seller wants to pay $5 less than I have it listed for. I might very well accept $5 less for it depending on how much interest I have in the item and how quickly I want it gone. I typically list items on Kijiji for more than I'm willing to accept because the buyers almost invariably barter. I expect this and keep an 'actual expected' price in mind to barter back with. </li>
<li>There is no waiting around for an auction to end with Kijiji- sales can happen very quickly! In the case of the Guitar Hero accessories, I got an email at 10pm on a Friday night asking if my items were still available. I made a quick reply that they were and the buyer asked if he could pick them up right away! It turned out that the buyers were having a Guitar Hero party and one of their guitars had just broken. They took the whole lot of accessories for exactly what I was asking for them even though they only needed the one guitar controller. In general, most items that I sell on Kijiji sell within a week unless they are very specific items like the motorcycle seat I have pending pickup right now.</li>
<li>You can list services like<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-we-earn-extra-money-teaching-piano.html"> piano lessons</a>. I have not done any advertising for piano lessons except through Kijiji. I currently have two students that found me on Kijiji and I've gotten several other calls from my ad as well. </li>
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The major drawback to Kijiji is that you have to interact with someone from the big, bad internet. I try to do this as safely as possible. I live on the corner of a busy street and I have a very visible front door and porch. It is admittedly not a nice neighbourhood so cops drive by on a regular basis. I always schedule pickups when my husband is home and complete them on my front porch or in my front foyer with the front door open. I usually try to schedule them during daylight hours (with the exception of the Guitar Hero lot which I felt a bit uneasy about but we had some friends over so there were a whole bunch of us around in case anything went wrong). This can all get a bit difficult if you work a lot. Depending on your job, it might work out to have a buyer meet you at work during your lunch break though. Otherwise, you could arrange to meet someone in a public place as well. <br />
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Overall, Kijiji (or Craigslist I suppose) is an amazing selling tool as long as you play it safe. I get the most money from items sold on Kijiji and it allows me to sell things that are just too difficult to sell on Ebay (like my husbands Silverwing that we sold off a couple of years ago). In the end, I've also met some cool people this way! I felt so much better about selling my violin after meeting the cool person that it was going to live with and hearing about all of her other musical endeavours. Now hopefully the guy interested in the motorcycle seat I have for sale swings by soon- I'll take cash in my pocket over clutter in my basement anyday!<br />
<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-59558161394366451392012-02-20T05:00:00.000-05:002012-02-22T23:34:35.311-05:00How We Save Money By Using Our Credit CardsCredit cards have gotten a very bad rap in the personal finance world for quite some time now. This is for good reason considering the amount of debt many people are carrying around on their credit card accounts and how much interest most of them are paying to service that debt. <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-journey-so-far.html">We have been there</a> and it wasn't pretty! <br />
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As we began to dig ourselves out of debt we naturally had to stop using our credit cards (with some small exceptions). It was very important to do this at the time as we needed to make changes to our relationship with money and the way we viewed it. We needed to be more aware of our spending and feel the pinch of a lower bank balance at the same time as the high of a new purchase. <br />
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As time went on and we began spending money responsibly I decided it was time to start using our credit cards again- and this time for everything!! This time, however, we would be paying off our balance each month. Before we began using our cards again, though, I lowered our limits to an amount inline with our <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-we-budget-simple-and-easy-to.html">monthly budgeted spending</a>. Over the years, our credit card provider had slowly increased our limits until they were much more than we had ever needed. This had made it much easier to rack up more debt than we were able to pay off. This time, we would only be able to make purchases that totalled our monthly spending budget and if we needed more room we would have to make a payment. <br />
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We are President's Choice Financial customers and as such, have PC MasterCards. These MasterCards pay 1% back in points on all of your purchases and since we've received 'special' black cards, we get double points on whatever we spend at a PC brand store. I don't believe you can apply for one of these 'special cards'; the offer was mailed to us 'for being long time customers'. The regular cards though still pay 1% in points on all your purchases plus some bonus points when you shop at PC brand stores. Once we have accrued 20000 points we can put that towards $20 of free groceries or whatever else we'd like from a PC brand store (Loblaws, Real Canadian Superstore, NoFrills, Zehrs etc.)<br />
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This doesn't sound like a lot but it really adds up quickly! At the beginning of January, I redeemed $50 towards free groceries and I already have another $40 worth of points to spend. I can only look back at the last 90 days worth of transactions but those amounts aren't too shabby in my books! Since we've had our cards (about 6 years) we've redeemed $1000 worth of groceries and most of that time we were carrying debt on our card and because of that, unable to make many purchases.<br />
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We now use our PC MasterCards for every single purchase we possibly can. We accrue points very quickly. Further, I love being able to balance my budget by looking at my statement a couple times a week. We had a difficult time keeping track of all of our spending when we were using cash because it was easy to forget about a few dollars here or there. Now I just have to look at my statement and<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-we-budget-simple-and-easy-to.html"> input all of our spending into my own ledgers</a> from there. <br />
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Each month, when I receive my e-statement, I log on to my <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/manulife-one-review.html">Manulife One account</a> and arrange for the payment to come out a few days before it is due. This way, my MasterCard gives me an interest-free loan for up to 45 days (give or take..)! For instance, if I purchase my groceries on the 1st of the month for $200 and take the money straight from my M1 account, I would pay 3.5% interest for that $200 until it is replaced. However, if I pay for my groceries with my MasterCard, I can keep the $200 in my M1 account until I pay my bill on the 15th of the next month saving myself 3.5% interest for 45 days. Sure it's pocket change but I like pocket change- and I love watching it add up!<br />
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Currently,<a href="http://www.pcfinancial.ca/friend/"> President's Choice</a> is offering $40 worth of points to all new MasterCard clients. If you use our referral code: 90860535A5 we will also get $10 worth of points. Act now though as this offer is only available until Feb. 29th. <a href="http://www.pcfinancial.ca/friend/">Click here</a> for more information!<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"><b></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"><b><a href="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_click?lid=41000613802219998&pubid=21000000000520199"><img alt="518801_Track every $ you spend - 234x60" border="0" src="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_impression?lid=41000613802219998&pubid=21000000000520199" /></a></b></span></div>Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-58128004775502226862012-02-17T08:00:00.000-05:002012-02-22T23:19:46.118-05:00Baby On A Budget: Hand-Me-Downs and Second Hand Stores<i><a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/search/label/baby%20on%20a%20budget">Baby on a Budget</a> is a series of posts that I'll be doing to share all
the ways we've managed to save money while bringing up our baby. When I
read the stats about how much money new parents supposedly spend
getting ready for a baby and caring for a baby in its first years, I
cringe! I can certainly see how it happens though.... These posts are
meant to help you stay away from that awfully high number!!</i><br />
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We were ridiculously lucky to have a baby boy almost exactly one year after my sister had her own baby boy. This is not because our son would have a cousin close in age, though that's nice too. My thoughts are inclined to be more selfish in nature. I was mostly ecstatic about all the hand me downs I was about to receive!!<br />
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Over the course of my pregnancy, I amassed what must have been 25 diaper boxes full of clothing, shoes, boots, coats, mittens, toys, books, bouncy seats... If it could be marketed to babies, it was in my dining room. Throw in all the gifts from my excited first- time everything in-laws and there was no way I would need to buy anything for my baby for at least a year. Honestly. We were even gifted a diaper cake made out of 200 disposable diapers- and we were <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/baby-on-budget-cloth-diapering-101.html">cloth diapering</a>!!<br />
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I saved a lot of money by using every single hand me down I could get my hands on. I didn't just receive stuff from my sister either. We were offered things from cousins and friends as well. There were certain specific things that I wanted for our small home such as a high chair that straps on to a regular dining room chair and a fold up exersaucer and these things I either requested from family members who were planning to buy us presents or used gift cards that we received to buy. <br />
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Obviously, you can't go and intentionally get your older sister knocked up a year before you plan to bear children so for those of you less lucky than myself (it might not be so much a case of luck as a case of having the odds stacked in my favour- 4 older sisters is pretty well a stacked deck...) I encourage you to <i>buy</i> second hand. When I realized I didn't have a Bumbo, I found an awesome deal on Kijiji! When I find that there is something missing in my son's overabundant wardrobe, I go to Once Upon A Child- an awesome children's consignment chain in our area. It isn't unusual to find items with tags still on them! Children grow out of their stuff so fast that most of the time used items seem new anyways.<br />
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I have particularly enjoyed buying second hand toys for my son. I can go into Once Upon A Child and buy 4 things for $20 that would have cost me $20 each new- and my son loves them just the same!! Our local store steams the toys and packages them in bags with hang tags. My husband jokes that I intentionally leave the price tags on the toys for longer than I have to because I am so proud of what I paid for them. <br />
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It is easy to get sucked into the idea that you need to buy all these nice, new, expensive things in order to provide for your child especially when your hormones are all messed up and you're literally crazy in love with your kid. Keep your head clear though, and remember that your kid doesn't need everything you see on TV and it won't matter to your baby if the book they're reading has been read by someone else. You are going to need a lot more money to feed and clothe your kid down the road so you might as well save what you can now!<br />
