Sunday Happenings

Today was a super productive day. 

G is doing a mid-shift switch from working days yesterday to working nights. We had a detachment get together last night where we played 5 pin glow-bowling, then went to someone’s house afterwards for appetizers. It was a lot of fun, but my butt is sore today, lol. Definitely not used to bowling!

I let G sleep in, and had my coffee quietly in the living room while I wrote my post, read some blogs, and searched for recipes. When G woke up, we made a nice breakfast and regrouped on what we wanted to accomplish. 

1 of the big to do items was to redo the caulking in our kitchen. It’s been cracking just with normal wear and tear, and although it never really bothered us we thought it might be nice to redo. G had redone the caulking in our bathroom a few weeks ago, so he was able to use up that bottle (which would have gone to waste otherwise). We removed everything from countertops, which allowed me to clean them really well, and then G removed the old caulking.

While G was doing that, I was getting dinner prepared. With a possible/probably move on the horizon, we need to start focusing (again) on cleaning out our freezer. As you know, our 1/4 beef purchase left us with A LOT of ground beef. Ground beef we haven’t really touch. I found a recipe this morning for Gyro Meat, which included lamb and ground beef. Although the lamb would have been amazing, we didn’t have any, nor is that something our local Co-op would carry. So I just used ground beef instead. The recipe turned out amazing, G and I were really impressed! We had some mini cucumbers in the fridge, so I made our own Tzatziki sauce - although we didn’t have Greek yogurt, I used sour cream and it turned out just fine. We didn’t have any tomatoes either, but we did have sun dried tomatoes which also worked out alright. This meal was completely last minute, and with a lot of substituted ingredients, but it used up items we had on hand and was delicious! 

In between steps with the kitchen work, G did some paint touch ups around the house and I got out the magic eraser to buff out some marks on the inside of our cabinets. I also decluttered our kitchen and reorganized some areas so they look more presentable when potential buyers come snooping. G was able to finish the caulking just in time for dinner, which he got done right before he had to leave for work. 

My organizing continued after G left, when I tackled my closet and drawers. I added a few more items to the donate pile and a few more items to the packing pile downstairs. 

G and I have next weekend off together and we have deemed it “House Declutter Extravaganza” weekend! We started a shared To Do list of things we want to get done (some of which we were able to check off today). At least we can focus our energy together next weekend and hopefully get our house to a ‘Buy Me’ state.

Although all this clean up and decluttering is nice for buyers, it’s nice for us too. By no means is our house dirty, but this is sort of like a spring deep clean that makes everything fresh again. The looming move is also making us focus on using what we have, since we don’t want to worry about moving it.

- M 

Transfer

We figured it was coming, but I didn’t realize how soon! G was offered (and accepted) a transfer to a specialized unit in Regina. I am beyond excited for him - he worked so hard over the last year to make a good impression and study (and pass) for his certifications. I feel so much better knowing he won’t be taking regular calls anymore - but working in a lab setting with the occasional field support.

It also feels weird to think we are going to be living in a city again. It’s been 10 years this November when we came to Saskatchewan. 10 years of living in a small towns with populations no greater than 1500, no stop lights, 1 grocery store, PO Boxes, knowing a lot of people by first name , random people you’ve never met before knowing your entire life story because everyone loves to talk, lol. 

G and I never found small town living isolating or inconvenient. It’s allowed us to live comfortably and grow to become independent. It allowed us to slowly get our feet under us. I remember when we bought our house during the first move in 2012 and $107,000.00 seemed like such a big mortgage amount. And for us, at the time, it really was because we had no idea what the hell we were doing. We had a negative net worth, no money skills, no savings, and I had no job. We slowly started to grow up and take responsibility for our finances - soon we found a balance that worked for us and put everything on autopilot.

It’s been that foundation we were slowly piecing together back then (much of which I documented on this blog) that has allowed us to live more comfortably now and make bigger leaps. I’m not saying this doesn’t cause me some anxiety, because it does but it also has me reflecting how far we have come since our journey began. I guess this might be more emotional than I thought, haha.

Anyways, we aren’t moving yet. If you read any of my posts from our move in 2016 you know there are a lot of moving parts to this entire process. The biggest thing being we need to sell our house and as you know we live in a small town, so it might take a bit. I took the day yesterday so start decluttering some of our living spaces. These aren’t things I’m going to get rid of permanently, but we also don’t need them on display. I have them all chucked in the spare bedroom for now until I can find some good boxes. 

