I broke out the old lawnmower today and have to give the back lawn a cut. Pretty early for April but who can complain with the weather we have been having. The one thing I noticed is that I already have a good crop of weeds coming in. Especially in the gravel around the pool fence. We aren't allowed to use commercial pesticides any longer which means we have to rely on environmentally friendly alternatives. Last year I purchased ... Read More

I was at a wedding not too long ago and the bride gave an interesting speach about her new husband. He fancied himself a real DIY type fix it guy but she told a different story. She explained how it usually ended up costing her more paying a real contractor to fix everything that he usually screwed up. I am a big fan of trying to fix things on my own but sometimes you have to give in to ... Read More

I had two friends and their families just go away on vacation over the past couple of weeks. Before they left I asked them if they had shopped around for their medical travel insurance. There are lots of options out there and different packages you can buy. Both of them didn't really put much thought into it and just bought what they were buying. It's an expense right? Why not shop around and see what kind of packages are available ... Read More

I am on a mission to get a few things fixed up around the house and I will blog later this week about what I am doing to save energy. I needed a thick piece of plywood 2.5 X 2.5 for a small project but they only sell sheets 4 x 4 for over $16. Kind of a waste because I have no other use for the extra wood. A shame to pay that much when I didn't really need it ... Read More

If you live in Canada time is ticking for your take advantage of your home renocation tax credit. If you did any renovations to your hosue between Feb. 27 of this year and before Feb. 1, 2010 of next year you can apply for a credit on your tax return. The stipulation is that your renovations must be over a thousand dollars in total and you can't go over ten thousand dollars. At the max you could be eligible for ... Read More

I wasn't aware of this until recently but your hot water bill can account at least 15% of your home heating bill. This of course can different depending on what type of hot water heater you have, how old it is and what type of heating you have. Electric hot water heaters being the most costly. It's hard to say because of those factors how much you can save by adding a hot water blanket but obviously for a minimal ... Read More

I would never be one to say that you should become a complete backyard mechanic and do all of your car fixing yourself. That would be crazy and probably end up costing your more money that it would save you.  But on the other hand there are lots of things that you can do yourself to save a little money. I am talkng about more of the small things, maitenance type items that we all pay a lot for out of convenience. ... Read More

I know all too well the pitfalls of credit card debt. You have two or three major cards and a few gas cards and you are living off of paying back the interest each month and that's about it. It's an awful hole to get stuck in but you can help yourself get out of it through debt consolidation. What is Credit card debt consolidation? This is where you consolidate a number of cards into a lesser amount of cards. In ... Read More

So tomorrow the plumber shows up to start my bathroom renovation. He gave me quote awhile back but I decided to start the gutting process myself. I broke the tile wall and took the plaster out over two Saturdays and took them to the dump. When we spoke last week he said he would do the quote over because I had one a fair bit of the work myself. You would be suprised how much money you can save ... Read More

It's Sunday and in our household it means two things. Laundry day and grocery day. Since starting this blog every resource I have read suggests writing up a shopping list and stick to it in order to save money. You can't go into a grocery store with no list or plan and expect to come out of there with saving money. You have to know what you want to buy ahead of time so you can maybe look for coupons ... Read More

Just how ugly is that window? I don't know if you can see it or not but there is an aluminum storm window on the other side of that ugly wooden frame. I have read that up to 35% of your heat loss can be through your old draughty windows. This old window was draughty for sure. My wife used to have a cold nose when she was sitting on the couch watching tv. Can you imagine how much ... Read More