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<a href="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_click?lid=41000000030896327&pubid=21000000000520199"><img alt="Save up to 70% for moms, babies and kids" border="0" src="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_impression?lid=41000000030896327&pubid=21000000000520199" /></a>Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-48699084064860632132012-02-16T08:00:00.001-05:002012-02-17T12:50:31.208-05:00How We Earn Extra Money: Simple Computer Repair<i>I<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-next-big-purchase.html"> recently mentioned</a> that we are saving up for a new vehicle despite having no extra room in our budget. </i> <i>We
have managed to save up about $3000 towards this by finding ways to
earn extra income aside from our regular paycheques. This is one of the
ways we've been earning extra money!</i><br />
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I am very lucky to have an incredibly talented husband. He is very handy and seems to understand how things work on a level I may never comprehend. Somehow over the years he has become extremely adept at fixing and building computers.<br />
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My husband has always built our own computers or upgraded them to be exactly what we needed. When our desktop gets the sniffles or isn't running optimally he can diagnose and fix the problem. If our power supply goes kaput, he will install a new one. We are very well taken care of in this area and our friends started to notice.<br />
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Our friends and co-workers would talk about problems they were having with their home computers and my husband would tell them how to fix it. Something wouldn't work right on a work computer and Josh would get called over from his desk to spend some time on it. After awhile, our co-workers would just start bringing their computers into work with them. I was never surprised to see an extra CPU or two sitting in our backseat waiting to be carted home and lovingly tinkered with. Most of the problems our friends were having required a simple reformat or a new power supply. Sometimes their motherboard would be fried or my husband would upgrade their ram to make the computer run faster.<br />
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After our co-workers continually had such success they started bringing their family members' computers in for him! My husband's side business has grown enough that these family members and friends of friends now contact him directly and bring their computers over to our house themselves. He charges $20 for a diagnostic and then quotes a price on whatever problem he finds. He's even been paid to shop for and recommend a good replacement laptop for a client!<br />
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For the most part this is a great way for my husband to earn a bit of extra money. Most fixes are simple and he doesn't mind the work. A few computers have been a bit more of a hassle but he enjoys a challenge every now and then. It seems that when it rains it pours- everyone's computers break down at once- but that's ok as he can work on a couple at a time and get them all finished at once. Sometimes my living room looks like a computer graveyard but it's worth it for the good bit of cash he's able to bring in!!<br />
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<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-56878944099197021792012-02-15T08:18:00.000-05:002012-02-22T23:35:13.690-05:00How We Budget: A Simple and Easy to Maintain Budgeting StrategyI have previously shown a breakdown of our budget in percentages (<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/current-budget-breakdown.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/our-january-budget.html">here</a>) but neither of these breakdowns really served to show exactly how we budget on a day to day basis. I shared our budget categories in <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/our-january-budget.html">'Our January Budget</a>' but didn't go further than that. <b>We've finally come across a great method that's been working for us for about 9 months now and if it can help you do the same then it's worth sharing!</b><br />
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Both my husband and I are paid bi-weekly and on the same week. It takes $1800 each payday to cover our budgeted items. <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/manulife-one-review.html">Since all of our money goes into one pot</a>, I use several ledgers to keep track of how our money is allocated. Each ledger has an 'account' name and the amount that is allocated to it each pay at the top. The rest of it looks like this:<br />
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Date Item In Out Balance<br />
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Right off the top, any amount that we make over $1800 is inputted on a ledger called 'Mortgage/Emergency' and stays in our account unless we have an emergency. Since our paycheques vary from week to week, the amount paid into this account also varies. $1800 is the bare minimum of what we make in a week unless there is an emergency (recently we had a death in the family and missed some work resulting in a lower paycheque than even our $1800 number). Usually though, we are able to put anywhere from $200- $500 in this account or even more if we have an especially good month with bonuses etc.<br />
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After this, I put an entry into each ledger for a predetermined amount. They are the following:<br />
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Food/ Gas and other Consumables: $405<br />
Insurance: $200<br />
Utilities: $190<br />
Property Tax, Mortage Interest and Fee: $400<br />
Phone: $90<br />
Pets: $25<br />
Entertainment: $40<br />
Baby: $10 <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Baby also gets two separate payments from the government that go straight into his ledger)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Car & House Maintenance: $140</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Clothing: $30</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Myself: $35</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hubby: $35</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gifts/ Donations: $50</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">RRSP: $50</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">House Loan: $100 <span style="font-size: x-small;">(This is a loan from family that was used when we purchased our home. It is our last non-mortgage debt but does not incur interest.)</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">To determine how much money to allot to each category (particularly our fixed expenses) I took an average of what we spent on that category over a few months and divided that by two. Because some months have more than two paydays, we should eventually have some breathing room in each category. The total of all of the categories equals $1800 and that's how I determined how much to allot to our variable spending/ savings categories. </span> <span style="font-size: small;">We would prefer more money in several of these categories but until I go back to work and our income increases, we have a tighter budget. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Every couple of days I enter all the amounts we've spent onto the appropriate ledger and deduct it from the balance. We do allow ourselves to go into negative numbers within reason. This is what has helped this budget finally work for us. In the past, if a large unforseen expense came up that wasn't quite an emergency but we 'needed' to spend on it anyways, it was very easy to just give up our budget completely because we had 'failed'. Now though, if an expense pushes us into the negative numbers, it doesn't matter. We just cut back in that category until we are back in the black. If we are perpetually in the red then it is quite possible that we need to adjust the amount that we are budgeting for that category. This means we will have to cut back on clothing or entertainment or something else to make this happen. <b>This flexibility has been the main reason that our budget has been successful! </b></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Currently, our RRSP ledger is in the negatives because it is RRSP season and we decided to 'borrow form ourselves' to maximize the amount we get back from our tax return. This is acceptable because we will use the tax return to bring this amount back to a positive state. The amount for our 'Gifts' ledger needs to be revised because we recently began sponsoring a child and the amount is slightly higher than we used to donate on a monthly basis. Constant revisions and check ups have been key to keeping us on track. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Overall, I'm much more aware of where our money has gone and is going now. I'm much more confident in the state of our affairs and we are better able to plan for the future now that I can clearly see how long it will take us to save up a certain amount. <b>Most importantly, our budget has given us the freedom to spend money! </b>I don't have to feel bad about buying items that I want because the money is coming straight out of my <i>spending</i> account and I know that the bills are being taken care of and money is being saved. We have achieved a kind of financial freedom that looks a little different than we expected- but is still exactly what we were looking for!</span></span></span> </span><br />
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<a href="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_click?lid=41000613802219998&pubid=21000000000520199"><img alt="518801_Track every $ you spend - 234x60" border="0" src="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_impression?lid=41000613802219998&pubid=21000000000520199" /></a></div>Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-66622024626490541722012-02-14T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-15T14:37:14.172-05:00Slashing Expenses: Couponing and PricematchingI am desperately trying to cut our food budget. I read about all these other people that are spending $50 a week on food or families of 6 spending $100 a week and I wonder how the heck they do it!?! I budget $200 a week on consumables and that feels like a lot. That includes toiletries, gas and medications (mainly just over the counter) though so perhaps it isn't so bad...<br />
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I still want to cut our food consumption down as much as I can though and I've been focusing a lot of energy into it since I've been on mat leave. I began cutting coupons in the summer. In the past I haven't seen a lot of value in couponing because many of the coupons I find are for items I wouldn't buy anyways. I'm not saving money if I buy something I wasn't going to buy in the first place. This time around I only collect coupons for items I would normally purchase- I just throw out the rest without putting much thought into it. I may experiment with trading/ 'selling' them on Ebay in the future but for now I am trying to get the couponing down pat before complicating it further. Currently, my coupons are organized by expiry date but in the future I might play around with a few different organizational methods as I'm not convinced this is the best way just yet.<br />
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At the same time, I have been using our local stores' price matching policies to our advantage! Each Thursday our flyers arrive and I go through the flyers to find the best deals. I write a very detailed list of all the things I will buy and what flyers they are pricematched from. I write down the exact details of the item that is on sale so that I do not become confused while I am shopping. If my list says 'vanilla, 350g' I buy vanilla, 350g. If I also have a coupon for that particular item I star it and write any details of the coupon that I need to be aware of when I am shopping.<br />
