Tag Archives: shopping

bedroom facelift

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I recently took some money we got for Christmas and went shopping all over town to update our bedroom. It was our most neglected room in the house – second only perhaps to our office/guest/storage/everything room.

The problems were basic and easily fixable, if I could find what I had in mind at a reasonable price. And these subtle issues were driving me crazy so it was time to give some attention to a room that we wanted to be uncomplicated, relaxing and to flow seemlessly into the incredible view. Continue reading →

we’re baaaack…

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We just flew in this afternoon and made our way home, only for poor John to turn around and head back out again for a week of conference with university students. Not the most ideal follow-up to ten days with his entire family living under one roof (which includes one four month old now) but it’s an annual reality for him as long as he stays in the job he’s chosen. So far I have escaped the post-Christmas conference that, incidentally, also claims our New Years Eve. But if I move in the direction I think I will in my job, this time next year I may be dragging my tired self along with him. Continue reading →

Peaceful Christmas: Week 10 & 9

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Christmas 2008 at our place

So far I have figured out our Christmas budget, and how much we can spend on each person, and have figured out what mailings we’ll do and to whom. As far as setting up the mailing, we have our addresses in place and have designed our photo card we just need to print them. I’m hoping to handle that this weekend so we can get our cards and Christmas letters ready to go by the end of next week.

Onward and upward.

Week 10 of Simple Mom’s 12 Weeks to a Peaceful Christmas is all about starting your Christmas shopping. I’ll admit I have been on the fence about this one. I know in theory that finishing my shopping before the holiday season is suppose to help me save money, be less stressed and enjoy Christmas. But I enjoy being out among people this time of year, drinking an egg nog latte and feeling the collective cheer. I’m concerned that I’ll miss out on the fun if I skip the holiday shopping.

However, it is true that being in stores with the music playing, the beautiful displays and a festive mood in the air makes spending too much money seem like it might not be that big of a deal. This year we’re serious about not overspending (and following our budget more closely in general) so I’m willing to try staying out of the stores this year. I won’t know until I try.

That being said, I have made a list of everyone we want to buy for and a gift idea in the agreed upon price range. Now my goal is to purchase whatever I can online and whatever is left before December.

Still playing catch-up with Simple Mom’s weekly plan so I’ll do a second one this week again.

Week 9′s assignment is to make plans to give back. Well I know right away what we’ll be doing this year. I’m a huge fan of charity:water and all that they do and have already set up a mycharity:water campaign to raise money for wells. I’ll be talking about it a lot this Christmas because I am trying to raise $500 in place of receiving gifts, cards, baked goods or anything that costs $$!

I support charity:water because 100% of public donations directly fund water projects in developing nations. I love being able to make the campaign my own instead of just sending in a cheque. So visit my Christmas Water campaign page, sign up to follow me, donate, help me get this campaign off the ground and give back this Christmas. I’ll post more on that soon.

Follow charity:water on Twitter
 Follow Scott Harrison on Twitter

As long as I do get those photo cards printed this weekend, some online shopping and some promotion of my charity:water campaign I’m on track. How are you guys doing with your Christmas plans? What’s causing you stress already and how are you trying to tackle that?

Peaceful Christmas: Week 12 & 11

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My Christmas craft 2008 will be on display this year, too

As I mentioned last time, I am going to follow along with Simple Mom’s 12 Weeks to a Peaceful Christmas, starting with doing a couple weeks at a time to catch up.

The first post dealt with the Christmas budget. You can download a budget worksheet from her downloads page, it’s really eye-opening how holiday costs add up. At first you think, it’s only the gifts I have to worry about… but the truth is the real costs also include baking supplies, wrapping supplies, stamps, etc.

I think the idea of budgeting for Christmas spending throughout the year is a great one. Simple Mom recommends doing a budget worksheet of how much you spend at Christmas then divide it by 12 and put aside that much each month. Then when December arrives it’s not a financial strain. Obviously too late for that this year but I am definitely going to see how my budget worksheet estimates hold up and then implement a holiday savings account in January.

We’ll have to go easy with our budget this year as we’re flying to spend the holidays with family and have more family members to buy for each year! But leaving home for Christmas does have it’s advantages as we never host meals or house guests and skip the real tree and other decorating expenses.

Ok, Christmas budget, got it. Next thing.

Since I’m catching up let’s do 11 Weeks Till Christmas: Gather Your Addresses.

I already have all our family and friends in a database because we raise financial support for our jobs. So that part is handled. But the second part of the task is to decide how we’ll be sending our Christmas greetings and what supplies we’ll need for that.

I think we’ll end up with a photo card for everyone, a letter for those who don’t have email and an email letter for the rest. It would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly to skip the written letter but alas, we still have loved ones without computers!

