Stacy C Wow, that's scary ! But at least you're saving a ton of money. Good job ! Is 177$ an acceptable rate in your case ? If not, I'd still look into switching.

Stacy C Nice! I'm glad Geico was willing to lower those rates. My dealings with them have always been pleasant, so I had my fingers crossed! :)

Paris 99 Yes, I was going to stay with them regardless, I've always liked them, but apparently my search triggered something on their end and they called ME....which was the weird part. 

Stacy C Excuse me while I go Google rates to see if I can trigger the same phone call. 😉

Stacy C The good news for this keeps on continuing. I noticed my payment for this month hadn't been taken out yet, so I called Geico and due to the new rate I didn't owe a payment at all this month!! What???!!! 

Awesome Sauce!!!

@faness_ynab Try Progressives site...that's what I put info into. 

Stacy C Maybe Geico can hear when you type about them. I never made it to Progressive's site, but I got a letter in the mail from Geico asking that we call to talk about lowering our rates. I'll put this on my list of things to do, but just thought the timing was great. 😆

Slate Blue Pilot Great job adjusting for that increase early! It's a small change that'll make a big difference! :)

Vibrant 

demonstrating both your ability to plan well and avoid predictable financial pain.  Nicely done.

MXMOM 

I love the optimum points system.  And I have to deliberately remind myself to not get so caught up in the game that I exceed my pantry/freezer capacity, which means I'm investing far too much money into stored food.  I did an inventory of pantry and freezer last year, and calculated servings from the food I had already, and that was a shocking reality check. It also meant I had to do a sit-out and no-buy on this latest points extravaganza.

HappyDance yes. Chasing points can lead to a full freezer. 
my husband wants to stalk shoppers who don’t get optimum points and ask if we can have them. Last Christmas we got almost $200 that way from a young man buying perfume gifts. I told my husband it sounds way too creepy to say we need to go seek out young men at the drugstore. 

MXMOM 

😄 😂  I have honestly never thought of stalking fellow shoppers for unused points. Too funny.  Your husband is rock star.

HappyDance People often give me their airmiles when I'm in line at the LCBO and have my phone ready. :)

PeculiarBella Check out this person on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TrTsRoyH_A

I'm going to try some of her simple recipes. 

Also try the app Supercook. You put in your ingredients and it gives you recipes. 

MXMOM agree. Made them yesterday, much to the delight of my son. Just how I remember them from back at home; as a treat. I only recently realised they are actually very cheap too. HAHA.

Powder Blue Pony a friend of mine is posting a lot of sheet pan recipes and one she just did was sheetpan pancakes. Apparently it turned out well.

Powder Blue Pony A win all around! :)

Powder Blue Pony I regifted beautiful Swarovski earrings to my friend for her 50th. They were still in the original packaging & giftbag. I wouldn't have spent that much on her necessarily so it was a win. :)

Turquoise Yearling good on you!

Powder Blue Pony I read the Millionaire Teacher in the summer, and although it was one of the first books I read on investing, the concept of stocks falling in price resonated with me: when stocks are dropping they are on sale! Just like when groceries go on sale we stock up, same with investments. With my investments, I changed from Mutual Funds with TD to the TD eSeries which are self-directed index funds. I have 20% Cdn Equity, 20% US equity, 20% International equity, and 40% Cdn bonds, which I rebalance once or twice a year following the Couch Potato model. Just keep investing, and then the rebalancing will automatically mean you are stocking up on the "sale" prices. :)

Purple Foal Haha so true!  I scrounged up the $100 to start my M1 investment account in December of 2018 when the market was complete trash.  Mostly uphill from there!  lol.

TechieM2 Purple Foal Since learning about the principle of index investing I found the very few times something was down a little, easier to deal with than all those times prices were rising. Because of that sale idea and wanting to buy on sale 😊

I do wonder how I’d react to a crisis like 2008 though.... I just can’t predict how I’d feel. That’s why, every time I start a new journal, on the last page I write “when the market crashes, for me, selling is simply not an option”. In nice curly letters. just to remind myself.

Purple Foal and I put that book on my list. Thanks!

Powder Blue Pony Yeah.  My M1 account is mostly a playground at this point, although I think I've settled on a combination of stuff and a ratio I like that seems to be going well most of the time.  Right now I just toss a little into it each month and watch it grow (mostly).