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I recently purchased the items shown above for exactly $20. My husband has a lot of sinus issues so Advil Cold & Sinus is a staple in our home and I have frequent headaches/ migraines that I use Tylenol to treat. I had $4 off manufacturer's coupons for each box of Advil. I also had a $4 off when you buy 2 coupon for the Tylenol. The Johnson's baby products were on sale and I had a $2 off and $1 off coupon for them. I use these baby shampoos/washes for my <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/baby-on-budget-diy-wipes.html">DIY baby wipes</a>. I don't usually buy <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/baby-on-budget-making-your-own-baby.html">baby food</a> but we were going on a trip that particular week and I decided to use premade baby food while we were away. These were on sale but I did not have coupons. I ended up saving 50% on the total bill by using the coupons plus the amount I saved by purchasing sale items.<br />
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The best price-matching/ coupon trip I've had yet was at our local Real Canadian Super Store. They were running a promotion where if you spent $250, you received a $25 gift card to put towards your next purchase. That same week they were running a very good deal on toilet paper (Charmin basic, 30 double rolls for $10) and had pop on sale (needed some of that for Christmas). I carefully gathered my coupons and made my price matching lists and set out to the store alone on a Sunday evening. I could hardly fit all of my purchases in the cart- I was not planning to need to shop for several weeks after this trip!! I went to the checkout and the cashier was incredibly nice and patient as I gave her all of my coupons and flyers for price matching. The computer gave her an error because it had reached its coupon limit and she had to have a manager come over and enter a code a couple of times. I was just below $250 when she finished ringing me up so I had her add a few packages of toilet paper and pop until I was at the $250 mark. She was kind enough to apply the $25 off to my bill right away! I went home and excitedly told my husband about how well I'd done but when I went over my bill I realized that several price matched items had been rung through at full price. I called the store and they told me to come back the next day and have it fixed. I had only expected to get $15 back but the manager gave me back the full price of each item that was rung in incorrectly!! I ended up getting well over $300 worth of groceries and toiletries for about $150!! I shouldn't have to buy toilet paper again until the end of the year!<br />
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I have been very happy with the results of my newly acquired shopping skills so far! The best part is that the more I've done it, the easier it's become and the less effort I've had to put into it. I fully believe that I will still be able to price match and coupon once I go back to work. I can't believe how much money I wasted before paying full price for everything!<br />
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Some of the links that have been helpful in couponing include:<br />
<a href="http://www.mrsjanuary.com/">Mrs. January</a><br />
<a href="http://save.ca/">Save.ca</a><br />
<a href="http://websaver.ca/">Websaver.ca</a><br />
<a href="http://brandsaver.ca/">Brandsaver.ca</a>Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-19231741824011795622012-02-13T09:59:00.000-05:002012-02-14T20:39:41.392-05:00How We Made $275 in 30 MinutesI am usually quite wary of free money. I come by it honestly. My parents always taught me that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. As a result, I don't click on ads offering me $500 a day working from home. I don't respond to newspaper ads that tell me I can earn $50 an hour stuffing envelopes. I always anticipate that there is going to be some awful string attached anytime someone wants to give me money for very little effort on my part.<br />
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My thoughts on easy money were challenged however, when I came across an ad from ING offering me $100 to open an account and have something direct deposited into it. The $100 really grabbed my attention as that's nearly two days of maternity leave pay! I'm much more used to the offer of a free book for opening an account or an extra percent of interest for a period of time. The only time that I've seen a Canadian bank offer as much as $100 for opening an account in the last while was attached to a condition of a $100,000 opening balance! No joke!<br />
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I googled around the interweb looking for the drawbacks to the ING promotion. I was convinced there would be something horrible like an enormous opening balance, a condition that I would have to keep a large sum of money in the account for a period of time- I figured there had to be something! I couldn't find anything though. There didn't seem to be any drawbacks. All the reviews of ING that I read were positive and ING seemed very straightforward on the requirements. All I had to do to get my $100 was open a Thrive chequing account and have a payment direct deposited into the account by a certain date.<br />
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I hesitantly started the process of opening the account all the while expecting to run into some huge dealbreaker at any moment. To my surprise the whole process only took a few minutes and everything went exactly as it was supposed to. I filled out the online form in a couple of minutes and wrote out a cheque to mail to ING to open the account. I received my bank card and pin within a week and had my maternity leave benefits directly deposited into the account. I received my $100 bonus within the next month.<br />
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Once I had signed up for my account, I noticed that ING had a referral program that offered myself and anyone I referred a $25 bonus as long as the referred person opened their account with a $100 initial deposit. The wheels started turning and I decided my husband needed an ING account opened with my referral code. Once his $100 deposit cheque landed at ING we were immediately credited $25 in each of our accounts. We switched his direct deposit to his account and he got the $100 bonus too.<br />
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A little bit later I noticed an ad when I was logging into my ING account that offered a $25 bonus for opening new children's savings accounts. Wouldn't you know- I had a kid that needed a savings account! A few minutes later, we had another $25 and a shiny new savings account that earns 2% interest.<br />
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I hadn't planned to keep the ING accounts but I have changed my mind for a couple of reasons. First, they are very easy to use and they are linked to all of my other accounts so I can easily and quickly move money between my accounts (<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/manulife-one-review.html">Manulife </a>and ING). Secondly, (this really was the clincher) they do not charge a fee when we deposit US$ cheques. We have a side gig that results in a US$ cheque every month but the earnings fluctuate widely between summer and winter. All of the other banks that we use charge anywhere from $8-10 to process a US$ cheque and hold it for up to a month as well. A fee like that would sometimes take a quarter of our cheque!! ING cashes the cheque free of charge and doesn't hold the money any longer than a Canadian dollar cheque. <br />
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We are very happy customers of ING now and I would recommend their products to anyone. Anytime I have called their customer service with questions I have gotten excellent help and not had to sit on hold forever to get it! Opening the accounts was an incredibly easy process and when I said all this took 30 minutes, I probably overestimated!! In the end, we all got what we wanted: I got a great product and a chunk of 'free' cash and ING got 2 and a half new clients and a great review!!<br />
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If you would like to make $25 in a few minutes, follow <a href="http://www.ingdirect.ca/thrive/">this link</a> and use our Orange Key when opening your account: 36090948S1 For an extra $100, have your paycheque or government benefits directly deposited into the account by Feb. 29. If you are not able to make the direct deposit by that timeframe I would keep an eye on the ING site as I have seen them extend/ reoffer this promotion about four times since we originally took advantage of it.Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-89596741351551232892012-02-10T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-13T19:35:36.227-05:00Manulife One ReviewHere is my humble review of our Manulife One account. I do not claim to know about all the different types of mortgages and accounts out there or pretend to have an idea of how it would work in your situation. I can only attest to how it has worked for us over the last year and a half that we've been working with it and perhaps this will help you make an informed decision as to whether or not it is the right type of product for you.<br />
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I had seen the Manulife One commercials a few years back and looked into the M1 a bit but at that point we were new homeowners and didn't have enough equity in our home to take advantage. As time went on and we paid down more of our mortgage as the value of our home rose, I looked into it again. This time I inquired about it on the website and an advisor offered to come meet with us. I still didn't think we'd qualify and I was somewhat wary to look into it because I was embarrassed about the amount of debt we still had, <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-journey-so-far.html">even after paying a large chunk of it down! </a><br />
The M1 advisor actually informed us that we looked like good candidates for the account and explained how it all worked. I had done a lot of research prior to the meeting so I didn't have a lot of questions. The main drawback the I was able to find in my research is that this account has a $14 monthly fee. I'm not ecstatic about the fee but using the account has saved us enough money in other ways to justify the monthly fee. Perhaps once there is more competition in this market Manulife will decide to drop the fee. (hint, hint)<br />
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The advisor arranged to have our home appraised. I was worried about this since a few areas in our home were under renovation at the time but no one actually came to the home to do this. Rather, they assessed the amounts that other homes in the area were selling for and valued our home that way. I suppose this could work in your favour or against it... Manulife will lend you up to 80% of the assessed value of your home. This was excellent for us as we had bought a fixer upper in our neighbourhood and sunk a bit of money into fixing it up. The Manulife One account allowed us to roll the amount spent on renovations back into the 'mortgage' which worked well in our situation.<br />
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Once we were approved and all the paperwork went through, we were able to log onto our account online and see 2 amounts: the amount that we owed and the amount that was available to us. The amount available to us is 80% of the assessed value of our home less the amount that we owe on our home. (ie; if your home is assessed at $200,000 and you owe $150,000 on your home it will show that there is $10,000 available for you to spend). We used the money available to us to pay down our remaining (interest bearing) debt. This included some small balances on credit cards, a little bit of a car loan and our line of credit.<br />
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I was embarrassed to talk about our new 'mortgage' at first because it felt like we had cheated. In one foul swoop we had taken all of our high interest debt and were now only paying 3.5% on it. We didn't have to worry about making separate small payments against all of our debts; we now only had one focus- to pay down our mortgage.<br />