So now I have to finish this budget and plan what supplies to buy for our letters. I think I’ll even get a head start on making the those photo cards…

eating down the fridge: the final day

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edtf8 We’ve made it back to Saturday. A whole week of attempting to eat the things that fill our kitchen and save money by not buying more food. I discovered some new recipes I’ll make again, I got really tired of ground beef and I said goodbye to some canned and frozen ingredients that have overstayed their welcome.

To celebrate making it through the week I went grocery shopping today and filled up our fridge with yummy fruits, veggies and even fresh salmon for supper. Here’s what we ate today:

Breakfast: Pancakes with vanilla soy milk instead of milk. Cup of coffee.

Lunch: Leftover lentil carrot soup, cornbread and a brownie. John had a hamburger. We finished up the jello jigglers for a snack.

After lunch I went shopping so supper was a whole new world. But it seemed the eat down the fridge bug has bit me because I still managed to get in a couple old things from the cupboards.

Supper: Maple glazed grilled salmon (recipe below), canned beet and goat cheese salad (recipe below) and sweet sticky rice.

I said I would let you know how much we spent on groceries this week. I only went to the store once and spent a total of $12.43 on some deli meat, eggs and quick oats. When I went to the store today I spent $88.00 on everything from vanilla soy milk to red peppers to fresh salmon to coffee beans. Given that some of those things last over a week it would be safe to estimate we saved about $40-$50 by not shopping last week. Not to mention the creativity and ingenuity I had to use! I’ve never had to substitute in so many recipes.

I won’t try doing another whole week like this for awhile but I am thinking of featuring a forgotten item or two each week that I have worked into my meal plan. Thanks for coming on the journey with us this week, I’ll leave you with the receipes from our delicious supper tonight, both of which I found online and then modified alot to fit what we had!

Maple Anise Glazed Salmon
1 lb fresh salmon fillet (boneless, skinless)
1/4 cup maple syrup*
2 tbsp soy sauce (I uses dark)*
1 clove garlic, minced (don’t bother cutting, use a press)*
1/4 tsp sea salt*
1.4 tsp fresh ground pepper*
3 of 4 star anise pods*

Mix everything but the salmon in a small bowl (break up the anise pods so that the seeds separate). Place salmon flat  in shallow glass baking dish and pour on sauce. Coat evenly and refigerate for 30 minutes, turning salmon once. Grill for 4-5 minutes on each side, depending on how cooked you like your salmon (leave anise seeds pieces in the marinating dish, do not eat).

Beet Goat Cheese Salad
1 can whole baby beets*
2 tbsp olive oil*
1 tbsp vinegar*
fresh ground pepper*
crumbled goat cheese

Drain beets well, do not rinse (take care with the juice, it stains easily). Put beats in small serving dish, slice each in half with sharp knife. Coat with oil, vinegar and pepper. Toss to coat fully, sprinkle with goat cheese crumbles right before eating.

* Ingredients from our kitchen pre-grocery shopping.

eating down the fridge: day three and four

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I have to post about yesterday and today because I didn’t get a chance last night. John is on his way home with mango milk tea with pearls so I have to make this quick.

Breakfast yesterday: Coffee. I know I’m bad.

Lunch yesterday: John packed me a sandwich made with the deli meat I bought on Sunday and the homemade buns that are still going strong. I also got a granola bar, apple, grapes and leftover pasta salad.

Supper yesterday: John barbecued cheeseburgers (getting a little sick of those and wishing I had stocked up on something other than ground beef before this experiment) and we ate frozen peas with garlic and butter. Ice cream for dessert.

Today I cheated a bit and bought my lunch at Wendy’s even though I had one packed. Maybe it was that it contained the same things I have been eating for days or maybe I just gave in to peer pressure but either way it was fun to go out with my friends from work. It has been a stressful few days at work and it just felt good to get out of the office.

Breakfast: Coffee. I know I know.

Lunch: Wendy’s but if I had eaten what I brought it was peas and pasta salad. I did eat the brownie and grapes though.

Supper: I got home very late after a police incident at Metrotown Station stopped the train 3 stations away and turned my hour and a half commute into 3 hours. So by the time I got home at 7:30 I just ate peas with butter and garlic and a glass of white wine (the last bottle from the batch John made in the Spring) Oh and of course, the bubble tea that’s on its way home with John!

I guess I know what I’m having for lunch tomorrow – the lunch I didn’t eat today! But I will try to make enough time in the morning for breakfast, I didn’t realize how bad that sounds until I had to type it out each time I just had coffee. Not a good habit, kids.

