Into 2012

Another week is winding down…it’s been a good week – busy and a little stressful negotiating this crazy winter weather we’re experiencing!

It’s been a lot of fun, though, too!  There’s a little park just a block down from us and it has a perfect little hill that all the neighbourhood kids have been taking advantage of.  Even little M has been wrapping his little gloved hands around the handles of a sled and scooting down the hill.  He always remains frozen on the sled at the bottom of hill for about 30 seconds like he’s just thinking to himself “OK, still alive…”  and then he slowly climbs off and whoops with joy.  One time he pumped one list fist in the air and said “Awesome” and then “Pound, Mommy” holding his little fist out to me.   Hahaha – I live for those moments. 

Miss H, of course, headed straight for the jumps that a few of the dads had fashioned going down the hill.  So fun to watch her flying down the hill and getting some air as she goes over the ramps.  The odd wipeout makes it just that much more exciting! 

Aven has the day off today (the bum).  Apparently it doesn’t work well to back fill homes with frozen clumps of dirt.  So he gets to be home with the kids (the bum).  The only thing harder than getting out of bed in the morning at 4:00am is getting out of bed at 4:00am while your partner is still snoring and knowing that they get to sleep in.   I glance up at the bedroom window while I trudge out the backdoor into the freezing cold and say a small prayer that the kids will wake up extra early that day.  Love you, honey!

One thing that’s been occupying my mind lately is the challenge to lower our grocery bill this year.  I’m not a crazy couponer – never have been, never will be – this has to do mostly with the fact that I never remember to use them.  I have a hard time remembering to use the ones that are right there in the store next to the product.  No, this grocery expense tightening is going to happen just by not buying stuff we don’t need.  No junk food, no extras that we’re not going to eat.   We’ve set a preliminary budget that I’m trying to stick to.  I make up a menu for the week – mostly trying to use meat and other staples we already have in the house – take into account what I need for lunches that week and then try to get it for as cheap as possible.  And did I mention that I also try to buy organic everything?!  Not easy, let me tell you.  So this week, I had my list all ready to go – I get most of the staples, milk, eggs, etc delivered by SPUD every Friday and then pick the rest up at Extra Foods on the weekend.  I calculate the cost of everything and try to keep the cost as close to $200 per week as possible.  So I had my list all ready and then yesterday I noticed we were out of syrup.  Ack!  And brown sugar!  Crap – there goes my carefully planned out list – looks like we’re taking another look at the list . 

2012 for us will be the Year of Frugality.  Living with Less.  Paring down.  Buying only the essentials.   I’m looking forward to it, actually.  OK, well more like, it sucks when you want to buy something frivolous and then remember that you made a commitment to not.  But at the end of the year looking at your finances and seeing your hard work paying off is AMAZING!  And that’s what we’re working towards.  And on top of that, we’ve just been finding ourselves so surrounded with stuff (and I’m not cluttery – if that’s a word) I have no problem throwing stuff away.  But the accumulation of stuff seems never ending and it’s a cycle we want to get away from. 

So we’re saying NO! to extras this year and YES! to living a more simplified life.   It will be good.  It is already good.

Mind you, Miss H, is already convinced that she’s dying a slow death since she hasn’t had McDonalds for 3 whole weeks.  Even M has started randomly saying “McDonalds?  McDonalds?”  And it’s not like we’d go there very often before anyways.  Silly kids. 

I do want to note here too, that no one in our family has come down with any cold/flu/illness this whole winter (knock on wood). And I am going to totally attribute that to the healthy foods I’ve been feeding my family and ummm… really good luck.

And possibly the 10 vitamins (slight exaggeration) the kids munch down every day.  Mostly because the vitamins taste like candy and since they haven’t had any treats since Christmas, well anything that’s sweet is super yummy to them!

Hope your 2012 is off to an amazing start and if you made any commitments to yourself or family for this year I'd love to know them.  And also I'm super curious what other families in our area spend on groceries per week or month so if you don't mind sharing...that would be fab!