mother hubbard's cupboard

first night in my new house. September 14, 2004

Today I went to Calgary with one of my managers and another Advisor, and I really enjoyed it. A guy from Vancouver was speaking on Critical Illness and Long Term Care Insurance, and how to position the product.

If I could actually make money at it, I would really love to keep doing it. But alas, I am still looking for anything that'll pay.

I've been hearing quite a bit about people having trouble keeping food in the house - and not just in the little family of blogs we have here. I've heard it on the radio, read it in the paper, and have seen it on the news.

My own experience so far: most meats are too expensive for us to buy, save for ground beef, hot dogs, or any cut of pork. Sometimes we can find chicken for less than $5.00/kg so we can buy that, but there have been weeks when we couldn't. A 4 litre jug of milk runs me about $5.69 and it lasts about a day and a half. Cheap bread is about $2.39 a loaf, 436 grams of coffee is about $6.00, and a litre of coffee cream is $3.02! We just switched to coffee mate, but I don't really like it.

What is the price of food in your area?

mother hubbard

This time of year has always been difficult for me, at least for the last ten or eleven years. Before Dale died, it was because my birthday and his birthday brought unrealistic expectations, considering he was a chronic alcoholic. At least now, those don't bother me nearly as much.


Since Bill moved here and we got custody of Em, this time of year has been awful simply because we're trying to catch up on various financial obligations after getting through Christmas, like everyone else. The first few years it was tough because Bill was doing his eavestroughing business (and his clients weren't paying on time) and the last few because I'm doing the life insurance gig, and my commission level is in the shitter.


I've already decided that I should be searching for other work while I'm doing this, because I really am tired of being poor. Even with poor being subjective, we're talking about taking an ordinary lifestyle and shaving $2,000 per month in expenses. That means no clothes, no movies, no dining out, no haircuts. Hell, I'm about ready to pull the satellite because I need the cell phone and I can't cut anything else out of the food bill. I'm hoping that Jamie will find something soon, and that'll help too.


I'm sure that it will all work out, but I can't wait for spring! That's when all my utilities drop - the power bill and the gas bill go down, and my city taxes will go down. Just the other day I got my assessment, and the house has dropped in value from $320,000 to $272,000, so hopefully that saves me $500 in annual taxes.

Oh, and don't you always crave expensive coffee drinks when you're broke?!