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I was also very aware of the risk that we would just rack up all of our credit cards again and I was afraid that people would judge us saying that we would just go and run up even more debt. In fact, this is the main reason that I would warn people to stay away from this type of account. In our case though, I was fairly confident in our new found money skills and felt that we had spent enough time changing the bad habits that put us in debt in the first place as well as paying them off little by little.<br />
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The main issue that I have run into since switching over to the Manulife One account is that it has required significant changes in the way that I budget, save and spend my money. Before, money would come in and I would pay bills, pay off debt and put my savings into other accounts and know that I could spend whatever was left on groceries and gas etc. I had designated savings accounts for vacations, cars or whatever else we needed to save up for and it was very easy to see how much money I had for what at any given time. Now, there is no sense in keeping my vacation savings fund, or emergency fund for that matter, in a separate savings account that would get me 2% interest at best when I am <i>paying </i>3.5% by not keeping that money in my M1 account.<br />
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I slowly got back to the way I used to keep track of my money when I was a kid: ledgers. I have a binder with a whole bunch of different ledgers that keep track of where every dollar that is available to me in my M1 account is designated. My emergency fund is kept in my M1 account along with any money saved up for <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-next-big-purchase.html">our next vehicle</a>, money saved up for clothing and our personal spending accounts. While I pay bills as soon as they come in the mail (or e-mail), I post-date the transactions so the money doesn't leave my account until it absolutely has to. We also use our credit card for everything to get an extra 30 days of interest free money.<br />
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Once I was able to get my mind around how to use this account and budget properly, we felt so much freedom and flexibility! Essentially, we are our own bank. We shouldn't have to apply for a car loan ever again. When we decide to<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/our-financial-goals-where-were-headed.html"> invest in real estate</a>, we can choose to leverage our own home to make it happen. If we see a great deal on something, for the most part, we can choose to take advantage of it because we can 'borrow' from ourselves. Obviously, if we 'borrowed' from ourselves continually without paying ourselves back we would be in big trouble but that is where it is incredibly important to make sure that you have a good handle on your budget and refer back to your ledgers constantly!<br />
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Overall, it can be overwhelming to log in to your bank account and see a 6 figure negative number. It can be equally misleading to log in and see a great big number in the available funds category. If there is one thing that I would say to anyone considering the Manulife One account, it is to make sure that they have some solid practice when it comes to living within their means prior to attempting to make this account work for them. Our advisor said it best when he told us, 'The key to this account is that, if you drove a Ford before you got it, you still have to drive a Ford after. If you go out and buy a BMW it isn't going to work for you.' It has been a wonderful tool for us in paying down our debt and giving us flexibility but, like any tool, it has to be used properly to get the intended results. <br />
<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-14676472201170218422012-02-09T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-22T23:20:17.433-05:00Baby On A Budget: Making Your Own Baby Purees<i><a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/search/label/baby%20on%20a%20budget">Baby on a Budget</a> is a series of posts that I'll be doing to share all
the ways we've managed to save money while bringing up our baby. When I
read the stats about how much money new parents supposedly spend
getting ready for a baby and caring for a baby in its first years, I
cringe! I can certainly see how it happens though.... These posts are
meant to help you stay away from that awfully high number!!</i><br />
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One of the things that I've highly enjoyed doing in the last few months is cooking for my baby. This might be comical for those of you that know me as I'm not a great cook, but I love knowing exactly what my kid is eating and saving a whole bunch of money while doing it! It's also nice to have a stockpile of baby food in my freezer and not have to be too concerned about running out as making the purees is as easy as pie (though, even with my limited cooking experience, I doubt making a pie is all that simple...)! <br />
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I use a simple ice cube method that seems to be fairly popular around the blogosphere. You can find trays specifically made for freezing purees but in my experience, ice cube trays work just as well. So far, I have frozen avocado, sweet potato, carrots and pea soup into cubes. I simply mash up (with a fork or food processor) the vegetables, spoon them into the ice cube trays and once frozen, put them into air tight containers until ready to be eaten. Then I microwave a cube or two and it's ready to go!<br />
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Most of the food I've frozen so far has taken no effort with the exception of the carrots. When we eat sweet potatoes for dinner I make an extra one and freeze it- no food processor needed. My husband made pea soup one weekend and while he was freezing some for his own lunches, I filled up a couple of ice cube trays. When avocados are ripe they can easily be mashed with a fork and spooned into trays; I don't even add citrus or anything and haven't had much of an issue with browning. I did cook the carrots specifically for the baby and while it did take a bit of time for them to boil and soften up, it's not as though I had to stand and watch them the entire time. I used the food processor to mash the carrots up but it was worth all the effort and mess as carrots are one of my son's favourite foods currently.<br />
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We go through one or two of these cubes a day. My son eats cereal for breakfast, yogourt and applesauce for lunch and one or two of these cubes either on their own or mixed with cereal for supper. He is still nursing and eats a variety of finger foods as well. These finger foods consist of whatever fruit we have in the house as well as cheerios, arrowroot cookies, goldfish, crackers and toast. So far he has enjoyed apples, cantaloupes, watermelon, pineapple and kiwi.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC-hMmKFkdZXMyf3c3i-v6LBJZzY6LZlVBVAtNKbyhlYeauf4Ao5z2CrUQ0f4S6Pr5EPHAUpN_-IGVBesfZ7ZsADXJqUA-3ZRCV7QvpxmeVvvIeKXeBGDUkrSD4YPzE-xmI7iTiwYWSOr-/s1600/2Cohen-27+weeks+Christmas+card+pics+004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC-hMmKFkdZXMyf3c3i-v6LBJZzY6LZlVBVAtNKbyhlYeauf4Ao5z2CrUQ0f4S6Pr5EPHAUpN_-IGVBesfZ7ZsADXJqUA-3ZRCV7QvpxmeVvvIeKXeBGDUkrSD4YPzE-xmI7iTiwYWSOr-/s320/2Cohen-27+weeks+Christmas+card+pics+004.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>My satisfied little guy eating a rice cracker</i></div>
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I've got lots of great ideas about foods to add to the menu in the next few months thanks to a couple of baby cookbooks. So far I've enjoyed <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0965260313/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=preserpennie-20&linkCode=as2&camp=15121&creative=330641&creativeASIN=0965260313">Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron</a><i> </i>as well as an older copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0688049508/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=preserpennie-20&linkCode=as2&camp=15121&creative=330641&creativeASIN=0688049508">The Baby Cookbook by Karin Knight.</a> The latter was a hand me down from my sister and is a little outdated so I would probably recommend Karin Knight's newer book, <span class="title">
<a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1592334237/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=preserpennie-20&linkCode=as2&camp=15121&creative=330641&creativeASIN=1592334237">The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet: Know What Goes Into Every Bite with More Than 200 of the Most Deliciously Nutritious Homemade Baby Food Recipes-Includes More Than 60 Purees Your Baby Will Love.</a>
</span>
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<a href="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_click?lid=41000000030896327&pubid=21000000000520199"><img alt="Save up to 70% for moms, babies and kids" border="0" src="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_impression?lid=41000000030896327&pubid=21000000000520199" /></a><br />
<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-60182057996098477472012-02-08T10:00:00.001-05:002012-02-13T12:57:17.018-05:00How We Earn Extra Money: Selling Our Stuff on Ebay<i>I<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-next-big-purchase.html"> recently mentioned</a> that we are saving up for a new vehicle despite having no extra room in our budget. </i> <i>We
have managed to save up about $3000 towards this by finding ways to
earn extra income aside from our regular paycheques. This is one of the
ways we've been earning extra money! You can see the rest of the ways we earn extra money <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/search/label/earning%20extra%20money">here</a>! </i><br />
<br />
One of the things that drove me nuts when I first went on maternity leave was all the clutter in our home. We've spent the last 10 years working our butts off during the week and shopping on the weekends and the amount of stuff built up in our home was showing it! Being forced to sit at home and look at it, and put it away and clean it made me crazy and all I could think about was getting rid of it.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>I started to work my way through each room, putting anything that I no longer wanted or hadn't used in some time into a pile. Once this was done, I pulled out anything that I thought had some resale value and was small enough that it wouldn't incur massive amounts of shipping, and photographed it. I use a white sheet as a background for all of my ebay pictures (unless the item itself is white in which case I usually use a black piece of cloth or paper as a background). Most of the time I only use one picture for each listing as each picture after the first costs extra. Ebay has been running a new promotion that gives me 50 free listings each month so I try not to spend any money on the listings themselves. <br />
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After downloading all the pictures, I start posting my stuff on Ebay. I try to do like items at the same time so that I can copy the previous listing and only change the details that need to be changed (ie. DVDs, CDs, books, clothing all get listed one after another). This cuts down on a lot of time! Depending on how much stuff I'm listing this process can take several days. I just do a bit at a time until I am done.<br />
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I am lucky to work as a shipping and receiving manager at my 'real' job so I am very familiar with shipping rates/ times but I've noticed that Ebay has some very helpful built in shipping tools now- particularly one where you can purchase and print a shipping label right through Paypal. I know you can also get shipping quotes right off of <a href="http://www.canadapost.ca/">Canada Post'</a>s website and I would assume the same is true for the US Postal Service. These can help to determine a fair shipping cost for your listing.<br />
<br />
