Interview Tomorrow

Wish me luck!

The Times They Have A-Changed

Well my quest for a job has taken a rather interesting turn. Initially, I just sent my resume to my previous place of employment (I was pregnant with Chloe at the time so it's been a few years) only to discover that they weren't planning on hiring until Spring or early Fall. At first I was o.k. with this but now that I've started thinking in terms of working again, I'm a little more eager to take the next step. At least I thought I was.

So I went searching on workopolis and looked to see which agencies had a lot of listings in my area and sent them my resume. I sent to two different agencies. The first called me back the next day to tell me that they didn't really get part-time contracts, the second called me back within an hour of posting and set up an interview for me.

Now here's where it gets weird. They asked me to come in and since it's March Break I had to tell them that today just wouldn't do so instead of rescheduling we opted to do a Skype interview. How cool is that? And then after discussing my admittedly rusty skills they sent me a Word and Excel test to do from home. From Home! How much does that rock?!?!?

I won't lie, I was in a panic at first and had to call Jenn to talk me down from the ledge but I got through the tests and passed both (barely) though I'm not sure if my score was high enough to warrant an interview with the client. Guess I'll have to wait and see.

If it does though, I'll be going for a real interview for a real 2 day a week job in the near future. I find this both terribly exciting and also incredibly terrifying. O.k. truth be told I'm scared spitless.

But I also know that I'm ready for this. I want this job. I won't be devastated if I don't get it, but I do want it. Mostly though I'm kind of proud of myself for not totally chickening out.

I Did It!

I faced the mall (and one with an Addition-Elle no less -- I even tried on like 20 things), Ikea, and two Wal-Marts and all I bought was sugar, rain boots for Sarah and running shoes for Sarah.

This doesn't include a lunch out (we ate at Ikea) which was the reward for the girls doing their chores for the week so was a planned expense.

I learned 3 things,

1. I can resist buying things I'm not totally in love with.

2. Sarah's now wearing a ladies size 7 (Holy Crap!)

3. Sarah needs to learn how to tie shoe laces

So that's the update. I faced temptation and lived the tell the tale. And my little girl is growing up. She's still so into toys that I sometimes forget. Most of her classmates have left toys behind. Thank goodness she's found a friend who's as immature as she is. They're actually quite adorable together. it's the first time Sarah's ever actually had a best friend at school and I couldn't have chosen better for her.

Today my heart is happy. This week I will teach Sarah to tie laces and Chloe to ride a two-wheeler. Send me strength!

Budgeting Week One -- Hits and Misses

So this is our first week living with a budget. It's taken some fine tuning to get a working spreadsheet and I'm sure I've forgotten to account for some major upcoming expenses, but overall I'm pretty happy with how things are going. We have had two major unplanned purchases (well one completely unplanned and one that I was supposed to save up for before making) but overall we're sticking to things pretty good.

The unplanned purchase is Gunther's iPad. His laptop is huge and heavy and he's been eyeing an iPad for a long time. He's never wanted one before because he felt the resolution wasn't good enough. Now that they've sharpened up the display he was ready to commit. Course it being Gunther, he needed the one with the most memory hence most expensive one.

The planned but not planned for right now purchase was the airline tickets to England. Interestingly the two purchases are within dollars of each other.

I do plan on paying these purchases back with money from the budget but it'll take a few months. In the meantime we do have enough in the savings account to pay for them so other than the fact that we'll have to be even more extra careful, we will be able to pay them off (or put the money back into savings). We have decided to be more diligent in trying to sell the 2nd fridge and 3 disc changers that we're not using to that end. I foresee quite a few Kijiji listings in our future! And of course, I have started looking for ways to bring in extra income.

So, while we didn't plan the purchases ahead of time or save for them the way we should, we have come up with a plan to pay for them which somewhat makes up for our impulsiveness - a little.

On the plus side, we are doing good with the food budget. I budgeted $800 a month for food (yes I know that's really high but that includes eating out and trust me when I say, one trip to Costco would blow that out of the water for me so it's a pretty reasonable estimate for us). Then I had to take into account that our meat order came in this week so $295.00 of that was going to pork and beef for the next 3 months. This left me with a budget of about $$125 a week. The first thing I did was buy nothing other than milk for the first week. We lived off a Costco sized bag of carrots and frozen peas for vegetables and a Costco sized bag of apples and a few oranges for fruit. We had meat and my pantry's always pretty packed so we made it without anyone really noticing that we hadn't done groceries.

Then I made a meal plan and grocery list, then I revised the meal plan and grocery list to be more economical (while I have often done the first step, the second is something I never did), and then we hit Wal-Mart without the kids. $114.85 later and I have a week's worth of food and enough money to make a midweek milk run if necessary (and it being March Break I'm sure it'll be necessary). Again, I'm sure that's no great savings to most of you, but our food spending is really high normally so trust me when I say that that was a thrifty shop for us!

The other good thing we did this week was to set up an appointment with the bank. We're going to go through our accounts to optimize our savings, open a tax-free account, set up an automatic withdrawal so that some of our money goes to RRSPs every month, some goes to Mutual Funds every month, and some goes into our Savings Account (a.k.a. emergency fund) every month. We'll be meeting with her on Monday and I'm excited to get this set up.

