New Year’s Family Fun Night

Have you made your New Year’s plans yet?  We thought we had ours all laid out, but you know what they say about best laid plans, right?

My boys were supposed to go to their dad’s for their Christmas celebrations with him (I have them on Christmas day), but unfortunately Dad cancelled.  Andrew, who had his whole New Year’s all scheduled and planned (autistics are like that, ya know), had the rug pulled out from under him and proceeded to have a full blown 20 minute meltdown.  I felt so terrible for him, and the other two of course.  It’s never easy when plans change, but when they are ‘special’ plans, it’s even worse for him.

We’re not big fans of New Year’s Eve.   Our plans were to put the little girls to bed, then watch a movie with Austan and then go to bed early, lol.  We rarely ring in the new year.  However, since we’re all going to be together, and since I want to make up for my babies’ disappointment (yeah, I know, it’s not my responsibility, but I love them and hate to see them hurting), we decided we’d make it a little special.

My eldest, Allen, has recently become enamoured with playing Monopoly.  I thought it would be great to play a game or two of Candyland with all 6 kids, have some yummy food and hopefully make some memories.  After we put the 4 littles to bed, I thought we could break out Monopoly and the grups and the 11-year-olds would play.  Trouble is, we don’t have a Monopoly game.  So I put a shout out on my Facebook page to see if anyone had a set that we could borrow for the weekend.

Enter our friends “E” and “B”…they said that they had one and would even drive it up to us.  YAY!!  

Wouldn’t you know that they actually went out and bought us a Monopoly game?  And they also bought us Monopoly Jr. to play with the littles.  Not only that, B brought chocolates too.

What did we do to have such amazing friends?  We are truly blessed to have them in our lives. 

This holiday season we’ve been showered with some amazing gifts and acts of kindness.  I am now looking to pay it forward.  I think that is the best resolution I can make for 2012.

May 2012 bring you happiness, prosperity, and most of all, LOVE.

Happy New Year!!

No Spend Challenge!

Carla over at My Half Dozen Daily is hosting a “No Spend” Challenge for the month of January.  Lots of different bloggers have joined her on her quest to save as much and spend as little as she can for the month in order to build up her emergency fund.

I have decided that we are going to join her for the month.  As I wrote last week, we have a big car repair, so that has to be paid as soon as possible.   Thankfully, Carla has said we can make our own rules for our challenge and it can look however we want it to look.

So with that in mind, here’s how ours is going to look:

1. No lunches or dinners out, no coffee purchased *(see note “a” below)
2. Keep groceries under $225 a week (I would love to keep it under $200 if we can), by meal planning, using what we have in the pantry, having more meatless meals.
3. Keep adding all change to the sealed pot
4. All excess money that we save from our $400 variable budget will go into the car fund.
5. Tracking all spending and use the jars
6. Making use of our YMCA membership and do more free activities there
7. All overtime will be saved and not spent.
8. Christmas money/gifts are exempt (see note “b” below)
9. Medical care/expenses don’t count.  If someone gets sick and needs a prescription, then we pay for it.

Note A:  Andrew and I have to go to the McMaster Children’s Hospital the second week in January.  He has a benign bone tumour called an “osteochondroma” and we’re off to see a specialist there.  I intend on packing our lunch because we’ll be gone over lunch time, but I also want to be able to treat him to some Timbits and Chocolate milk while we’re out.  It’s no fun to have to go see the doctor, and I am not sure what tests he’s going to be put through on that day, so I want to give him a little something to look forward to after the appointment.

Note B:  We received a few monetary gifts for Christmas.  One those was substantial and half of it will be going to help pay for the car.  However, since the money was intended to buy something for us, we are using a portion of it to buy the over-the-range microwave that we’ve been wanting.  The other monetary gift was actually given to us for the kids to “make some memories”.  It was enough to purchase a Gold Membership for the entire year to the Ontario Science Centre.  We might end up postponing those purchases until February, but I don’t want to be in jeopardy of our challenge by not posting that caveat!

To all my fellow No Spend Challengers, we can do this!!   Can’t wait to see how everyone meets their goals!

So, how was your Christmas??

Ours was fabulous!  We had a really great day.  We woke up to find that Santa had snuck in and left some goodies in our socks!