I try not to be greedy when I am setting prices. If you ask too much you won't sell anything and you will just be wasting your time. I also don't usually make penny listings as I have not been successful with this particular strategy. I look around Ebay for similar listings to my own and try to set a fair price this way. When searching for items in Ebay, there is an option to search 'Completed Listings' on the left hand side of the page. This is how you can tell what similar listings have been selling for. This is much more accurate than simply checking what other sellers are listing their items at as the other seller could be completely unrealistic with their pricing or using a bidding war strategy that you may not want to employ.<br />
<br />
I always use an auction and buy it now listing format. I start the auction slightly lower than the buy it now price. I am sometimes surprised when people use the Buy It Now feature when the auction is ending in a short time but I never argue as I make more money when people 'Buy It Now'.<br />
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The listing length that I select really depends on the type of merchandise. If the item is very buyer specific (ie; a motorcycle seat for an '86 FZ600) I choose a longer listing. For most items I choose 7 days and for items that I have a lot of I choose shorter listings and keep relisting them until they are gone.<br />
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Ebay takes a commission from your final sale price. It is very reasonable (compared to some other sites that I've sold from). They will bill you at the end of the month and you can select to have it automatically withdrawn from your credit card or Paypal account. <br />
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Most people would be surprised at the type of things that sell on Ebay. I've seen magazines and coupons sell, though I've personally never sold either of these items (I'm certainly looking to try in the future...). I've sold DVDs for more than I've seen them selling in stores for. I sell my husband's video games when he is finished playing with them. We sold an XBox 360 controller that we had bought used for more than we paid for it. We sold a USB soundcard that we had bought used for the same amount we had paid for it years earlier. I've bought and sold used cloth diapers- they retain their value amazingly well! Used clothing, used motorcycle parts, a digital camera that was too fancy for us... You name it, we've sold it! <br />
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I would encourage everyone to at least try selling on Ebay. Not only does it help your pocketbook but I've found it incredibly freeing to offload some of the items that were just gathering dust around our home. I'm looking forward to seeing all my work pay off when we bring home our new (to us) vehicle later this year!Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-84506289504961923432012-02-07T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-08T10:45:54.586-05:00Slashing Expenses: Cutting Your Own Hair<i>In order to reach <a href="http://preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/our-financial-goals-where-were-headed.html">our goal of financial freedom</a>, we are increasing
income and slashing our expenses. We will be sharing ways that we've
successfully decreased our monthly expenses in order to help you cut
your own costs.</i><br />
<br />
About once every month (two if I'm lucky) my husband talks me into cutting his hair. I have to be entirely honest; this is one of my least favourite ways to save money. The only reason I go along with this is because my husband absolutely insists. <i> </i>He hates going to the hairdresser as much as I hate cutting his hair.<br />
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If you are going to attempt to employ this crazy money saving technique in your own life, do yourself a favour and learn from our mistakes.<br />
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<ol>
<li>Know that hair will end up everywhere. If you have a thick and luscious head of coarse, Asian hair like my husband's, do not attempt to cut your hair in a bathtub. You will clog it. Have a shop vac handy. Better yet, help your backyard bird buddies and cut your hair outside.</li>
<li>Buy a good set of clippers. Do not buy the $10 pair from Walmart- or anywhere else for that matter- whether or not they are made by the same company that makes your favourite guns. </li>
<li>Do not cut your own hair. Oh sorry- is my bias showing? </li>
<li>Write down which number you like to use for the back/top etc. We always think we will remember what number worked best and then forget by the next time and have to figure it out all over again. </li>
<li>Don't try to trim anything with scissors if you want your husband to speak to you during the next week. (On the other hand, if you could use some peace and quiet, forget the clippers and try to cut it all freehand with scissors. )</li>
<li>If you are at all sensitive to co-workers' jeers and snide comments, don't even attempt this. </li>
<li>Keep a Bic handy in case something goes horribly wrong.</li>
<li>Make sure all attachments are secured properly. If you mess up on this one, refer to #7.</li>
<li>Don't attempt to cut your hair at 10pm when you have to work the next morning at 8am. Make sure there is a window of opportunity to get a real cut before you have to be seen in public next. </li>
</ol>
All kidding aside, this is a very messy job. We bought the cheapest clippers they sell and they do not work well. I have to move very, very slowly or the razor hurts my husband and even when he says I'm doing it right he still occasionally gets hurt a bit. This is probably due to his extremely thick hair but we are not entirely sure. We have to go over the same hair over and over and even then we don't get a very even cut. We currently do the hair cutting in our basement and use a shop vac to clean it up but in the summer we like to do it outside- as long as the neighbours aren't around. :)<br />
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That said, my husband doesn't ever want to pay to have his hair cut again. He thinks it's a complete waste of money and we can usually get it to look decent enough. I do think we will be investing in a better set of clippers soon though. I sincerely hope they do a better job because I absolutely dread the next time I have to do this. I will let you know if we find a good pair!Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-5355645284563603702012-02-06T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-13T13:06:54.778-05:00Our Financial Goals: Where We're HeadedOur specific goals are always changing. However, the general idea behind our goals stays the same; we want to achieve a level of financial freedom that allows us to create an acceptable (to us) balance between work and play. Throughout the years, we have felt forced to stay at certain jobs and work extra hours because of financial obligations and we want to feel as though we have more of a say in this. (We realize that we are responsible for our actions and that we always have a choice as to what we do, but we have sometimes felt that the monetarily responsible choices in our situations aren't very agreeable when they mean staying in an exceptionally stressful work situation or seeing less of our family than we desire.)<br />
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Our mantra of late has been to <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/search/label/earning%20extra%20money">increase our income</a> and <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/search/label/saving%20money">decrease our ongoing expenses</a>. We also want to diversify our sources of income so that if one dries up or we decide to discontinue it, we have another standing by. We are willing to sacrifice certain things (cable tv, brand new cars..) to have other things that are more important to us (motorcycles, less hours at work..).<br />
<br />
One way that we would like to increase our income in the future (and diversify it) is to buy real estate either to be fixed up for quick resale or for rental income. We have enjoyed the real estate industry since buying and <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-journey-so-far.html">fixing up our own home</a> and are lucky to be handy enough (in the case of my husband) to be able to do most home repairs ourselves.<br />
<br />
Currently, we are working to <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/02/manulife-one-review.html">pay down enough of our mortgage (M1 account)</a> to be able to repurpose the money as a downpayment on a second property. We won't be able to do this terribly soon. We would need to pay down at least $35,000 of our mortgage to be able to do this and on our limited income now that we've started a family, this will take us a while but it is what we are looking ahead to.<br />
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Perhaps our circumstances will adjust over the years and we will change our minds but currently this is our long-term goal. It is helpful to be able to think about this as we decide where and where not to spend our money and certainly gives us something to dream about. <br />
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<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-85368406966208392812012-02-03T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-06T20:21:52.235-05:00Slashing Expenses: Saving Money on our Phone Bill<i>In order to reach our goal of financial freedom, we are increasing income and slashing our expenses. We will be sharing ways that we've successfully decreased our monthly expenses in order to help you cut your own costs. </i><br />
<br />
<br />
We've been counting down to this January for the last several months. It wasn't because we were going on a nice vacation or having a baby or <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-next-big-purchase.html">buying a new car</a> or anything terribly exciting like that; it was because our phone contract with Bell was finally going to be up. (!!!)<br />
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I had received a good deal on a home phone plan with Bell three years ago as long as I entered into a contract with them. I was not interested in changing phone providers in the near future at that point and saw no issue with this. I received a bunch of free features and free long distance which were all valuable to me. In the past year however, our phone costs have risen as fees have been added and certain features taken away etc. I thought I was protected by our 'contract' but the fees added were regulatory in nature and I couldn't get around the added expense. I have been able to get several small discounts and such by calling and complaining but this takes a lot of time and sometimes creates additional problems.<br />
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We've been checking out different phone providers and have decided to give the <a href="http://www.themagicjack.ca/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=3111">Magic Jack</a> a shot. I am always looking for ways to dramatically decrease our monthly expenses (or cut them out altogether) and this seems like a good solution for us. According to Magic Jack, we will be able to keep our current phone number (fairly important to me as it would be quite a hassle to change our contact number with all the people connected to our side businesses) and will have free call display (I never realized how much I loved call display until it was thrown into our plan by Bell and then consequently taken away...), voice mail and other great features. Also, they are offering a plan where you don't pay until 30 days after activation and are able to return it within the 30 days if you don't like it (granted, this can sometimes be easier said than done but for us I feel that the reward outweighs the risk). <br />
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We currently pay about $45/ month for our home phone which has gone up about $10 over the past year!! <a href="http://www.themagicjack.ca/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=3111">Magic Jack</a> costs $39.95 or $69.95 plus shipping depending on whether you purchase the original Magic Jack or the new Magic Jack Plus. The Magic Jack Plus enables you to use Magic Jack without a computer. There can be small fees for some special features including Canadian numbers. I will let you know what fees we incur once it gets here and we get everything set up. The cost per year after the initial purchase is $29.95 or $19.95 if you purchase 5 years worth of usage.<br />