G has done a few projects around the house, not realizing he was going to get the transfer offer this week, so that was definitely good timing. He has next weekend off with me so I think we will tackle the bigger areas then. Although we are at the extreme early stages of this transfer offer, I don’t want to be caught off guard if Relocation tells us they have an appraiser coming tomorrow or the real estate agent is coming to take photos. The more ahead of the game, the better for my stress.

Are you ready to take this wild ride with me again? Let’s hope it goes as smooth as last time! *fingers crossed*

- M 

February Wrap Up

Today was the perfect day to complete our February budget wrap up and update/balance my budget spreadsheet. We had a snow storm all day yesterday and it continued on this morning - I’m not sure how much ended up falling but it’s definitely over a foot. The drive home from work yesterday was okay, but I take a secondary highway to and from work so they don’t alway get to clearing it right away. After that really bad blizzard a few weeks ago I feel like I can drive thru anything.

So onto the numbers:

Grocery budget was over what I had planned (but as I expected). We finished the month at $574.94. This included two big shopping trips with a lot of fruit and veggies. As I spoke about in my last post, G wasn’t feeling well so I tried to focus on improving what we ate. G is feeling better now, the doctor noted that his body was fighting an infection (not sure if this is lingering from Covid or not) - but also noted G’s cholesterol is higher than normal. So our focus has been to try to reduce this naturally. G has been eating oatmeal for breakfast (instead of just skipping it), eating more fruits (grapes, bananas, apples, oranges - we have a fruit bowl right in the middle of our kitchen), and incorporating more fish. He goes for a check up and follow up testing in about a month so we can see if these actions have been helping. An interesting side effect of these eating habit is both G and I have lost weight! Just 3 pounds each, but it’s still a nice surprise. 

Our fuel costs were surprisingly low, at $310.00, but we were in isolation for 5 days and didn’t go anywhere.

Looking at our numbers year to date, we are saving 56% of our income! And this number doesn’t include pension contributions as they come out of our payroll automatically. I’ll be curious to continue watching this number thru out the year as things even out but if we can end the year with our highest percentage category being savings: I feel like that would be a win. 

- M 

Sick & Low Key Weekend

This weekend was really low key for us. G hasn’t been feeling well - not sure if it’s just the flu or lingering effects of COVID. He went to work on Monday and Tuesday has been out sick since Wednesday. He had a doctor’s appointment on Friday. The doctor ordered a bunch of tests wanting to get a baseline and have something to compare it to in a month. Yesterday he did mention he felt he had a bit more energy, which is a good sign.

I left work early on Friday for a therapist appointment in a near-by city. I’m not sure if I mentioned I started seeing a therapist or not? It’s been tremendous help and I’m not sure why it took me so long to finally reach out for help. Oh well - I’m in a better place now and in control of my anxiety/stress once again. Because I was in the ‘city’, I was able to go to No Frills and stock up on groceries. I picked up so many fruits and vegetables - surprising myself a bit with the checkout amount. That shopping trip might have put us over our grocery budget for the month (I haven’t updated my spreadsheet yet) but I do think it’s been beneficial for G (and me) to have those snacks in the house. When I got home on Friday, I did a big meal prep, washing and cutting all the vegetables and fruit. Then made a giant batch of veggie soup which we have been enjoying all weekend and will be my lunches for the week.

Like I said, the rest of the weekend was low key but still productive. I did my normal cleaning routine and then washed the bedding/laundry. 8 loads later, I never wanted to fold another piece of laundry again, lol. I finished the book I was reading, MinaLima’s illustrated Harry Potter books. G got me the first two books for Valentine’s Day and they are so beautiful. If you are a Harry Potter fan or know someone who is - definitely look into these books! Like I said, they are colour illustrated and have some interactive pages as well. They are such a cherished gift. I finished the first book and now I’m starting on the second.

I got paid yesterday and was able to chunk $1,500.00 into our general savings. We have $3,000.00 saved we can use towards one of our goals, but I would like to see how tax season and a few other upcoming items play out. There’s a lot of unknowns coming up and when it’s like this I start hoarding cash.

I need to get on actually committing to our goals for the year though… I think that might help focus me a lot better. What an original idea ;) 

- M