Finance

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The Half-Way Mark

At this time six months ago, I was in Ottawa on the eve of the big departure. Six months from tonight I will either be back in Ottawa in anticipation of returning to my government job the next morning or committed to long-term full-timing. I already know that chances are that I’ll be going with plan A… which is to not go back to my government job. But there are too many variables and what ifs in my plan at this time to discuss it any further. I’m such a tease. 🙂

I’m not where I thought I would be tonight in terms of my financial situation. A lot of things went wrong in the past six months, including the market crashing and longer periods of unemployment than anticipated,  so I’ll admit that I am scrambling a bit to come up with the funds to finance the next part of my journey, that is to get me to employment in Dawson City, Yukon. I would be happy to remain at my current position (and my employers would be glad to keep me) for an additional month, but the prohibitive cost of rent here does not make that a good option. I have been trying to find part-time evening and/or weekend work, but that has yet to pan out and time is running short. I know that the money will come, it always does, but it’s hard not to think about how quickly May 1st will be here!

When I look back on the past six months, I marvel that I am not bitter and disillusioned. September was amazing, yes. But October, November, and December were mostly hell. January was a mixed bag of feelings–taking so long to find work, bad weather keeping me cooped up, moving to such a wonderful park, joy at finding a great contract. February was good, even if it reeked of my old life–commute and desk work, but tolerable because it was a means, not an end. March and April will be much of the same I imagine. But I am impossibly happy, more content and at peace than I have ever been. Hard as this life has been at times, it has been joyous, freeing, good, and honest.

If there is one moment that I will cling to as the vivid memories of September 4th, 2008 to March 3rd, 2009 start to fade it is the minute I stepped out of Miranda at Lake Louise. The sharp scent of pine is etched in my memory and serves as a reminder that I can go forth into ‘their’ world, but still do it my way.

I will also never forget Croft’s and my adventure with the batteries that led to discovering what the big honkin’ yellow button is for. The whole misadventure taught me to have more confidence in myself, that my sense of humour is my biggest ally, and that I am not living in a vacuum; there are wonderful people out there willing to help if I just ask.

Thank you to my readers who have followed me thus far. I’d still keep a blog even if no one read it, but it’s nice to know that my experiences strike a note with people outside my bubble.

All that’s left to say is “Dang I should have bought some beer to celebrate and YUKON, HERE WE COME!!!!!”

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Adopting a New Grocery Chain

One of the things I found very difficult in my cross-country RV journey was figuring out which grocery stores to frequent. Grocery prices out here are a lot higher than they were in Gatineau/Ottawa and every grocery store I visited left me feeling rather ill with sticker shock. I learned very quickly that Safeway, a major chain out west, is the worst price offender and I now avoid it at all costs.

Oliver had two supermarkets, Supervalu which was neither super nor offered any value for the dollar, and Buy-Low, a discount store with decent prices (for a small town), if poor selection. It was in my infrequent trips to Penticton that I discovered Save-on-Foods. Their prices were also very high, but if you join their (free) discount club and shop wisely, you can get very, very good deals. Since I moved to south Surrey, I’ve been alternating between the nearest S-o-F and the Super Walmart, which has a huge grocery section. Walmart is the place to go to get basic groceries, but it’s at Save-on-Foods that I find the little luxury items that make grocery shopping so much fun:

Two of my favourite food groups in one (Guinness cheddar!!!)

Two of my favourite food groups in one (Guinness cheddar!!!)

On a recent shopping trip, the cashier took a moment to better explain the rewards program to me and let me know that there is a scanner near the door that prints out personalized coupons. The more you use your card and shop at Save-on-Foods, the better the coupon selector becomes at offering you bonuses you will use. Today, I got a handful of coupons for products I buy almost every week and which were on sale, offering me a double discount!

I like that the discount card can be used at other businesses, like Chevron gas.

Some RVers have written in their own blogs that one of the things they dislike about RVing is having to relearn how to grocery shop at every new town, but I find that half the fun of traveling is scoping out the local grocery store for products you don’t have ‘back home.’

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Excel Induced Nightmares

There is already a hint of spring in the air and I’m starting to get the Itch, so I am glad to be so happy with my new job! I feel doubly blessed in that it found me, through my Craigslist ad. After my experience last fall at the RV park, it feels so nice to be back at a job where I feel valued and respected. The work is mostly satisfying and enjoyable. I’ve spent several days working on The Excel Spreadsheet That Never Ends (TESTNE), something that some people would find boring, but which I really do enjoy. The days just fly by when I’m working on complex Excel projects. I especially appreciate that the project TESTNE is part of is entirely mine and I can manage it as I please. That said, I’m getting a bit of a crick in my neck from all that time spent at the computer and I’m having nightmares about the dang Microsoft paperclip!!! I do have to say that I am not enjoying working on a PC after spending minimal time on one in the past six months. They really are antiquated and worthless junk and it’s high time that Macs take their place in the world. *sighs*

Life in south Surrey has settled into a gentle routine that is enabling me to recharge my batteries in anticipation of the summer ahead. I hope to be heading off to Vancouver Island for two weeks at the beginning of May and then pushing north. Hopefully, June will mean work, and lots of it, in Dawson City, and then I’ll head back south to Whitehorse in mid-July for the Chilkoot trek.

