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November Update

3K views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  peanut 
#1 ·
It has been a busy month. I have been busy rug hooking for an upcoming sale.

I spoke to my accountant about DreamsTime and HubPages and decided not to do them. I am Canadian and would have to file US Income Taxes to get the advantage of a tax treaty between the US and Canada. Filing a US return from Canada costs $800-1000 according to my accountant. Without filing US income tax the US government takes 25% of my earnings...even though I'm Canadian. Nuf said.

Frugal activities?
  • Well, now the weather is cooler I am cooking and baking again, much to hubby's delight. :)
  • I have also been car pooling to various events around the city, and walking to others.
  • I have been taking advantage of sales at the local Safeway store.
  • I have been attending free workshops offered by CARFAC.
  • I am doing Swagbucks and earning money to surf. I am building up a good cache of money on Amazon.ca for Christmas gifts.
  • I've taken over doing the laundry from hubby. He mixes up lights with darks and does small loads, so we end up with four loads, dried on the longest setting on the dyer, and dull whites. Call me unhappy. So I did the laundry Saturday in two loads and everything is looking a bit better.
  • We have set aside 2 hours every weekend to do housework. Hubby and I work together and just get it done. Not sure this is frugal, but it saves us from hiring a house cleaner!
  • I tried Holy Yoga at a friend's suggestion the other night, but decided it was not for me. I saved myself $7 per week on that. Though I don't really think of it like that. More important is I hope I've saved my back.
  • Friends keep dropping by with food. :
  • Had a plant in the backyard identified. It's spearmint. I quickly picked some leaves and flowers to dry for tea this winter.
  • Reading library books and watching library DVDs with hubby.

That's about it. We never did get the tree in the backyard cut down. We could not find anyone to do it. All the arborists were busy and not taking any more customers...at least the ones hubby would let in the yard to work on the tree. To be truthful the tree is in a tricky situation. It's right in a corner with the fence on one side and the house on the other. It's a big tree too. It's no wonder it's causing problems with the foundation.

The adjustment to the teleposts went fine...well...kind of. When the house moved it pinched the old wires from the thermostat to the furnace and we had a run away furnace. We ended up having to call in a heating guy after hours. It was $1000 for everything by the time we were finished! Thankfully we had the money saved up for it. We now have brand new wire running to the furnace that is capable of handling an a/c, a humidifier, and a new high efficiency furnace.

The bank financial planner is turning out to be a PITA. She doesn't seem to know what she's doing. We're not entirely sure. She gave us a report that is based on figures we did not give her. I am thinking she confused us with some other client. She has DH earning two to three times the income he'll actually be earning in retirement. Ultimately we're back to doing our own calculations. Hubby says he's taking it three months at a time because he has to give three months notice to his pension plan before he can draw on it.

Well, that's it for this month. Seems we haven't moved very far on things. It's a bit frustrating. But sometimes life is like that. We seem to be busy with company a lot, and me with tutoring and the church a lot.

Keep safe and happy everyone! :)
 
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