No new recipes to share but I will say I am getting bored with what I’ve made so far and probably need to get back in the kitchen and figure out some more pantry creations.

eating down the fridge: day two

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photo-20 Here’s what we ate today as well as a recipe you can try if you, like me, have millet in your kitchen (weird).

Breakfast: Slow-cooked hot millet cereal (recipe below) with brown sugar and vanilla soy milk. Cup of coffee.
Lunch: Mini roast beef sandwiches made with garlic roast beef, homemade whole wheat buns, spinach tomato, dijon mustard and cilantro and parsley from my herb garden. Pasta salad that used up our penne pasta, packaged sauce and cooked zucchini. Handful of potato chips.

For supper we’re going to a BBQ going away party so we’re off the hook for cooking. Tomorrow we should get by with leftovers.

I did go shopping today and bought two kinds of deli meat for $5.91, eggs for $5.49 (I like the free range brown ones) and quick oats for $1.06. All within the rules and we ate all day today with only one new item. I predict the only thing we’ll need to buy before next Saturday is cream and soy milk but we’ll see.

Recipe for Slow Cooker Fruited Millet Cereal
1 cup millet
4 cups water
1 t. salt
1 medium apple, peeled and diced
1 cup raisins
½ cup coconut, sweetened or unsweetened

Place all ingredients in the slow cooker and stir. Cover, set cooker on low heat and cook for 8 or 9 hours. Great treat to wake up to! My note: I recommend starting it the night before so it’s ready in the morning and eating it with brown sugar and milk like oatmeal. (Mosher Products recipe)

eating down the fridge: day one

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It’s the first day of our week-long attempt to use the food in the kitchen that seemed like a good purchase at the time but never gets used. We all have these items and yet we continue to go to the store to make our meals. Anyways, read more on that in the previous post.

edtk1 Here’s what we ate today:

Lunch: I had a frozen Superstore Blue Menu quesadilla and John had leftover steak and homemade buns
Supper: Mini cheeseburgers made from homemade frozen patties, processed cheese slices and homemade buns with a side of beans and rice made from canned kidney beans, rice and rotel (if you’re not from Texas see image on left). Throw in a few spices and a jug of lemonade from concentrate and we have ourselves a meal.
Dessert: Gluten-free, wheat-free brownies (Pamela’s Products as recommended by my sister-in-law)

So far so good. I think we’ll treat ourselves to ice cream for those brownies. Before you say anything, it fits within the rules because I already have the brownies, whipped cream and chocolate chips.

eating down your fridge

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Last night we had Adrianne and Gordie over for supper and I was explaining rather sheepishly that my meal choices were made because I was trying to clean out the kitchen of random food items. I mean it wasn’t all canned mushrooms and jello (although I did make jello jigglers for the first time since I was 12 because who doesn’t have a box or two of that kicking around).

We ate salmon skewers (frozen salmon), grilled baby bok choy (newly purchased) and a cream cheese and cherry pie filling puffed pastry (two out of the three ingredients have been with us for awhile).

All this to say Adrianne told me that I was not the first to feel the need to clean out the pantry. Apparently the financial crisis has sparked an interest in what is being called Eating Down The Fridge.

So I decided this was worth looking into and was sure to satisfy my need to clear clutter and cook creatively at the same time. Googling the topic brought up many blogs and forums that were taking groups through this exercise and allowing them to share recipes, menus and experiences.

A Might Appetite, a blog on washingtonpost.com, was where I started and found my way to eG Forums where I got some great ideas to eat down my own fridge. And freezer. And cupboards.

Fat Guy from eG Forums says,

If you spend $100 a week on groceries, this experiment will put $100 back in your pocket quicker than you can say stimulus. If you’re home 50 weeks of the year and you perform this experiment once per quarter, you’ll reduce your grocery bill by 8%.

Sounds good to me. Let’s start with a random selection of what our kitchen holds at this exact moment:

unsweetened coconut flakes
canned bamboo shoots
dried chickpeas
3 packages of vanilla pudding
toasted carob powder
1 can of chunky light tuna
1 bag of frozen peas
dijon mustard
1 package of star anise
1 bag large marshmallows

This is about 1/10th of what is filling our kitchen. Kind of sad. So I’m going to try this experiment for a week and see how it goes but I think I need to put some rules on it so we don’t get scurvy or something.

The Rules

  1. We can buy meat and veggies as long as the majority of the meal is made of current kitchen items.
  2. We can buy ingredients for recipes as long as no more than 2 new ones are needs to complete the recipe.
  3. We can buy staple perishables that we regularly use up including: coffee cream, soy milk, bran cereal and coffee beans.

I’ll be sharing some of the strange meals we eat and letting you know if we manage to eat down our fridge.