And the proof is in the photos!!

I posted here I was taking part in Carla's de-cluttering challenge, and for the first week I picked our closets and drawers in our bedroom.  I had planned on being away from home all day Wednesday, but due to an issue with my car that got cancelled, so with that extra time on my hands I decided to make a start on our bedroom by cleaning out our drawers.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

This is our underwear drawers, you are just going to have to believe me when I say I cleaned them all out, as I don't feel I should inflict an image of my underwear on any of you!!!

This is the pile of clothes that will be going to Goodwill or where ever.

Also Carla's mini challenge this week was to donate an item to the Food bank.  As you can see I will be donating personal items as well as food.  Dh has gone of Gillette deodorant and won't use it, so this way it will be put to good use, and I know food banks are always needing personal items.

I will tackle the closet in our bedroom on Thursday as that will take all morning to go through that.  Must say this is the kick up the butt I need!!

I also sorted out a bag of paperwork pertaining to the Church Recipe book I put together in 2010.  I am dropping off all the paperwork at the Vicarage next time I go past which will be later on in the week.

So at this point I have also completed my getting rid of 29 things this month!!!  Mind you I am not stopping as I know I probably have another 229 things that could be tossed!!

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And you probably think I never listen to what you say!!!

Remember I mentioned I am not on a diet, as that is a four letter word for failure, but I am trying to cut back a bit and have cut out all eating after supper and was going to cut out my mid afternoon snack?  I think everyone said no to that one.  So after thinking about it for the last couple of days, I decided you were right and I was wrong!!!!  Now if dh was reading this he would have keeled over at that statement, as according to him I never admit I am wrong!!!

Mind you according to him he never falls asleep when the news is on, but I digress.  So I have decided to cut out my mid-morning snack instead as I always have a good breakfast of cereal, a banana and a cup of tea.  So that will get me through to lunch time no problem and I do tend to be busier in the morning than in the afternoon.  I have also set myself a sort of goal to lose 6.2 lbs during the month of February which may not seem like a lot to others, but remember I am not on a diet, nor am I exercising, as remember I am allergic to that as well!!!  The exercise will start at some point, but I can only do one thing at a time and remember it's all about baby steps so I don't get fed up!!

This is all a big deal for me and a huge step.  I am doing this for health reasons, as I know when I go back to the doctors for my yearly physical he is going to have a hissy fit.  So there you go, thought I'd let you know what I had decided.

Back in July of last year I did a post about our woodpile, see here  As usual we ordered 3 bush cords to last us the winter.  The other day part of the woodpile fell down and it wasn't until then we saw how little we had left for the winter:

We are half way through winter but are more than half way through our logs.  Not that we will run out as I have a pile on the other side of the garage and a few stacked between a couple of trees.  It's just that it hasn't been a bad winter (touch wood) so far and it has been mild for us.  Mind you we have had the fire on 24/7 since the beginning of November.

When I was down the old basement today I checked on how much oil there was in the tank and I see the marker is between 3/4 and 1/2, right on target.  I will leave it for a couple more weeks and then get it filled up, which should cost around $400.

February is generally the coldest, longest, most miserable month of the year, at least in my opinion.  Not helped by my mother telling me how all the snow drops are out, there are daffodils in bloom and there's a touch of Spring in the air in England..........I'll hopefully be saying that by April, if we're lucky!!

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Low (no) Spend Challenge and Decluttering Challenge for February

Carla is hosting this challenge and I thought I would like to participate.  My answers are in red.


Here’s how the Low (no) Spend Challenge will work:
1. Choose a financial goal for the month!

I hope to stay under $75 a week on my grocery bill.  That in itself will be an achievement if I can do that.  I already added a little extra to our weekly mortgage payment last month so can't count that.  I also want to add money into our savings account and will aim for an extra $200 for the month.


2. How will you achieve your goal this month?

By actually writing a shopping list and sticking to it.  Using as many coupons where and when possible.  Checking out the half price racks.  Menu planning.  Checking all the flyers and shopping for sale items.