Powder Blue Pony Check out my journal for other books I recommend, or want to read. :)

Powder Blue Pony Your long-term investments are not to be touched. Don't look at them. Don't sell.  Just rebalance the percentages to your set amount once or twice a year. Not very exciting, but that is how you build wealth. :)

Kensington Well done!! I'm using my buffer to get me through the lean times. Glad I have it. Once things have been settled at work and my pay cheque is back to normal, I'm going to pump up my buffer. :)

Purple Foal 

(but in reply to the post above)

Yep, thats the plan. I rebalance by putting new money towards the 'down' funds. Whenever buying new, I will see the total amount though. 

Recently read a post by a financial blogger who panicked in 2008. That made me wonder again how I'd react myself during a recession.

Thanks for the confirmation. That helps :-)

Powder Blue Pony Yes the buy low & sell high mentality gets people into trouble when they see their investments go down. The market is cyclical and will always have ups & downs. The key is to not sell. Just keep buying. And buy on sale instead of panicking & selling. :)

Powder Blue Pony That is great! Maybe challenge yourself to keep increasing the stops each week. You might find you don't need the train during the nice weather and then use it when you do. Challenge your fitness & benefit from saving money! :)

Descriptor Noun said:
I wrote up a realistic meal plan for my kid and me

Trying to do this, but that word, Realistic, not always easy to accomplish.  

The amount you are saving on insurance is amazing! What a little research can do...

Phoned internet provider and reduced monthly bill by $20

Moved oldest child to own phone plan and reduced data from large to small resulting in about $80.00 savings per month.

Reassessed weekly garbage situation. With oldest child out of house and some increased recycling efforts decreased size of waste container saving $10.00 per billing cycle. Will evaluate again in a couple weeks to see if we can decrease the frequency of pick up, saving another $10.00

Currently shopping for auto insurance as oldest (newer driver) backed into a parked vehicle in 2018 and then received a ticket. Needless to say our insurance is ridiculous.

Descriptor Noun 

wow, big wins!

Powder Blue Pony That's amazing!! I got my favourite long leather boots resoled so now they'll last longer. :)

Purple Foal Nice! On top of the financial and sustainability win: I've come to like leather with some life in it better than new. I should take my old ones to the shoemaker as well.

Powder Blue Pony Absolutely! I did the whole Marie Kondo Japanese purging process last year. Game changer. I still have some sentimental stuff to go through but I have gotten rid of so much stuff. Talking car loads. Then I started selling stuff of FB marketplace. Sold a brand new Lego set today. 

I'm on a spending freeze. Debt repayment, but also financial uncertainty with my job in a strike position. However, I'm not sad, or deprived, or depressed. I'm content since I have enough. I look at my possessions that I still have with happiness since they are what I chose to keep since they "bring me joy". Luckily, a lot of them are quality items that last well and can be repaired. For the wonderful clothes that don't fit very well, that's not on them, but me. In the mindset of less consumption: spending, wasting utilities, food, money, is also eating too much. That's another focus: eat well 80/20 on the anti-inflammation diet, count calories (for portion sizes), yoga 4x a week (for mind, body, spirit & to get the most out of my unlimited membership), sleep 8 hours, and try fasting, first after dinner (no tv snacks) then fasting for longer. I'm doing this for lent. 40 days to really challenge myself to see what changes I can make if I really try. It's all good to start, but it's the follow-through that's the tough part. :)

Purple Foal Wow, so many good things. How wonderfull that they help you stay positive in this insecure strike/income situation. Funny thing is I planned to do some digital downsizing for lent. Because spending too much time on internet or in front of a screen in general make all my other good habits harder to follow through. And here I am, on the forum 😊.

But there’s inspiration to find as well of course... 

Powder Blue Pony  Purple Foal Making repairs and updating old pieces, that still have life left are one of my favorite ways to save! My favorite boots have benefitted from a few trips to the cobbler, and still going strong.

Nicole I have a pair of sandals that have been resoled a shocking number of times! 👟

Purple Foal I love this post. It hits in so many elements of how I have been trying to shift my life as well. Konmari is such a huge gift to give oneself! Beautiful words here!

Wiecked Thank you. On a podcast I listened to recently talked about when we get rid of stuff, we want less. Then we can really do more. :)

MXMOM wow! Here in the UK the mobile phone industry is highly competitive. My deal is £17 (around $30CDN) for unlimited calls and text and 100GB of data. There was another deal I was considering (which I used in my negotiation) which was £20 ($35CDN) for unlimited data. 100GB is more than enough to be honest though.

Turquoise Major we have 3 national carriers. The government has recently “mandated” that they reduce the plan costs by at least 25%. We’ll see how that goes  last year they were supposed to reduce it and they all came up with “unlimited” (throttled after 10 gb) for $75  

There are a couple of smaller carriers but they offer very regionalized services