Allergies, grocery shopping and knitting....

I have been suffering with allergies for the past couple of weeks.  I am ready to pull off my nose and the only thing I can think that is causing them are the Poinsettia's I have in the house.  I keep forgetting to buy some allergy pills, but on Thursday I found some Benedryl pills in the back of the cupboard and they weren't expired.  I took a couple around 5 pm on Thursday, by 6:30 pm I felt terrible.  I had all the symptoms of a migraine, but I had no headache.  I could barely keep my eyes open, so went to bed at 6:30 pm.  I slept right through until 6 am.  All day on Friday I was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard!!!  

I went grocery shopping and honestly don't remember how I managed, as I felt so dopey.  I did cash in my points at Shopper's Drug Mart and stocked up on dh's Glucosamine and Chondroitin and now have a six month supply.  So instead of paying $110.49, I only paid $10.49.  I popped into Zehrs and thought I'd pick a few things up and ended up spending $71.94.  Mind you nearly $20 of that was allergy pills.  My final stop was Sobey's where I got my best deals.  Cheese Whiz was on sale on Friday for $2.49 - $1.50 coupon, so only 99 cents.  Spent $9.95 there, so all in all spent $92.38.  I have $20 worth of gift cards for Canadian Tire, so am planning on picking up Maxwell House ground coffee which they have on special Saturday and Sunday for $6.97 a can.  If I can get three cans that will last us six months and only cost me 91 cents when I cash in my gift cards.  So I am at least $20 over my weekly budget this week.........

I am going to work on my lists of things to do and goals this weekend, so I am all ready for the New Year.  I have been putting my silver change into my sealed pot and any spare loonies and toonies are going into another pot ready for gardening season.

Have you made any plans for 2013 yet?

Here is the scarf I am knitting at the moment.

Had a question for anyone who knits.  Do you have something you put on the end of your needles when you put your knitting down so the loops don't come off?

Finally a photo looking north of our property, lots of snow.

Sealed Pot challenge and Youtube video's....

Back in January of this year I posted about the Sealed Pot Challenge that I was taking part in, the link to the post is here  If you click on that link, you will see a photo of Molly, brought a tear to my eye when I saw it.

Anyhow back to the sealed pot challenge, I opened ours up yesterday and here is what was in it:

There was $96.90 in there which wasn't too bad.  Instead of using it though I popped it back into the pot as that change only filled it maybe 25%.  We will see how much there is in it, in December of 2013, and maybe there will be enough to have a weekend away for my 50th birthday in March of 2014.  So here is a photo of our pot all sealed back up for another year:

If you want to participate in the 2012/2013 sealed pot challenge, you can sign up here.  I was listening to yesterday's Christmas tune on my blog when I took the photo!!

I have site meter on my blog and I happened to look at it on Monday night and look what I saw.  The pages on my blog have been viewed over 500,000.  I know to some of you that's nothing to what people have viewed on their blogs, but to me it's mind blowing and makes me grateful to everyone who visits my blog.  Thank you all!

PAGE VIEWS
	Total	533,906
	Average Per Day	403
	Average Per Visit	1.9
	Last Hour	17
	Today	380
	This Week	2,824

I am having so much fun on YouTube finding Christmas music videos.  I loved this group growing up:



Another great song by Boney M:



I posted three book reviews here yesterday if you're interested?

Thinking back on the month of April..........

Financially it was a flipping expensive month what with a new car, and a new driveway, plus nearly $1,400 spent on car repair bills, plus we had to fill up the furnace oil tank.


I am hoping May is a cheap month for us, mind you I am touching wood as I write that!!!   A couple of good things money wise, I did manage to stay under budget with my grocery totals for the month of April.  I spent $298.99 for the month with $78.12 in savings.  There is a good deal on until Thursday for free milk at some of the Loblaws chain of stores.  Milk is on for $1 a carton and here is a link for a $1 off coupon, making it free.  I am in for $300 total again in groceries, paper products, cleaning products and personal products for the month of May.


