I have been sliiiightly bad since my spender bender promise, but I have lots of excuses! (I'm really good at coming up with excuses :/).
Here are my 'frivolous' purchases so far this October:

Imagine Vintage Wear: $46 for a skirt and 4 vintage patterns. Seamed stockings were a gift.


Air Canada: $73 for a flight from Edmonton to San Francisco. The rest of the trip was paid with Aeroplan points.

Air Canada: $54 for return flight from San Fran to Edmonton. Again, rest was paid using Aeroplan points.

But truthfully I've been very good so far! Everything else I've spent money on was either essentials (like replacing my glasses, groceries, getting supplies for my sewing class or replacing some things G got in the break-up) or Christmas presents (I've shopped for Bee and my mom, already woohoo!). I didn't buy a single thing in San Fran except for lunch one day. Ian and I didn't get to do much touristy stuff, but we did enjoy Santa Rosa and even a beach date before coming back to home to Edmonton (and snow.)

Amount spent on pre-Christmas spender bender so far: $173

XO Laurie

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Regardless of how awesome it is to live solo - from playing the guitar whenever I want to going to bed at 8 p.m. like the old lady I am - it also means that I rely on me, myself and I to pay ALL the bills. Add in the fact that Christmas is fast approaching (3 months from today!) and I'm starting to feel the wallet crunch already.

So I'm challenging myself to take part in a no-spender bender in the lead-up to the holiday season to scrimp and save for presents, decorations and booze. Especially booze. Besides, I get presents at Christmas so I don't really need to go breaking the bank for myself, do I?

Rules (via Miss Bee Vintage)

• no e-bay/etsy/web shopping.
• You get 3 "free" passes for "emergency" purchases  (something on your wish list you have been waiting for, a deal too good to pass up, that sort of thing).
• You can of course buy necessities and replace broken items, that sort of thing. Use the one in/one out rule. Basically no crappy purchases just because you feel like it.
• Entertainment money does not count in this (movies, date nights, dancing). It's all about "merchandise."
• Basically - no spending and splurging on myself before Christmas.

As I mentioned in my last post, Bee and I headed to Olds for an All-Alberta Vintage Blogger Meet-up in Olds to hit up their antique show with Krista Dee and Cee, both from Calgary.

To sum it up, it was a hoot! My sides still ache from all the laughing we did.

The Olds show was way smaller but (in my opinion) much better than the Edmonton one. More variety (but no clothes) and better prices. I picked up this mint (my favourite colour) radio from the 1950s. It still works and only gets AM, plus it will go great in our new kitchen (somewhere) so we can rock out to CKUA.

RCA Nipper XI radio, $35

Moving sidenote: we pick up our keys on Tuesday! We plan to go in, take a second look, take some photos and also take measurements so we can do a bit of a floor plan before moving day next Saturday!

I (well, Cee pointed them out to me) also found these two knitting booklets from $5. The Monarch (orange) is copyrighted 1946, but the Beehive (B&W) has no date, but judging by the hair I'd date it from around the same time.

Knitting booklets are not only great resources for knitting, but for hair inspiration too!

I love, love, love this sweater.

We met a very sweet older fellow named Fred - nicknamed by us as Sing It Again Fred  - from Sylvan Lake who told us all about the steam trains he has sitting on his acreage. Do I smell another road trip in the future?

The antique show was held at the Olds Legion, which had a display case of mannequins dressed up in military uniforms. Very awesome.

I love their cute but sensible shoes.

Then, as we were about to leave to meet my sister for lunch, we noticed there was a tank outside. So, of course we clamoured on it - but not me or Cee, we were too busy capturing the moment. I don't have any group photos of us sadly, but I know the other girls do!

I'm pretty sure these two were separated at birth. Their similarities were bordering on scary.

I think our foursome overwhelmed the show a little bit. At one point, Krista had about 5 women crowded around her as she showed off her seam tattoos and more than one vendor wanted to take our photo. Then, when we were leaving the restaurant the Progressive-Conservative candidate for Olds asked if he could be in a photo with us. I declined, since as a journalist I want to remain completely neutral when it comes to politics. I guess he wanted the whole package or none at all because he didn't take a photo with the rest of the girls either.

At lunch Mac gave me a Titanic book! I've always been fascinated with Titanic ever since I was a little girl; I can't believe she remembered. She's so sweet and smart too - we celebrated her earning yet another scholarship for school over lunch.



