The Big Picture / Out the Window

I stood in the aisle at Canadian Tire and freaked the eff out. "$25 for varnish? Where is that money coming from?"

I stormed out the door and stomped all the way home (fortunately, not very far away - my poor knees!). We needed the varnish, but certainly not as much as Scott needed new shoes, and we have a road trip coming up, not to mention it's now wedding season... life just felt really expensive. Even though part of me knew that we had a plan in place for all of this, I just couldn't SEE how we could make ends me.

I'm a highly visual person. I was the kid that - when learning about the different bones in the body - pulled out the skeleton from the Halloween decorations, and made a came out of labeling each bone with sticky-notes. Why it had never occurred to me to make a giant poster of our budget is beyond me. But that's how Scott & I spent our Saturday night - making giant posters.

Now, when I stand in the aisle at Canadian Tire and freak out over the cost of varnish, I visualize the poster: "We have $50 set a side each month for household items. That is where this money will come from." And even better, when we want to do something, but life feels oh so very expensive, we made a poster of all the free/cheap things we can do in the city. Now, we have no excuse for yelling at each other over money or sitting at home, bored, on a weekend!

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Do you ever get the urge to just throw your clothes out the window? No, just me? That's fine, it works well into my "Curating My Closet" plan, anyway! I'm finding the more my brain gets wrapped around the idea of getting rid of something on a regular basis, the easier it is to weed through my closet to get rid of stuff. Don't love it? Don't need it!

Why did I buy it? 

Well, I didn't so much buy it as make it. I wanted a cropped sweater and this pattern was super easy to make. So easy, I made one for me and one for my sister. Rumour has it she doesn't like it, and has never worn it.

Why did it work?

It was easy! And it was cropped! And I made it!

Why didn't it work?

During the bedbug fiasco of 2011, it got washed with a number of colours and is a weird swampy white colour now.  It was also a bit more of a chunky knit than I had wanted. The good news is that making another one will solve both of those problems!

How did I wear it?

With what we've got

Of Scott and I, I am certainly the more financially minded of the two of us. While he likes to spend his spare time gaming, I spend mine researching. With having some significant liberty over the last couple weeks, I spent a good deal of time researching the cost of being adults. Sure, I've legally been considered an adult for 10 years, but with both of us embarking on careers in the next 6 months, we're finally starting to feel like adults, or at least feeling the weight of the responsibilities that come with adulthood.

We've been playing: "it'll get better" for a long time. We saved aggressively for Scott's tuition. We slammed the bank account doors shut when I quit my job. For years, it feels like we've been doing with out, saying now, and just biding our time until "it gets better." While we are now starting to breathe a sigh of relief financially with me being in a steady, secure, and supportive job, a new reality is hitting us.

Financial security doesn't mean financial freedom.

Our parents appear to be financially comfortable. Both sets have relatively comparatively large houses (4 bedrooms, attached garages, air conditioning), with new (and planned) upgrades from granite counter tops to bamboo flooring. They travel as much as they would like. Their cars are in good condition, even if they aren't exactly new. For much of our life, we have enjoyed freeloading off of their financial fortune, and have always expected we would have a life much the same... once it got started.

And now, being at the precipice of "adulthood," we are realizing a very important lesson. It takes time and effort to get to that financial situation. What we don't remember are the years our parents worked to save money for down payments on homes; when they crossed their fingers, stuck out their tongue, and held their breath, hoping their car would still start; when they sacrificed trips to Europe, fancy dinners out and designer clothing in order to provide us with food and shelter.

With two incomes looming on the future, we could be in the position to take exotic trips, buy fancy clothes (or comic books), and go out every weekend. Or, we could be in the position to purchase a house, trade in our two rust buckets for one reliable, practical car, and start saving for our children's future. But unless we start buying (and winning) lottery tickets, we can't have it all.

While we feel like we've been depriving ourselves for these last few years, we took a moment to look around this last weekend. For so long, we've been focusing on what we've been missing out on, what we feel we deserve. But it was obvious - we have a lot for which we should be thankful. We spent our Saturday traipsing across the city, donating our excess goods to charity, purchasing our new patio set with the last of our wedding money, and eating out at our favourite restaurant before spending the evening playing with our niece. Sure, weekends like these are few and far between (well not the free babysitting part), but we have no reason to complain.

The big house? The car that doesn't squeak at every stop sign, corner or crack in the road? The trip across the big ocean? Those things will come. And when we've had to work hard to get them, we'll appreciate them all the more. For now, we're going to be happy with what we've got, because when it comes down to it, we do have a lot.

When every penny counts

Our current "Saving plan" :P

My sister made the hyperbolic claim that 1/8th of a $60,000 was barely any money. Of course, in context, this 1/8th of $60,000 was being weighed against intangible factors, such as time, stress, the value of a human life etc. And you know, now that I think about it, it may have been 1/8th of $16,000 but in the fight that followed that conversation, I may have gotten confused. Sigh. Sisters. However, it got me to thinking.

1/8th of $60,000 is $7500. Assuming this was an annual salary, that is $625 a month. For some, this is barely anything. For me, well, it's more than I make right now, so it seems like a fortune. In any event, let's say you hid $625 in your mattress every month for 18 years. You would have $135,000 ignoring inflation, and interest. Certainly, there are few that can bat an eye at that number. For $135,000 you can put 2 kids through a 4-year university degree, including living expenses (based on the University of Manitoba's estimated cost for a full-time first year student). You can take something tangible, and turn it into something intangible - the future potential of two people.

But $625 is still a lot of money. So I started thinking a lot smaller. I don't buy a lot of coffee - maybe 3 cups a month. As a result, I tend to splurge on a Tall Decaf White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks, coming in a $4.54. However, since our "Sunday Morning Coffee Runs," when we had a large gift certificate from Tim Hortons (conveniently located across the street from us), I've been drinking a lot of French Vanilla. I can get a medium French Vanilla for less than $1.50. Sure, it tastes a little different, but it is the same calories and the same sugar, and we all know that its sugar that I'm after when I'm buying one of these drinks.At 3 drinks a month, over a course of a year, going for Timmies is over $100 cheaper than Starbucks. Not being a coffee aficionado, coffee out of a paper cup tastes the same, so why not save $100 a year?

If it takes virtually no effort to make one change and save $100 a year, imagine how many other small changes can save that much as well!

Some more easy money saving ideas*:

•  Make your own wine (a good kit runs $90, and makes almost 30 bottles. My favourite wine retails for $10 a bottle, so that's a savings of $210)
•  Hang your laundry to dry (We end up paying $1.50 a load, as the super cheap machine doesn't get it done in one cycle. At, say, 2 loads a week for clothing, that's a savings of $156 a year)
•  Bring your lunch to work (A Subway sub is $3.50, whereas a sandwich comes in at less than $2.00 when made at home. That's a savings of $390 a year)
•  Ride the bus rather than paying for parking (In Winnipeg, an adult bus pass is $77 a month, whereas parking can cost $145 a month, saving you $816 a year, not to mention gas, wear and tear on vehicle, and cab rides when your block heater dies in the middle of winter)
•  Sign up for Netflix rather than cable ($8/mth vs. $34.90/mth saves you $320 a year)

All together, small changes can save you almost $2000 a year - almost enough for a week long, all-inclusive trip for two to Cancun! (Scott says for the men in the crowd, $2000 a year is almost 7 XBOXes)

What small changes have you made / would you like to make to stretch your money further? What would you spend your savings on?

*all ideas are based on prices available in Winnipeg, and are more for interest than financial advice.