As frugal people, we at Consumer of None are fans of DIY. When it comes to food preparation, home maintenance, laundry, and cleaning, DIY is where it's at. However, if you live in a small space and don't have a garage, certain DIY tasks - like car and bike maintenance - become more difficult.
As I was biking home today, I popped my back tire (and possibly my front - to be determined). Luckily, I was about a 20 minute walk from home, so I was able to just make my way by foot. In the past, Mr. C of N has fixed broken tubes for me. Unfortunately, this week he's studying hard for an exam and we have visitors coming for the weekend, so he won't have time to fix it for me. And even if he (or, yes, I could fix it if I watched some youtube videos...) could do so, it's the back tire, so it's going to be a big greasy mess...in the middle of our 600 square foot condo. Good thing we took out the carpet! So I looked up some bike shops, and it turns out MEC will do it for $12/tire + the cost of the new tube ($5-7 bucks). If we had a house and a garage, we could put together a sweet setup and do the change ourselves. Nice, 12 bucks saved every time you get a flat! But buying a house would cost us at least two hundred thousand more than our current condo. Suddenly, paying the guys at MEC seems like a pretty good deal. When it comes to things you can DIY in your current space - cooking your own food, doing your own housework - DIY is always going to be cheaper. But buying a bigger space so you can work on your bike or car? The math just doesn't add up.
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You may remember how I switched jobs this winter, which resulted in me taking on a car commute (puke). Well, great news - I am officially back to bike commuting. I think this is a great example of how you can often bike commute to places that seem unbikeable with a bit of planning. Some backstory: The day I started my job was incredibly cold. So cold that the locks on my car malfunctioned. Bike commuting is obviously not an option when it's -30 outside, but the weather soon improved and I was itching to get out of the driver's seat. I had initial doubts. My work is in an industrial area of town that is decidedly not bike-friendly. Actually, there used to be bike lanes there, which the city decided to remove for incomprehensible reasons. Things weren't looking good, but Mr. Consumer of None and I did a lot of digging around on Google Maps and found what looked like a potential route. Then we did a test run. Side note - I always recommend doing a test run before your first commute to work, unless you work somewhere you're already familiar with biking to. On this test run I got totally lost and ended up wasting a good 20 minutes, which would have been really stressful if I was trying to get to work on time. Also, it's really nice to have time to wander a bit. You can often find a route that's way better than what Google sets up for you just by exploring. After some trial and error, it turns out there's a beautiful route that's mostly on protected lanes, and even takes me through 3 km of paved trail through a ravine. Unfortunately I do have to bike through the industrial area, but it's only about 1 km and the road is wide enough that cars tend to give me a large birth (tend to being the operative word. I'm talking to you, minivans that pass me with half a foot of space). The total route is 10 km, which was intimidating at first, but has turned out to be awesome. I've been absolutely loving my commute, and I can't believe anyone would choose driving over how fun this is. So, if you've been thinking about bike commuting, now is the time! We're at the peak of almost-summer-not-too-hot weather, so get out there and test out a route this weekend! Every time I join a sports team, go to an event, or heck, sometimes even a party, there's always someone who wants to make t-shirts. Sometimes they're free, sometimes they say "Hey guys, if we all chip in 10 bucks we can get team shirts. Wouldn't that be awesome?!" To me, league/event/party/corporate t-shirts perfectly capture everything wrong with consumer culture: 1. The idea that we need to buy something to celebrate any and every event. 2. The material waste of buying a one-time use t-shirt. I'm guilty of wearing a free t-shirt to mow the lawn, too, but how many lawn mowing shirts does one really need? I wonder how many litres of water were consumed, how much pollution created, and how many people were exploited in the creation of your free t-shirt? 3. The monetary waste. Funnily enough, the people who always suggest making free t-shirts are usually the most broke and indebted of your friends. 4. The idea that stuff will make an event better and more memorable, rather than say, the people there and the experiences you share together. 5. Forcing the burden of unwanted things onto others. I live in a very small condo, which I'm very happy with. That means I have to be selective with what I bring into my home. When you give me a free t-shirt, you're basically giving me garbage. Do you like it when people stuff your mailbox with flyers? Look, I'd love to attend your party/event/join your rec softball team. But please, don't make me a t-shirt. And for God's sake, if you insist on making t-shirts, could you make women's sizes? If I have to wear a stupid shirt can it at least be smaller than a swimming pool? I made double lemon cupcakes a few weeks ago, and they were a huge hit, even with the frosting haters. We had guests over for a birthday party this weekend and I decided I'd like to experiment a bit with the recipe. I ended up coming up with these chocolate raspberry cupcakes, which were really good. They're not tart like the lemon ones, but they're also not super sweet. Chocolate raspberry is a bit of an acquired taste, but if you like it like I do, you'll love these cupcakes. Note: These cupcakes have a mild chocolate flavour. If you want a more intense hit of chocolate, I'd recommend experimenting with increasing the amount of cocoa powder or adding melted chocolate to the batter. The raspberry icing gets its flavour from raspberry jam, but you could use any flavour jam. Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes Ingredients 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup butter 2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla 1 1/2 cups flour 1 3/4 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 cup cocoa powder 3/4 cup milk Frosting Ingredients 1/4 cup butter 1/3 cup cream cheese 1 cups confectioners sugar 1 tsp lemon juice 1 tbsp raspberry jam Directions
I had the genius idea to try giving up caffeine this week. Despite only having a 1-2 a day coffee habit, this resulted in a splitting headache, nausea, and vomiting. I'm on day two now and feeling better, but the withdrawal headaches are killer and a sugar fix was exactly what I needed. I was really craving cupcakes, but in this house, we're not into super sweet cake with lots of frosting. So I decided I wanted to make lemon cupcakes and give them a strong lemon flavour. I also wanted a lemon icing that was more lemon than sweet - frosting with a kick. My husband normally hates frosting, and he loved this one, so I believe that certifies it as "Frosting for People Who Hate Frosting." I think homemade cake can be intimidating sometimes, but these were super easy and quick to make. I used Meyer lemons, which are sweeter than a normal lemon. You could definitely use regular lemons, but your cupcakes might have more of a kick (sounds good if you ask me!) Double Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup butter 2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla 1 1/2 cups flour 1 3/4 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 cup Meyer lemon juice 1/4 cup water or milk Frosting Ingredients 1/4 cup butter 1/4 cup cream cheese 1 cups confectioners sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice Directions
This year, our city had the coldest winter in 40 years. When you live in a northern city, that's code for IT'S FUCKING COLD OUTSIDE. Despite it being March 3, the low for today is -22 C (-8 F), which feels like -30 with windchill. We can cope with this for a couple weeks, but after a month of this shit you start to get a bit antsy.
So, what to do other than book a flight to Mexico? The following list goes from best to worst-case scenario. Apply depending on level of desperation.
If it continues to be -20 every day until the end of March...well, I'll let you know. The Backstory
As you may know from previous posts, I loathe car commuting. It's expensive, time consuming, and bad for the environment, and I recommend you avoid it for the sake of your money and sanity. But what about when it becomes unavoidable? Our condo is a 3 minute walk from an LRT (subway) station and a 10 minute bike ride to downtown. We bought this condo for this reason, as short commutes are very important for us. For the past year and a half, I've been working downtown with an amazing bike or LRT commute, depending on weather. But, some things changed at my job and I started to look around. I was offered a job with the opportunity to learn very valuable skills, as well as a significant pay raise. The catch? It's either 45 minutes by bike or bus ride (assuming you make your transfer), or 17 minutes by car. As you can probably guess, driving, at least for the winter, wins out. I ended up accepting the job. Even with the additional cost of driving, I'm still getting a pretty large pay raise. I also feel like this job offers a very valuable opportunity to learn that makes it worth the commute, at least for now. Why not move? The housing market in our city is extremely slow right now, the condo market is in the toilet, and our particular area of the city has seen the greatest price drop. If we sold our condo right now, we would probably take a $30-40,000 hit, if we could sell it at all. A unit in our building has been for sale for 4 years, and they've already knocked down the price by $20,000 less than we paid. We could rent out the condo and rent a unit near my new office, but this comes with 2 additional problems: 1. Our cost of living is so low at our current condo that we would probably end up losing money due to the cost of renting. 2. My new job is located in an area that would make it difficult to rent close enough to walk in winter, and it would make it more difficult for Mr. Consumer of None to get downtown for work. So as much as this situation isn't ideal, I'm willing to accept it because: 1. My commute is under 20 minutes, and my work has flexible hours so I show up as early as possible (preferably before 7 am) to beat rush hour. 2. Mr. Consumer of None can still commute to downtown without a car. 3. The salary and learning opportunities make the commute worth it for at least a year. So, compromise has been struck. I'll let you know how it works out! My last post, the Ultimate Meal Prep Guide, gave away most of my meal prepping secrets - except breakfast. What to do for the most important meal of the day?
