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Liked the first turkey so much I’m cooking another

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My house is filled with the smell of a roasting turkey. Yep … I’m cooking the first turkey of the new year.

Yeah … I’m cooking again! I cooked a turkey just before Christmas – on December 23rd – I called it my Festivus Turkey and now I guess this is my “after” New Year turkey.

The truth is … we actually enjoy eating turkey (I brined this one so it should be extremely moist) and I bought the turkey at a good price (15 pounder for about 12 bucks) and since my husband was on temporary lay off from work for the last two weeks of December we’re on a tight budget. Eating two turkeys for three or four weeks is fine with us if it saves us money … and hey … turkey is good for you, isn’t it?

Now if that darn new internal thermometer alarm would stop going off early I could get some work done. I’m trying to install an update for my scanner software but the thermometer that I put in the turkey leg keeps going off … even though the turkey hasn’t been in the oven long enough (well it probably has now, but when it was only in the oven for 30 minutes I new that was too soon!).

Do you ever eat turkey when it’s not a holiday meal? I mean like us – in January?





Our Car insurance went up – and we thought it was going down Grrrr

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A week or so ago I wrote a post about how we’d just saved a lot of money on our car and home insurance by making a few adjustments on our policy.

What I didn’t know what as that when we bought our new car near the beginning of August and my husband arranged everything with our insurance company. I thought that our car insurance rates had gone down a little bit – especially after we’d made a few adjustments to our policy a week a later. Boy was I wrong!

I guess with some changes to Ontario Insurance Laws that went into effect in early September and the fact that our car is newer – even though it’s a small 4 door 4 cylinder sedan – safe, efficient and that my husband and I have PERFECT driving records – our car insurance went up by about $60 a month.

GRRRRR

Once I saw how much money they took out of our bank account for the monthly policy payment we gave them a call. Of course their computers went down shortly after we started our talk. Uh huh. Before their computers crashed they did say that our payments had been adjusted upwards to cover the slightly higher expense of the new car coverage and that it will go down in the new year when our new contract starts.

I’m going to be calling them back on Monday to clarify exactly how much we’ll be paying when the new contract starts and their computers better not go down again! If I’m not happy with our conversation I think I’ll be spending sometime checking out prices at other car insurance companies next week and see if we can get a better price. If I do find one, hopefully it will be a company that also has house insurance and gives a discount when you combine car and house coverage. Our currant insurance company gives a 20% discount for combining insurance coverage.

Saving money on our home and car insurance

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I guess I didn’t mention it on this blog, but near the beginning of August our car just up and died! My mother in law was driving it when a plug or something fell out of the transmission and all the transmission fluids came out in one big gush.

After having the car towed to the garage and trying to have it fixed we learned that the transmission casing was pitted and that we’d need a new transmission. Since our car was 14 years old we couldn’t see putting close to $3000 into the car so … we bit the bullet and decided to buy another car.

I guess we could have leased a new car or looked around for a really good financing deal on a new car, but we decided to get a used car.

The new used car is a 2006 Pontiac Pursuit – very similar to the Pontiac G5’s.

I guess we’ve had our new vehicle for about two weeks and so far so good. We love driving it and it seems to have great gas mileage.

Oh and when we called our insurance company to get our car insurance changed from the old car to the new car our rates actually went down a little bit. Not much … but a few dollars a month. I think when our new contract starts in January it will be about $10 a month lower.

Oh and when we were talking to our insurance agent he had some ideas for lowering our home insurance costs too (we have home and car insurance with the same company because combining the two offers a further discount at some insurance companies) so now we’re paying approximately $10 less a month on our home insurance as well.

So when everything kicks in next year we’ll be saving more than $20 a month on our car and home insurance thanks to

1. getting a newer car
2. having a clean driving record
3. never having made any claims on our car or house and
4. making a couple of simple changes like upping the deductible on our home insurance from $500 to $1000

My husband and I are smokers (yes shame on us), however, we’re planning on quitting in September. We mentioned this to our insurance agent and he said to let them know when we quit as they offer a smoke free discount. We can get an additional 3% off our home insurance.

It might be worth calling your home and or car insurance company to see if they have any ideas as to how you might save a few more dollars each month on your coverage. I know we’re happy with our additional savings because our bills just went way up what with the new (used) car payments we’re going to be making each month, so any way we can save money or cut costs – all the better!

I’ve got the wardrobe blues

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I was looking through my bedroom closet and drawers earlier today for something nice to wear and I realized, I haven’t purchased any new clothes in ages.

I’m bored with all the old clothes I have, and to tell the truth, some of my clothes are starting to fade or look a little worn.

I think it’s time to do a little shopping!

The only problem is that we don’t have a lot of spare money right now. I’ll have to keep my eye out for some good sales or maybe start looking for bargains online.

Oh speaking of online shopping … I was just looking at dereon jeans. I love the look of them! They have really nice pocket detailing and I think I’d look good in that kind of style of jeans. Oh and they happen to be on sale right now too – so that works great for me! I just have to find out if they ship to Canada.

So … do any of my readers also have the wardrobe blahs or blues? Are you in need of a little retail therapy too?

Just when I thought my back was getting better

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My darn back is out again. It was doing good for a few months, but I over did it in the garden this weekend and wouldn’t you know it my back started aching again.

It figures.

I’d love to go to a chiropractor or get a massage. I think that would help my back a lot, but since I’ve been on medical leave from work for a few years I no longer have health benefits (although I’m technically still employed). I actually started looking for health insurance earlier today at insurancespecialists.com and a few other places. Unfortunately I still can’t really afford it. You know … considering that I’m not really working.

Maybe I can talk my husband in to giving me a massage when he gets home from work? Uh huh .. he’ll probably think that will lead to other things. LOL

What do you do for your back when it’s aching?

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