=== 30 days on $30 ===

     February 3rd, 2018 marks the beginning of Carley's 30 days on $30 challenge. In this challenge, her goal is to spend only $30 for the month of February on food and drinks. She had asked if I was interested in doing this with her. Unfortunately my answer had to be no due to being completely aware that I would be miserable the entire time. Carley on the other hand, is mentally prepared to go through this to gain a better understanding of how to keep a food budget on the cheaper side rather than unnecessary spending. She is also using this as an opportunity to learn to be more creative with the foods she has available. Finally, she's doing this because she wants to be able to say she has completed this and can do it whether or not she really has to.

     At first, while I was accompanying Carley on her shopping trip, I had thought to myself that it couldn't be possible to buy enough food with only $30 unless most of it is spent on something really cheap like rice. As it turns out, most of the food she got is NOT rice. There are quite a few noodles and soups and things and even some juices. Amazingly, what she managed to find and buy is much more than I would have expected and definitely more options than I would have thought possible. Here's a picture of everything she got for herself throughout the day.

     I know every time I go shopping I always think I'm not getting all that much... until I get to the checkout. At that point, things start to add up and then I realize just how expensive it is to eat anything other than noodles and rice. Just in case some of you don't believe this is actually $30 worth of food, here's the receipts as proof.

     Now, for all of you who can do math, yes, these receipts do go over the $30 value. There's a bit of a story to that as an explanation: See, we were looking at frozen vegetables thinking she'll need some sort of veggies to eat for the month. At first we were thinking of a couple different kinds of vegetables, but then we saw a price tag for a larger bag of peas for only about $2. Who could pass that up, right? It's not every day that you find a price tag that is probably printed wrong! Unfortunately the cashier we went to was her first day on the job and the manager on duty started yelling at her when he came over. It was in a different language, so we couldn't tell what he was saying, but it was clear that the girl was being yelled at. We felt so bad because she started crying that we just decided to pay what the price came up as and leave. Here's the tag we found for the peas.

     So, yes, the price tags aren't completely accurate as a result of the error, but keeping this price tag in mind, Carley did in fact stay under her price limit. She's keeping her food separate from the rest of the household so she can keep track of it all. My job? I'll be here to tell you all about her experience with this challenge and keep track of whether or not she's sticking to the rules. If anybody has any questions, please feel free to comment and I'll be sure to get the answers for your as soon as I can. Just for attempting something like this, I'm very proud of my Carley whether or not she succeeds.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

It's been a week!

     So we've been living in our new house for a week now. We're not completely unpacked yet, but I don't think that's a bad thing at all. Carley is working herself silly trying to unpack everything all on her own. Well... it's not like I haven't helped, but getting everything unpacked hasn't exactly been my primary concern at the moment. I'm just happy to be working and living in a new place that isn't falling apart.

     I swear, ever since we gave our previous landlord our notice that we were moving, I started finding more and more and more things wrong with the place. And everything just got weirder and weirder and weirder as the time went on. I'm so happy to be out of that place, but oh my goodness the things that happened with that guy... I'm not sure if it was real life, or if I was secretly in some sort of reality-comedy show. Everything was wonderful at first, but over time, it sort of went downhill in my opinion. I'm not going to go into detail about it other than to say, I would personally never rent from him ever again, and if I were to rent from someone else every again for some reason, I would be much more professional about it and cover my bases.

     I have to say I'm really happy to be in our new place. Carley is behind me right now making such a huge dent in everything that needs to be done. Just with my presence here to talk to, she feels so much better about doing things and has accomplished so much. She even says it doesn't seem like it's been as long as it has been. Two whole hours of mostly me talking to her about my day and a little bit of back and forth. So much done in such a short time. I'm so proud of her, and I'm so happy to be at the point that we're at. I can't wait for the new additions to our wonderful family that are coming for us.

Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

A Post Mostly About Carley

     I just have to say, I am so proud of my Carley. She's just wonderful. She's been working so hard to make all the money we need to live here and even when she's been feeling awful, she's still going into work to make the money we need. I know it's hard on her and sometimes it seems like we don't have enough time to see one another, but we both know it'll pay off in the end.

     Soon enough I'll be on my first co-op work-term, and we'll be able to save a bit of money. Perhaps we'll be able to get her started in school for Carpentry. She's already applied, so as long as we're able to, we'll get her started as soon as possible.

     Unfortunately today she isn't feeling too well, but I'm doing my best to take care of her and get her in wonderful health. She told me her stomach feels a bit better after the Pepto Bismol, but she still has a headache. I'm sure the bright light as she's trying to sleep doesn't help too much. Once we get the curtains my mother is making for us, she'll probably sleep better. We might have to get her a sleep mask. So whether or not she's going into work tonight, I don't know yet. Hopefully we can get her feeling better by tonight, but if not, that's alright.

     Good news for today is that I've gotten a lot of my CADD homework done... after having accidentally overwritten it with the wrong file version causing me to lose a bunch of my work. I'm taking a bit of a break now after having worked on it all day so far, and I'm nearly done. Just a little bit more work and I'll be at the point where I want to be for next day's class. So now I'll take a fun break and do a bit of streaming for funzies. If you want to check out my stream, you can catch it at www.twitch.tv/DaemonVirus1.

     Have a great day everyone! ^_^

~ Kyle