The Not-so-Free-Bed

It's 7:30pm. Sam from Craigslist is outside my house with his 18 year old son and my husband, trying to fit our dismantled queen size bed into his tiny hatchback. There's a lot of trial and error. Sam doesn't seem to have much experience because he's brought various belts and scarves to tie up the headboard to the roof of his rack-less car. While my husband, the engineer, and master-car-stuffer-arranger is politely trying to convince Sam to do it his way, Sam's son is standing on the sidewalk doing his best teenage, embarassed-by-my-dad stance and not lifting a finger. An hour later, Sam and his son finally return home with all the bed pieces stuffed in their car. This is the story of our bed.

Ten years ago, my husband arrived in Vancouver from his studies in England and bought a bed at Ikea; nothing fancy. I don't remember when I started to feel the individual springs poking through, but it's been at least a year that I've noticed my knee caps fit perfectly in them. Aside from the lumpy mattress, the frame itself has been squeaking every time we turn over which is amplified through the mattress. So after months of saying to each other that we should buy a new bed, we finally blocked off a Saturday morning to go check some out.

We zeroed in on one store that carried what we wanted, the kid jumped on all of them and after sleeping on it, (pun intended) we finally settled on a something we could both agree on. The retailer informed us that we would have to pay $50 for the delivery guys to take away our old bed and another $50 for the mattress. Ah! The hidden cost of things! Imagine what it would look like if we went to a store and the cost of removal/recycling was itemized along with the purchase cost? Would we think more about what why buy if we could see what it costs to have it hauled away to the dump or processed in a recycling plant?

So I posted my bed on Craigslist for free and thought I'd save myself $50.  In one day, I had almost 100 interested people. Sam was third on the list. The first lady had a purse stolen on the way to pick up my bed, the second lady never returned my calls and Sam, happy to get this bed for his son, showed up on the first night with his tiny car and no rope.

Our lumpy mattress is now on the floor and we're having a blast. The kid is jumping like crazy, rolling and doing somersaults. We're been running up to the mattress in the middle of the day to read stories and fool around with the blankets. The kid is the Olympic Mattress Jumping Gold Medalist and I'm the commenter. I'll be happy to get rid of this scrap metal lump loosely draped with a cheap mystery fabric when the new mattress and bed frame arrives and I'll pay the $50 to have it hauled away, but I'll miss the fun we've been having with it.

Bringing Home Nothing

Still on my simplicity binge and it's been 3 weeks now that I have vowed not to bring things home aside from food and basics like toilet paper. I did break down twice. I bought a toy and a shirt. I won't use excuses like it was on sale, or it was used or made by a local designer. Although I did break down a bit, I am getting used to leaving the house and coming home with nothing. Not a twig, or a newspaper or an empty coffee cup.

One trick I found useful to avoid stores is to ride your bike. It's super annoying to lock your bike up, untie the kid, and deal with the helmets plus, without the stroller, corralling the kid in a store takes up way too much physical agility and negotiation power. Bike window shopping is the way to go!

Another realization I've had that really puts a stick in my simplicity wheel, is that I grocery shop too often. It seems I go to the store 4-5 times a week. This is partly due because I can't seem to find one store which carries both wonderful produce and decently priced staples without breaking the bank. The sensible part of me wants to responsibly plan menus for the week and make a detailed list of what we need, but the other part of me wants to eat pasta all week if it means I can veg on the couch for an hour before I have to head to bed. The problem with this is that I have very random stuff in my fridge and I'm just not a good enough cook to make something delicious with a can of black olives, oranges, bread, tomato paste, and kale. So back to the store I go. Gotta figure out a way off this grocery hamster wheel.

When I still lived at home, my mom would shop only on Saturday mornings. If we were pigs and ate all the cheese in one day, then too bad, no more cheese until the next Saturday. Often Friday would roll around, the fridge was practically empty and my mom would make something super yummy with with a can of black olives, oranges, bread, tomato paste, and kale...

I wonder where I got this idea that the fridge has to be well stocked at all times. It's okay to run out of bread or cheese for a day or two, isn't it? Once my mom told me that she always keep a big basket of toilet paper rolls in the bathroom because when she was little, and having too many siblings to count, they often ran out, and now she just can't relax unless there's a full basket in plain view. Maybe that's the same thing with me and the fridge?

