Summer Simplicity

I love reading blogs about simplicity and frugal living.  I'm no where near as "radical" or strict as some of the people who write these blogs, but I still find many of the tips inspiring.  Mostly I enjoy knowing that I live somewhat simply although I'm still working on frugality.

As a teacher, I have to monitor my money throughout the year and plan for the three month summer stretch with no pay.  The money I make is adequate to get me through the entire year, but it still lands in deceptively higher pay checks because I do not opt to take a large check in June.  It's all on me to plan ahead.  I like the challenge.

So what are my tips for summer frugality?  How do you maintain the same lifestyle in those three months when its most tempting to spend, spend, spend?  For me, it's mostly done via saving or "squirreling" during the year, but I am also beginning to understand the value in simple and free days.  At this rate, I'll probably have it figured out by retirement.

1.  Open an additional  bank account

I regularly deposit money into an online bank account.  Having a bank separated from your usual one keeps the money tucked away in a place that should be more difficult to access.  At first, my account was a savings account only and I had to plan ahead to transfer the money to my regular bank.  This transfer takes three days; so I really have to be on top of my finances.  

This online account does also offer a checking account with debit card.  I recently added this feature.  At the beginning of summer I placed an "allowance"  of money in the checking account.  This was all the money I had to spend on food, gas, and fun.  Each week I allot myself so much. It's really helped me to see how easy it is to "nickel and dime" yourself out of funds.

The best benefit to my online account is that I auto transfer monthly.  I look at it as I would a debt, my savings is required monthly.  Paying your savings as you would a debt is crucial.  

How much do you save?  Know honestly what you must have each month to pay your bills on time.  You'll need twice that amount, plus whatever bills will be due before the September paycheck.  If you can save three times the monthly need you'll end up with extra money in September instead of greater credit card debt.  Imagine that?

2.   Don't use the credit card!

No brainer, but not too many seem to get this.  When I was first starting out in teaching I remember an older teacher saying, "just put it on credit, you'll always be in debt".  And while I'm pretty sure I'm taking this poorly remembered quote out of context, it still resonates with me.  

No, don't use the credit card!   Get it out of your wallet.  If you use it, you'll spend the rest of the next school year playing catch up to get rid of the balance.  Trust me, I know!  Instead use:

3.  Gift Cards

They're not just for other people.  Buy them for yourself.  Buy them for any place you think you are likely to spend during the summer.  I buy them for the grocery store, Target, and Dunkin Donuts.  If you must eat out, buy them for your favorite restaurants, like the movies, they have gift cards too.  The ideas are endless. Most cards have no expiry date, so buy them from time to time throughout the school year and keep them somewhere safe.  Then, come August, you'll be happy when you have money to spend.

4.  Stay Home

Have a few days where you make your backyard the destination spot.  No money spent on gas, eating out, junk you don't need....etc...And while you are at it:

5.  Have "No Spend" days

You don't have to spend money every day.  Really, you can bring a cup of coffee with you in a thermos, you can pack a picnic lunch, you can garden all day, hang out with friends at their house and not a restaurant.  Take a walk, run, roller blade....

6.  Just move!

Please move, a lot.  When I first moved here 17 years ago, I walked miles upon miles almost daily.  I was exploring a new city and every path was new.  Since then, it's hard to find new places to travel locally, but I still do when I put my mind to it.  Lately, I've been running/walking through a small pocket community I found while looking at Google Maps.  It's a perfect 4 mile "training" course to prep me to run a 5K next month.  I've also taking up inline skating.  Yes, I did have to spend money, but I bought them used at Play it Again Sports.

7.  Buy Used

Okay, honestly, I usually have nothing to do with used or thrift or garage sales, but there is value to finding something you need at a sale.  Just don't buy what you don't need.

8.  Sell stuff

Use Craigslist, half.com, eBay, the Pennysaver, or have a garage sale to declutter and get rid of old stuff.  In the mean time, you make a few dollars.  

9.  Travel light

I love to travel and it's something that I do every summer.  I make sure it's all paid for before the summer starts.  Then I also "squirrel" money for the trip.  I pack light, just a backpack, you really don't have to have a new outfit for every day.  I also try to not spend much on food.  For my recent trip to Vancouver, we stayed at a hotel that offered free breakfast.  We had a nice filling lunch, then for the evening we had light snacks that we bought at the nearby grocery store.  We also walked a lot and saw a great deal of the city via foot.  

Other ways to save while traveling:  
-know the public transit route and fare policy, and use it
-sign up for Groupon for the city you are going to, we saved 50% on two small tours
-stay at a hotel that has free amenities
-travel with others to split the cost
-eat less
-don't buy souvenirs (I buy one magnet for each place I travel to)
-take pictures and keep them digital (or blog about them!)
-use those gift cards I wrote about in #3

10.  Be thankful

Teaching is becoming an increasingly complex and difficult job with more and more expectations and less and less support.  When you are at work, you are "on" that whole time.  Time off is precious and should be renewing.  However, millions of Americans work as hard as you do, and for less pay.  Enjoy the simple joys of waking with the sunrise and the songs of birds.  Drink that second or third cup of coffee while relaxing on your porch.  Linger in the company of friends over an outdoor fire.  Watch fireflies......play!  Be thankful, you are blessed.
  

