Updates: April 1 – 7

I’m pretty impressed with myself right now. Last week, I mentioned that I was doing some do it yourself bike repairs. It took a little longer to get around to, but I’ve successfully replaced four brake pads and a chain! It really doesn’t sound impressive, but when you’re able to do something for the first time, it’s very satisfying. In the past, I would have taken my bike in to have an ‘expert’ work on it, and fix it up nice. Now, having done these repairs myself, I feel like the sky is the limit. A bicycle really is just a simple machine – I’m now confident that I can replace any of the moving parts without taking it into the shop. This greatly reduces my costs to just the parts themselves, without any labour.

Happy four day weekend! We plan to transfer our bean plants from the living room out to the planter this weekend. I had planned to do it yesterday, however we experienced a freak hailstorm – the joys of April. The temperature looks much better going forward, so bean crop #1 is going out now!

Here’s some long weekend reading:

• Modest Money included us in their list of Top Canadian Personal Finance Blogs – Go vote for us!

• An Easter themed look at investment diversification from Balance Junkie: Eggs, Baskets and Diversification

• With the recent federal budget, Teacherman from Canadian Finance Blog asks: Do we need the CBC? As long as I can watch Hockey Night in Canada, I’m OK either way.

• Our promotional offer from our cable company comes to an end this month. Young and Thrifty explains how she has had a $10 “temporary” discount on her cable service for years. We’ll be canceling our service this week and then looking for another promotional offer – this usually saves us ~$60 per month. If only it didn’t have to coincide with the start of hockey playoffs…

• Making Sense of Cents has a great post on Mystery Shopping. Both CF and I do a few mystery shops a month, usually food related. It’s a great side job!

• CF and I took a walk in the beautiful spring sun yesterday. We sat on a park bench and soaked up all the vitamin D we could muster. It falls well short of Mr. Money Mustache’s post Get Rich With: Nature, but it’s a start!

Off to train for the Sun Run next week!

 

2 Responses to “Updates: April 1 – 7”

1. Modest Money says:

   April 7, 2012 at 1:42 pm

   Thanks for linking to my Canadian finance blogs list Brian!

   That’s great that you were able to do your bike repairs on your own. I would normally probably pay someone to do that too, but these days as I think about my finances more I might consider trying it myself. The feeling of accomplishment is just the cherry on top.

   And it looks like a nice sunny day for your beans. I’ll have to join your beans and get outside for a bit.

   Reply
2. youngandthrifty says:

   April 9, 2012 at 8:22 am

   Thanks for the mention!

   Hope you’re enjoying the sun

   Reply