I bought this 1960s house dress from Cee that I had been eyeing on her Etsy page (and there were lots others I wanted to take home but I was trying to be sensible) and then she gave me a few more clothes.





I have some very sweet friends. She also gave me a tea set for a housewarming present, but it's still in the car as I am just going to drop it off at the El Mirador on Tuesday.

Phew - I think that's all! Now I'm off to pack up some more trinkets and maybe some clothes. I can't believe next Saturday is moving day. Expect some radio silence from me for a little while, but when we're all settled I'll give you a tour.

XO Laurie

Happy Thursday readers! I have been a little uninspired on the blogging front lately because I've been wrapped up in job transition stuff. Tuesday (March 13) is my last day and so I've been busy wrapping up loose ends, saying goodbye to folks I've gotten to know and figuring out what in my office is mine (actually, it's quite a lot!)

I've also been thinking about moving - G and I spent Sunday just walking around Edmonton in our favourite neighbourhoods looking for vacancies that weren't posted online and this afternoon we are going to view a few apartments as well. Since I have five days off in between ending my old job and starting my new one, we'll have sometime then to get housing settled and maybe even start packing!

My main goal for packing will be trying to determine what we really want to take with us. We have at least one tote in the basement full of things we weren't using for the last 15 months, so I will start from that. We also will probably look to upgrade our TV and get rid of a single bed that we have but don't really have a use or need for. Everything is in good condition so we'll probably look at giving it to the ReStore (which also picks up stuff - Score if you have a teensy car like me).

Something I'm also been thinking about a lot is MONEY and specifically budgeting. We had a bit of a budget in this place but it kind of went off the rails (I blame the electricity company and their ridiculous fee hike that sent our power bill through the roof) so what better time to get back on track when we're moving to a new home in a new city with a new salary?

Credit

Betty Bee had a great blog the other day about budgeting the old-fashioned way which also gave me a bit of a kick in the butt. It's one thing to know that you should be budgeting, but she broke down the percentages for each area (shelter, food, savings etc) that you should be budgeting for, via the 1930s book "The Book of Hints and Wrinkles". I'm not going to re-iterate her post, you really should go and read it if you haven't. Another vintage book on spending that I have come across is Guiding Family Spending, which can be read for free on Google Books, if you are interested.

Credit

What I am going to rave about however is Mint.com. I know Mint has been around for a while but I stumbled upon it 'eavesdropping' on Twitter last week (I do that a lot). If you've never heard of it either, basically Mint logs into your banking information to track and categorize your spending and it creates budgets from your amounts.

Instead of having to track spending in a little black book, Mint does it all for you online with all your accounts that you add. So if you have a chequings, savings and credit card like me, it will track spending from all of them. It also reminds you when you have a payment coming and will alert you when you're close to going over budget. I love it!  I think you can also add in another account from your spouse, but we haven't done that yet, so I'm just personally tracking my spending.

Did I mention that's it free?!



So with the helpful information from Betty Bee's post, I created my new budget and have already set the parameters on Mint. At first I was a little worried but then I remember that it was just my spending I was tracking - G obviously contributes half of everything as well but I hadn't added that into my budget. I'm very excited to get back into an organized mindset for spending.

Another month, another shopping trip with Miss Bee. I really got the sweet end of the stick on this one, because not only did Miss Bee make the trip to Camrose with her guy, she also gave me a deep-tissue massage in the middle of my living room. If you are looking for a good masseuse in Edmonton, I highly recommend her. I was in pain for the next few days - but it was a good pain, if you know what I mean.

Anywhoodle, before that we went shopping. First we stopped in at Bra Necessities downtown, who just re-opened their store in a new location. I got the shock of my life when I found out I was wearing way too big of a band size. I should be wearing a 30 or 32 and I was wearing a 38 that day! I bought a new one at Bra Necessities, and at a hell of a bargain too:  regularly $144 for $38! I saved $106 - talk about being thrifty! Although my new one is an F (instead of my usual D) I actually feel lest chesty because it's not padded. That's fine by me, since I also feel so self-concious about my boobs.

After that shocking revelation, we went to good ole Imagine Vintage. Although Peggy is no longer sponsoring me, I love her store to bits so I'm still going to show off what I bought.

I didn't feel like taking photos of the hats, so just take my word for it that I found a white beret (yes, another one!) and a white hat, probably a 70s-does-30s. I'll show it to you eventually.

