5. Pizza – I’m not talking about ordering pizza once or even twice. I’ve ordered in pizza four times over the last two weeks for the kids and I for dinner.

4. Giving Kids Lunch Money – For the past month I’ve probably given the kids each money to buy lunch 4 out of 5 days a week. Two teens with big appetitites.

3. Late Fees – Over the past two months I’ve not been organized, have missed deadlines, due dates, etc. and have had to pay several late fees as a result

2. Not Planning My Shopping Lists – Last week WalMart Canada had their annual Anniversary sale. It’s a huge event and often items I use throughout the year such as toothpaste, laundry detergent, toilet paper, etc. are 50% or more off their regular price. It’s also a great time to do some gift shopping as they have many items throughout the store at seriously reduced prices. I knew the sale was last week but I neglected to make a list of the items I wanted. When I did arrive at the store I could only remember a few and came home with few of the items I’d wanted. I also left the shopping to the last day of the sale due to procrastination so had no time to return. I literally could have saved several hundred dollars stocking up on items I use regularly and on gift and household purchases had I been organized.

1. Not Sending in Rebates – Over the last two months I’ve purchased several items that had mail-in rebates and never “got around” to spending the 3 minutes required to fill out a form and send it in. Now the offers have expired and I have lost over $125 in rebates due to procrastination.

The frustrating thing about the above money wasters is that each and every one of them could easily have been prevented had I been more organized or had procrastinated less. They’re the easy holes in the budget to fix. They’re also the most common areas money writers tell you to save money on.

When we’re stressed or busy or lazy it’s easy to fall back into bad spending habits. We make excuses (“I’m moving again!”) and try to justify it (“I’m moving again!”) to ourselves but deep down we know we’ve fallen off the path.

I just deleted the pizza guy’s phone number from my cell phone. Boy, I’m going to miss him.

Here we go again! The past year all I seem to be doing is moving. Either painting and staging my house to sell, dealing with an endless string of open houses and viewings, dealing with disappoints as offers fall through and finally closing on the house. Purging, donating, selling, packing. Apartment hunting for weeks. I finally found rented a nice 2 bedroom apartment not far from the house for my teenage son and I to live in and then two weeks before the big move my daughter, who’d been living away for college the past year, announced she wasn’t going back to that college and was staying home with me. Suddenly, in the middle of the move and surrounding chaos I have not one but two teenagers planning to live with me. Not only did this mean an extra person to live with but all of her furniture and belongings too. Talk about throwing a wrench into the plan. Fortunately, at the exact moment I needed it, a 3 bedroom apartment with a second bathroom came up available – a rarity in this neighbourhood. I grabbed it and now have a lease on not one but two apartments. Oh goody. The landlord is understanding and will allow me to break my lease on the 2 bedroom if and when we can find another renter. Until there’s another renter for it I’m stuck with 2 rent payments. Not exactly the frugal dream here. So back we are with viewings and staging and packing. Meanwhile, I got the keys to the new apartment a few days ago and walked in to realize it has not been decorated (or possibly cleaned) since the mid 1980s. The landlord is willing to have the carpets cleaned (not replaced) and has told me I can go ahead and paint if I want to but it’s not the building management’s policy to paint it themselves unless it’s in bad conditon. I think we may have differing ideas about bad condition but at least I do have the option to paint in the colours I want to which is a plus. If I’m going to make this apartment home for myself and my kids for the next several years at least I’m not limited to “apartment beige” for colour. After nearly a year of packing, living out of boxes, being in a virtual limbo we’re within  a week or two of finally being able to unpack and get settled. Now… let the painting begin! Over the next few weeks I’ll share photos and videos as we paint, decorate, and get moved.  We’ve a wild ride ahead – did I mention the living room is currently a bold mustard yellow with dusty rose vertical blinds and green wall to wall carpet?

Or that the two bathrooms are painted Pepto-Bismal pink? Including ceilings?

Stay tuned. Lots of photos and videos of the before, during and after as we tackle each room.

Part of the issue with the downsizing is that I’m moving from a house with a large custom kitchen with more than ample storage into a tiny galley style kitchen. When I first looked around I was shocked by how small it was. The oven, for example, is only 24″ wide. That’s the outside. The inside is only 16″ x 17″. None of my roasters, baking sheets, or even muffin pans will fit inside!