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When I called to order the Magic Jack, I was initially turned off because I had questions and couldn't seem to get to a live person. I hung up and decided to try to find answers to my questions online. Within a few minutes, a live operator called me back regarding my earlier call and asked if I needed assistance to order the Magic Jack. I was able to ask her all of my questions (mainly whether I would be able to use my existing Canadian phone number) and ordered the product with her. You can<a href="http://www.themagicjack.ca/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=3111"> order the unit online here</a> as well.<br />
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I can't wait to set it up and see how it works. I have heard an equal
amount of good and bad reviews regarding the sound quality so I am
anxious to see how it performs for us- crossing my fingers that it works
well! I will tell you all about it once it gets here.<br />
<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-58344204875227671822012-02-02T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-22T23:34:09.120-05:00Our January BudgetI realized after attempting to show an accurate picture of our current budget using a piechart <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/current-budget-breakdown.html">here</a>, (and failing miserably) that because of the way we budget, the only way to paint a realistic picture of a budget was to give an accurate accounting of where our money has gone in any given month. As <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-journey-so-far.html">previously mentioned</a>, we have a Manulife One account and I had to make some major adjustments to the way we budget in order to get the most out of this account. It took me about a year to really feel like I was 'on top of things' in this area.<br />
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Each payweek (my husband and I both get paid at the same time every two weeks), I determine how much we've made and take any amount over $1800 and enter this into the ledger marked 'Mortgage/ emergency fund'. This means that we make more headway on paying down the mortgage during the summer (busy time at work) than during the winter (slow time, less hours). The rest of the $1800 is written into other ledgers to determine how much money we have to spend in the other categories.<br />
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Our budget categories are as follows:<br />
Insurance<br />
Phone<br />
Property Tax, Mortgage Interest & Fees<br />
Utilities<br />
Pets<br />
Entertainment<br />
Husband's Spending<br />
My Spending<br />
Baby's Spending/ Education Fund<br />
Gifts<br />
Clothing<br />
Food/ Gas<br />
Car/ House Maintenance<br />
RRSP<br />
Loan Repayment<br />
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I have played around with the amounts that are designated to each category over the last 6 months and think I've gotten them to acceptable levels. I've also added and removed categories. If you see something that's missing I probably lump it in to one of these categories. I also have no problem borrowing from one category to pay for something extra in another etc. We even go into the negatives in a category or two at times if there's a good reason. Sometimes there's not a superb reason but as long as we're being responsible then I figure- it's our money... <br />
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For January, I calculated all the money that came in and the money that went out and represented them with another handy dandy pie chart here:<br />
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I think this is somewhat of a better representation than my previous calculations which didn't include anything over the $1800 that we budget. This month has a lower savings rate because we make less in the winter months but in the summer this savings rate should be higher since we bring home significantly higher paycheques (particularly myself as I will be returning to work).<br />
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<a href="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_click?lid=41000613802219998&pubid=21000000000520199"><img alt="518801_Track every $ you spend - 234x60" border="0" src="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_impression?lid=41000613802219998&pubid=21000000000520199" /></a></div>Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-27715697771752097052012-02-01T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-13T13:08:38.507-05:00How We Earn Extra Money: Teaching Piano<i>I<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/our-next-big-purchase.html"> recently mentioned</a> that we are saving up for a new vehicle despite having no extra room in our budget. </i> <i>We have managed to save up about $3000 towards this by finding ways to earn extra income aside from our regular paycheques. This is one of the ways we've been earning extra money! You can see the rest of the ways<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/search/label/earning%20extra%20money"> here</a>!</i><br />
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My parents invested a lot of money into piano lessons for me while I was growing up. I also invested a lot of time and energy into going to lessons and practicing (unfortunately less than I should have...) I worked my way up to Grade 9 of the Royal Conservatory of Music and did fairly well. I was really great at theory, quite good at music history and OK at the practical exams.<br />
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I have begun to make all of this effort pay off now by teaching student(s). I used to do a bit of teaching some years ago but was never very confident in my ability and honestly too busy with all the other stuff in my life to put in a good effort. I'm trying again though and so far it is going well.<br />
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I currently have one student. It's a start. I make $15 for a half hour of teaching which works out to $60 extra bucks a month. I am working on getting more students but all of my music contacts are in our old town so it's slow going as I'm having to start from scratch here. I am optimistic that I will be able to increase this though. Ideally, I would like to fill up one afternoon/ evening with students and provide a healthy extra income stream.<br />
<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-67012863086461933962012-01-31T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-22T23:37:49.060-05:00Budget Buster: ForgetfulnessWe went away this past weekend and battled the Great Canadian Winter... We travelled 'home' to see my family which is about three hours away from our actual home. It was a less than awesome trip due to the very inclement weather. We started out in freezing rain and ended up in extreme winds and white outs. We were driving our truck which does not have four wheel drive. When we finally arrived at our destination we ended up getting stuck at the top of a hill that was our hosts' driveway. Lots of 'boy fun' later our truck arrived at the bottom of the hill via the other side of the hill (not meant for driving) and less one mirror thanks to an apple tree. Thankfully, it's a beater truck and the mirror will probably be very inexpensive to replace. It was definitely an adventure.<br />
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The boys opted not to attempt the hilly driveway a second time and parked our truck at the road. This was fine until it was time to leave and the winds were blowing, the snow was flying, the baby was fussing and we left the house via different doors at different times, each of us under the impression that the other was carrying the diaper bag. After about a half hour of driving in once again white out conditions, we received a phone call that our diaper bag had not accompanied us on our snowy journey. What's worse is that this wasn't just a diaper bag- it was our son's suitcase for the weekend.<br />
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Turning back to retrieve the bag was not an option at this point so we decided to carry on to our destination, pick up some supplies to get us through the night and pick it up the next day. However, having lived in the city for several years now, we've forgotten all about small towns and mainly, that people in them have their priorities in order and would rather spend Saturday evenings doing things way better than manning any of the local grocery stores/ retail outlets.<br />
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Thankfully, we were able to find one small grocery store that was open. They had a very small selection of diapers, wipes and baby food. Our forgetfulness cost us about $25 in items that I really didn't need since I<a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/baby-on-budget-cloth-diapering-101.html"> cloth diaper</a> and <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/baby-on-budget-diy-wipes.html">make my own wipes</a>.<br />
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The inclement weather did do us one favour though; we ended up using very little gas on our entire trip since we had to<i> drive well below the speed limit for the entire 6 hours of the journey</i>... yay!<br />
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<a href="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_click?lid=41000613802219998&pubid=21000000000520199"><img alt="518801_Track every $ you spend - 234x60" border="0" src="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_impression?lid=41000613802219998&pubid=21000000000520199" /></a></div>Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-60161129599372704632012-01-30T10:00:00.001-05:002012-02-06T20:17:56.086-05:00Our Next Big PurchaseCurrently we are saving for our next big purchase. This is a bit of a new concept for us as we've never really saved for anything big before. We've always just financed and paid it off after obtaining whatever it is we 'needed' at the moment. It's actually very exciting! We are planning to buy a new vehicle and pay for it in cash!<br />
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We bought our first car when we were 18 (I think..). It was a little Toyota Tercel and a great car. I think it cost $3500 and we got a car loan for it. The bank wouldn't loan us that little so we had to borrow $5000. That ended up being a good thing as our insurance turned out to be $500 a month for the first 6 months and it was very helpful to have the extra cash from the bank to help pay the huge expense. Neither of us had ever been insured before so the insurance companies weren't eager to have us as customers.<br />
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Our Tercel served us well and we took our time paying the loan off. It was starting to show its age though and once it was paid off we started to look at other used cars. We couldn't really decide what we wanted and kicked a lot of tires until one day my husband was rear ended on his way to work. This ended up being a blessing in disguise as we had been contemplating trading our car in for $500 and the insurance company gave us $1300 for it.<br />
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We took that money and put it down on a used Mazda Protege5. This time we got an even bigger car loan. We still drive the Protege5 and it is a good car. It has its issues but they are all things that my husband knows how to fix. We were happy to pay the car off when we got our ManulifeOne account so we've just concentrated on driving it for as long as we could since then.<br />
