Frugalous

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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.

Part of the issue with the downsizing is that I’m moving from a house with a large custom kitchen with more than ample storage into a tiny galley style kitchen. When I first looked around I was shocked by how small it was. The oven, for example, is only 24″ wide. That’s the outside. The inside is only 16″ x 17″. None of my roasters, baking sheets, or even muffin pans will fit inside!

The apartment kitchen doesn’t host much cupboard space either so I’ve spent the past 6 weeks trying to use up what’s in my pantry and my large upright freezer here at the house in preparation for this move. I’ve been a little too successful though.

Last night when I stopped packing long enough to think about making dinner for the family I found the following: 1 lb frozen raw shrimp, 1 onion, 2 tired and depressed looking carrots, 1 wrinkly and wise looking green pepper, 1 can of jellied cranberry, 1 can of large pitted green olives, about 1 cup of wild rice, a small jar of anchovies, 3 cans of evaporated milk, half a loaf of bread and just about every kind of condiment you can imagine. I was exhausted, mind numb from packing and organizing and I stared at this motley little group of foodstuffs in utter confusion.

Finally the boychild decided he could brave the rain and walk to the local grocery store. He returned with some whole wheat tortillas and announced that shrimp fajitas sounded like a great idea for dinner. And so it was. It was also a great breakfast – I just ate the leftovers with my coffee.

Wonder what sort of wonder we’ll whip up for today’s dinner?

As I’ve likely mentioned a number of times I’m moving from my house of approximately 2200 sq ft of living space (plus garage, garden shed, patios) to an 800 sq ft apartment. Needless to say I’ve had to get rid of a lot of things.

I started out listing the main items to sell (furniture, tvs, sewing machine, lawnmower, etc.) with a description and my asking price and I emailed it to everyone on my local contact list and ask them to forward it on to anyone they thought might be interested. I’ve sold all but 2 items this way so far so I haven’t had to post items on my local buy/sell group or craigslist. Amazing what you can do when you have a network, even a small one!

We’re now down to less than a week until the movers arrive and I’m getting things ready for a yard sale. I made a decision that nothing that I’d want more than $20 would be in the yard sale but would be offered up to my email network and it’s worked great.

Whatever doesn’t sell in Saturday’s yard sale will be donated to a local charity so the goal of the yard sale for me is to get rid of things I can’t take with me and I’m pricing things accordingly. About 85% of the items I’m selling will be priced at 25 cents. A few items priced at one dollar. Only 5 or 6 items will be priced over one dollar.  Remember… at this point the goal is to get rid of this stuff, not to make a big profit. The more that goes in the sale means the less I have to cart over to the donation centre saving me both time and gas money in the long run.

Next strategy is to do an “early bird” friends and family pre-sale on Friday evening. I’ve told all of my neighbours, friends, people in my local network about the pre-sale and told them to feel free to bring a friend. Hoping to have at least a quarter of the stuff gone before I even open the garage door for the official sale on Saturday.

Fingers crossed I get rid of all or most of the stuff in the sale. Every little bit counts.

It’s been a crazy few weeks (months, years) but I’ve finally sold the house and am in the middle of moving – less than a week to go.

It’s the start (finally!) of my new life. New place to live, new people in my life, new focus.

The new focus is why I’d love to attend Blog World Expo. I’ve sold my house and am using part of the money from that to start my business. The money will give me time (12 to 18 months) to launch a number of niche blogs (including this one), write some info/ebook type products to sell and hopefully I’ll be making enough income in that 12 to 18 month time frame to pay my living expenses.

Going to Blog World Expo will enable me to learn from the folks who are already writing amazing blogs. I’ve looked over the schedule of sessions and I almost wish I could clone myself 2 or 3 times so that I could attend each and every session. I know that what I could learn from the sessions and just from meeting other bloggers in person would more than justify the cost of a return flight from Toronto. It would be an investment in my future.

I know most of those who are earning full time blog income discourage the whole “just throw yourself in and go for it” and suggest you start blogging part time but I figure with all of the other changes in my life it’s time to just do it. I know it’s not going to be easy but I’m looking forward to throwing myself full time into the blogging lifestyle and Blog World Expo would simply ignite my passion and drive even further.

John Chow, one of my blogging heroes, is offering an opportunity to win one of two free passes to Blog World Expo in September and I’m so excited. I’ve entered (this is the entry) to win one of the passes and I’d be there in a heartbeat should I win. Wish me luck!

John, if you read this and decide I should receive one of the passes you can contact me at merlene@merlenepaynter.com. Did I mention my fingers are crossed?  (Toes too. Even my eyes are crossed although that’s starting to give me a headache.)  The cost of flight, hotel, etc. would be more than worth if for this event.

I’ve had my cellphone, a Motorola v360, for two years now. It’s been a great phone with clear sound, great range and it’s durable enough that no matter how many times it falls out of my pocket or gets knocked off the table it still works like a charm.

But it’s scratched. It’s not new and fresh and shiny. It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles that a Blackberry or an iPhone has. After yesterday’s launch of the new 3G iPhone and all the online talk about the Apple Apps Store my phone has lost yet more of it’s charm and it’s tempting to consider buying a new phone.

My cell phone is my only telephone. I canceled my land line phone about a year ago and haven’t missed it. So the little voice in my head starts…

Little voice: Merlene… you’ve saved SO much money by canceling your land line. You can afford to get a new shiny cell phone.

Merlene: No. I don’t need a new phone.

Little voice: Oh but you’ve been doing without so many things lately, you really deserve to reward yourself. Get a new phone.

Merlene: NO. I don’t need a new phone.

Little voice: But all of the cool kids are buying new phones!

Merlene: I guess I’m just not cool then, huh?

Little voice: Just think! You could twitter, web surf, email, do everything with a new phone!

Merlene: How often am I away from a computer long enough for that to matter to me?

Little voice: the 3G has GPS!

Merlene: I always know where I am. Now if only it could tell me where IT was when I misplaced it we’d have something.

Little voice: It has all kinds of new apps and features!

Merlene: There are a bunch of apps and features on my phone now. I use the Make a Call feature, the Answer a Call feature, and the Alarm feature. That’s it.

Little voice: But everyone wants one!

Merlene: I guess I don’t have to worry about anyone stealing my old banged up v360.

Little voice: But it’s cool! It’s new! It’s shiny!

Merlene: You’ve tried that shiny bit before. I didn’t bite.

Little voice: But…

Merlene: I’ve got to let you go now, I’ve got another call coming in… Oh look! It’s the voice of reason… just in the nick of time!