Because so many things went  haywire in the budget in the past six months (longer periods without work than expected, colder weather, having to move mid-winter, toad issues, etc.), I will need to make a serious concession about the rest of this first part of my trip: I get the Chilkoot, but I lose the Dempster. So, I don’t anticipate going to Inuvik this year after all, although, who knows, a lot can happen in the next few months and I hear the money’s good in Dawson City…. But I’m no longer focusing on researching that stretch of road and instead getting ready (and really, really excited) for my Chilkoot hike!

Yesterday, I pre-ordered my copy of the The Milepost 2009, an Alaska travel planner that includes great information on routes from BC to the Yukon. I’ve always enjoyed flipping through the year’s latest version and planning routes, but never allowed myself to buy a drastically reduced last-year’s copy just for fun, promising that I wouldn’t get one until I knew for sure I was going to put it to work.

Summer feels so far away, but I’m content enough here to be able to wait patiently. I’ve waited a lifetime to see the North, so what’s another few months, and, truly, there are worst places to be. I know, I’ve been there. 🙂

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It’s That Time of Year

The time of year that makes me regret I ever learned to drive, that is.

It starts in February, when I owe the SAAQ 250$ for my toad’s license plate. It then continues in March when I owe them 100$ for my driver’s license. This year, the party will continue for a third month straight when I will owe them 500$ and change for Miranda’s license plate.

(The non-RVers go: “HA! My house doesn’t need a license plate, nyah nyah!” Rae replies: “My house doesn’t require me to pay school or property taxes, nyah, nyah!”)

There is some stuff going on behind the scenes that tells me that I will be taking up BC residency this coming fall. I’ve been warned that BC means ‘bring cash’ and that their driving fees are more draconian than Quebec’s. I find that hard to believe, but even if that’s the case, income tax will be less, so it will all come out in the wash.

What irks me with the SAAQ is that I can’t just send them three post dated cheques tomorrow. I need to wait for the February notice to appear in my mailbox in Gatineau and have said notice forwarded to me. I will then send said notice with payment attached back to Quebec. In March, I won’t need to wait for a notice since Quebec has come up with a really great scheme for nabbing people for lapsed licenses and imposing gargantuan fines on them: don’t send out notices that the license needs to be renewed and let people remember this for themselves. They do make it easy on us: license renewal happens on our birthday, on either an even year or an odd year, depending on the year we were born. So, on my birthday every odd year, I have to remember to send them a cheque. Gee, thanks, this is always what I wanted to do for my thirtieth birthday!!! Finally, in April, I will have to repeat February’s circus.

I’m just glad that this odd year isn’t the odd year when I need to get a new picture taken for my license. This was actually a factor in my decision to take off as quickly as I did. Since you have to be physically present in Quebec to have your picture taken (ie. you can’t send in an authenticated picture the way you can for a passport application) I wanted that two year buffer to reduce the urgency of making a decision about whether or not to go back. Of course, going back to Quebec never was more than option Z on a list of twenty-six options, but it was there (note that going back to my old job didn’t necessarily entail going back to Quebec other than to actually work since I could live in Ottawa, making that option significantly higher up on the list than taking up residence in Quebec again. Just thought I’d clarify).

I did get ‘happy’ news from Hydro Quebec this week. When I sold my house in the spring of 2007, I was sure that they owed me money, but still paid their huge final bill. A few months later, I got a sizable cheque from them. When I left my rental house in the fall of 2008, I once again got a huge final bill, which I paid. Guess what came in the mail this week? Hint: it’s a shame they couldn’t have made the cheque out to the SAAQ since it would have saved me from having to send it anything in February or March (!). For years now, I’ve dreamt of living ‘off the grid’ and not having to rely on utilities. Now that RVing has given me a taste of what this is like (22$ power bill for January, woohoo!), never having to deal again with Hydro Quebec is another of the many reasons why returning to Quebec is option Z on my list. 😀

(I’ve been told that I can come across as very critical of Quebec. Yeah, so? Just because I come from one of the (not THE, mind you) best places in the world in which to live it doesn’t mean that I have to take what’s wrong with it place sitting down, that I’m not allowed to criticize what’s not working. I vote, so I feel it’s my right to have a say. In fact, I think it’s my duty to not just sit by complacently. At any rate, José Emilio Pacheco sums up my thoughts about Quebec (and Canada, for that matter) perfectly (even though he was writing about Mexico). I’m not sure if my translation from the Spanish is 100% perfect, but it’s close enough:

High Treason

I do not love my country. Its abstract splendour
is beyond my grasp.
But (although it sounds bad) I would give my life
for ten places in it, for certain people,
seaports, pinewoods, fortresses,
a run-down city, gray, grotesque,
various figures from its history
mountains
(and three or four rivers).)

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A World Made to Scale

This afternoon, a group from the resort including myself toured a couple of ski hills, three or four fairs, a zoo, a m*a*s*h, an army base, and several towns. We witnessed at least a half dozen accidents and someone getting arrested, explored a sunken ship, marveled at a mermaid, laughed at skinny dippers, and experienced two nights.

All this, and so much more, can be experienced at the Osoyoos Desert Model Railroad, Canada’s largest Marklin-layout. The museum is a 3,500 square foot (and growing!) miniature Europe, featuring fantastic scenes and whimsical humour with, of course, model trains traveling through the various landscapes. It is well worth a detour to Osoyoos!