My Eight Month Challenge

I want to reach a particular savings goal. It is ambitious and will require some sacrifice. The next 8 months will require some lifestyle changes (albeit I am going to leave a pre-planned trip to Thailand at Christmas out of my calculations) to achieve.

I go out for food AN AWFUL LOT. This is the first area where I plan to save and should be a way to really reduce my expenses. I need to replace all of these restaurant meals and take out pickups with something else. I plan to try to cook. I actually love cooking and I think I am getting pretty good at it, but my job takes so much of my life that I actually get too lazy to make anything and end up leaving the kitchen to most unused room in my apartment.

Last week, I went into Starbucks and tried their new instant coffee. It was pretty good. They were giving away free samples and coupons, so the coffee basically costs about $1 a cup if I use the instant powder. This is going to be my new coffee fix at work instead of me just popping over to our new Starbucks. I will use the MacCafe near my house when I actually want to go out for coffee. They have just started offering latte's,cappu's and mocha's for about 75 cents less than Starbucks,Waves, or any of the other coffee houses charge.
Read more about Macdonalds coffee at the American (the Canadian site is less informative) site of their corporate office.
http://aboutmacdonalds.com


Cooking at home is going to become very important. I have a freezer stocked with nice, last minute meals that my mom sent over, but I know that I sometimes want to eat fresh food too. I have stocked my fridge and pantry with all the things that I will need for the next two weeks, so let's see how I do.

Today, I made curried chicken on a bagel. I used a tiny piece of frozen chicken in mayo, toasted a stale bagel, added bits of apple that had been left over in the fridge and cut up a red pepper. I served it with banana slices and tea and it was pretty tasty. I think the currie powder I used was as close to perfect as currie powder can get: it had a tangy taste to it that was amazing. Next time, I will make sure I have raisins in the house as this would have also made it a bit better. The whole lunch probably cost less than $1 with the chicken being the only expensive part of the whole thing.

For dinner, I am going to make a greek salad.I have a lot of peppers and some feta cheese to use up. I also may make some pasta to go with it, but I am out of white wine! A true frugalista would have wine in her house for Sunday dinner because that is the night one usually cooks, but I am not perfect.

Send me a recipe idea if you have any notions about what I should make. In return, I will give you this web address for a cool site I found that deals with the idea of eating well at home.
http://thecheapgourmet.typepad.com/

The Pro's and Con's of Professional Development

I counted up the bills and I have spend over $2000 this year in developing myself professionally. This doesn't include any university courses or anything really that is tax deductable for someone working for a employer. I have mentioned a few times in my ramblings that I am a public servant, but today I am going to confess that this takes the form of being an adult education teacher within the public school system. As I have developed an interest in online learning (and some fun opportunities-right people, right time-have popped up), I have invested over $2000 this year to become more "computer literate and tech savy". The good news is that my generous employer has refunded just over $700 of this to me in the form of professional development funding. The bad news is that I have sucked up the cost for the other $1300. This brings me to an important question: should I be doing this? I have a solid emergency fund, no debt (I am a renter), and a well hammered out financial plan.Yet, I wonder if I am going to see an economic payback for this outlay. I have a vague dream in my head that I am going to one day early retire and work for myself, so this online learning training seems in line with my long range goals. I have spent a lot of time (and as we already mentioned, money) on this training.What do people think? Does it make sense? I know that I need to start tracking not only the money spent but also the hours invested in this little dalliance to determine if it is time well spent. If I take home $40,000 after taxes and my employer pays into my retirement fund (defined pension plan= between $300 a month for life if I quit tommorrow and up to $1600 a month if I hang in for another 13 years), how much would I have to earn on the side to justify this expenditure which will probably remain fairly constant for the next 3 to 5 years? I am training in html and Moodle for those who want to offer any comments about my posts. P.s My salary is common knowledge and available to anyone with an internet connection, so don't think that I am oversharing.