* How much I spent
* Failures and successes
* The hard bits
* Future changes to be made

We did manage to eat some nice things made from what was in the cupboard or fridge

How much I spent
Despite rushing to the liquor store on Saturday after a hectic week at home and work, the sinful shame of giving in to a cup of Tim’s and then keeping that empty cup next to me for the rest of the week for an occasional ‘furtive sniff’, I did manage to spend less..

Things definately could have been improved upon, I could have resisted temptation more to truly have a frugal week, but hey…I’m only human. As most of my school reports used to state….’COULD DO BETTER’.

Breakdown of money spent during the week

Gas-Spent
To run my car for seven days cost me $60.

Groceries
Food, milk, drinks, loo rolls (leaves from the garden were just not an option), shampoo $83
Bread $12

Liquor Store
bottle wine, bottle Grouse $37

Savings
I managed to bag up refundables in blue bags totalling $24

I have theoretically sold my log pile for $15

The Little Red Farm Market in Lunenburg said I can help myself to any veggies etc that are due to be removed from display.

TOTAL SPENT $192 inc gas.
MINUS $38 money in

GRAND TOTAL $154

This still seems a lot but is over $100 less than my normal expenditure for a family of 5.

* Oh, Oh, Oh Tim Hortons- Thou Art So Cruel..
* Under pressure from the wee ones (they are not so wee but I’m a mother so they are always my babies)
* A vegetarian week
* The 1940′s Experiment

Oh, Oh, Oh Tim Hortons- Thou Art So Cruel..
I once heard a sinister rumour (with no grounding I hasten to add) that Tim Hortons coffee contained a substance that made it highly addictive. When we moved to Nova Scotia we quickly embraced the ‘coffee culture’…a cup of Tims in the car, a cup of Tims at a meeting, a cup of Tims to go just about anywhere…afterall a cup of large Tims is just a buck 50.

Looking back to last week, every working day I would purchase a large cup of Tims…maybe two so this week I decided there would be NO Tims and I would just consume FREE coffee at my work place. This was easier said than done. No more friendly, comforting Tims aroma in the car, no more rushing out at lunch time to buy a big strong cup of Tims to stop me falling asleep at the desk in the afternoon….where oh where was my Tims??

Is Tims addictive or is it simply that its become a habit as any other that is hard to break?

I am happy to say that my week has been Tim FREE apart from one long car journey to Chester where I had a mouth like a dead trout and the steering wheel was beginning to look like a duck down feather pillow…

Money saved = $10 +

Under pressure from the wee ones (they are not so wee but I’m a mother so they are always my babies)
Although I have picked up some limited groceries (compared to my normal take home routine) on my way home, the children have really noticed the lack of goodies (which really are baddies). After a long day at work, a long drive home its so much easier to just throw money at anything that looks half edible and doesn’t need cooking in the store but this is expensive…its been tough but this week the kids have eaten far less potato chips and enjoyed greater quantities of healthier food items and we definately have saved a little money. I will tot this up on Sunday!

A vegetarian week
One thing I have noticed is that this week, for the children and I, has been a vegetarian one. This has been unintentional of course (and infact two of my children are already veggies) but Emily & I haven’t had a dish with meat all week. Instead we have utilised veggies, beans, pastas, cheese and eggs. Using beans and pulses in your diet really does save on money….I think we will be eating less meat and using more of these in our diet from now on.

The 1940′s Experiment
I am obsessed with ‘social or living history experiments’ and infact the one thing I really miss about not having satellite/cable anymore are the various reality TV social experiments (the well done ones) that had become popular over the past few years. In particular I enjoyed many of the PBS ones as well as the ones that we had in the UK…these included living in different time periods for extended periods & living with the diet of the time 100% etc.

The one I became most obsessed with was the 1940′s house…3 generations of a small family lived in a 1940′s recreated home and lived their lives in costume and experienced wartime rationing for 3 months. Even their Anderson Shelter in the garden was hooked up to sound so they could experience the sounds of air raids/bombing runs in the suburbs of London.

I digress though…what appealed to me most about this scenario was the wartime rationing aspect especially as the post war figures show that rationing of food actually kept people healthier and stronger. Never totally convinced by what is written in a book, I decided to follow a 100% authentic wartime diet to see what effect it had on my health (the hope was to lose a significant amount of weight too)..

I stuck with it rigidly for around 3 months, lost over 50lbs, my high blood pressure and pulse rate returned to absolutely normal and I felt alive…..