3. How will you allot your spending this month?

I take a specific amount of cash out of the bank each week.  Once that money is gone it's gone and we have to wait until the following week.

4. Track your purchases!


5. Are there any “exemptions” for the month?


- Do you have any previous engagements, birthdays, events, etc.. that simply won’t fit into the month? Then choose your exemptions & plan from there how you can still reach your goal!


We have five birthdays and a wedding this month.  Luckily four of those birthday's are just birthday cards to be sent, but one is a special birthday and I will be purchasing a gift and it will have to be put on my credit card, as it's for a family member in Britain and it will be sent directly to them.  The wedding gift is cash and I saved that up over a period of six weeks @ $50 a week.  Yes a standard wedding gift now is $300 a couple, and I spent another $150+ on a Bridal Shower gift. Oh and Valentine's Day is on the 14th!!

I do need to buy dh a new shirt for the wedding, but hope to pay for it out of the money I take out of the bank weekly.  Also I  must buy dog food this month and that is $90 a sack that lasts around 6 weeks, have $50 put aside for that, so only need to come up with the other $40.


Here’s how the Decluttering challenge will work:


1. There will be 4 main challenges for the month. I pick the theme, you pick the challenge!

Week One: Personal Space Challenge


Our bedroom closets and drawers.


Week Two: Family Space Challenge


Living room wait until you see the before photos with that one!!!


Week Three: Productivity Challenge


Big one this week, is the kitchen cupboards.........

Week Four: The “Dreaded” Challenge


The ruddy old basement.......this is a big job!!!

2. Bonus Challenges!

- I will be giving you 4 *bonus* mini challenges throughout the month! Fast & easy to accomplish! Oh joy!!!!!


3. Purging!!

- Toss, sell, or donate 29 items! One item for every day of the month in February… Easy as pie!

This is one thing I need to do and should be a doddle to do.....

Now the only thing that will throw a spanner in the works is if I get my hand operated  before my February 28th operation date.  I am on the cancellation list, and if I get called I will go in and have it done earlier.  That shouldn't affect my low/no spend challenge, but it could affect the decluttering challenge.  Just thought I'd mention it.

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January 2012 financial re-cap............

I decided to sit down on Monday afternoon to go over how we did financial wise during the month of January.

First my pots;  I have $200 in my birthday pot.  It would have been $220, but I took $20 out last week to buy 6 cards and 6 stamps for Britain.  5 of those cards are for birthday's in February, and I need three of those stamps to mail the cards.

In the "Other" box I have $350, but $300 of that is ear marked to put in the envelope for a wedding we are attending at the end of February.  The Christmas box is looking healthy as well with $140 in there.  Just checked my loonie ($1) and twoonie ($2) box and I have $57 in there.  Hoping to have $200 in there by the end of April, using that money for the garden.

Both dh and I have been putting any silver coins into my sealed pot, but it's a bit of a double edged sword situation.  As we trying not to spend any money, I never have any change.  I know I put over $1 worth of silver in there today though, so that's good.

Grocery Shopping: I went slightly over budget this week and spent $79.67 and used $18.49 in coupons.  So my monthly total came in at $293.73 which was under my $300 budget and used a total of $75.37 in coupons.  I also managed to increase my Shopper's Drug Mart points total by 39,740, which is worth $60 in free product on a regular day.

This week I stocked up on deodorant for dh,  more shampoo for me and new toothbrushes for us for the end of February.  Due to me going shopping on Monday morning, I discovered that most things were out of stock, so I had to adjust my grocery list accordingly.

I am hoping to have enough swagbucks to cash in again by January 31st, so that will be $25 worth of Amazon e-cards this month.  Not sure if I can keep this up though when the weather gets better.

