One Niagara

I had the privilege of attending the Niagara Entrepreneur Awards on Friday night, who knew all of this talent and inspiration existed in the Niagara region. It was a room full of hundreds of people, all there for one reason: to celebrate in the successes Niagara has to offer. Just thinking back to some of the conversations I had that night, I look at the people who are jumping into those uncharted waters to see their dreams come to life and I am amazed at their spirit.

The Niagara Entrepreneur awards have been honouring people and businesses since 1994. All of the people honoured have in one way or another made significant differences in the community and without them the Niagara Region just would not be the same.

I was most surprised to see the Environmental Enterprise award. The award went to the entrepreneur who’s company produces a product, provides a service or is a manufacturer of systems which have a positive impact on the environment. Both companies in this category were winners in my mind.

            Niagara E-Waste Recycling

Did you know… that you have already paid to recycle your electronics? When you buy an electronic in Ontario, you are paying an eco-fee that goes towards the proper recycling of that product. The company takes your electronics and breaks them down into their components in order to properly dispose of and recycle each of the components saving millions of toxic tones from landfills worldwide.

Southbrook Vineyards

Since the beginning, Southbook’s vision was to explore what was possible and to get the certifications to back it up. Their green operations go right down to their Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rated building.  They were also featured on Dragon’s Den for their use of grape skins, which are normally just disposed of in the wine make process, to produce BioFlavia an antioxidant enriched powder.

To see a complete list of this year’s winners, click here. 

All that being said, all of the companies that were honoured both in a nomination and the winners were a fantastic representation of Niagara and what we have to offer. Wherever you live, work, or play, just remember to enjoy what your community has to offer and what you yourself can contribute to your community.

Are you an entrepreneur? Are you on your road to success or already there? Share your story.

Dine or Dash?

Mike and I decided to do a little experiment for Valentine’s day this year. Why go out and spend tons of money to sit in a over-crowded restaurant barely able to hear each other, when you can spend some quality time preparing a meal together and increasing the romance at home.

Welcome to our restaurant – Chez Maison

I must say, this experiment was a huge success. Mike and I started our day in the morning planning our menu together and coming up with a shopping list. Our first thought was let’s just take a Valentine’s menu and recreate it at home. However, that was not ideal because we didn’t like any of the menus in their entirety. So instead, we went through and cut out pieces of different menus from restaurants we have eaten at in the Niagara Region. 

We then went out for the afternoon and did all of our shopping, not only for our meal but also for the week ahead. We spent about 2 hours in the afternoon doing all of our errands for the weekend and goofing around together. Honestly, this was so much more fun than running around and doing it all by myself.  

Finally, it was off to cooking… in less than two hours of cooking and a half a bottle of wine, we made this:

Our menu was inspired by local restaurant menus including, the Keg, Sandstone Grillhouse and Lounge, Bravo Pizzaria-Grill, among others. Don’t get me wrong, the food at these restaurants is absolutely amazing, but with planning a wedding and getting our budget in check, it is much more important for us to save those couple bucks while still making sure we enjoy ourselves at the same time.

Overall, we had a great day and night preparing for our night of romance and we had a much better Valentine’s Day than any others I can remember. I guess saving $72.15 doesn’t hurt either. This doesn’t just apply to that one special night. Have you ever added up what it costs you to go out to eat every month, well compare that to the situation above and by making that meal at home you can likely save about 50% of the costs (a great idea when budgeting).  

How was your Valentine’s Day this year? Have you ever opted for a night in?

(Oh and that dessert was AMAZING! If you want the recipe leave a comment and I can send it over)

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine’s Day all you love birds out there.

I hope you are lucky enough to be sharing this day with someone you love. Remember Valentine’s Day is not about the jewellery, flowers, chocolate, etc. it is about spending some quality time with the one you love and remembering why you love them.

I love you babe!

Resolution Month

We all know that January is resolution month, February comes along and 50% of us have failed at our resolutions. Well it’s time to get back on track!