This has convinced me that convenient/processed foods in our daily diet (and that includes drinks too) really do us no good whatsoever. I often wish now I had managed to carrying on this way of eating. If I had done so I could be half been the woman I am now…

That makes me sad…

* Kids are not pleased I didn’t come home with edible goodies
* Bread to bake
* Feed yourself from the garden
* Retired Canadian Diplomat, Gaston LaVoie shares some thoughts from the Maniwaki Community Garden

Its been a little more challenging today…my car is still running on the $20 of gas put in yesterday but tomorrow it will be back to the pumps with a little help financially from returning more refundables to the Enviro Centre. Gas here in Nova Scotia is now around $1.35 a litre. These price rises are inevitable really as the demand for oil increases but new oil sources decrease…transportation is the biggest user of oil/gas. There is some debate as to when we will reach PEAK OIL or if it has already been reached.

The children were disappointed that I did not arrive home from work with a bag of goodies. Infact it was just two loaves of bread purchased for $4.20. The cost of bread is nearly as expensive as gas and 3 children can demolish two loaves of bread very quickly especially when MOM has returned home empty handed. Using my flour supply for breadmaking will be in order this evening…it will keep the children busy too (the girls enjoy making bread) and save me another $4.20 tomorrow.

Supper yesterday consisted off a plate full of curried vegetables which were actually very tasty and bread was on the side. David (husband, sailor, beardy bloke & he of many dirty hands) had his supper at the boat shop after work as he was working on something for the boat. I hasten to add that David is not part of ‘one of my experiments’….he has endured 10 years of them and its kinder not to subject him to these ‘social experiments’.

Feeding Your family From the Garden

To spend as little as you can would be helped enormously by a bountiful vegetable and herb garden. Some of the most delicious of vegetables and fruit can be grown fairly successfully with a little attention and nurturing. Herbs can be used to flavour breads, salads and most foods as well as being useful medicinally (probably safer to administer topically unless a herbalist)..

Yesterday I received an e-mail from a gentleman called Gaston LaVoie who has been kind enough to share some photos of the Maniwaki community garden in Quebec…

Gaston LaVoie is one of the founding member of the Maniwaki community garden in Quebec, 150 kilometers north of Ottawa.He also works with native Elders from all over the world and studies the spirituality of women and children which he finds a very fascinating subject.

[quote]We are experimenting with several varieties of fruits and vegetables. The trick with fruits like tomatoes is to water them with a mixture of water and liquid animal defeactions which one can get from farmers. Mix 10 to 1 and apply to the base of the plant. Leaf mulching will keep the humidity in the soil. The soil acidity is also something to keep an eye on. If it is too acid, not much will grow.

We are planting fruit trees like blueberry trees which grow to 12 feet and produce the large commercial variety.
This year we are planting kiwi vines….

PLEASE SHARE YOUR GARDEN PHOTOS BY CLICKING HERE

The Cupboards Are Bare (and so is the fridge)

In a brief moment of insanity, I decided Victoria Day was a great day to clean out the fridge. It looked quite full…On removing two bags of veggies (that not even I would put in one of my stews) and various empty containers that had been put back in the fridge by the kids, I was left with

3 1/2 bell green peppers
5 slightly rubbery carrots
several onions
bag of potatoes
1/2 block of cheese
1/2 carton of milk
4 eggs
margarine
2 cloves garlic
and various condiments…

The cupboards & freezer don’t appear to be much better but there are noodles, flour, rice, pasta, some packets and tins and a lot of stuff that I am too scared to check out lurking in the dark recesses

Not a great way to start the week when trying to spend less..

Supper was popular however, stir fried onions and green pepper and noodles in soy sauce and I used some FREE grated Parmesan my neighbours had given me recently.

I did stop at Freshmart on the way home and spend $19…mostly on some more veggies ( big stew off tonight!), milk and some other bits and pieces

Bartering is viable

Some successes already…

Bartered Eggs- this weeks egg supply has been bartered. Sarah Wentzell, my work colleague was happy to supply me with a dozen of their chicken eggs in return for 3 old copies of ‘Countryside magazine and Small Stock Journal’ (savings $2.50)

Free past their best veggies from the ‘Little Red Farm Market’ in Lunenburg.- I mentioned to the owner that it would be cool to receive a bag of past their best veggies in return for putting some photos onto CD. Guess what? When the farm market opens again soon I can collect what I like. Ideal for the freezer to make chutneys or stews!