And these are my ideas for a simple, more frugal and enjoyable summer!  

The last part first

BTW, "The First Part Last" is a compelling novel by Angela Johnson, but that's neither here nor there to me telling you about Vancouver.  I didn't plan ahead when I popped up these postings, so they are in reverse order.  I really don't think it matters.

Our last day in Vancouver was a Thursday.  It was really sunny and finally hit 26 degrees!  Now that is the normal temperature for the end of July and we had not seen it.  On that last day, I finally got my Tim Horton's coffee.  I swear the city is inundated with Starbucks and non-commercial little coffee shops, but I found my Tim's.

We took a walking architectural tour of Chinatown mostly because I didn't want to walk that area alone.  Chinatown is very poor and there are a lot of homeless people, more so than what you see in New York.  So safety in numbers with a guide.  I think I took some fun pictures:

Vancouver is a very Asian city. At the mall in Burnaby I'd guess that 70-80 % of the people shopping and working there were of Asian decent.  I thought that was pretty cool.  I can't stand the term minority, never have liked it, for it seems quite derogatory as if to note something lesser.  However, in this instance I'll say, I was in the minority in Burnaby.  Vancouver was more balanced demographically, probably more like San Francisco.  These are west coast cities that are going to have migration from the nations closest to them (no, I don't mean the US...silly)!  I was also looking at Vancouver demographics and read that same-sex marriage was also legal there.

Which makes a nice segue into the next part of the journey where we walked and walked and walked and finally came down Davie St. which is the Vancouver version of the Castro in San Fran.

I'll let the pictures do the rest of this justice!

One of the beaches at False Creek

Dog friendly.  

I read that urban planners deliberately encouraged the high rise to prevent urban sprawl.

Burrard Bridge, one of many in the area.

I called this the wavy building!

Inukshuk

Koi, be glad I didn't upload all 10 shots I took of these!  I am a Pisces!

Not my favorite team, but HOCKEY!

On the last day as we left we visited Zero Ave.  This is the border with the US.  There is no fence, no guard, no camera....just this marker!

Beyond the marker is the US.

In the front of the marker it says Canada, in the back, United States.

On the left is the US and on the right Canada.  Do you think anyone minds if people cross the street to be neighborly? There are literally houses across the street from one another, the exception being this is a Canadian street and the US property has a different street so it's the back yard that is on Zero Ave.

 

The rest of the story

This time last week we were recovering from a rush hour ride on Route 99 back from Squamish.  What should have been 40 minutes was nearly two hours.  I know if I lived in Vancouver I'd be taking the public transportation.

Our day began early and we went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge.  I highly recommend this place.  It's very pretty and the bridge itself gives a little thrill without being scary.  We walked around the trails for some time and were super glad we had gotten there at 9 AM when they opened because it was crowded by 11.  The funny thing is, for all that we were in nature, I didn't hear that many birds.  I hear more in my own city yard.  I didn't see a single wild animal, not even one squirrel.  Weird!

 
Speaking of birds, we did see an eagle while on the harbour cruise.  It was sitting on a buoy while a sea gull tried to pester it to leave.  Of course eagle said no, but that didn't stop the seagull.  So pesky birds were pretty much it for the three days.

I took this while standing on the bridge.  I think its 100 metres high.

This is the cliffwalk.  It looks scarier in pictures than in person, but it still gave Barb a little fright.

Sandi and Barb

That's what you see as you step on the bridge and begin to sway.

This is one of many paths through the trees.

After the bridge we went up the road to the Cleveland Dam.  That's when you could really start seeing the snow capped mountains in the distance.

There goes the dam water.

Gorgeous isn't it?  The colors instantly made me think of the Canucks hockey jersey!  LOL!

Across the reservoir above the dam.

This little park was pretty.  Seeing snow in July is always something special.  The drive up 99, the "Sea to Sky" highway was also spectacular.  The water edges the highway for miles.  It's a beautiful turquoise shade of blue.  Again, you'd expect to see boats there, but there weren't.  There weren't boats until we neared Squamish, a small town/village/city half way to Whistler.

Cleveland Ave. Squamish

Small place, but they still had quite a few shops and such.

That's Shannon Falls in the distance!

Squamish just served as a terminus for our journey north.  One episode of Supernatural had been filmed there in 2008.  The episode took place in "Washington"  so I can see why Squamish was chosen to fake it.  While in Squamish we saw a sign for filming.  It was an orange arrow that said "reunion".  We followed it and it ended up down on the river where it looked like filming of something with old military vehicles.  With all the filming that happens in BC, who knows.  Before leaving Squamish we had lunch at  The parkside restaurant where they had these really good Tuscan chicken wraps and salad that was totally fresh, but the best part was they served the salad with one cape gooseberry.  I've only had that fruit in 2003 in Finland.  Right after coming to NY I found some at Hannaford and bought them, but I have never seen them since!  You can imagine how excited I was over this rare find.

After Squamish we stopped at Shannon Falls!  I'd say Wednesday was our nature day.  That park was close to the parking lot, but if you wanted to there were many hiking trails of various levels.

We returned "home" to drink wine and swim in the heated pool!  :)