• Home
  • Blog
  • Archives
  • Links
  • About
  • Guest Blogger
  • Contact

Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto

  • Home and Lifestyle
  • Recreation
  • Health Fitness and Beauty
  • Entertainment
  • Web and Technology


You are here: Home / Archives for Culture

Looking for ways to cut expenses

August 10, 2010 by Tricia

If you read my last post you know that we had to bite the bullet and buy a new car. Well a new used car.

I guess we could have waited and gone carless for a while, but with family out of town and my husbands parents getting older (his dad is 82) we feel better having a car at our disposal.

Now thanks to our big, unexpected, purchase we’re not going to have any money to spare for months or perhaps even the next year.

We’re already pretty good about watching how we spend our money, but I’m going to have take another hard look at our bills and spending and see where we can cut. I’m pretty sure we can get a better long distance plan with our phone company, and I can cut out a few things on our cable bill too. I’m also pretty sure I can cut down our grocery bill a little bit as well. I’m sure our savings between all of those things won’t be all that much since we’re pretty careful already, but with any luck I might be able to cut an extra $100 or so. Even that will help.

When it comes time to buy new clothes we can always try an online wholesale apparel store for deals. Oh and we shop at Costco – mainly to fill my many prescriptions, but if we buy more things in bulk we might save a bit there too.

Oh well … I guess we’ll just have to be really careful with our money for a while. I hope nothing else breaks down! We’ve already replaced our washer, drier and a TV this year … The furnace is probably next on our list.





Filed Under: Finance, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Money, Toronto Tagged With: bills, cut costs, cut expenses, new car, save money, spending, wholesale

Our old car broke down – now we have a new one

August 10, 2010 by Tricia

Another busy day .. or rather another busy week!

Last week, Chris was on his last week of holidays and I spent part of the week at home on my own because Chris was off camping with his brother, and the rest of the week was spent traveling out of the city to Brantford twice and going to some friends of ours for a BBQ.

The main reason we went out of town twice was because our car broke down in Brantford. GRRRR … I wish our in-laws had told us that it had broken down, but they didn’t tell us until five days after it had happened. again – Grrrr! Once we tried to get the car fixed we found out that the transmission was shot. It’s apparently pitted and therefore it leaks.

So … rather than putting $3000 into a 14 year old car (it had worked well until this happened) we decided to buy a newer used car. That accounted for our second trip to Brantford as there was a good deal at the used car dealership that’s attached the garage where our old car was being “not” fixed.

Last Friday night we took a few cars for a test drive and decided that a 2006 Pontiac Pursuit would be fine for us. Unfortunately we couldn’t finalize the deal until Monday so Chris had to go back on Sunday night so he could get the ball rolling on Monday morning … then he drove home with the new car on Monday afternoon.

While he was in and out of the house over the last week – or week and a half I noticed how much cleaner the house was without him around … especially the bathroom! I think I finally figured out why we have this odd white spot on the front of the Hansgrohe faucet … it seems he leans over to take a sip of water when he’s brushing his teeth and of course this leaves some toothpaste foam on the edge of the tap. Guys!?!

Anyway … we’ve got our new car now. It was a little more than we can afford … especially since we weren’t expecting to have our other car breakdown like that. Although, given that our old car was 14 years old we had been thinking that we’d need a new car sometime soon. Just not this soon.

Unfortunately we’ve found something wrong with the new car. When Chris came home from work this evening we decided to get the dog and take a drive along the lake. It’s a hot day but we didn’t turn the cars air conditioning on (yes it works). We opened the windows and the back drivers side window wouldn’t open. It had been working when we test drove the car – but now it’s not .. so I guess it must have a loose wire or something.

I guess we’ll have to call the used car dealership tomorrow and see if they’ll fix the back drivers side window. The sales bill says all sales final so I don’t know if they will fix it free of charge or not – but I hope they will as we really can’t afford another expense … plus it’s only right – we find something wrong just 24 hours after buying the car? Yeah they’d better fix it. Hopefully we can get it fixed here rather than driving back to Brantford yet again.

