Tricia's Musings

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



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Still trying to cut expenses

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I’m still working on cutting expenses. I don’t know how successful I’m being but I’m working on it. These things do take time. Well they can take time unless you have absolutely no money and then you absolutely have to start cutting expenses – right?

The trouble is I think I’ve always been pretty good at cutting corners and cutting expenses so I don’t know how much further I can go other than cutting out the very few luxuries that I allow myself. Luxuries to me are having cable tv and paying for things like the movie channel. If I couldn’t do this I wouldn’t … but since I’ve been home sick on medical leave (for a long time), the days are long and sometimes kind of lonely … TV does make good company as sad as I am to admit that.

Someone had suggested that I use Hulu or Netflix but I’m in Canada and well .. being in Canada I can’t use Hulu and Netflix Canada isn’t really up to par. I was checking it out and a lot of the TV shows it carries don’t have current seasons and the movies look older. So that idea doesn’t work. I wish there was a good Canadian option.

I’ve even been thinking of changing my life insurance company … so I’m going to compare annuity rates and see if I can find a better rate.

Let’s see, other things I’m doing to cut expenses – as usual are making home cooked meals, growing some of my own vegetables and fruits, my husband takes his lunch to work, we don’t drive our car very often, we walk a lot … Any other ideas?





I want and iPad but I don’t need one

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I keep seeing advertisements for iPads and I can’t help myself – I want one. I’m sure that I really don’t need one. My laptop keeps me busy enough … but oh with the iPad I’d be all the more mobile, it’d be so much more easy to move around and play on the internet. Or so it seems.

Of course, once I start looking online at actual iPads and see the prices and then start adding up all the accessories that I’d probably want to get for it I end up talking myself out of getting one. I mean, just trying to decide between ipad cases alone is mind boggling! LOL

I’m sure I’ll have an iPad or some future version someday, but at this point I just can’t justify the purchase. Of course if I suddenly come into a lot of extra money or something well … maybe …

Do you have an iPad or have you been toying with the idea of getting one?

Celebrating ten years in our home

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My husband and I recently celebrated our tenth anniversary in our house. I was surprised a few months ago when papers arrived in the mail notifying us that it was time to renew our mortgage because it certainly didn’t seem like five years had gone by since the last time we’d renewed our mortgage.

Ten years in our home – our first house, has gone by quickly! Midnight – our Lab, just loves the house, the backyard, the grass (rolling in it), and the neighborhood. Just look at those eyes!

Lucky for us, we’re quite happy with our bank and didn’t feel the need to go searching for a new bank to carry our mortgage. When we bought our house in 2001 interest rates were very low so we were advised by our mortgage broker at our bank that a mortgage at a variable rate would probably be very good for us. It certainly was! I can’t tell you how happy we were at the time, seeing as we were quite nervous new home owners who didn’t know if they were going to manage to pay all the bills or not! I think for the first 6 months of our mortgage we our rate was at half a percent below prime and prime at that time was 1% so we were only paying 0.05% interest!

Thanks to the banks initial advice, and I suppose the way the economy has been over the last decade, we’ve been able to stay on a variable mortgage at a very low interest rate. We’ve saved a lot of money because of their recommendations.

This time when we were renewing our mortgage all we had to do was make a phone call to the bank. Don’t you love that? I mean, they had sent us the paperwork so we could see all of the various terms and we could decide between taking a 2, 5, or 10 year mortgage at varying rates. We simply called up our contact at the bank and asked a few questions and within a few minutes he’d set our minds at ease, lowered the rate on the mortgage term that we were interested in, and all we had to do was sign the paperwork and fax it back to him. Easy!

We’re all set for another five years and if by chance the interest rates start to sky rocket upwards we can always lock in. We made sure of that! Oh and the next time we have to renew our mortgage we’ll only have two years or less left to go on it and then we’ll own our house! Of course, between now and the next seven years we might want to move and start all over again in a new house. I guess we’ll wait and see what happens.

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1. “Disclosure: Compensation was provided by SunTrust via Glam Media”
2. “The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of SunTrust”


I can’t believe it’s almost December!

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I can’t believe how fast the year has gone by. Christmas is what, less than 6 weeks away?

As usual, we haven’t started doing any of our Christmas shopping. In fact, I don’t think we’ll be doing much Christmas shopping this year. Chris came home from work last Friday with news that he’s going to be laid off for another two weeks at the end of December so we won’t be spending much money this year!

We do have a couple of friends and relatives with young kids and babies. I think we’ll concentrate on getting baby christmas presents and then see how we stand financially as to whether we can afford to get gifts for anyone else. Hey if we can’t we can’t … I know our friends and relatives will understand. We certainly don’t expect any gifts and won’t be upset if we don’t get anything.

All we really want for the holidays is for our friends and relatives (and ourselves) to be happy and healthy.

Wants versus Needs – particularly when there’s no money to spare

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Every few months I keep going over this mental list of things that I want.

The list keeps growing of course because the needs outweigh the wants in rank of importance or at least that’s what I keep trying to tell myself. Yet that list keeps growing.

I’m sure you know what I mean. On the list of needs are things like groceries, utility bills (heating, electricity, phone, cable) prescription medicine, mortgage payments and so on.

On the list of wants are things like occasionally ordering in for dinner, buying a new computer or laptop, maybe getting an iPad, getting a new cellphone (I’d love an iPhone) oh and I’ve been saying for years that I can’t believe we’re pretty much the only people on the block without MP3 players. LOL

I’m sure I could list a lot more needs and wants – especially wants – like walking through the grocery store and “wanting” to pick out a lot more of the often higher priced items that I really like, but don’t because we’re on a tight budget … but you get the drift.

One thing that’s kind of halfway between a want and a need is new clothes. A lot of my clothes are on the old side. I haven’t been on a shopping spree for quite a while and there’s definitely a few items that need replacing.

There’s also the fact that the new medicine I’m on for my migraines, Topamax, sometimes has a side effect of making people lose their appetite and thus makes them lose weight. That’s already happened to me (three weeks in) and while I haven’t weighed myself, I think I’ve lost at least 5 pounds if not closer to 10 if the looseness of my clothes is any indication. If this keeps up I’m going to need to get new clothes soon whether I like it (or can afford it) or not.

Do you struggle with wants versus needs? Particularly if you are on a tight budget?

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