Living cheap in Vancouver. Granola, Rocks, and some tips from friends.

“These are a few of my favorite things..”

When we lived in China buying boxes of cereal was mostly out of the question as buying it at the import store was out of anyone's price range. So, to complement a normal chinese breakfast, I would make granola by the bucketful. So, we could have a quick breakfast in the morning before school, it was cheap, and it was western when we needed that. Now, in Vancouver, we walk down the cereal isles with a similar sentiment: “I'm not paying that price for cereal!” Sure, we get the occassional sale cereals and stock up, but for the most part, cheerios is our splurge.

We eat a lot of oatmeal, which is actually a great thing.  But the clean up of stove cooked oatmeal is a little too messy. (And we all know that we have enough messed to clean up!)

 Sometimes you want something just a little different (and a little easier to clean up!)

Yesterday I made this granola. Make it in bulk and you've got breakfast for weeks. Add yogurt and berries and it's a treat! And beats store bought cereal any day.

 Rocks. The totally new and cool toy to have! Hours of endless fun. You can even play with them on a gloomy, rainy, cold, and inside kind of day like today.

Head out to you local beach (when it's not raining). Pick up some rocks. Bring them home. Make a face on them, create a family, pets, friends, whatever. Play and play and play.

There's even research to back up the importance of children getting outside and playing in a natural environment. But in the event of a downpour, bring nature inside!

(A little known secret about my past is that I would regularly set up shop in our gravel driveway trying to sell rocks in paper cups. Since we lived miles from any town and no one could possibly see what I was up to, my dad was the one who funded my little business. But maybe in Vancouver there is a bigger market for rock toys? You could even set up shop!)

Tips from Friends on living in Vancouver on a tight budget:

I had asked my community earlier about what they do to live simply and fully here in Vancouver. Here are some of their ideas:

We swap baby-sitting with our neighbors, we put our kids to bed, then go out for a few hours. When we go out on a date at night we try to eat dinner at home, and then just split an appy, or a desert, so we still feel we are getting the experience of dinning out without the big bill at the end.


We also have an understanding with our closes friends when it comes to our kids' birthdays.  We only buy their kids a token gift of a few dollars, like a wind up toy, each kids big day is acknowledge but with out breaking the bank.  And at 2 they don't have a concept of how much things cost, so they don't care, their just happy to get a present. 


We do joint dinners with our neighbors, we make what ever we were going to, and just bring it over to their house.  It gives us all a chance to socialize, and it gives the kids a chance to try some different foods.  Another cheap, fun outing is going to UBC hockey games.  $2 with a student or community services card. 

We also send out our daughter's art as presents to family members.  It helps thin the copious amount of art we hold on to and the family loves it and feels acknowledged. 


I also try to shop based on what's on sale, and meal plan around that.


Every couple of years years we check in on our budget.  We track all expenses and write them down.  That we we check to make sure that we are spending the amount we think we are and we see if there are any new areas where we can try to trim our expenses.  This past fall we decided we that we would try to save more money on parking.  When we go to 10th, 12th or 4th ave, we try to find side street parking instead so we don't have to pay the meter. 

and a couple reliable coupon websites to check out
www.save.ca
www.gocoupons.ca