Filed Under: Canada, Family, Finance, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Life with Chris, Toronto Tagged With: broke, broken rear window, dealer, electric, fix, garage, Money, new car, old car, Pontiac Pursuit, spend, transmission, used car, used car dealer, wont go down

A day at the in-laws

August 4, 2010 by Tricia

Just got back from visiting the in-laws and extended family in Brantford. I’m soooo tired!

My husband came back last night from his sisters cottage … a trailer up north and he was as red as a lobster! He’d been partying with his brother and sister for four days. The trailer is in a little town on a lake. Very nice place. Chris says that her sister and her husband almost have their rv loans paid off too. That was fast – they only bought the trailer four or five years ago!

I’m glad he’s home, but we have to scramble to do a bunch of stuff before we get hit with weekend visitors! Chris brother and nephew will be coming to Toronto on Friday. Then we’re going to a baseball game Friday evening and to a barbecue at some friends. I don’t know what’s in store for the rest of the weekend.

Actually we have a visitor right now. Our nephew came back with us from Brantford. He has some Extra work in a series that being filmed downtown tomorrow so he’s staying with us overnight.

Oh and our car broke down! Some plug or module apparently fell out of our transmission on Saturday. My husband had borrowed his parents car to drive up North and his parents had our car. Only problem was they didn’t tell us that our car was sitting in a garage until today! So now that we’ve said yes to the repair a special part has to be ordered and I guess our car won’t be fixed until Friday or Saturday. Nice eh … I wish my mother in law had called me seeing as I was at home. Grrrr!

Well I’d better get to bed soon … tomorrow and probably the next few days are going to be busy!

BTW I heard back from my family doctors office on my head MRI … I’m going to need follow up with my neurologist. My MRI showed Non-Specific changes – whatever that means. See I knew something was wrong with my head.

Filed Under: Canada, Family, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Recreation, Toronto Tagged With: baseball game, BBQ, busy, car broke down, Family, husband, in laws, MRI, Nephew, transmission

One more week of my husbands vacation – will I survive?

July 30, 2010 by Tricia

It’s been a busy week! I think I’m glad the weekend’s here, even though I’m going to be on my own for the next few days.

My husband has been off work for the last two weeks. The first week was a 1 week layoff from work due to budget cuts and this week was the first week of his two week holidays. Yes … he’s off for a total of three weeks!

Since we didn’t make any definite holiday plans (except for this weekend which just got messed up!) we’ve just been hanging out at home.

It’s been nice to have my husband at home, but it’s also thrown me totally off my work schedule. Every time I start to do some work on the computer – usually on one of our many blogs, he comes in and starts asking me questions about something else or suggests that we go out and do something. So my websites have suffered while he’s been off.

We’ve also had a few drop in visitors this week. One was Chris’ nephew and another was a friend from work that hasn’t visited for a long time. I didn’t mind having visitors over, but since I’m still not feeling so great and I’m way behind in my work it did disrupt things to some degree.

I was looking forward to going away this weekend. My husbands friend is having a big 30th wedding anniversary party and I was supposed to go, but since we can’t bring our dog someones got to stay home and take care of her. All I wanted was to go up north and hang out in a cabin (and later at my sister in laws trailer), just lounge in some of the rustic furniture and relax.

Now that I know I’m going to be home on my own for three or four days I’m scrambling to make some plans of my own. I’m going to see if some of my friends want to get together for a spa day or a girls night out (or both). If I can pull it off I think that will make up for not going up north this weekend.

It’s probably better that I stick around home anyway. I’m still not feeling all that well. I’ve been dizzy several times this week and I’ve had a constant migraine that gets worse, than dies down, then gets worse again – but never seems to go away. There’s no news yet on the head MRI that I had last week – hopefully that means that no news is good news.

So what are your plans for the weekend? It’s a long weekend here in Canada so that means we have three days to enjoy some time off.

Filed Under: Canada, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Life with Chris, Socializing, Toronto Tagged With: busy week, cabin, cottage, dizzy, girls night out, girls weekend, go out, head, headache, holidays, husband, interupting, migraine, MRI, no plans, plans, questions, relax, stayed home, suggestion, survive, trailer, underfoot, vacation

Dreading my MRI tomorrow

July 22, 2010 by Tricia

Well tomorrow’s the big day. I go in at 8:45 a.m. for my MRI of my head. I’m not looking forward to the experience!