We have started a glass jar with a label on it saying "WINE FUND."   Dh likes to make wine and it is a lot cheaper than buying it from the LCBO.  It costs around $120 to make around 30 bottles of wine at the store.  I told dh I would contribute $20 a week, as long as he contributed $10 a week from his "allowance."  So far there is $60 in the jar, so in a couple of weeks there should be enough in there to start a batch.    I think I will encourage dh to keep putting $10 a week in there to start a batch after that.

I put an extra $10 a week on our mortgage payment, and am toying with the idea of adding an extra $10 to that.  Every little bit helps to my mind.  It's been a quiet month for renovation expenses and I think this month we only spent around $250 at the hardware store. 

Money was put into the savings account each week, not a lot but better than nothing.  I earned some money this month, which helped out a lot as I had a big credit card bill (all paid off).

So my standard goals for February are to continue adding money to all my pots.  There are four Fridays in the month of February, so I will set my grocery shopping budget to $300, or $75 a week.  Try and keep my spending down and only eat out once during the month.

I will be posting the rest of my goals along with my Challenge goals tomorrow.

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1 lb of pastry.........

With what I had in the fridge and what needed using up I decided to make up a pound of pastry on Sunday and make a quiche, egg custard tart and some jam tarts.

To make the pastry you need 1lb all purpose/plain flour, 4 ounces each of margarine and lard/vegetable shortening, pinch salt and some ice cold water.

Mix flour and salt together, rub in margarine and lard until it looks like breadcrumbs (?) add enough water to bind it together and then let it "rest" for half an hour or so.

Super simple and straight forward.

Here is the recipe for the Egg Custard Tart:

Ingredients:



6 oz/150g all purpose/plain flour


Pinch of salt


3 oz/ 80g butter or an equal mix of butter and lard, cubed


2 - 3 tbsp cold water


3 large eggs, plus 2 large egg yolks, lightly beaten


2 oz (50 g) super fine /caster sugar


1 pint (570 ml) light / single cream


½ teaspoon vanilla extract


½ whole nutmeg, freshly grated


Preparation:


Heat the oven to 425°F/220°C/Gas 7






Make the Pastry


Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean bowl. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, working as quickly as possible to prevent the dough becoming warm. Add the water to the mixture and using a cold knife stir until the dough binds together, add more cold water a teaspoon at a time if the mixture is too dry. Wrap the dough in Saran wrap/Clingfilm and chill for a minimum of 15 minutes, up to 30 minutes.

The Filling


Gently roll the pastry and line a 1½"/4 cm deep, x 7"/18 cm base tart tin. Be careful not to over stretch the pastry whilst rolling or the it may crack in the oven. Brush the pastry all over with a little of the beaten egg. This will help seal the pastry during cooking.


In a large bowl beat the eggs and egg yolks lightly with the sugar.


Warm the cream to a gentle simmer, then pour slowly over the beaten eggs, stirring constantly. Be careful not to overheat the cream or it will curdle the eggs. Add the vanilla extract.


Pour the egg and milk mixture through a sieve into the pastry case. Sprinkle over the grated nutmeg.


Place the tart onto a baking sheet and bake in the center of the preheated oven for 10 minutes to brown the pastry. Lower the temperature to 350°F/180°C/Gas 4 and continue cooking for a further 20 minutes or until the custard is set. 

Not sure what I did or didn't do, but I ended up with too much liquid, so I put the extra into two small bowls and set them in a dish and poured boiling water half way up the sides and cooked for 20 minutes.  So egg custards without the pastry.

To make sure I had the oven full I also baked some potatoes at the same time, to go with the quiche and salad we were having for supper.

Oh and I had enough pastry left to make dh's favourite jam tarts!!

I put bacon, onion, mushrooms and cheese in the quiche with four eggs and enough half and half to make around 3/4 pint/ 1 1/2 cups of liquid.

Everything was baked at the same time other than the custard cups.  I didn't have room in the oven for them originally, so had to cook them when all the rest of the things were done.