Gas Challenge Tuesday $0

I started the week running on empty and put $20 of gas in my car today which is a little over the cost of a days commute. Would there be anyway in which to fund the rest of the week without using money from my bank account? YES!!..Being a piler rather than a filer I have a basement full of refundables in blue bags waiting to be taking to an enviro depot….just one of those things (yes there are lots of them) that I’ve never got around to doing. Filling up the back seat of the car with pop bottles, water bottles, juice cartons, beer cans and wine bottles will net me around $20 so therefore my gas today has cost me zilch. There will be more in my car tomorrow too…

Using the Classifieds to Sell Surplus Items

Although I do like using FREECYCLE, in this case selling stuff is probably more appropriate for a short term experiment. Yesterday afternoon I placed a FREE classified or two HERE and already it looks like someone has bought my wood pile. Enough for a days worth of gas and to boot we get someone to move the unwanted wood out of the way which would be an afternoons worth….we’ve not only made money but saved time too!

TOTALS FOR DAY 1 ($15 profit)

Gas cost $20
Recyclables netted $20
Groceries cost $19
Free vegetable items for rest of year netted more than $19
Selling and removal of wood $15

OK- so its far too early in the year for having any home grown vegetables to offset the weekly grocery bill but I often look around me and see the other useful resources that could be used in our household to save money in our day to day lives….its sometimes easier just to reach into your pocket and pay cash for everything rather than negotiate or barter or even sell those unwanted items lying around that could be converted to cash.

So this week I am carrying out a little experiment and will do a short report every day on ways I have avoided spending money to get to work and back again and feed our family.

The cupboards are NOT bulging at the seams so things will need to be bought and then there is the issue of commuting to Bridgewater from Upper Cornwall every day…this round trip uses $12-$15 WORTH OF GAS…this will be a real challenge to find ways to pay the gas bill instead of using the debit card everytime.

I have one or two plans up my sleeves which I hope to instigate tomorrow.

Check back daily to see what happens..

Not really on the theme of trying to be a bit more Frugal & Greenish but nevertheless our pride and joy is finally back in the water looking clean & white and not greenish anymore at all thanks to the sterling efforts of Chippy…

Our family activity centre, retreat, B & B, health spa & tanning salon looking all lovely in the water yesterday (left)

It was a cold wet day down at the Mahone Bay Civic Marina for crane in but like troopers, boaters braved the elements to help get all the boats in the water..

* Check back soon for some movie clips of crane-in..

** Check out our pre launch, getting boat ready movie clip

*** Check out ‘The Boating Life’ blog by Dave DeVenne on Southshorenow.ca

FREE RICE

A few weeks ago a friend from the US sent me a link to the web site FREE RICE . Over 32 billion grains of rice have been donated to date through this web site in a very unique way…learning new vocabulary. For every word you get correct 20 grains of rice are donated to the ‘United Nations World Food Program’ .My son came home from the school drama club last week to tell me that his school friends had been ‘freericing’ and I was able to say for once that this was something I knew before he did …for once!

Lets hope another 32 billion grains of rice will be raised and a lot of us get a bit smarter!

(quote) Learning new vocabulary has tremendous benefits. It can help you:

* Formulate your ideas better
* Write better papers, emails and business letters
* Speak more precisely and persuasively
* Comprehend more of what you read
* Read faster because you comprehend better
* Get better grades in high school, college and graduate school
* Score higher on tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and GMAT
* Perform better at job interviews and conferences
* Sell yourself, your services, and your products better
* Be more effective and successful at your job

After you have done FreeRice for a couple of days, you may notice an odd phenomenon. Words that you have never consciously used before will begin to pop into your head while you are speaking or writing. You will feel yourself using and knowing more words.