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We have decided that the time has come however, to replace our beloved rust bucket. We have come to the realization that we really need a bigger vehicle- and certainly something more reliable- as much as we hate to admit it. I prefer little cars and hate the thought of having to drive something bigger but my back yells at me every time I try to get my hefty little guy in and out of the backseat. Our car is also so compact that his carseat barely fits and I have to have my seat pulled as far up as it will go. The car is so unreliable that we don't leave home without a trunk full of tools. This is a problem when you have a plethora of baby gear needing to arrive at your destination and no free trunkspace to transport it!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKNfvzMRHt0lLevpvaBm2S7wBgc8L9Nxr93AmIWQKD61VyUE9A19UsxmBP7k4Kuf6zcNEHDPEzuQjVrTDUJX6RoR8xSds21dXuTGkN3gyUymek_qvcAIsXfb02w10TIXhRi9am2wwILnLa/s1600/mazda5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKNfvzMRHt0lLevpvaBm2S7wBgc8L9Nxr93AmIWQKD61VyUE9A19UsxmBP7k4Kuf6zcNEHDPEzuQjVrTDUJX6RoR8xSds21dXuTGkN3gyUymek_qvcAIsXfb02w10TIXhRi9am2wwILnLa/s1600/mazda5.jpg" /></a></div>
We've been ogling the Mazda5 for awhile now and we've decided that this is the year that she'll be ours (pre-loved of course). Sexy, isn't she?<br />
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Since we're bringing in less money now that I'm on maternity leave, we don't have any extra room in our budget to save for this. This hasn't stopped us from saving up $3000 though. Every penny that's come in from sources other than my EI payment or hubbies' paycheque has gone to our new car- and I've been working by butt off to make as much as I can! I'll be sharing how we've been able to find the extra money to put towards this next purchase over the next little while and hopefully I'll be sharing the details of the actual purchase soon enough!!!!Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-54303132058914564702012-01-30T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-22T23:20:44.360-05:00Baby On A Budget: Cloth Diapering 101<i>Baby on a Budget is a series of posts that I'll be doing to share all
the ways we've managed to save money while bringing up our baby. When I
read the stats about how much money new parents supposedly spend
getting ready for a baby and caring for a baby in its first years, I
cringe! I can certainly see how it happens though.... These posts are
meant to help you stay away from that awfully high number!!</i><br />
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One of the biggest expenses that we've saved on since having a baby is diapers. I decided to cloth diaper after being inspired by <a href="http://www.younghouselove.com/2010/08/the-much-requested-cloth-diaper-post/">Young House Love</a><i>. </i>I had never thought much about it prior to then but it all made sense and seemed right up my alley when they talked about it. Plus, I had no idea they made such amazing cloth diapers as they do these days! When someone mentioned cloth to me before I just thought of prefolds and diaper pins.<br />
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After hearing about the positive experience that YHL had with the Bumgenius Elemental All in One diapers and reading a million reviews I decided I needed to have them as well. It was important for me to choose the easiest to use cloth diaper available as I was afraid that we wouldn't use them if they were any hassle at all. I spent nearly $500 on diapers! It doesn't sound like a money saver when I say that but I would estimate that after this month we will have gotten our money's worth out of our cloth diapers and anything after this is pure profit. These diapers will really begin cost effective when a second (maybe even third?) child uses them. Even if we decide not to have any more children, these diapers hold their value amazingly! Check out Ebay if you don't believe me! I even bought about 5 diapers from my current stash used and they've all held up beautifully!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvmabYv7kR8qG0F0NoDFf2P7VQZzsvl4WoIHSHPHEzzV5AJ6o3dbuza2mm4nGAgH3rpXNMjlUHbCkXoZZvF5vxJOIA3bVSqz9YVR84ieNXl1tAVC4aJxEqtVWCpEeMrKpAYbydVwQrowzW/s1600/cloth+diapers+004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvmabYv7kR8qG0F0NoDFf2P7VQZzsvl4WoIHSHPHEzzV5AJ6o3dbuza2mm4nGAgH3rpXNMjlUHbCkXoZZvF5vxJOIA3bVSqz9YVR84ieNXl1tAVC4aJxEqtVWCpEeMrKpAYbydVwQrowzW/s320/cloth+diapers+004.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>My Beloved Diaper Stash</i></div>
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I ended up buying a few different kinds of diapers. <a href="http://www.cottonbabies.com/">Cottonbabies</a> was having several different sales while I was buying my diapers and I really can't resist a sale/ clearance. I ended up with some really good deals and an awesome diaper stash full of all sorts of different diapers that are great for different things. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimcfDgHx-PVggi6YbPhIbDUo6JXcyluebbObpe57ZiuZpvNzwgbA-i1flJqmqrRv8XO8BY42hQK4NSQmaOUTcpBF1abcifgz-nUl9wIeuP-TFZzAF7yk0JxH_X6a9fV0-IOtg1jmLO7D9x/s1600/cloth+diapers+007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimcfDgHx-PVggi6YbPhIbDUo6JXcyluebbObpe57ZiuZpvNzwgbA-i1flJqmqrRv8XO8BY42hQK4NSQmaOUTcpBF1abcifgz-nUl9wIeuP-TFZzAF7yk0JxH_X6a9fV0-IOtg1jmLO7D9x/s320/cloth+diapers+007.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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These are the Bumgenius 3.0 velcro and the Bumgenius Elemental with the snaps. Both of these diapers are All in Ones meaning they are all one piece and don't need to be stuffed or taken apart for the wash. The Elementals are organic and a one size diaper so they can be adjusted with snaps to fit babies from when they are born to when they are potty trained. These are my husband's favourite diapers. The 3.0s are my favourite diapers. These diapers are sized which makes them less bulky but also means that they are much less versatile than the one size diaper. I had bought some clearance 3.0s from Cottonbabies and when I realized how much I loved them, I bought 4 more used off of Ebay. I am surprised at how well the velcro has held up. I use these diapers for special occasions when I want my babies butt to look smaller (no joke).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmnOVxZeA6RL4ij4THG-IE0k6EcnyHpJjNvNdg9YICZ2jDObvpV8_LtJ-lI7b1SBWp40gk-YX-khOt4Xupn8hlEIPpSV2b6RvLsU_a_bFDRauA2iy8qp0IAADYdoEXWV4NHn1mpjCGCoEx/s1600/cloth+diapers+008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmnOVxZeA6RL4ij4THG-IE0k6EcnyHpJjNvNdg9YICZ2jDObvpV8_LtJ-lI7b1SBWp40gk-YX-khOt4Xupn8hlEIPpSV2b6RvLsU_a_bFDRauA2iy8qp0IAADYdoEXWV4NHn1mpjCGCoEx/s320/cloth+diapers+008.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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These are my pocket diapers. The giraffe printed diaper is a Blueberry diaper and the yellow one (and insert) is a Bumgenius 4.0. The 4.0 is similar to the Elemental in that it is a one size diaper bu, being a pocket diaper, the insert needs to be stuffed into the diaper and pulled out again for the wash. I don't mind the extra work of stuffing the diapers or pulling out the inserts in the wash. I do think they are the most bulky of all my diapers though so I use them most when we are at home. The Blueberry diaper has the best print of all of my diapers but it is not my favourite as the fit is not quite as nice as the Bumgenius diapers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJLDPsj0VUbrVD-7ytVaIYmdVG1cFzF6cCtLCJ4tDDquzfAWuc1SY1TIbsiklw-k66YHoJJzoeHTgCfgUAZixa5v81Uu0Ha3j5XwjOU2e1xLro4UaTsiv8kSR1wj7FDvPQoxeY8rjv7fP8/s1600/cloth+diapers+010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJLDPsj0VUbrVD-7ytVaIYmdVG1cFzF6cCtLCJ4tDDquzfAWuc1SY1TIbsiklw-k66YHoJJzoeHTgCfgUAZixa5v81Uu0Ha3j5XwjOU2e1xLro4UaTsiv8kSR1wj7FDvPQoxeY8rjv7fP8/s320/cloth+diapers+010.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I was lucky enough to get some Bumgenius Bamboo Fitteds after they 'found some in their warehouse' long after they'd been discontinued. These were my very favourite diapers at the beginning and I still love to use them now. The fitteds are identical to a disposable diaper except you have to use a diaper cover over top of them so you get a perfect fit every time which is important with gooey infant baby poop. I love, love, love these diapers!!! Pictured here are a Flip diaper cover and an Econobum diaper cover both of which are great. I have only used the Flip with these fitteds as I purchased it as a second and have yet to purchase a Flip insert.<br />
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I have found that there is really no extra hassle to using these diapers. They are all just as simple as disposables. I suppose the snaps take a little bit of getting used to but they really are quite simple as well. I do 1-2 loads of diaper laundry a week. I use borax or washing soda and a bit of laundry soap with no additives. I let the diapers pre-soak and then wash with hot water and an extra rinse cycle. In the summer I line dried them which worked great for our infant baby poop stains. This winter I have just dried them in the dryer and this has worked out better than I expected. Somehow I still don't have stains, though I think this is because of our baby's perfect age (and therefore poop) during the changes of seasons. We have just begun seeing solid poop and it is great because it just plops out of the diaper into the toilet and there is hardly a mark left on the diaper. We have a diaper sprayer but I have yet to use it very much. It is messy and I'm not fond of it so far.<br />
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Our wetbag hangs on the side of our change table. We have about 4 wetbags and they are all great. This one has a drawstring and the rest of them have zippers. We just wash them with the diapers. It is all very hassle free.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFrF_kjph41t5RHhOjL9hDdNAPCOOwOWfL7oNWIQo0EnBBRlFVImL1A3TP0RuhagX9os5yFa_Rnp5KFXZ6TIq7Q2_S_Ca3UJH-QvVWF5YYA1qLmumZDW-aDZFQCvdpsASHBMn8UKRo2Oqa/s1600/cloth+diapers+006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFrF_kjph41t5RHhOjL9hDdNAPCOOwOWfL7oNWIQo0EnBBRlFVImL1A3TP0RuhagX9os5yFa_Rnp5KFXZ6TIq7Q2_S_Ca3UJH-QvVWF5YYA1qLmumZDW-aDZFQCvdpsASHBMn8UKRo2Oqa/s320/cloth+diapers+006.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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We use cloth wipes since we are washing diapers anyways. You can see how we make them <a href="http://www.preservingpennies.blogspot.com/2012/01/baby-on-budget-diy-wipes.html">here</a>. These are very convenient and perfect for 'washing' poopy bums. They smell much better than commercial wipes too!<br />
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We do use disposables as well. None of the diapers we bought are especially suited for newborns/ very small babies so we waited awhile until our baby fit into our diapers properly. This was perfect as it gave us a chance to get used to having a baby without the added worry of washing the diapers. Plus, he had started pooping a little less by the time he fit into the cloth diapers.<br />
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We still use a disposable each night. I am sure we could use cloth at night as well but I have not tried it yet as sleep problems are so hard to figure out- I don't want to add another element into the mix. Also, we were gifted a large quantity of disposables before our baby was born so we use these at night. I also like to keep them on hand for travel or laundry day or to keep in my purse. I have nothing against disposables other than the fact that they are an ongoing money drain!<br />
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So far, we have loved our CD experience and highly recommend it to all of our friends. They do a great job and we are so happy that our baby costs us so little in this area!<br />
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<a href="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_click?lid=41000000030896327&pubid=21000000000520199"><img alt="Save up to 70% for moms, babies and kids" border="0" src="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_impression?lid=41000000030896327&pubid=21000000000520199" /></a>Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-10800873087083222872012-01-27T23:51:00.000-05:002012-02-22T23:38:02.873-05:00Current Budget BreakdownI have been tracking our finances meticulously for about 6 months now and have developed a fairly good budget for ourselves. I was inspired to look at the big picture of our finances by this post the other day: <a href="http://gailvazoxlade.com/blog/archives/3466"><b>Where's the Money, Honey?</b></a> by Gail Vaz Oxlade (love!). I decided to make myself a pie chart so I could see our budget breakdown.<br />
