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Home > Archive: May, 2007

Archive for May, 2007

Frugal Family Shopping

May 29th, 2007 at 04:29 am

Four tops, two shirts for me, two pairs of pants for boy, two tops for boy, canister for grains or beans (airtight): $23.47 @ Value Village!

Some were silk, others merino or silk/cashmere... oh to get a natural fibers top at below $3.00! Sweet!

I took the car back to work this evening for some more double-time. Someone tried to give me a humility lesson when I was coming home by motorscooter: apparently working moms trying to reduce their carbon footprint by motorscootering are inferior to a car driver inattentively licking on an ice cream cone when his vehicle is swerving at 70mph speeds into my lane. Yeah, I didn't think my saving a company a million dollars a day or attempting to raise a young boy to skilfully navigate his way around global collapse or recirculating some of my disposable income to cancer charities and homeless program mattered more than somebody else's strawberry ice cream cone either. Well at least I shouldn't. That inattentive driver certainly put me in my place. Maybe I'll be lucky and encounter the same driver, who'll be going 80 mph and talking to his snugglewuggums on his cell phone or bending down to pick up a stray receipt that fell to the floor and he'll finish me like I should be.

Paid!

May 24th, 2007 at 06:29 pm

20% joint savings
15% Roth IRA 2007 contribution
15% to go to my credit union account

60% to stew in chequing until the monthly "deep cleanse" (mortgage and childcare: half the budget) on the 31st.

No apologies

May 16th, 2007 at 04:10 pm

The gas prices here are finally high enough that even we scooterists are thinking through our trips: do we really need to be using our oil?

Unapologetically I used the car last night to run errands: deposits, mail runs, fast food, and picking up monies for a raffle. My reasoning: fast food is easier to store in a car, I was mentally depleted and unworthy to be on two wheels, and it would be getting dark by the time I finished my errands.

And today I'll be unapologetically using my scooter to make errands: buying gifts for Staff Appreciation Week at the kid's preschool, and mailing my brother's degree to South Korea. Possibly even a Roth IRA contribution.

But one of these days, probably tomorrow and/or Friday, I will be busing it to and from work.

I want to start bulk-buying as a group at Big Lots or Costco. I want to start stockpiling nonperishable goods and foodstuffs while this inflation is going on... sure, the CPI might be a quoted 3% but as discussed in earlier entries I still use food and energy, two consumption items NOT factored in the CPI.

Tighten that belt another notch

May 4th, 2007 at 08:56 pm

1. My Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) supplier is raising its box price by $1, a 3% difference, owing to increased expenses.

2. The gas prices have increased 5.5% since last week.

I have brought my lunch every day this week. I also took the bus once. I will have at least eight hours of overtime this week. My commuting bus runs from Mo-Fr, so I scoot when possible on the weekends.

More lentils and garbanzos on the menu for next week. A good thing it is we have free water, juices, carbonated beverages and Starbucks at work. Maybe even, if energy allows, a I may engage in a batch cooking weekend, as my joyboy/sireling/coborrower is on call this week while I have my "death march" to May 8... must be cheaper than ordering pizza.

I wonder if I'm going to see middle-aged and middle-income white men in parking lots begging for gas money again, like I did last summer.