Frugalous

Ice skating on Boston’s Frog Pond

Originally uploaded by Paul Keleher

Growing up in rural Nova Scotia, Canada I learned to skate almost as early as I learned to walk. Skating was a daily activity on local ponds, lakes and the arena in town.

Each year the parents at our school would organize a “used skate exchange” day. Everyone brought in last year’s skates, which were now too small, and found skates just the right size.

Volunteers coordinated tables by size so it was easy to find where to drop off your old skates and find your “new” skates.

At the same time there would usually be a bake sale, hot chocolate or cider to buy and at times even a craft sale.

Not only was it a great way to get new skates without having to buy new it was a great way to raise funds for school projects.

These days we’re often too quick to throw out the old and buy new. This year why not organize a skate exchange instead? This could work great for schools, community centers, churches, etc.

What are you waiting for?

If you’re anything like me you’ve likely started, or perhaps even finished, shopping for the holidays. One of things I dislike most is being faced with a mountain of gifts to wrap all at once. It takes any pleasure from wrapping and decorating package when you’ve a dozen or more to do at once.

When my kids were young I began wrapping the gifts as I bought them and stacking them on a closet shelf.  No ribbons, gift tags or other decoration. I’d just wrap at that point. In soft pencil on or near the tape I’d put a small symbol to represent which person it was meant for. Squiggle, circle, star, square, etc. Just something easy to let you know who each gift is for when the time comes to put them out.

A week or so before Christmas, once the tree was up and decorated, I’d take down the stack of gifts and decorate with ribbon and gift tags to place under the tree which only took a few minutes.

I found my kids were less likely to snoop through the gifts if they didn’t know who they were for and the ribbons were less likely to get squashed plus it took the stress out of gift wrapping.

Sometimes it’s just as important to be frugal with your time as it is with your money. Any little tricks that preserve your sanity during the holiday season counts as frugal in my book!

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One of my favourite lunches is the often overlooked egg salad sandwich. Both of my kids have always loved egg salad and I try to keep things interesting by changing it around. Depending on where you live a dozen large eggs can be bought for anywhere from $1 to $4 which makes the humble egg salad sandwich well within our frugal budget.

Depending on how you like your egg texture (chunky or fine) you can either smash the eggs by hand with a fork, by grating on a box grater, or by pulsing 2-3 times in your food processor. I usually cook up 12 to 18 large eggs and mix up a large bowl of egg salad to keep on hand in the fridge for lunches and snacks.

To keep things interesting you can make your egg salad sandwich on multigrain bread, bagel, bun, english muffin, stuffed inside a pita pocket, wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla, wrapped in a large lettuce leaf, or even stuff the egg salad into a hollowed out tomato or sweet pepper half.
I make my sandwiches with lettuce and often a thin slice of tomato or cucumber or a slice of cheese.

My basic egg salad has eggs, mayo, a dash of dijon mustard, finely diced celery and finely sliced green onion with a dash of pepper.

Variations:
1. Curried egg salad – instead of dijon mustard I use a pinch or two of packaged curry powder – you can omit the celery and green onion or leave in for extra flavour 2. Carrot egg salad – I replace the celery and green onion with grated carrot and a few sunflower seeds. Omit the mustard or replace with a sweet honey mustard.
3. Cucumber egg salad – I replace the celery and green onion with finely diced cucumber and replace the mustard with a dash or two of ranch dressing.
4. Pesto egg salad – replace the mustard with a teaspoon of pesto sauce. Omit the celery and green onion.
5. Dilled egg salad – replace the mustard, celery and green onion with diced dill pickle or dill pickle relish.
6. Relish egg salad – replace the mustard, celery and green onion with your favourite relish – try a sweet corn relish or onion relish.
7. Hummus egg salad – replace the mayo and mustard with hummus
8. Olive egg salad – replace the celery and green onion with finely diced green olives
9.  Bacon and egg salad – replace celery with some crumbled bacon or bacon bits. Omit mustard.
10.  Cheesy egg salad – replace mustard and green onion with the shredded cheese of your choice: swiss, cheddar, asiago, etc.
11. Ham and egg salad – replace celery with finely diced cooked ham
12. Sundried tomato and egg salad – replace mustard, celery and green onion with finely diced sundried tomato
The variations on egg salad are virtually endless. What are some of your favourites?

Poverty.
It’s a word we tend to ignore all too often unless it’s affecting us directly.
It’s a word we tend to feel applies to people in third world countries and not to our own.

Poverty.
Even when we do think about it we feel helpless to do anything and so we turn away. Maybe we feel that we’re barely (or maybe not quite) making ends meet ourselves so how could be possibly contribute.

Maybe we donate a can of creamed corn that’s been collecting dust at the back of the cupboard during food drives and feel that we’ve done our part.

Poverty.
Maybe stop and think for a moment just what that would be like. And then maybe think about what you could do, even when you cannot afford to donate money, to help.

Think globally, act locally. You’ve heard the expression but what can you do?

• Donate your used furniture. Often people who’ve been in shelters are starting from scratch with nothing. What might be thought of as a too old, too faded sofa to you could make all the difference to a family trying to get themselves back on their feet. In the Toronto area you can donate your used furniture to Furniture Bank
• Donate winter coats. In the fall and winter many area dry cleaners will accept your donation of a winter coat which they will clean and pass on to one of the many charitable organizations in the area. All sizes from infant to XXL adult are needed and appreciated. Call area dry cleaners to find out if they participate.
• Donate clothing, toys, household items. Contact local women’s shelters about donations of woman’s and children’s clothing, toys, household items, etc. Often the families who arrive at a women’s shelter have nothing but the clothing on their backs.

