Random thoughts

Happy Saturday, folks – I hope all is well, safe, and enjoying today.

I have not been blogging as much as I want, but I hope to write more in the coming days. The more I write, the more I understand. The more I understand, the better I get. Life also gets more exciting 🙂

Anyways.

My antidepressant dosage is working and I feel great again. That is, my friends, priceless.

My work performance eventually got to the level prior to my mom’s passing in Fall 2021. I am quite satisfied with that. Being content with oneself is important, isn’t it? One more thing to be grateful of.

Spring is around the corner. We have more and more bright sky-days that give me hope and energy. I must say though that I will miss snow and cool weather. It was great to walk on snow and breathe in cool weather. It does soothe my nerves. How about you? I know many people who would not like Winter. That is okay, my friends, as long as we like something about some weather/season.

I got my taxes done a few weeks ago, and for the first time in my life, I got a good return that I did not expect. So, I was naturally happy, but also feel feared, feeling like maybe we missed something during the filing process (I hope not). I used the return to make a mortgage pre-payment and then to complete paying off my Home Buyers Plan (Canadian folks would know this – it is basically an interest free loan from my own RRSP, an investment tool for retirement). This means folks, I have only my mortgage left to pay off to own my house.

Unless something catastrophic happens, I plan to pay off my mortgage at the end of the term this Fall. I will use a part of my TFSA investments to complete it. I am excited about this. I am VERY excited about this. It is too early to get happy about this, but I think of the times that I first purchased my home and how financially it changed my life. I was not abundant and feeling rich anymore. I rather felt like unless I took charge of my spendings, I could end of being in more debt than the mortgage. So drastic cuts followed, and I am glad, it did. Now, I have a life long habit of being resourceful and abundant while also protecting my money and maximizing its value.

My foster cat Mona is still with me and I could not be happier. Everyday with her is a blessing. She truly heals me. Mentally, emotionally. May she have a great, long, happy, and healthy life free of suffering, dirty litter boxes, and cruel people around.

Well, these are what I have got at the time being. You all stay well and safe, my friends. Talk to you next time 🙂

all the good things – check

• getting my thooth filling fixed – check
• walking during the day for 20 min – check
• deciding to work tomorrow to clear some outstanding work – check

I am not very enthusiastic about this, but then it is good for me as I am behind many things nowadays. I can always take a rest later, especially on Sunday. Looking forward to it

• sharing some plants with my colleagues – check

this always feels good 🙂 Some of my friends with whom I had shared plants expressed how positively the plants changed the feeling of their offices/home, and I believe in them. What a fantastic feeling to be able to help spread the power of plants to others. Today I was also given a couple of baby plants that I cherish 🙂 This also feels great 🙂

• learning the importance of context dependency better with the help of a plate – check

a couple of weeks back I had purchased some second hand plates from thrift stores to be used to collect the water underneath the pots/planters I have. One of them, even though has this wonderful green colour, had not fit well any of my pots so I had decided to give it away. Today I tried it with the new pot I was gifted with a plant and to my cheerful surprise, it just fit so wonderfully – both in size and in colour. I almost got tearful with joy! I was about to get rid of it just because I did not have a use for it and I was feeling quite bad about purchasing/owning it 🙂 It is all fixed nice and easy now 🙂

• having a strong and pain-free lower back and no physical problems at the time being – check

very grateful!

• being gifted with some pastries by a friend this morning – check

this was a wonderful gesture on my friend’s side. They were delicious and I ate all of them in the morning. They absolutely lifted my energy levels up and made me feel good. I think this example showed me once again the importance of breakfast and the need to start having regular breakfast. It sure will help me go through the stress and heavy work much easier. I am of course highly appreciative of my friend for thinking about me and helping my body and mind nourish with her kind gesture

• starting a new task that I have been delaying lately – check

I am behind many things, but once I start I often follow. So I was happy to start this work this evening – it is going to be finished 🙂 Yay!

• not having any shopping plans this weekend – check

I am too busy to shop… I love shopping but it is not good for my purse. Plus, I appreciate it more when I have a break from it for a while. All is good 🙂

• seeing my succulents props doing well – check

these plants are a bundle of joy 🙂 seeing that they grow roots and little plants out of mere leaves is a miraculous feeling. I may have killed a couple a long the way but generally speaking my succulents are doing well 🙂

• getting good opinions on my quest to find out what is the best thing to do when you have two options both of which are the correct (or incorrect) roads to choose – check

thanking the blogger friend for her valuable comment. I sure am thinking like her and this gives me a sound base to work on.