The apartment kitchen doesn’t host much cupboard space either so I’ve spent the past 6 weeks trying to use up what’s in my pantry and my large upright freezer here at the house in preparation for this move. I’ve been a little too successful though.

Last night when I stopped packing long enough to think about making dinner for the family I found the following: 1 lb frozen raw shrimp, 1 onion, 2 tired and depressed looking carrots, 1 wrinkly and wise looking green pepper, 1 can of jellied cranberry, 1 can of large pitted green olives, about 1 cup of wild rice, a small jar of anchovies, 3 cans of evaporated milk, half a loaf of bread and just about every kind of condiment you can imagine. I was exhausted, mind numb from packing and organizing and I stared at this motley little group of foodstuffs in utter confusion.

Finally the boychild decided he could brave the rain and walk to the local grocery store. He returned with some whole wheat tortillas and announced that shrimp fajitas sounded like a great idea for dinner. And so it was. It was also a great breakfast – I just ate the leftovers with my coffee.

Wonder what sort of wonder we’ll whip up for today’s dinner?

As I’ve likely mentioned a number of times I’m moving from my house of approximately 2200 sq ft of living space (plus garage, garden shed, patios) to an 800 sq ft apartment. Needless to say I’ve had to get rid of a lot of things.

I started out listing the main items to sell (furniture, tvs, sewing machine, lawnmower, etc.) with a description and my asking price and I emailed it to everyone on my local contact list and ask them to forward it on to anyone they thought might be interested. I’ve sold all but 2 items this way so far so I haven’t had to post items on my local buy/sell group or craigslist. Amazing what you can do when you have a network, even a small one!

We’re now down to less than a week until the movers arrive and I’m getting things ready for a yard sale. I made a decision that nothing that I’d want more than $20 would be in the yard sale but would be offered up to my email network and it’s worked great.

Whatever doesn’t sell in Saturday’s yard sale will be donated to a local charity so the goal of the yard sale for me is to get rid of things I can’t take with me and I’m pricing things accordingly. About 85% of the items I’m selling will be priced at 25 cents. A few items priced at one dollar. Only 5 or 6 items will be priced over one dollar.  Remember… at this point the goal is to get rid of this stuff, not to make a big profit. The more that goes in the sale means the less I have to cart over to the donation centre saving me both time and gas money in the long run.

Next strategy is to do an “early bird” friends and family pre-sale on Friday evening. I’ve told all of my neighbours, friends, people in my local network about the pre-sale and told them to feel free to bring a friend. Hoping to have at least a quarter of the stuff gone before I even open the garage door for the official sale on Saturday.

Fingers crossed I get rid of all or most of the stuff in the sale. Every little bit counts.

It’s been a crazy few weeks (months, years) but I’ve finally sold the house and am in the middle of moving – less than a week to go.

It’s the start (finally!) of my new life. New place to live, new people in my life, new focus.

The new focus is why I’d love to attend Blog World Expo. I’ve sold my house and am using part of the money from that to start my business. The money will give me time (12 to 18 months) to launch a number of niche blogs (including this one), write some info/ebook type products to sell and hopefully I’ll be making enough income in that 12 to 18 month time frame to pay my living expenses.

Going to Blog World Expo will enable me to learn from the folks who are already writing amazing blogs. I’ve looked over the schedule of sessions and I almost wish I could clone myself 2 or 3 times so that I could attend each and every session. I know that what I could learn from the sessions and just from meeting other bloggers in person would more than justify the cost of a return flight from Toronto. It would be an investment in my future.

I know most of those who are earning full time blog income discourage the whole “just throw yourself in and go for it” and suggest you start blogging part time but I figure with all of the other changes in my life it’s time to just do it. I know it’s not going to be easy but I’m looking forward to throwing myself full time into the blogging lifestyle and Blog World Expo would simply ignite my passion and drive even further.

John Chow, one of my blogging heroes, is offering an opportunity to win one of two free passes to Blog World Expo in September and I’m so excited. I’ve entered (this is the entry) to win one of the passes and I’d be there in a heartbeat should I win. Wish me luck!

John, if you read this and decide I should receive one of the passes you can contact me at merlene@merlenepaynter.com. Did I mention my fingers are crossed?  (Toes too. Even my eyes are crossed although that’s starting to give me a headache.)  The cost of flight, hotel, etc. would be more than worth if for this event.