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As I was making the chart I realized that it is a little skewed in our case. Because our income varies from paycheck to paycheck, I only budget for the lowest amount that our income ever dips to. Any money that comes in above this amount goes straight to paying down our mortgage/ beefing up our emergency fund. This makes our savings look quite piddly in comparison to the other categories. Also, I don't account for the baby bonus we receive from the government each month that goes straight into savings for our son.<br />
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I was happy to see a nice small spending category. Sometimes it feels like this would be the highest category because it is split between so many different sub-categories in our budget (gifts, clothing, pets, baby etc.). <br />
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We are still working on slashing our food and utilities budget. I'll keep you posted on how we do in that area over the next while. We are hoping to make some changes that will make a good sized dent in those categories and free up some funds for the savings category!!<br />
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<a href="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_click?lid=41000613802219998&pubid=21000000000520199"><img alt="518801_Track every $ you spend - 234x60" border="0" src="http://gan.doubleclick.net/gan_impression?lid=41000613802219998&pubid=21000000000520199" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></h2>Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-8137153466011543792012-01-27T10:00:00.000-05:002012-02-06T20:19:02.405-05:00Our Journey So FarMy husband and I managed to get by without any debt for about the first 4 years we were together. After that it all started to go downhill.<br />
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The debt spiral started when we moved from our original town to our current city. My husband was laid off from his construction job (it was winter) and he was offered his current job at a motorcycle dealership. We actually turned the job offer down at first because the job was three hours away from where we lived at the time but after a few weeks we reconsidered and decided to just go for it. The problem was that the new job was slightly lower paying than his old job and our rent would more than double. Further adding to our problem was the fact that it took me a couple of months to find a job at the new location and even then, it wasn't as well paying as my old one.<br />
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We were engaged at the time and about half a year away from the wedding we were planning to have in our old time. This meant we had to do a lot of driving back and forth during the first several months that we lived in our new city. We were going 'home' once a week on my husband's day off for a total of 6 hours of driving. <br />
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It took us quite some time to start to find new friends in our new locale. For recreation, we enjoyed aspects of city living that we weren't afforded while living in town. We shopped, we ate out in restaurants, we went to movies.. It was a lot of fun. It was also expensive.<br />
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Between the rent increase, the long drives, the more expensive car insurance, the wedding and our expensive new city living habits, we incurred a bit of debt. So, we decided to buy a house. Not just any house though; we bought a 100 year old house that needed a lot of renovations to make it even remotely inhabitable.<br />
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I'd estimate that about 3 years after we moved to our current city, we were about $35,000 in debt. This included some credit card debt, a car loan, a line of credit and a small personal loan. Somewhere in there, we slowly wised up and decided this was not the life we wanted to live and we were going to have to do something about it.<br />
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We stopped eating out. We stopped buying stuff to renovate and actually started renovating. We didn't go to movies. We didn't go out for drinks. We just started paying things off one debt at a time.<br />
After a couple of years of our new, much less expensive lifestyle, once we had paid off a good chunk of debt I looked into the ManulifeOne account (similar to a HELOC). I hesitated for awhile because it almost seemed like cheating to roll our remaining debts onto our house. In our case however, it made some sense since a good chunk of the debt we had incurred had gone straight into raising the value of our home.<br />
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We went ahead with the ManulifeOne account and rolled our remaining credit card debt and a small car loan into our 'mortgage'. We now owe on our house approximately what we paid for it but it has gone up about $50,000 in value since we've lived here. The two main floors of our home are renovated and our home is very comfortable now. We still owe $6000 for the personal loan and once that's gone we'll just be focusing on lowering the amount we owe on our M1 account. <br />
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It's been crazy and hard but we're finally in a place that we're proud to be in. Our future doesn't seem so bleak and the M1 account has given us so many opportunities as we're our own bankers now.<br />
<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-44762609396755666352012-01-26T12:00:00.000-05:002012-02-22T23:40:21.374-05:00Baby On A Budget: DIY Wipes<i>Baby on a Budget is a series of posts that I'll be doing to share all the ways we've managed to save money while bringing up our baby. When I read the stats about how much money new parents supposedly spend getting ready for a baby and caring for a baby in its first years, I cringe! I can certainly see how it happens though.... These posts are meant to help you stay away from that awfully high number!!</i><br />
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We have been making our own wipes at home using paper towel since the beginning and I can't believe how easy it's been! This is not to say that I don't buy wipes every once in awhile when they go on sale (my husband is currently heading to the store, coupons in hand to grab some $4 boxes of wipes for $1.25 each!). I use commercial wipes if I'm in a pinch, if I'm going away for a weekend or for out of the house diaper changes (I like how compact the travel wipe cases are). At home, however, I much prefer my homemade wipes as they hold up better, smell better and I can adjust their moisture level to my preference. As I use cloth wipes for most diaper changes, I use these homemade wipes for messy hands and faces at mealtime and diaper changes on laundry days.<br />
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You will need:<br />
<ul>
<li>Strong Roll of Paper Towels (I pick up Bounty when it is on sale- with coupons of course.)</li>
<li>Baby Wash/ Shampoo</li>
<li>Baby Oil</li>
<li>Water- tight container</li>
</ul>
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First, use a sharp knife to cut the roll of paper towel in half. I originally thought a serrated knife would work best for this but this is NOT the case. It is messy and sawing away at the roll takes much longer than a nice quick slice with a very sharp straight edged kitchen knife.<br />
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Next, remove the cardboard tube from the middle. This is not quite as easy as it seems but you get better at it with practice. I use a shimmy method with my hands at both ends and occasionally get my teeth involved.<br />
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My sister very generously gifted me the perfect DIY wipes container. It is a President's Choice canister that I would guess is meant for spaghetti or something but it is tall and has a lid that is easy to open with one hand. It is also water-tight! If you are unable to find an awesome canister like this, a regular, empty wipes container works OK too. Take your container of choice and put a tbsp of oil and a tbsp of baby wash into it. This is not an estimation- I just dump what looks good to me in and call it a day. I haven't found that it really matters all that much. Then, put a cup or so of water in the canister and swish it around mixing the soap and oil up really well. It took me a couple of tries to get just the right amount of water but now that I know what I like it's perfect every time. Some people use previously boiled water. I did that a few times but stopped as it was extra work and didn't seem to matter. Maybe it matters more if you don't use them up quickly?<br />
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Next, insert your paper towel with the cut side down. I find it's less messy this way. Close the lid and flip the container upside down so the water soaks into the paper towel faster.<br />
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Once the paper towel is perfectly permeated, pull up the end of paper towel from the middle of the roll and use the paper towel from the middle of the roll to the outside. I cut up all my paper towels and 'core' them at the same time right when I buy them so making wipes takes me about 2 minutes to do. I often enlist my husband for the paper towel cutting as he has the technique down to a science and a bulk package of Bounty takes him about 5 minutes.<br />
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That's all there is to it. I do the exact same thing to make my cloth wipes except I use a canister about half the size of this one and use cloths instead of paper towel. <br />
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<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061405391974913919.post-23235260147861661852012-01-25T14:46:00.000-05:002012-02-06T20:19:24.419-05:00An IntroductionWe are a family of three working towards a more self-reliant, financially free lifestyle. My husband and I have been together for about 10 years. Since then we've acquired a cat, a turtle, a dog, a house and a baby. We do not mind working hard as long as it gets us to a place where we can enjoy ourselves and our family a little more and more as time goes on. <br />
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When we started out, we didn't really know where we were going. We still don't quite know where we want to end up but we've figured out a few things along the way. Mainly, we've realized that we don't want to spend all of our time working and none of our time with our kid ...(s?). In order to do this, we have begun a journey to become more mindful of how we spend our<i> hard</i> earned money. We want to increase the amount coming in (in smart ways!) and decrease the amount going out so that we can have the things we want. We're also learning how to prioritize the things we want in order to achieve the things that are most important to us. <br />
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Five and a half years ago we bought our home. It is 100 years old and was in desperate need of a renovation. Since we bought it, we have been slowly renovating it ourselves with lots of help from our friends and families. We made the mistake of getting into a bit of debt along the way due to poor planning and unforeseen expenses. Thankfully, we were able to dig ourselves out of all of our consumer debt and are now down to just our mortgage. I'll explain how we've done that and how we are continuing to try to pay down our mortgage to the best of our ability. <br />
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We are so happy to have achieved a level of financial freedom that didn't seem possible even two years ago. It has never been easy but we are proud of how far we've come. We are so excited to continue along this journey, lowering our stress levels and gaining more and more freedom to do things that are important to us. We can't wait to have you along for the ride!<br />
<br />
Marianne<br />
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<br />Mariannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04511691412591842207noreply@blogger.com0