I've tried a couple of different approaches to this. I start work at 7, so eating before I go to work just isn't going to happen. I'm a hop out of bed at 6:25 and out the door at 6:45 kind of gal. If you have a long commute or need something you can eat on the go, I highly recommend breakfast burritos. Breakfast Burritos Ingredients 2 eggs/burrito 1 tortilla/burrito Shredded cheddar cheese (I like the Tex-Mex mix from Costco) Butter/oil/coconut oil - whatever you prefer Tinfoil Optional: 2 tbsp black beans/burrito To make breakfast burritos:
To reheat breakfast burritos: Take the burrito out of the freezer to defrost the night before. The best way to reheat it is to open the tinfoil and toast it in a toaster oven, leaving the tinfoil underneath so the tortilla doesn't stick to the oven rack. Make sure to toast to medium only, otherwise it will burn. I usually put the burrito in the toaster oven as soon as I get up and it's done by the time I get out of the bathroom (I shower at night, so your mileage may vary). If the middle is still cold, microwave the burrito for 15-20 seconds. If you don't have a toaster oven, you can heat them in a pan (still in the tinfoil). This is more time consuming and you have to watch them so they don't burn, though. Oatmeal If you have a job where you can eat breakfast at your desk, this requires a lot less prep. We buy oats, almond milk, almonds, and frozen mixed berries in bulk at Costco. I fill up a ziplock bag with oats and leave it at the office with a container of almond milk. The night before, I throw some berries and almonds into a container and put them in the fridge to defrost. When I get to work, I mix the oats with water (I honestly just do this by eye, but you want about 1/2 c oats to 1 c water) then microwave for about 90 seconds. I buy quick oats at Costco, which I know aren't as nutritious as whole oats, but you can't win 'em all. I throw in the berries and almonds and some milk, pair with free office coffee, and I'm good to go. Note that I don't add any sweetener, other than fruit. Eating sugar first thing in the morning makes me feel like shit, so I like to save my sweet indulgences for later in the day. You'll find that if you cut sugar out of non-dessert foods, you stop missing it pretty quickly - in fact, those pre-sweetened foods start to taste really gross. If you have a huge appetite or are strength training, you can also add protein powder (am I the only one who hates the friggen taste of that stuff, though?). Yogurt is good, too, and very filling, but my milk allergies don't like that. All in all, it takes about 2 minutes to make. I'm always confused when I see my colleagues coming in with breakfast from Tim's when making oatmeal takes less time than waiting in line for shitty, processed breakfast. But, to each their own, I guess. I've spoken at length in the past about my love of meal prepping. It's fast, it's easy, it saves you money, and it makes weeknights so much less stressful, especially if you suffer from the hangries like me. Now that we've been successfully meal-prepping for over a year, we've mastered the art of stocking our freezer with tasty meals fast - and I mean seriously fast. I know the title says 30 days, but to be honest, we usually end up with enough food for six weeks, all made within an 8 hour day. We both have pretty large appetites as well, so if you eat lighter you might find your meals last you even longer. The usual arguments against meal prepping are: 1. But I love to cook! 2. I don't want to eat the same thing every day. Gross. 3. The food won't taste good enough. Now, if you want to waste your money and time, I won't stop you, but all of these arguments are false. 1. Me, too! I love to cook - on weekends, when I have time to leisurely make pizza dough from scratch, or try a new recipe. I don't love to cook when I just got home from work and realize I don't have any ingredients or idea what to make. Or when I'm freaking starving and would literally eat anything, as long as I can eat it right now. There's no rule that says you have to eat meal prep every day. If you feel like cooking, go for it! But meal prep helps get you through busy days without resorting to shitty takeout. 