We had some breakfast and then the carnage in the living room began.  The kids opened up their socks and then we opened the gifts.  Since we only had 4 presents (want, need, wear, read), we had the kids open every gift while the others watched.   They all saw their need gift, which was a Twister Saucer Slider for winter fun.  Those were too hard to wrap, so they were under the tree with bows on them, lol.  We started off with “Something to Wear”

Andrew loved his Dr. Doofenshmirtz shirt:

Austan ‘wanted’ a Glow Dome, so that’s what Santa brought

Charlotte asked for a Hello Kitty mp3 player

Meri was so excited opening her Dora Fairy Princess

Aaron wanted all things Mario, so he got a Mario figure and Mario and Luigi cars.

Allen asked for Pokémon Black for DS

Aren’t these the cutest slippers you’ve ever seen?  Meri found this in her ‘wear’ gift.

The adults got spoiled too!  I have been coveting one of these for a long time.

I cried when I opened the box and saw the Pandora Bracelet with a Poinsettia charm.  The Poinsettia was to remember I got the bracelet at Christmas.

I also got the usual socks and underwear, a hoodie, a sweater, and a house to go with my Christmas village!  I also got the book I was waiting for!!

Amy got 3 books (Amy reads voraciously, so she needs 3 books to our one, lol), winter coat and boots (need), a hoodie, socks and underwear.  Amy also received a new wedding band.  Shane and Amy celebrated their 13th wedding anniversary on December 19th, and Amy lost her wedding band about a year after they married.  Shane and I went and picked out a nice gold wedding band for her.

Shane got clothes, pants and shirts, a new Terry Goodkind book, socks and underwear, and a new Spiral Saw.  Once he finishes Austan’s room, he’s going to start on the basement bathroom and he needed something to cut tile (among other things). 

My parents, sister, eldest brother, and Shane’s dad and girlfriend came by for our annual Christmas brunch.  We had such a wonderful time and continued to get spoiled.   My brother Tom, brought Andrew some potato latke’s for brunch.  About a week ago, Andrew came home from school where they had been learning about Hanukkah.  He asked me “Mom, I know we don’t celebrate Hanukkah, but do you think we could make potato latke’s for brunch on Christmas day?”  I had told him that I couldn’t do it on Christmas morning, but we would make some together when I was on holidays.  I had posted that as my Facebook status and my brother saw it.  He decided that Andrew would have his latke’s!

Hands down the best reaction to a gift was Andrew’s.  My sister, Andrea, gave Andrew this:

I have never seen him so excited…in what seemed like one continuous motion, he jumped up and plastered Auntie Andrea with the biggest hug!  Andrew does not give out hugs lightly, and he was just crazy over this gift!  It was awesome…I think he shocked Andrea pretty good too, LOL!

After our guests left, we had a fairly quiet afternoon.  I loved the day.  Because we only had 4 gifts each, we weren’t stressed for time…the day went at a good pace.  We decided that we are definitely keeping the 4 gift tradition again for next year.

That was our day…how was yours?  What was your favourite moment or favourite gift?

I will be back tomorrow, hopefully, with some mini-goals I have for January!

Our Sweet Girl

Yes, this one:

Charley

Came to work with me today to drop some Avon orders off and wish everyone a Merry Christmas.  She got a little spoiled.  Someone gave her one of these:

And she also got some of these:

Laurie gave her one of these:

We just got home and she was showing Meri her chocolate Santa.  Charlotte peels off the wrapper and gives some to Meri.  And says:

Christmas is for SHARING AND CARING, that’s why I am sharing my chocolate with you.

It’s times like these when we figure we must be doing something right.

Happy Christmas Eve, Eve!!

Officially On Holidays

YAY!!  I am off for 6 glorious days! 

Of course, there’s no rest for the wicked!  Tonight I prepared the batter for my fruitcake and it’s mellowing overnight.  Tomorrow I will bake it in a slow oven for 3 1/2 to 4 hours.  Then I have a ton of cookies and muffins and loafs to make.

As I sit here, I am smelling 2 apple pies baking…Aaron and Andrew made apple pies with their Beaver Colony tonight.  I was ready for disasters and meltdowns (Andrew had a bad week last week), but I was pleasantly surprised and he did really well.  The pies smell delicious!

Tomorrow night, after the kids are snuggled into their beds, Amy and I are going to start wrapping the presents.