 

 

 

 

multi-purposed items are very useful :)

I like having items (such as in the kitchen) that I can use for multiple purposes. For example,  glass mixing bowl can be used for serving salad as well as for mixing items together. I also like to use items for different or multiple purposes so that my home will not be cluttered and I will have a more or less resourceful daily life. Good examples could be using shopping bags as garbage bin liner, old clothes/t-shirts as cleaning cloths, and my shopping cart.

The shopping cart I have was purchased almost 15 years ago when I was in Toronto. It is not big and also foldable, so it is a practical item. It was incredibly useful in carrying groceries which I often bought from the Kensington place. Carrying a cart full of groceries and walking from there to my home (around 20 mins of distance on foot) was easy and peasy.

When I moved from Toronto to where I live right now, I got it transported with my furniture but I do not remember using it for grocery at all. While decluttering my home a couple of years ago I considered donating it but later decided that I could rather use it as a container for extra items in the laundry room. It serves this purpose very well.

Today I used it for shopping! My yard has some uneven surfaces, particularly on the sides. I have been planning to fill these parts with soil so that my yard would look wider and I could have flowers lining my yard. This weekend I noticed that the garden soil wason sale (buy one, get one free; hello!). I was skeptical at first because they looked heavy and I do not have a car to transport them home. I did not want to ask my friends to help me with it, either. Then, I came up with the idea of using my shopping cart and voila! I bought four bags of 30L of soil in two store visits. Bags were heavy and I still had a difficult time lifting them and placing in the cart and pulling the cart to home. But it is all worth it – I placed the soil on my yard and I can see myself planting flower seeds in that area next year!

I cannot wait! 🙂

I could not make this happen today should I have not decided to be resourceful and use that cart for another purpose 🙂

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gifs by:https://giphy.com/gifs/90s-80s-grunge-zTQQPJXn1j8Jy;

 

 

 

resourcefulness and reducing waste

You know I love being resourceful, self-sustaining, and reducing waste.

I am not 100% in any of these, but I do try; nowadays better than before. 

I cut out an old t-shirt and will use the pieces to clean my bath tub. I was not gonna use this t-shirt, it was not in good enough shape to be donated, and I could not let it fill the landfill just yet (horrible, I know… ). So, why not to use it as a cleaning cloth? Of note, it will still go back to landfill after I use it, which makes my heart tightened somehow. When are we going to have bio-degradable clothes?

I have a large amount of plastic shopping bags. I made the decision to rather use a canvas purse during shopping. The last few weeks that is what I have been doing and it is going well. My aim is to keep doing this until I have something like 20 of them left. I re-use these bags as garbage bin liner, so not getting new ones after that will not be feasible, but still at least I will be able to make use of what I already have and save the companies and earth some plastic bags. Feeling good, however little that can be.

One thing I am missing is composting. I have been meaning to do this the last 9 years, but honestly I cannot think about it during winter (when we get a lot of snow and me going in to back yard is usually prevented by the snow at the back door). I thought today that perhaps I can do that only during spring-fall when weather is permissive. That sounds good to me and I will be checking on internet to see what practical options I do have. 

 

 

 

on being self-sustaining

Since I started baking my own bread last year, I have been feeling more “able“. 

Bread has always been my favorite food. Strange enough after I started baking my own loaves, the amount of bread I consumed has reduced. How strange… I wonder whether it being a natural product with no additives or chemicals has anything to do with this? Anyways, I am proud of the fact that within the last one year I did not buy any store-made bread; I only consumed my own, mostly the precious sourdough loaves. Talking about the joy of baking and the happiness coming out of it 🙂

Anyways, when I bought my sewing machine last November, I thought it was an additional step towards being resourceful and a self-sustaining life-style. I was planning to sew my own blouses, which I have failed so far, but one day I will do this. This and others, like sewing quilt, doing repairs (which I have), and sewing cloths/placemats to be used around the house (which I have, too) will keep me feel independent and able. It feels good indeed.

