Top 10 tips on wow to save money and live green – part 1

09. May 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Cleaning, Clothing, Green

Earth flag PD

Okay, I’ll freely admit I’m a little behind in putting this up as it’s past Earth Day. But it can never hurt to both save money and live green. So here are some tips to help you out:

  • Wash clothes in cold water. You may have to manually change your setting on the washer to do this, but it’s well worth it. Clothes end up just as clean and you don’t pay to heat the water up.
  • Make your own household beauty or cleaning products. Baking soda and vinegar work great on a variety of stains and dirt, and used toothbrushes are great for scrubbing everything from baseboards to windowsills.
  • Buy secondhand clothes. Saves things from going into the landfill, and you can often find stuff with the tags still on them! I’ve bought everything from a dress to wear to a funeral to a “Zombie Walk” costume at a thrift store.
  • Use low energy appliances. This one is pretty self explanatory. :)
  • Cut out paper and plastic waste. Bring your own cloth bags to the grocery store. Sign up to receive your bills online (but not if this means you won’t remember to pay them!).  Try to get removed from junk mail lists that don’t interest you.

Tune in tomorrow for part 2 of this post!

What do you do to live green and save money?

Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

I splurged – and it was nice

24. July 2012 · 5 comments · Categories: Cleaning, Impulse Shopping · Tags: , , ,

And only a bit guilt inducing. :) Here is my tale of splurging. Note to guys – they were fairly girly splurges, so this may not interest you. :)

The first splurge was a pedicure. Now, I went for the basic pedicure instead of the spa one, but it still ran me 35.00 dollars.  I know there are plenty of Wagjag, Groupon, etc options for these, but I ended up booking it on rather short notice. A friend of mine who lives far away was only in town for a few days, and she really wanted to get a pedicure and catch up. So, I just booked it at the spa by me, and didn’t worry too much about trying to hunt around to get a deal. It was more important to me to go somewhere I liked and knew we could chat (they have 2 pedicure chairs, side by side), than save some money.  And now my toe nails are lovely purply pink, with just a touch of sparkle to them.

The second splurge was a dress. I did try several second hand shops while looking for dresses, but I only managed to find one. So I hit Winners last week and found this awesome blue dress.  It wasn’t crazy expensive, but it wasn’t bargain bin either. And I’ll have to pay to have it tailored because it doesn’t fit right across the shoulders.  However – it makes me feel like I stepped out of Mad Men.  :)   And that makes it *so* worth it.

I don’t spend a lot on clothes, but I’m still trying to justify the cost to myself.  However, I’ve already taken it in to get it tailored, so it’s not like I can take it back now.

What do you splurge on? Do you feel guilty when you splurge? Even if you actually needed the item?

 

Feeling deprived? Try cleaning out your basement!

17. July 2012 · 9 comments · Categories: Cleaning · Tags: , , ,

Last weekend Mr. Canuck Buck and I did a task that we’ve been putting off forever – we started going through our stuff in the basement. We have several bookshelves that started off relatively tidy and organized, but slowly started getting disorganized with things just thrown here and there.  We  took everything off the shelves, and divided it up into piles as follows:

1. Stuff we want to keep – favourite books, movies, etc.

2. Stuff we don’t want to keep, and will try to sell and make a few bucks off.

3. Stuff we don’t want to keep, but someone else may enjoy – we’ll donate.

4. Stuff that is just junk – such as old VCR tapes we recorded stuff, but will never use again.

Going through all this stuff made us realize – we own a lot of DVDs! I think it’s important to take stock every now and then of what you own – it makes you more aware and appreciative, and hopefully will curb the urge to purchase anything new (at least for a bit).

The other thing we did was go through photo albums – labeling, putting things back in where they were originally, and figuring out what we need to make prints of (we haven’t printed anything since 2009!).  I’ve been feeling a bit sorry for myself as I don’t think we’ll be taking any big trips this year -  but looking through all my old albums made me realize just how much traveling I’ve already done in my life.

So, now everything is tidily organized and looks much nicer. We have some empty shelves we’ll try to *leave* empty, and we now have a nice pile of movies we’d forgotten about that will keep us busy over the summer.

Are you good about going through all the stuff you own every now and then? Does it help you reign in the urge to buy more stuff?

50% off clothing at Salvation Army this Friday April 27th (Ontario only)

25. April 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Cleaning, Sales · Tags: , ,

If you like thrift store shopping, and saving money- and live in Ontario – then this sale is for you!

It’s 50 percent off ALL clothing at Ontario Salvation Army locations. And there’s also not HST on used clothing!

I’ve been meaning to do some shopping – this may finally get my butt in gear! My local store is open til 9, but you may want to double-check the hours for yours at www.thriftstore.ca.

You can check out the Ontario Facebook page for the Salvation Army as well: http://www.facebook.com/OntarioThriftStores

Happy shopping! If you’re interested, please check one of my earlier posts on thrift store shopping.

How spring cleaning can inspire you to save money

11. April 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Cleaning, Impulse Shopping · Tags: , ,

I took some of Good Friday to do a “semi” Spring Clean.  That means I was too lazy to do a really thorough clean on everything, but did take the time to try and do some extras, such as dusting the baseboards, top of doors, bookshelves, etc. I’ll freely confess that I don’t really like cleaning, but I can’t justify paying someone to do it for me, nor do I have any health issues that prevent me from doing it.

I realized something when I was cleaning.  I own a lot of stuff! I always think of myself as not really owning that much stuff – but I think I’ve been in denial.  Now, it’s not a ridiculous amount of stuff, but still – Mr. Canuck Buck and I do own a lot of DVDs, books, video games, and so on.  And I don’t think I’d truly realized this until I had to clean in and around them!

I’ve written a few other posts on impulse shopping, although my weakness is generally more food than stuff.  I must confess though that I also like to buy video games. I own all of the following:

  • A Nintendo DS
  • A Wii
  • A PS2
  • A Kinect (including XBox)

I don’t even have the excuse of having kids to blame it on. I do have nieces and nephews that use them when they come over), but really, I bought them for me.  And I do like to buy games for these systems.

My goal is to really cut down on the amount of buying. I was interested in the new Star Wars Kinect game, but my brother in law recently picked it up, so I’ll just wait and borrow it from him later on.  Also, since I recently discovered the library stocks video games, I’ll try to borrow from there instead of just out and out buying things.

So, the next time you’re having the urge to go out and buy something, don’t just go and take a look at what you already own.  Try cleaning it and see if this helps inspire you!

Have you ever found that cleaning helps inspire you not to buy things? What about it has done this (e.g. just realizing you own a lot of stuff, finding things you didn’t know you owned?)

 

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