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A Big Thank You........

for everyone that pops by and visits me at my blog.  However don't be shy in leaving a comment, even if all you say is hello.........

To all my new followers, a big thank you as well, I would love to get above 300 followers, that's my next goal.


I have set myself a challenge which will be good for me, and that is not having anything to eat after my supper.  I have a habit of snacking while I am watching tv, which is a bad habit.  It's been nearly a week now and although I have had the urge to snack I have been good and haven't.  It's not a lot but it's a start.  I also want to cut out having a snack in the afternoon next when I have a cup of tea.  I'll start on that next week, as having a cup of tea generally means having a cookie or a piece of cake.


I am taking baby steps and don't want to tell myself I am going on a diet, as that will totally put me off and I won't do it.  It's a mind game thing with me, because as soon as I think of the word diet, it means I can't have anything to eat.  So I will try it this way to see how things go.

Cindy posted a good recipe on her blog the other day.  She actually posts good recipes on her blog most days.  Anyhow, I did "my version" of her recipe by using and Old El Paso Taco kit instead.  It was not too bad, I didn't use the full seasoning package that came with the kit as I find it too spicy for me.  This is what mine looked like, click on the link above to see what the original looks like.

I know no low calorie, but remember I'm not actually on a diet per se!!!

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Why I bulk buy certain things and other bits and bobs.

First of all I moderate my comments as it's my blog and I can do what I want....right....LOL


Occasionally my brother leaves me messages and he left me this one:


i have decided i had better not try any of those recipes just in case as i only have a weeks supply of toilet roll in !
they cant be that good if the author needs a back up supply like that !
just how long does it take to get over each one ?
ha!ha!.... nick


That was in reply to this post.  Now I know he was joking around, but I'm not sure he understands why I do what I do.   So I thought I'd explain.


I mentioned in that post I had enough toilet paper stocked up for six months.  On that shopping trip I picked up 4 packs of 12 double rolls of toilet paper, which should last us 4 months, if not more.  Generally I think they cost around $5.99 to $6.99 a package (they may be more I never pay full price).  So we'll use the $5.99 price here.  They were on sale for $4.99 per package and I had a $1 coupon, so all in all I saved $2 per package on the regular price, saving me a total of $8.


Another thing we use a lot of is I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.  We average a 1lb tub a week.  It is normally around $2.49 a tub, but comes on sale every three to four month at $1 per tub.  I generally stock up and buy 12 tubs at a time, which will last us 3 months.  By buying them on sale I save $18.88.  So just on those two items alone, which we use and a regular basis and I have room to store I have an extra $26.88 in our pocket.


Granted if I had a very small fridge and no room to store these items I couldn't take advantage of these deals, but I am lucky enough to have both.  What this means though, is that if a nutritionist looked at my weekly grocery shop it would be very unbalanced as I will buy things on sale, so some weeks it looks as though I haven't bought fruit, where in reality I already have fruit in the fridge or freezer from a prior week when I stocked up on it when it was on sale.

I have been shopping like this for years and wouldn't do it any other way, as I hate paying full price for things, especially food.  Also this system works for me, and I am happy with it.


Do you want free onions, see this post over here.  I have never heard of doing this before, but when I next buy green salad onions, I'll give it a go.  Also cathy@home grows potatoes from potato peelings, see this post.  For more detail on how to do it read this  I think I will try this, this year.


I would also like to thank Juliebadoolie for signing up using my referral for Swagbucks.  If you have any questions please just let me know.  If anyone else wants any tips regarding Swagbucks just leave me your email address in a comment (I WILL NOT PUBLISH IT) and I will get back to you.  If anyone would like to sign up I would really appreciate it, if you would sign up under my referral code: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/Appleby   

Swagbucks is a great way of earning free things, in my case $5 Amazon.ca gift cards for being on the computer.  If you live in Britain, the States or Canada, you can participate.  I have now earned $500 in Amazon.ca gift cards since I signed up in December of 2009.

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