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We spent too much money on food and drink in March. We’re usually very thrifty but last month we got sloppy I guess. We went out to eat a lot, drank at bars, and spent a lot at the grocery stores.

To get back on track we’ve decided to try and bring that food and drink amount way way down, and back under budget for April.

Some ways that we cut costs:

1. Don’t eat out as much. Duh, that one is a given. If we’ve been invited out we can eat at home first so that we don’t end up hungry while out, even if it means eating at an awkward time of day.

2. Make a meal plan. Scott and I do this together on the weekend. We try to plan ahead for the next 5 or 6 days, so that we have lunches and dinners arranged and can do all the shopping at once. I’m pretty sure that you spend less when you do the shopping once than if you do the shopping every day. And we almost never end up having to buy lunch at work/school.

  • check the flyers for sales, and plan a menu around that. The stuff on sale is usually the stuff that is in season, so as well as saving money you are getting nicer quality.
  • take inventory of the food you already have in your fridge, and plan a menu around that, so less gets wasted.
  • plan out meals that have similar ingredients, reducing produce waste.

3. Eating cheaper stuff. This doesn’t mean we have to eat Mr. Noodles every day, just maybe not eating steak every day. This blog has tons and tons of very economical recipes: http://budgetbytes.blogspot.ca/ Nearly every single thing that Rosemarie or Scott or I have made from this website has been a success. I’ve mentioned her blog before and I continue to stand by it. She’s got an amazing website there.

Um well I can’t think of anything else at the moment. Some common sense tips that you probably would have come up with on your own. Saving money isn’t too hard!

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The other night we were having veggie burgers for dinner (the Costco ones are SOOO GOOD!!, even for non-vegetarians) but around 5:00 PM Scott realized we had no buns. Instead of going back out to buy some, he decided it would be easier to just make them from scratch! I’m not sure I quite follow his logic, but he likes making bread, and they turned out quite nice.

Yesterday was a big day.

1. I found out that I am going to be doing my summer placement at Vancouver General Hospital. VGH was my second choice, so this is pretty good news. It’s not too hard to get there from our house, it has the latest early start, and it’s a big busy hospital where I should get to see a lot of variety. I’m pleased.

2. Almost all of my classmates went out for a sushi lunch after school. We went to Sushi Garden, near Lougheed Mall. I had an Alaska roll, a yam roll, and a tuna roll. The Alaska roll was very delicious (it is apparently their speciality) and the other two were fine, but not great. It was cheap though and overall seemed like a good place. I’ve been told there is another one right near our house, so maybe I will try it out again sometime.

3. Scott and I went to the Aussie pub last night to go watch some footy. It’s the very first round of the season and Melbourne (my team) was playing Brisbane (Scott’s team) so of course we wanted to see the game. Unfortunately my Demons got beat pretty bad.

4. I bought my new camera!! I got the Canon SX260 HS. I haven’t used it too much yet but so far it seems very nice and fast and smart. I am looking forward to using it in the future. Now I need to go somewhere where I want to take a lot of pictures! This probably means leaving the apartment…

Well that’s pretty much all the fun stuff I have to say at the moment. I have A LOT of school work to do this weekend so I’ll just be here at my desk for the majority of today and tomorrow. Bummer.

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I’ve got a few new pictures from our skeleton weekend at Whistler Sliding Centre a few weeks ago. Tink was there for the whole session taking pictures so we all got a few new ones of ourselves from different vantage points than what we can do on our own, which is pretty neat.


This picture shows Maple Leaf start. That’s our coach in the red jacket. You can see the launching board  on the ground that we put our sleds on to get ready to slide (then he pushes us off by our feet). To the right of the picture is a shipping container that we can stand in to keep a little warmer while waiting.


Me carrying my sled over to the launching board and getting myself mentally prepared.

Ready to go, just waiting for the all-clear from the people up in the box. At this point I would just be exhaling deeply to relax my whole upper body.

A nice shot of the Whistler sliding track.

Happy after another skeleton run!

Can’t wait till next year.

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Scott and I went to see the Hunger Games movie last night. I was pretty excited for it but I think I forgot about all the things I really didn’t like about the books. The movie was OK, but not great, in my opinion. I really could not care less about the whole love triangle thing. Some parts were sooo corny! The whole theatre cracked up a few times, like every time the camera was on Gale. Ha. Also they didn’t talk about food enough.

This review basically says all the things I would like to say but better: http://winebibber.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/can-we-talk-about-the-hunger-games-movie-edition/ It even includes a picture of ROCK-PEETA which was pretty much the best part of the whole movie.

And this article was kind of interesting too: http://io9.com/5896475/everything-the-hunger-games-movie-left-out

Today was pretty miserable with allergies, but I’ve had another little breakthrough and am feeling better at the moment. If I walk around pinching my nose with my fingers until I can’t hold any longer it really clears things right up!! Apparently it has something to do with CO2 build up and vasodilation. http://www.normalbreathing.com/art-stuffy-nose-clear.php

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On Friday night we watched The Descendants, last night In Time, and tonight we will go see Hunger Games!

The Descendants was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SAD. I cried A LOT. That did not help the swollen eyes situation. I miss my mom. To counteract the sob-fest we chose a dumb movie for yesterday, and yeah… it was dumb. I’m very excited for the Hunger Games movie tonight though!

We’ve seen a lot of Rosemarie lately. It’s so nice. Yesterday she came over to pick up her sushi helmet and her and Scott went to play basketball for a bit and then they played the NHL game while I worked on some homework and rubbed my eyes.

I like seeing them doing stuff together without me. :’)

We also played a game of Carcassonne and ate the dinner that Scott made (slow cooker potato soup and olive bread).

I’m feeling a bit better today. I’m well stocked with Halls and Claritin and anti-histamines and eye drops, plus I’ve been putting a damp wash cloth over my eyes when I would usually rub them and that feels really good. We’ll see how tomorrow goes– the forecasted alder pollen count is THREE HUNDRED (>85 is considered HIGH)!!!