Volunteer. Mentor. Organize a drive. Help build a home.

You DO have the power to help. Take action today to make a better tomorrow.

We often pull our hair out trying to think of the perfect gift for hard to buy for relatives such as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.

This year instead of a sweater vest for Uncle Harry that looks just like the sweater vests you bought him the last three years or a gift basket of fancy teas for Grandma Kate who only likes orange pekoe why don’t you give the gift of time.

Make up a coupon book on the computer (or even better by hand) offering to drive Aunt Millie who’s vision isn’t that good to do her shopping each week. Or how about one for Pops who could use a chess partner on Sunday afternoons. Take cousin Mabel out to a movie once a month I’m sure she’d appreciate it much more than another picture frame.

Time is the one gift you can always give freely and will be more appreciated than a hot cocoa sampler box every time.

Clogged toilets. Ugh. You flush. The water rises to the top of the bowl (and possibly over). You get out the plunger. Plunge. Plunge. Still clogged. You’re grossed out and frustrated. You reach for the Drain-o or other chemical solution. Plunge. Plunge. Plunge. You consider buying an auger, a toilet snake. Still very much grossed out.

I have the joy of living with a teenaged son who clogs my toilet on a regular (every 2-4 weeks) basis. I’ve been there wayyyy more times than I’d care to count. Nothing worse than a clogged toilet.

Finally I discovered a quick, easy and frugal way to fix the toilet.

Liquid dish soap.

Seriously.

Pour about a tablespoon of liquid dish soap into the clogged toilet and leave it for 10 to 15 minutes. Come back and plunge and usually within 2 or 3 plunges everything goes down the drain easily again.

I’ve used this tip 5 times in the past 2 months and it’s worked like a charm each and every time.

5. Pizza – I’m not talking about ordering pizza once or even twice. I’ve ordered in pizza four times over the last two weeks for the kids and I for dinner.

4. Giving Kids Lunch Money – For the past month I’ve probably given the kids each money to buy lunch 4 out of 5 days a week. Two teens with big appetitites.

3. Late Fees – Over the past two months I’ve not been organized, have missed deadlines, due dates, etc. and have had to pay several late fees as a result

2. Not Planning My Shopping Lists – Last week WalMart Canada had their annual Anniversary sale. It’s a huge event and often items I use throughout the year such as toothpaste, laundry detergent, toilet paper, etc. are 50% or more off their regular price. It’s also a great time to do some gift shopping as they have many items throughout the store at seriously reduced prices. I knew the sale was last week but I neglected to make a list of the items I wanted. When I did arrive at the store I could only remember a few and came home with few of the items I’d wanted. I also left the shopping to the last day of the sale due to procrastination so had no time to return. I literally could have saved several hundred dollars stocking up on items I use regularly and on gift and household purchases had I been organized.

1. Not Sending in Rebates – Over the last two months I’ve purchased several items that had mail-in rebates and never “got around” to spending the 3 minutes required to fill out a form and send it in. Now the offers have expired and I have lost over $125 in rebates due to procrastination.

The frustrating thing about the above money wasters is that each and every one of them could easily have been prevented had I been more organized or had procrastinated less. They’re the easy holes in the budget to fix. They’re also the most common areas money writers tell you to save money on.

When we’re stressed or busy or lazy it’s easy to fall back into bad spending habits. We make excuses (“I’m moving again!”) and try to justify it (“I’m moving again!”) to ourselves but deep down we know we’ve fallen off the path.

I just deleted the pizza guy’s phone number from my cell phone. Boy, I’m going to miss him.

Here we go again! The past year all I seem to be doing is moving. Either painting and staging my house to sell, dealing with an endless string of open houses and viewings, dealing with disappoints as offers fall through and finally closing on the house. Purging, donating, selling, packing. Apartment hunting for weeks. I finally found rented a nice 2 bedroom apartment not far from the house for my teenage son and I to live in and then two weeks before the big move my daughter, who’d been living away for college the past year, announced she wasn’t going back to that college and was staying home with me. Suddenly, in the middle of the move and surrounding chaos I have not one but two teenagers planning to live with me. Not only did this mean an extra person to live with but all of her furniture and belongings too. Talk about throwing a wrench into the plan. Fortunately, at the exact moment I needed it, a 3 bedroom apartment with a second bathroom came up available – a rarity in this neighbourhood. I grabbed it and now have a lease on not one but two apartments. Oh goody. The landlord is understanding and will allow me to break my lease on the 2 bedroom if and when we can find another renter. Until there’s another renter for it I’m stuck with 2 rent payments. Not exactly the frugal dream here. So back we are with viewings and staging and packing. Meanwhile, I got the keys to the new apartment a few days ago and walked in to realize it has not been decorated (or possibly cleaned) since the mid 1980s. The landlord is willing to have the carpets cleaned (not replaced) and has told me I can go ahead and paint if I want to but it’s not the building management’s policy to paint it themselves unless it’s in bad conditon. I think we may have differing ideas about bad condition but at least I do have the option to paint in the colours I want to which is a plus. If I’m going to make this apartment home for myself and my kids for the next several years at least I’m not limited to “apartment beige” for colour. After nearly a year of packing, living out of boxes, being in a virtual limbo we’re within  a week or two of finally being able to unpack and get settled. Now… let the painting begin! Over the next few weeks I’ll share photos and videos as we paint, decorate, and get moved.  We’ve a wild ride ahead – did I mention the living room is currently a bold mustard yellow with dusty rose vertical blinds and green wall to wall carpet?

Or that the two bathrooms are painted Pepto-Bismal pink? Including ceilings?

Stay tuned. Lots of photos and videos of the before, during and after as we tackle each room.