Anyways, I will figure something out. Stay tuned.

The Less Spending Challenge?

This month of May we are super over our family budget. I can't blame it all on the family visiting even though it's easy to get carried away with buying things to make our guests feel comfortable like new towels, pillows, cookies and fancy soap. Not to mention all the restaurants we deliciously and lazily ate in. There is also what I coin the "turn of season" spending; garden supplies, new bicycles and tuning, sandals, patio furniture etc... How easily it adds us, and forget about that beaconing tax return. It's not there for that. It's to replace our lumpy mattress, to pay down our mortgage, to take a trip to Halifax this summer, to sock away for new floors, and for RRSPs. And in a flash, it's gone! Never to be seen again until next April.

So now what? I challenge myself, since I seem to be the keeper of the family finances, to spend less in the month of June. I could overwhelm myself with all the advice I could find online, but I choose simplicity. Here are my ideas which I will post on my kitchen cupboard.

• Ride my bike, unless it's pouring rain, which it mostly could be, but nonetheless.
• Leave my cards at home. This will prevent urges to go to coffee shops even though I like to keep the economy rolling with this slurge.
• Eat my cupboards clean. Look deep. Eat the tiny bag of leftover spaghetti, the handful of sesame seeds, and the last three dates.
• Fight the urge to run to the store every time we are missing something. Miss that thing for a few days, then it's so much better when you have it. This may cause cheese withdrawal panic for my husband, but too bad.
• Eat less. Duh.
• Think super creatively to make presents for birthdays and Father's Day.
• Drink cheaper wine.
• Keep my friend Carolina's tip in mind: Never buy any produce that costs more than $2/pound. (That's tough)
• No clothes needed. Nothing we own is thread bare.

Can I do it? We'll see. I'll keep you posted. Bring me wine and cheese if you feel sorry for me. wink. wink.

Unboxing Summer Clothes

Unboxing my summer clothes has unleashed a whole new a cascade of wardrobe malfunctions. In an effort to reduce the pile of laundry of these slightly box-smelling clothes, I've realized some of the reasons I've come to this point.

1. I'm fighting the fact that my uniform should consist of t-shirts with various mosaics of stains, and stop buying "prettier" clothes which inevitably get stained on the first day I wear them.

2. I'm a compulsive pattern shopper. Every item I own has a pattern, none of which go with any other pattern I own. Hence the pile of solid t-shirts, which I mentioned before get patterned soon enough.

3. I've lost the ability to make outfits which my sensible grandmother and mom have always done. This is lost mostly because I shop sporadically during the year, buying one item at a time and along with my pattern obsession, well, I don't want to repeat myself. It makes sense right? Wait until September, buy several items at a time that go well together, put down a healthy amount of money, and don't return to shop until May.

4. I just have too many clothes. 

Christmas Shopping is a Breeze!

Yup, I've decided that it's actually easier to shop for Christmas with a kid in a stroller. This means:

a. There is no time to browse- I had to know what I wanted and where it was before I left the house
b. Wherever my stroller got stuck, that's as far as I'd go. If I can't reach it, I don't buy it.
c. I didn't enter stores with crowds, line-ups or salespeople I couldn't identify from afar.
d. No easy parking? No shopping.
e. I used simple language: Man-need soap with man smell. Shirt-red-large.
f. I said no to stores with narrow aisles, breakable merchandise at stroller level, narrow doorways, and salespeople who followed me around.

Isn't it great? Knowing what I wanted before I left home and then choosing stores I knew I could push a stroller through made the whole thing so much easier! No more hours of browsing, humming and hawing about will so-and-so like it? or maybe I should get it elsewhere in case it's on sale etc....

As for wrapping? It was great! Baby sat with me, ripped and crumpled the paper, pulled the tape out of the dispenser in ultra long strips, mangled the ribbons and undid most of what I could manage to finish. I loved it!

So next year, if you need a good way to limit the shopping frenzy, take my kid along. I'll stay home and sip on eggnog. :)