Pearl in shell clip-on earings. I may use these as dress clips or a sweater clip!

A 1950s brooch with plastic pearls

 

Size 8 Naturalizer shoes

1940s, 1950s and 1970s earrings, although the last two match!

I also brought home a dress with a broken zipper for an EXTREMELY low price on the hopes I can take it to the tailor and get it fixed. I loved it and it is by and Edmonton designer so I hope it can be saved (and that it fits me once it's back in shape). But that's another post for another day.

There were some beauties that got away. I had mentioned that I wanted some overshoes and then BAM, I spotted some - sadly they were size 7 (so if anyone has size 7 feet, there are beautiful black overshoes in Camrose waiting for you!).

I am officially no longer on vacation now, but I still managed to get in some cleaning at the tail end of my days off. At the Fairmont, we really only have two closets - a large walk-in in our living room and a linen closet - and so storage space is at a premium (we also have a cold-storage room in the basement, but it's terrifying. Like, dead body stash terrifying). Our linen closet is generally neat and tidy because it's not that big, but the large walk-in closet can become a bit of a disaster area. I also avoided it for a long time because that's where the mouse was living and I kept on having PTSD whenever I went in there.

But! I finally cleaned it out this week. I don't have any before pictures to show you, but believe me, it wasn't pretty. It's not like there was a lot of stuff, it just wasn't properly using the space. With the help of G (who had to clean out what was stuff to keep and stuff to toss) I neatened it up and am now using it as my main crafting storage, as G has completely taken over the office now that he's working from home. I don't mind at all, but I need my space too!

 
We had this organizer that had previously been utilized to hold beer (we drink a lot of craft beer and have a small fridge, but now we have a water dispenser with a built-in mini fridge, so that solved some problems) so I utilized it to hold my growing yarn stash.


I had previously wanted to get an over-the-door shoe organizer for my yarn, but I realized this would be better because A) I already owned it and B) you can get 3 skeins of the big Bernat Roving yarn in there, so I can group my stash by colour/project.


In the rest of the pockets I put in some sewing stuff, an embroidery hoop and floss and other crafty things that didn't really have a good home.


 I also am one of those people who collect pretty jars but don't really have a use for them, so I popped my knitting needles into one and set it on the shelf.


The needles are also held together with elastic bands so they always stayed grouped together. Those plastic things are former ribbon tubes with a binder clip, which works great if your skein is all tangled and you want to re-wrap it (the binder clip simply holds the end in place while you wind.

I really like this system because it doesn't take up extra space and everything that I don't need is now tucked neatly away, out of sight. When you lack storage space it's nice to have organization methods that are easy to access, maintain and that don't take up a lot of room themselves.

Something that I am also keeping in the closet is my new tripod, which I bought yesterday and already love.



G has a similar tripod but it's at his buisness partner's house, and I felt that I needed my own for outfit photos and of course, my own work. The best thing about having a clean closet is that I can keep the tripod set up so I can take my outfit photos quickly. The tripod even comes with a quick release so I can just plunk my camera on and take it off, no screwing around required! As long as I put the tripod in the same spot and then stand in the same spot every time, it will take very little tweaking to get a good photo.

Have I mentioned that we have finally been hit with our cliched Canadian weather? It was -20 today and snowed last night, which was actually a good thing for me, since I had to go out and take photos but had to make photos that haven't been done in a while at our paper - so no skating, sledding or people enjoying the sunshine. Since the weather has been so nice we haven't had cold weather and snow photos in a while, so I got to do that. I knew I would be under my wonderful mustard coat for the most part, so I didn't mind building a neutral outfit. Note the matching beret and tights.

Beret: Joe Fresh | Cardigan: Joe Fresh | Dress: Rickis Belt buckle: Divine Vintage | Tights: ??

I also got to bust out some good cold weather essentials in my outfit. I wear this slip a lot, not just because it's an extra layer but because I don't have a good petticoat and many of my unlined skirts stick to my legs when I walk (especially this one!) The slip is usually knee-length on me, but I tucked it up into my tights so it wouldn't show.

Slip: Imagine Vintage

Between the cardigan, the slip, the woolly tights and my big coat, I was snug as a bug in a rug when I was outside. I'm really excited that it has snowed - I love walking around while the big flakes fall  - but I really wish it didn't bring the cold winds with it! What about you - do you love winter or do you hibernate until spring time?

xo Laurie