A couple of years ago I had my first MRI. It was of my lower abdomen. Getting the MRI wasn’t that bad, but the position I had to lie in for about an hour left me with an aching shoulder and threw my back out for a few days afterwords.

At least this time going in, I know to really make sure that I’m comfortable before I have to lie still for an hour.

I think it’s the noise of the MRI machine that I’m dreading the most. It’s like having someone hammer right beside you – continuously. I think I’d rather spend that hour shopping for a treatment for hemorrhoids than endure that sound.

As much as I’m dreading getting the MRI I am glad that I’m finally going to have the test. It was ordered for me because I started having worse headaches, different from the usually headaches and migraines that have plagued me since I was about 12.

I also developed visual disturbances – aural migraines where I see squiggly lines in my peripheral vision that slowly close in and make it very hard for me to see anything clearly for about 30 minutes. In the last couple of weeks I’ve also experienced viewing things with lines going horizontally across them – like a bad photocopy. Believe me when I say it’s very strange to look at your dog covered in lines. LOL

Oh and along with almost constant severe dizziness over the last two weeks I’ve also felt like my ears are blocked or I’ll hear ringing in my ears. I happened to have an appointment with my pain doctor on Tuesday and I told her about the dizziness and all the other strange new symptoms I’ve been experiencing and, like me, she thinks they’re all part of my migraines.

She and my neurologist seem think that I’m having Basilar migraines. Apparently people who have this type of migraine have an even higher chance of having a stroke than those with other types of migraines. Great, eh?

I’m just keeping my fingers and toes crossed that they don’t find anything … or at least nothing serious. Wish me luck!

Filed Under: Chronic Pain, Health Fitness and Beauty, Items to Try, Toronto Tagged With: aural migraine, back of head, basilar migraine, dizziness, dizzy, doctor, dread, hammering sound, head MRI, headaches, horizontal lines, Lines, migraines, MRI, neurologist, squiggly lines, stroke, uncomfortable, visual disturbances

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • …
  • 147
  • Next Page »

Connect with Us

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Categories

Sites of Interest

Useful Links

Eavestrough Cleaning Toronto

Shopping

Gifts, Gadgets,
Books and More!

Recent Posts

  • Is your home well insulated or do you have energy leaks?
  • Pet Safety Tips
  • Top 10 Most Fundamental Yoga Poses For Beginners
  • Will My Interior Décor Stand The Test Of Time?
  • Outdoor Furniture- Spicing Up Your Backyard
  • Ensuring You Have A Good Experience Staying At Hotels With Children
  • Mother’s Day Cookies

Recent Comments

  • Bill on Top 10 Most Fundamental Yoga Poses For Beginners
  • [bonus]old school new body-f4x workout on Why does my husband always bring home the wrong stuff?
  • Rodhe Stevens on 5 Little Known Secrets To Finding Cheap (But Durable) Furniture
  • Julia Carlson on How To Install A Mosaic Tile Kitchen Backsplash
  • Humane Raccoon Deterrent Idea on Helped save a baby raccoon last night

Subscribe


Subscribe to our RSS Feed It's FREE!

Subscribe to Tricia's Musings by Email It's FREE!


Follow me on TWITTER

Find us on Google +



Find us on Facebook



I have two mottos-
1. Live life to the fullest; and
2. Don't have any regrets.

Get More Traffic

Visitors since 2006

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Search this site

Tags

blog blogs camera Canada Chris computer crohns dinner dog Family flower flowers Food friends funny garden Gardening Green Thumb Sunday Health and Fitness Health Fitness and Beauty holiday home Home and Lifestyle house husband IBD Inflammatory bowel disease Internet Music neighbors pain photo photos plants puppy Shopping sick sleep spring Toronto TV Video visit website Wordless Wednesday

Blogs I Visit

  • Say No to Crack
  • BlogTO
  • Casual Slack
  • Captian Picards Journal
  • Rick Mercer

Copyright © 2026 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in