Every year on February 2nd, people everywhere turn to their attention to a little groundhog in Pennsylvania to predict their winter fate. If the groundhog doesn’t see his shadow, it means that spring is just around the corner. If the groundhog sees his shadow, it means that there are 6 more weeks of winter.

This year, Punxsutawney Phil- the official groundhog- poked his head out of his hole and saw his shadow. Earlier this week, as if right on schedule, it was balmy 10^oC (50F). Spring warm. The sun was shining and the snow was melting. We even took an early evening walk to celebrate the coming of Spring. Old man winter, however, would have none of it. The temperatures plunged to -17^oC (1.4F) with a wind chill factor making it a biting -30^oC (-22F). That’s the last time I trust a groundhog. No doubt it’s warmer wherever you are, so enjoy it! With that in mind, here are a few frugal things to do In the advent of this never-ending winter. Continue Reading

We’ve been on a roll over the last year in terms of getting our financial house in order. We checked off some pretty significant items off of our to do list: We optimized our savings by maxing out last year’s annual contribution to my TFSA while contributing plenty to Emily’s RRSP. We also added to our son’s Registered Education Savings Plan for the second year in a row. Not only did we contribute to these savings accounts, we defined an investing strategy- choosing to start with passively managed index funds. Considering we’ve never maxed out an annual contribution to a savings account before, it was definitely a breakout year.

Yet with our recent success, there are items on our list that remain; items that should have been checked off long ago. I’ve been procrastinating on them for one reason or another and I really should get to them sooner rather than later. Without further ado, my bucket list, if you will, of things that still need to be done that I haven’t gotten around to just yet. Continue Reading

Challenge Recap

We started the second month of yearlong quest to simplify our lives with a game where Emily and I competed to rid ourselves of our excess stuff.

The gist of the challenge was to get rid of n number of items for the n^th day of the month. On the first day, we each tossed one item. On the second day, we each got rid of two. 28 days later, the grand total of all items purged would be 406. All items were supposed to be out of the house by midnight. The tally to date: Emily 208, Daniel 153. Bollocks. Continue Reading

Another week, another weekend. Ours was busy, which seems to the the current theme of our lives right now. We had my best friend over for brunch yesterday morning and tricked her into babysitting while Daniel and I went to grab groceries for a dinner party we were to host in the evening. We have a group of friends, consisting of three other couples, that gather together for a meal every other month. We call ourselves the Supper Club and we take turns hosting in our homes; it’s always a great opportunity to catch-up. It was our turn to entertain this weekend and we decided to throw a murder mystery party! Everyone was given a character in advance and arrived in costumes with props (there was a saxophone!). It was a lot of fun.

I digress.

We’re starting into our first week of our Project UrbanSimplify March Challenge. We’ll be choosing 30 items to wear for the duration of the month. Our wardrobes will look a little something like this: Continue Reading