2. Me, either. That's why we make enough food to have a different meal for lunch and dinner every day. I wouldn't want to eat the same thing for days on end, but sometimes we have enough to eat the same meal for dinner two days in a row. It's really not a big deal. 3. How good the food tastes is up to you. If you're really pressed for time, you might not want to pre-brown your meat, which means sacrificing flavour. On a weekday, I'm more interested in being fed than having a five-star meal, but you can prep your meals according to taste. Now, on to the meal prepping! Planning I prefer to use an instant pot as it's much faster than the crock pot, and now that I'm used to it I'm able to modify recipes to work with the instant pot. However, there are a lot more crock pot recipes available out there, so if you're not comfortable with the instant pot you can absolutely go that route. To plan your meal prep:
Shopping I recommend shopping the night before if you have time (and if your fridge space allows). We go to Costco on Friday night (it's usually not as busy then, either), pack everything into the fridge, then meal prep on Saturday. If I need anything from the regular grocery store I just go on Saturday morning. Meal Prep Day You will need:
To prep your meals:
Enjoy! You're probably exhausted after meal prep. Sit back and relax, you've earned it! To prepare a meal-prep meal:
It's a new year, new gym here in the Consumer of None household. Welcome to our oasis, the world's smallest gym. I'd been going to our local city-run gym all last year. I have a health-spending account through my work, so the cost to me was minimal, and the gym was an extremely nice, brand new facility a 10-minute walk from our place. This was awesome, but at the end of the day, I found myself dreading going, because:
I'd also been wanting to do workouts with my husband, but since he doesn't have a health-spending account, that would have cost $624/year just for his membership alone, and that's cheaper than your standard private gym (Canada is an expensive country). We already have an iron gym (a pullup bar that fits over a doorway). We'd both been enjoying that a lot (my goal for this year is to do an unassisted pullup!) but noticed that we didn't have a good way to build leg strength at home. After taking some measurements, we realized we could fit a barbell in our storage room with just enough room to do squats. We did some research and found a 7 foot (olympic) barbell on amazon for 60 bucks on sale (it's now $167). This was cheaper than any used options on Kijiji (Craigslist for the 'mericans among us). We debated about whether or not to buy the weights used. We could have probably bought a set of used weights for 150-200 bucks, but we had two issues:
We specifically wanted rubber-plated because we have a very small space and don't have a basement to put the equipment in. So, we wanted something that would be least likely to hurt us or our floor/walls if accidentally dropped (although we don't intend on dropping the weights on the floor during workouts). Our compromise was to buy this set from Costco. At $430 CAD these are fucking expensive, but:
If you don't have a health spending account, this would definitely be a lot to spend (we also need clips, which cost about $15 on amazon, so just over $500 total). Not to mention we don't have room for a squat rack (we can still do deadlifts and place the bar on our backs manually at a lower weight), which would add another $100 give-or-take. However, this will provide a 24/hour, free workout facility to both of us, forever, at less than the cost of one year's gym membership for one person. The biggest benefit we've seen so far is the ability to do mini workouts. Unlike going to the gym, where you have to psyche yourself up to spend at least 45 minutes working out to justify the time it takes to get there, you can easily do a couple pull-ups or squats when the mood strikes. The funny thing is, this means I work out more than I did before, even though I'm only spending maybe 10 minutes/day on average. Add to that control over the music and not having to deal with anyone else's annoying noises or germs on the bar, and I've signed up for a lifetime membership. |
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