MASDAR CITY – WORLDS FIRST ZERO-CARBON, ZERO-WASTE, CAR FREE CITY for 2012

Frantically trying to get kids off to school and myself out of the door this morning, my son Josh shared something with me I hadn’t heard (he usually does that) and proceeded to rattle off facts and figures about the worlds first zero carbon/zero waste city located in the United Arab Emirates…..it looks to be a huge and fascinating project and it will be interesting to see how it evolves and how problems that are encountered are solved

Some of the goals are

* ZERO CARBON 100 per cent of energy supplied by renewable energy — Photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, wind, waste to energy and other technologies
* ZERO WASTE 99 per cent diversion of waste from landfill (includes waste reduction measures, re-use of waste wherever possible, recycling, composting, waste to energy)
* SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT Zero carbon emissions from transport within the city; implementation of measures to reduce the carbon cost of journeys to the city boundaries (through facilitating and encouraging the use of public transport, vehicle sharing, supporting low emissions vehicle initiatives)
* SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS Specifying high recycled materials content within building products; tracking and encouraging the reduction of embodied energy within material sand throughout the construction process; specifying the use of sustainable materials such as Forest Stewardship Council certified timber, bamboo and other products
* SUSTAINABLE FOOD Retail outlets to meet targets for supplying organic food and sustainable and or fair trade products
* SUSTAINABLE WATER Per capita water consumption to be at least 50 per cent less than the national average; all waste water to be re-used
* HABITATS AND WILDLIFE All valuable species to be conserved or relocated with positive mitigation targets
* CULTURE AND HERITAGE Architecture to integrate local values.
* EQUITY AND FAIR TRADE Fair wages and working conditions for all workers (including construction) as defined by international labour standards
* HEALTH AND HAPPINESS Facilities and events for every demographic group

Personally I am not sure I would live in an city unless I really had too but nevertheless this is a monumental project to see if a sustainable city can become a reality…

Thanks to the Enivornmental News Network for some of the information…

We don’t smoke, don’t do holidays, rarely go out for a meal, don’t go to the theatres and don’t have satellite or cable so I feel a little better when I tot up the yearly expenses associated with keeping our boat in the water (Canadian Tire & Stright MacKay love my husband)….however I can’t quite bring myself to write them down here for fear of coming over in a cold sweat..

Things would be different of course if we lived on the boat (instead of a house)…less space to heat, a high percentage of renewable energy (if solar panels and a wind turbine were installed), free wind to travel (instead of just gasoline), no mortgage and mooring fees and other associated costs on par or even less than annual property taxes…mmmmmm…maybe one day..

As we approach crane-in day (Saturday 17th May starting at 10am- if the weather stays nice) at the Mahone Bay Civic Marina, we have been busy ‘tarting’ her up….David (he who bears a startling resemblance, when sleeping, to the ‘Shroud of Turin’ …PS please don’t take offence by that but the observation is quite true… PPS Dear David- I’m glad you have a sense of humour!) has been the busy one really, gel coating, sanding, varnishing, painting, cabling, installing and generally making a huge big mess before putting her all back together again.

CLICK PHOTO ABOVE TO SEE HOW BUSY IT GETS & HOW MESSY OUR BOAT IS

I’ve helped a little too. Polished off the mildew on the cabin walls and ceiling (there wasn’t much surprisingly) and did quite a bit of sanding but I also made up a quick recipe that easily could be cooked onboard your boat, a tasty meal that takes just 10 minutes using mostly tinned main ingredients. It has protein and is filling and just what you would need out at sea! In our case I made it at home, put it in containers, drove from Upper Cornwall to Mahone Bay and climbed a 10ft ladder up the side of the boat with a bag in my mouth. I simply heated it in our boats microwave (aren’t we posh) and enjoyed…

Carolyn’s Tuna, Haricot Bean & Mango Curry.

Ingredients

Can of chunked tuna in water. (79 cents)
1/2 can of Romano/haricot beans (45 cents)
Heaped tablespoon of Presidents Choice Bengal curried sauce (20 cents worth)
1 teaspoon of curry powder (5 cents)
1 onion (20 cents)
milk (25 cents)
veg oil or butter/marg (10 cents)
flour for thickening (5 cents)
Instant rice or Cous Cous (50 cents worth)
Salt & Pepper if needed.

Method

Using ingredients that are easy to store for long periods of time make up the main ingredients of this recipe.

Put a little butter/marg or oil in a frying pan and heat.

Add in chopped onion and brown a little, add in chunked tuna and continue for a minute.

Add in a cup of milk, teaspoon of curry powder and stir.

Add in a big splodge of curried mango sauce and stir again. Add in romano beans

Mix flour to a paste with a little water or milk and add to the thickness you require

Prepare instant rice or cous cous while continuing to cook curry for around 5 mins (thats all!)

Thats it!

Ok its stodgy, Ok it may not look great if you suffer with sea sickness but it actually tastes rather wonderful if you like some exciting flavours for a change…

PS..Its FRUGAL!!