As for the girls, they're enjoying their allowance and keeping up with their chores. As a reward for their chores they get to eat at the Food Court at the mall tomorrow and of course go shopping with their $7.00. So it seems the whole family is getting in on the act. I've already promised Sarah that I'll show her how to make a list and meal plan for shopping next week.

Our new goal will be to learn to shop the flyers. I've always thought that any money you might save on going from store to store would be burned up by gas, but since two of the stores with good sales on this week are places we drive by anyhow during the week, we're going to try breaking up the grocery shopping to see if it saves us money (normally I do a once a week shop).

I'll let you know how that works out next week!

I Just Did WHAT!?!?!?

I had planned to go to England again in September. I had told my friends and family that I was going and made a commitment. I knew I wanted to go, I knew I'd be most welcome and I knew it was going to be something I enjoyed tremendously.

But, with the new financial awareness of our situation I also knew that it was something that might cause us to have to dip into our savings. I felt badly about that and started to question if this was something that I really needed to do.

Then I decided that if this was something that I really wanted, and it is, that I would work towards saving enough money to pay for it myself. I figure I can make a great trip for about $4,000-$5,000 and I have 6 months to find a way to come up with the money. I was going to give myself a few months to figure things out when calamity struck and an impulsive and ill-thought out purchase of an airline ticket caused to me HAVE to commit to the trip.

Now I am going for sure and I am going to have to find the money to pay for it for sure. I'd like to earn it myself -- in the last few months this has started to become important to me. So I sent in my resume and a cover letter to the employer I had while I was pregnant with Chloe. They're likely not hiring until the summer/fall so that may or may not pan out. In the meantime though, I also plan to commit at least 2 hours a day to my writing and hopefully be able to get a publishing deal.

I have no idea if I'll get one and I have no idea how much money it'll bring in, but at least I know I'll have done something to contribute financially to my trip. If neither of these endeavours yields anything concrete by the end of June I will try other methods to raise the money.

Of course I also plan on doing any little things I can in the meantime like having a garage sale or trying to find an odd job here or there. I'm quite determined to raise the money for this myself. It'll be a challenge for sure, but I think I'm up to it!

Your Local Paper

As you read below, G and I are working towards being more responsible with our money. One of the things we have decided to start doing is to save up for large purchases before actually spending the money and since we have several large purchases on the horizon, this means tightening our belts for the next few months.

One of the things we had decided to do this year was to have a monthly date night. This has been a wonderful thing for us as a couple and had helped the kids spend more time with their grandparents so it's been a win/win kind of situation. The only downside is that the activities we've chosen have usually run us about 100$ a date night.

Now this month and next month we already have tickets for shows that have been paid for so we're going to enjoy those while we can, but in the meantime I have started looking for ideas for cheaper ways for us to get out both as a couple and as a family. This is where our local paper comes in.

I'm not talking about the big city paper but rather the little free local one that gets delivered to your door once a week and is chock full of flyers and advertisements. You know the one whose sports page covers the local high school volleyball tournament and whose page two story is usually about a really awesome local resident who does volunteer work of some kind.

Well what you might not know, because if you're like me you probably only skim the flyers for your two favourite grocery stores and the local Canadian Tire, is that there is usually also a What's On page where you can find a listing of fun things to do for cheap. There's everything from Apple Festivals to Museum Days, to Home Shows.

Just this past week we found a buy one get one free admission for our local home show which brought the price down from $6.00 to $3.00 (score!) and a series of water conservation/gardening lectures offered for free. Gunther and I will be going out to learn about Vertical Vegetables and Starting from Scratch -- which is a good thing since actually finishing our back yard is one of those big things we're saving for! I'm also signed up for Edible Landscapes (G is on the waiting list) and I'm hoping that these events will not only prove to be fun nights out but will also give us the kick in the pants we need to really get down and dirty in the garden this year.

The next paper comes on Thursday Night/Friday morning. I can't wait to see what's going on in that one!

Chores, Charts and Charity

So now that G and I are going to be more financially responsible as a couple, it's time we start teaching the girls how to be financially responsible as children. We've set up a chore chart for them and promised them a $10/week allowance. Of that money, 2$ is to be put away for saving (at this point we're still a little iffy about what we're saving for) and $1 a week is to be put away for charity. Since we are Atheists we don't tithe so we're going to have to figure out which charity the girls would like to support. I'm thinking something that is centered around other children or possibly animals. They'd like that.

I'd also like to start getting them involved in volunteering. I personally think social responsibility is terribly important and I have done some kind of volunteering throughout the years. The only time I wasn't volunteering was when the girls were very young and while I probably should have fit something in during that time, I'm not going to beat myself up for it either.

So now the trick will be to find something that the girls can do for their community. I'd prefer it to be something organized but if I can't find anything then we can always do trash walks once a week I suppose. I'm fairly sure that they'll be welcome to do some weeding and gardening at school once the weather warms. I'll do some research and discuss options with the principal if nothing else seems to pop up.

I think it'll be good for them and teach them that getting involved is a good way to support your community and to make friends and important connections. I know that they will have mandatory volunteer hours once they get to high school and if we start getting them used to donating their time now, it'll be painless for them in a couple of years when they have to do it for school credit.