Car-Free February and links

We’ve barely spent on transportation in January and February. I’ve been taking long walks and the occasional SkyTrain trip but even then, sometimes I skip the Skytrain and just get an extra hour of walking in. Great that we are saving money but sad that we haven’t visited family in the ‘burbs since Christmas. We do get some brief visits in when family come downtown for events and make use of our guest parking. Not sure fifteen minute conversation while returning parking pass counts as quality family time. Need to get some visits in!

Check out our transportation spending in the last two months here. We’re saving hundreds right now. I’m glad we are tracking now because I know there will be bigger transportation spend months in our future. Chris’s summer touring schedule is coming together and Henry and I are excited to go on the road. Car rentals on the horizeon. But, these will be vacation rentals. There is even a plan that we might fly out and meet Chris on the road and then rent a car. Is that transportation or travel? I’ll be asking for opinions as we get closer to it.

To recap from the spreadsheet, our net for the last two months:

January 2011: + $287.50

February 2011: + $312.50

I like those numbers.

links you might like

Unexpected Parenting Costs: SF Gate columnist, Lisa Schmeiser, details how she planned for everything but heating costs when she got pregnant. I can relate. The month after Henry was born our heating bills was $180 – usually a winter bill tops out at $60. We kept it tropical for me as a new nursing mom and for Henry’s new baby comfort. After the jaw-dropping bill we became vigilante about turning heating off everywhere but the bedroom at night. During the day we just turned heat on in the rooms we spent the most time in. We were back to the $60 bill the following month.

Adaptu and ManvsDebt $1000 challenge: I mentioned it on Monday but if you are looking to commit to debt reduction, here is your chance. You don’t have to bare it all like me, just enter your first name and zip code. If you need more motivation they also have a debt crushing forum and you can ask Adam Baker of ManvsDebt questions directly.

Life and love as a twin: Katy was selected as a contributor for the Pas de Deux series on love at Ophelia’s Web. They were looking for unconventional non-romantic love stories: her snapshot of life as a twin and the rocky ups and downs of it made the cut. Go have a read and learn about how we didn’t speak for a year but are now back to being best friends.

Photo Credit

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The Simple Guide to Meal Planning

This is a guest post from the amazing slow cooker Queen, Jo of SimplyBeingMum. Jo and I have been blog friends from the first few posts of this blog. She is an inspiration in so many ways: self employed, meal planning and slow cooker guru, a fan of minimalism while still having a weak spot for sentimental stuff (we all have our Kryptonite – mine is kitchen gadgets and serving platters) and mother of two young children. I pleaded with her for some meal planning help and she answered. Here it is:

The Simple Guide to Meal Planning by simplybeingmum

Photo credit: WhitneyinChicago

Meal Planning can seem a daunting task, and yet by following this simple guide, I guarantee you will save time, money and effort, and ultimately reduce waste.

By Meal Planning you will:

1. Save Time – No more wandering round the store with no direction, or wondering what to cook for dinner that night. No emergency trips to the store for ingredients you don’t have, or ad hoc dinners out due to lack of supplies.
2. Save Money – By only buying what you plan to eat and resisting impulse purchases, you will save money. There is no doubt. You also reduce costs by not throwing away unused foodstuffs.
3. Save Effort – Being disorganised requires more effort than being organised (in the long-run), you know what you are eating and when, you can prep in advance and it requires less decision-making on a daily basis.
4. Reduce Waste – It is estimated that in the UK 8.3m tonnes of food each year gets thrown away by households. This equates to almost £700 a year of food waste for an average family. By reducing this waste in real terms the CO2 impact would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 4 cars the road. (* source www.lovefoodhatewaste.com)

Six Simple Steps to Meal Planning

debt busting March

2010 was a banner year in debt busting for us. It was epic.

In February of 2010 we were $81,607 in debt. By November of 2010 the number was down to $24,500. In eight months we paid off $57,107 in debt.

In the last four months we’ve paid off $3,108 and taken it down to $21,392.

It’s been S-L-O-W.