Nothing like family arriving for your mom's 75th birthday to get someone motivated to finally clean up their house. And no, that would not be Doug. He doesn't give a rat's ass if the house is clean for family. "They're just family, why are you freaking out??". And I don't, unless it's his family. But I still think we should clean the house at least ONCE a month, Doug.
During this cleanup, I had the same reaction I always do when I pick up loose change from every nook and cranny, drawer, floor, pocket, cupboard, laundry room - AAAAGH! Why can't SOMEONE do SOMETHING with all this STUPID change hanging around.
A few, well actually quite a few, years ago we rounded up all our change, wrapped it in the proper banking wrappers and decided "Holy crap, look how much change we have - I know I'll spend it on lamps for our bedroom and it will be like they're free!" Yay me! Well, I bought the lamps and meant to cash in the coins, but they were heavy, I wasn't sure if the bank would take ALL of it, blah, blah, blah. The mound of change ended up under our bed and stayed there for a very long time.
Eventually the money got moved into a closet and we continued to collect and hoard those shiny, shiny trinkets. Being in Canada it does tend to add up because we have Loonies and Toonies and if you grab a handful of change you're more likely to have $30.00 rather than $1.25.
It got me thinking that we probably have an awful lot of money hanging around. And I do want two more stainless steel appliances for the kitchen. And Doug is quite happy to have 1/2 and 1/2. And I'm not so much. Brainwave!!!
No - I'm not going to wrap and count all our loose change and then go and buy those appliances. Doug likes deals on the most inane things - like parking. So I told him that I was going to round up every last loonie, toonie and nickel in our house and use it to spend on everyday things until it was gone. I would not use my Visa, bank card or cheques. He jumped on board immediately and was all "that's an amazing idea - here, let me get a dump truck and unload all the loose change from my office and my bedside table for you!!".
So, there we have it. I'll take the next while and only spend our loose change on everything we need (excluding set household expenses that are automatically charged to visa) including groceries, household items, clothing etc. and see how long it can last. It's a double bonus - we recycle our change back into the economy and we don't take anything out of our bank accounts.
And the best part - Doug will be so happy that we used loose change on everyday expenses that he'll be all for the rest of the kitchen renovation. Yay!
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