I don’t think I am going to get the nap that I so desperately want, lol. 

Are you ready?

When *it* hits the fan…

It really seems to hit the fan..

I wasn’t going to post about this, cause it’s a real downer 5 days before Christmas.  But, I do write about personal finance and this is going to involve finances, big time!

Yesterday we got the news that the transmission in our van is going kaput!  It is going to cost us around $2500.00 to fix it.  We are a 10 person household and have 2 cars.  The 8-seater van, and my 5 seat Chevy Cavalier.

OUCH!

As I wrote a few weeks ago, our Emergency fund is sitting at almost ZERO funds.  My main goal this year is to build it up.  It looks like that is going to be a bigger feat than we thought.

We thought of a number of options to pay for it:

1. Borrow the money  ~ Well, that’s out…I don’t know anyone who has that money lying around.  Even still, if we did, I don’t want to, nor will I, ask to borrow money.  I like to stand on my own two feet.
2. Put it on credit ~ That’s also out because I don’t want to sink further into the debt abyss
3. Cash in RRSP’s ~ Um, yeah, NOOOOOOOOOO…so not a good idea
4. Park the car and save our butts off for the next few months.

Which option did we pick?

Number 4 of course!  

We found out that there is going to be extra money coming in January that we were not expecting, so that money will go to the transmission. Since that will only pay for about half, we’ll also be cutting our variables as much as we can, using overtime from Shane’s job (if he gets some) and socking away every cent we can.

It’s going to take some creative shuffling of cars.  Shane and I will have to travel into work together and back.  We will move 2 kids swimming lessons to another day so that we can get them all to lessons.  We’ll use public transit when/if we need to.  Amy and I are forgoing Birthday celebrations (hers in January, mine in March).  Doing all this we should be able to have the car ready by the end of February.  We’ve already had a friend offer to help when they can.

We can do this, I am sure!  I was so angry when we got the news and especially during the Christmas season.  But you know what?  I am not going to let this get me down.  Life could be a whole lot worse.  Some people don’t even own one vehicle, let alone two.  We will get by.

My friend reminded me of this quote:

“When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you”

He’s so wise!

We’ll be stronger for it and maybe, just maybe, we’ll find other ways to cut expenses and save along the way.

Quick Takes Friday ~ December 16, 2011 ~ Goals Edition!

~ 1 ~

I have been thinking about goals for the New Year. I was pretty hard on myself about my goals for 2010, and I think I might have set the bar too high. I am going to try to be more realistic this year.

~ 2 ~

 First financial goal: Bring that Emergency Fund up to $2000.00 by the end of 2012. I think we might be able to do better than this, but let’s start there. I currently have $157.77 in my TFSA. I contribute $25 per pay into this account. That’s $650.00 for the year. If I up that to $35 per pay, that’s $910.00. That would mean I would have to come up with an extra $90.83 per month. Come July, I will no longer have a car loan payment and since my car is 11 years old and not worth much, I am considering dropping the comprehensive insurance on it as well. The car payment is $108 every 2 weeks and I have no idea how much the insurance will go down. I will use some of this extra cash to fund the EF.

 ~ 3 ~

 Finally pay off and close the Line of Credit. This was actually converted to a loan about 2 years ago when the company decided to get out of the LOC business. We have 4 more payments and it’s finished!! Then we will take that $500 a month payment and apply it to other debt.

 ~ 4 ~

 Pay off 2 credit cards completely. I get a fairly big tax return every year, so one will be paid off completely once I get that. Then we’ll use the $500 from the freed up LOC and the $100 I am currently paying on the credit card, and apply it to another card. That should pay off another card by December 2012!

 ~ 5 ~

Keep adding to the Sealed Pot Challenge! I am currently adding any change that I have in my wallet at the end of the day. I am thinking that at the end of the week, if there are any $5.00 bills left in the jars, we might even put one or two of them in.  We would love to open it up on December 3, 2012 to find enough money for Christmas.  Even still we’ll save slowly for Christmas too, just to have something to fall back on.

 ~ 6 ~

Speaking of the jars…I am very serious about getting back on track with these and tracking our spending! It was the jars that got us 3 credit cards paid off in 6 months and the money to move into our house. We KNOW it works and we have to get back on it!!