We may not realize but there are so many ways that even someone like me, who does not like  house chores, demonstrates the ability to self-sustain. Consider cooking at home and feeding ourselves, cleaning our own houses, taking care of the yard (boy, thinking about cutting the grass… argh… one thing that I really dislike, but keep doing anyhow), dyeing our own hair to name a few. I feel so again when I walk to or from the office, or to the shopping malls, instead of taking the bus or the cab.  By walking I freely transport myself and relax at the same time. Do you not think that we in fact all are, to some degree, independent of others/stores/services and rather are self-sustaining?

I have spent sometime reading posts about homesteading this evening. I have no practical interest in homesteading myself as a single and middle aged city girl, but I sure enjoy reading about the daily lives of the homesteaders, their farming adventures, issues, and relationships with nature. My current life and level of sustainability is no-where near the homesteaders’ life, but I am doing way better than many people living in a mid-size city. I guess even though I do not realize it well, I happen to have a kind of simple, affordable, and sustainable life that I must be excited about 🙂

 

gif by:https://giphy.com/gifs/flower-qkeGZ2VqV381G

objectives and money

I have been on an exciting and fun adventure of finding ways to spend less, cutting my expenses, and saving more and feeling great about all of these.

It has been a year that I started this adventure – the beginning of last June. According to my calculations I have saved around $7K within the last year, which is awesome.

How did I do it?

The main reason for me was to need it. My motivation came from having the ownership of an old house that can require serious repairs anytime. As a matter of fact, the second week I moved into my home my roof started to leak from multiple places. It took me around a year to get it fixed and when it was fixed, my chequing account was in the negatives.

I could sell the house, which I many times considered, but then I did not. I like it, the neighbourhood, the yard, and how easy it makes my life. Long story short, I decided rather to cut my expenses and get rid of the “I am penniless” feeling.

The majority of my life I have had a frugal life style. So re-assessing priorities and implementing shopping bans (on items like books I used to buy every weekend), taking the bus rather than the cab, following the sales and designing my meals around the items on sale, stocking up when other products are on sale, having a “no waste” policy in effect, making my own bread and eating out less than before, looking for ways to further reduce my unnecessary expenses by either being resourceful or by saying “no” have all been very useful.

Now my chequing account is healthy and I have a great budget that works wonders for me. I have one lump sum payment for an investment plan coming up next month, which I have already saved since the new year. I am hopeful that after that, I will be able to save a nice sum of money till the end of this year.

I have been thinking about what to do with the savings…..

I am one of these people who is motivated by having a clear objective and working towards it by frequent monitoring. The progress makes me excited and keeps me motivated. So, since I have reached my objective (i.e. having a healthy chequing account balance), I have been craving for my next financial objective.

I have maximized my regular RRSP, I have increased my payment for the HBP (home buyer’s plan) re-payments, and I am steadily saving and investing in my TFSA account. I have not maximized my TFSA yet; I had used a portion of it as down payment.But in three years or so, it will be maximized, too. I am not worried about maximizing it at this time, so I guess I am more inclined towards reducing my mortgage with my savings. That is my next big objective – exciting! 🙂

So far I have not made lump-sum payments to my mortgage, but that time is now coming. Yesterday, I estimated that with my current saving rate and without a hazardous expense, I will be able to save around 5K till the new year. I have been contemplating about this, and I decided to use it towards my mortgage principal. Since I am planning to increase my mortgage payments in September, when I hope will get a salary increase, altogether till the end of my term (I have 3 years), I will be able to drop the mortgage by a total of $12,800.

My aim is to make other lump-sum payments till the end of the term. The number I have in my mind is to reduce my mortgage by an additional  $7,200 during the term, totaling the extra payments to $20K. This is an ambitious but an exciting plan 🙂 I am pretty sure I can find a way to do this.

Do I think I can come up with this amount?

Yes, I can. I love being frugal and resourceful, and I love making good choices about my spending and money. Unless something drastic shows up I should be able to reach my goal…

Let’s cross the fingers – it is possible that the salaries may be reduced due to the problems in the economy. I hope not, but if it does happen, the mortgage plan may fail. Or, I will have to find additional ways to save more and reduce that mortgage. Exciting times :))