I achieved another mini goal with Swagbucks.  I cashed in enough points for $25 in Amazon e-cards, and have enough swagbucks as of the end of April for six $5 Amazon e-cards.  As of the end of April I have enough swagbucks for 6 $5 Amazon e-cards, but can only cash in 5 per month.  I am stocking up on Swagbucks so that when I get too busy I will still have enough to cash in for 5 $5 e-cards per month.


I was able to order my soil for the garden using the money I had saved up in my loonie and toonie pot.  Still putting money into our sealed pot, can't wait until December to see how much we managed to save.


I managed to get some more gardening and grass cutting down on Monday before it started raining.  We have a couple of Willow Trees in the garden and they are so messy always dropping their branches.  So I had to clear all those before I could cut more grass.  The end result though looks not too bad:

I am hoping to get some more weeding done this morning, weather permitting.


How are you getting on with your garden?

Recap on February.......

Had a few goals to achieve in February and did okay on some but not on others.

The decluttering goals, I completed the first two no problem, but faltered on the second two and only did bits and bobs on those two.  As soon as my cast is off I will complete the basement and the kitchen decluttering.

I posted seven ads on Kijiji and sold three of the items during the month of February for a total of $35.  $10 went to pay for the table at the township Garage sale and the other $25 went into Molly's food jar.  I am putting $15 a week in there for her food; so have $60 in there now.

I ended up increasing our mortgage by another $10 a week.  Haven't had any paperwork from the bank yet to see how many weeks we have knocked off the life of the mortgage, will let you know when that comes.  I don't think I will be increasing it any more, until dh finished paying CPP and EI in June then I may add that money to the mortgage.

I am starting the month of March off with $180 in my birthday pot, $220 in my Christmas pot, $200 in my "other" pot which should be labeled "firewood pot," as that is what I am saving up for now and $85 in my garden pot.  The sealed jar pot is a lot heavier thanks to dh as he is putting his change in there regularly. 

The "other pot," was dipped into this past month to pay for the wedding gift and to pay for our tickets for The Drawing For Art fund raiser that we go to each year.

As you can see by my figures on the side bar I went over my monthly $300 grocery budget, however I have stocked up on a number of things and have meals pre planned and made for the first week of March.  I also boosted my Shopper's Drug Mart points balance and now have enough for one $250 mega redemption.  My goal is to have enough points for two redemption's in December, so I am on track for that.

I cashed in enough Swagbucks during February for $25 worth of Amazon e-cards and my balance in my Amazon account is sitting at $70.  It is the swagbucks tv that is getting me all the points, as well as the searches.  My goal is for another $25 for March as well.

I also managed to save an extra $200 in our savings account, which was good, as we spend such a lot on renovation expenses. For the month of March, it will be just regular savings.  We will be filing our taxes this weekend and are both in for refunds, so that will come in handy for projects we want to do this year.  I think mine is all of $200, if that!!!!  However it's better than owing money to my mind.

Grocery shopping, I am hoping to keep that to the usual $75 a week.  Continue putting money in my pots on a weekly basis.  We don't have anything big happening this month, that I am aware of, so everything should just be usual monthly expenses.  It will probably cost us $400 to fill up the oil tank again for the heating oil.  Hoping it will warm up a little though by mid month so I am able to go a bit longer without having to fill up the tank.  I should say that it costs $400 to fill up half of the tank as I only let it go half way down before filling it.

I notice gas prices are starting to rise, so need to get my gas tanks filled up for the start of grass cutting season and filling them this week while I can't drive my car might be a good thing as I don't need to put gas in my car.

I may re-advertise the four things on Kijiji again, as you never know they might sell, will also see if I have anything else worth posting on there.

We have put our search for a second dog on hold for a few weeks until my hand is stronger.  We had applied for a Basset Hound called Maude, but someone else got her, she was a puppy mill dog.  Plus I need to save up around $400 for that, which I haven't done yet.

So that's basically it for me on what happened during February and what I have planned for March.

Are you all organized for March?