 ~ 7 ~

 I do have a few personal goals for 2012. I lost 24 pounds in the first half of this year…as of yesterday, I have gained back 8 pounds of that. So that makes 16 pounds lost in 2011. My goal was 50 and I think I stressed myself out over it. I am going to set a goal of 20 pounds by next Christmas. If I can do that in 2012 and 2013, I will be close to my goal weight in 2 years. I am a firm believer that weight that comes off too fast does not STAY off. It takes a lifestyle change, patience and hard work and an expectation that sometimes, you’re going to have set backs. I also want to read 20 books by the end of next year. I had 36 books read this year, but for half that year I spent 2 hours a day on transit so had lots of time. I have less now. I am looking for suggestions on what to read. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and The Help are on my reading list so far, as well as catching up on some Linwood Barclay books.

 That’s it for this Friday! Have a great weekend!  Go check out Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes

Menu Plan Monday ~ December 12, 2011

Happy Monday, everyone!  Monday’s are always busy and no fun cause I have to leave my family and go back to work.  But that’s the only way to make the big bucks, right?  LOL!

It’s that time again!!  Please go check out all the other great menu’s at I’m An Organizing Junkie.

Saturday ~ Roast Beef, Yorkshire Pudding, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli

Sunday ~ Bacon, Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

Monday ~ Oktoberfest Sausage Soup, 9 grain baguette

Tuesday ~ Perogies and Coleslaw

Wednesday ~ Salsa Couscous Chicken

Thursday ~ Pork Roast, Potatoes, Salad

Friday ~ Rotini with Meat Sauce

Amy and I are off to Wal-Mart tonight to get Austan and Allen boots and shoes.  It figures that they both grow right before Christmas.  We had purchased size 5 boots for both of them, but had to bring them back.  Then we couldn’t find size 6′s in the same style (which were $25), so we’ve been looking at a few different Wal-Mart’s to find them.  Wish us luck!!

Sunday Night Chit-Chat

Cooking/Baking…Spinach, Bacon and Mushroom Quiche for dinner.  Made about 3 dozen gingerbread cookies today.  It was my first attempt at making them…some turned out burned on the bottom, some were too thick, some were just right.  I did find out it wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be, and the kids loved helping.  They are put away for the time being and we will decorate them sometime throughout the week. 
 
Watching/Reading… How The Grinch Stole Christmas, the original and best!!  Then I am not sure, maybe a movie, maybe not.

 
Listening To…

Looking Forward to this week…No plans as yet…probably just putting the finishing touches on our Christmas decorations

 
Happy You Accomplished this Weekend…We have our Christmas tree up!!! YAY!!

I will leave you with this:

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN’T stopped Christmas from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

For more Sunday night Chit-Chat, go visit My Half Dozen Dozen Daily

Favourite Christmas Memory

The other day Judy over at We May Be Poor, But We Are Happy, posted about her favourite Christmas memory.  It made me think about what mine was.

There are a few…like the morning I found the Barbie Sailboat with Malibu Barbie AND Malibu Ken under the tree on Christmas day.  Or the wonderful first Christmas I spent with Amy and Shane and their family in 2007.  Or watching my kids and all their wonder at what Santa brings.

Perhaps though, the best memory is of my very last Christmas with my mom.  December 1987.  We didn’t know at the time that it was to be her last (she passed away 3 months later from a brain aneurysm).  I was 17.  We had just started going back to church the August before, just Mom and I.  It was something that we shared together…we were just starting to achieve that ‘grown up friendship’ that a lot of mother’s and daughters have. 

We went off to church Christmas Eve for the 7pm service.  Afterwards, Mom and I did a little visiting and we went over to the home of the student minister at the time.  I can’t even remember the name of the family, but I remember his name was Steve (I will cut myself some slack, it was 24 years ago!).  He was going to do the sermon at our church’s 11pm service that night.  While we were there, Mom found out that his wife was not going to be able to go to the service because she didn’t have anyone set up to look after her 3 kids.  That would not do…I looked at my mom, she looked at me, and there was no question…I would forgo the service and stay to watch the kids!  It was her husbands first Christmas sermon, of course she had to be there!!  I don’t think I have ever felt so good to be able to do something for someone.  As we drove home, it snowed lightly and it was simply gorgeous.

I think that is my favourite Christmas memory, ever.  What’s yours?