In today’s society a lot of us young people, and everyone for that matter, live on CREDIT and I am not going to say that there wasn’t a time in my life that I lived the same way. Recently, I have taken a step in a direction to no longer rely on credit but instead to use cash and save for those larger items. It all sounds like common sense and it really is, but we live in a society that we always want to keep up with the Jones! It needs to stop.. we need to be happy with what we have and what we can afford.

Here is my budget template:

Net income	Variable Expenses
Rental income	Cable
Government Benefits	Telephone
Other	Cell phone
	Internet
Fixed Expenses	Repairs
Mortgage & Property Tax	Gas & Public transportion
Electricity	ETR, Taxi & Parking
Gas & Water Heater	Medical
Insurance house	Groceries
Car payment	Personal/Hygiene
Insurance	Dining
Bank fees	Clothes
	Entertainment
	Pet
	Gifts
	Vacation
	Hobbies
	Gym

Step 1: Start with your estimated net salary. Don’t over estimate, be conservative if nothing else.

Step 2: Reduce your salary by your fixed costs – rent, mortgage, property taxes, utilities, etc.

Step 3: Next look at all of your variable costs and estimate the average amount. I am a big fan of the show ‘Til Debt to Us Part’ and Gail suggests taking an average of the costs over the previous 6 months to estimate your budget for variable expenses. Examples of these expenses include – cell phone costs, entertainment, dining, transportation, etc.

Step 4: With the remaining funds you need to consider debt repayment and savings. I don’t have the perfect formula for this just yet because I am just one of those people that HATES debt! So I tend to focus more on debt repayment than I should and do little in savings, but that is only because it is what is comfortable to me. The idea of saving while paying off debt instead of focusing just on debt repayment is to save for emergencies and long term goals. The easiest way to determine how much of the remaining goes to debt and to savings is to sit down with your five year plan (your realistic five year plan). In that plan, do you have things like buy a house or go on a big vacation? If yes, then you know you need to have money aside for those things when you get there. You need to realize that by the time you want to do things like that, you need to also have debt repaid.

Step 5: Once you are done the above, take a look back and ask, “Is this budget realistic?” and “Will I be able to stay positive at the end of the day and not need to go into further debt?” If at the end of the day, there are not enough funds to achieve all of your goals, you have a couple options. Firstly, go back and reassess your variable expenses. Is there anything you can reduce? For instance, call your cable provider and reduce services that would reduce your bill within budget. Could you reduce your vehicle costs by utilizing public transportation? Another option is to look for additional work or income that could be used for savings or debt repayment.

The idea is making realistic debt repayment schedules while still keeping the end goal of your budget something you are looking forward to, like a vacation. With realistic goals, there is no need to have a failed new year’s resolution.

If you have been off track on your resolution, it's time to get back on track! Goodluck.

Zero Waste at the Phoenix Open

Zero Waste at the Phoenix Open



I just came across this article. What a great inspiration! It makes my zero waste party seem so small in comparison, but just remember every little bit helps.

Bills, Bills, Bills!

Some of you may remember by blog post a couple months ago, Extreme Couponing.. It’s Not for Me, where I talked about my organizational technique for my coupon efforts. Well… it wasn’t working!

I went through my board today and half the coupons were expired and every time I go to the store I was kicking myself for forgetting that coupon I have at home. In addition to that, when mail came in the house, it was added to a pile on the corner of the counter until it was opened. Once opened, that pile became a larger pile of opened mail on the table until paid and filed.

Needless to say I knew it needed a change and today was that day.

I went over to Staples (which I must say is like my candy store), and was pleasantly surprised to find the Martha Stewart collection. It was the perfect solution to my problem without making my kitchen look like an office.

These are the supplies I used:

·        Martha Stewart Home office – Shagreen pocket white 8inch x 7 ¼ inch - $6.99 each

·        Martha Stewart Home office – Paper tags - $1.97

·        Martha Stewart Home office – accordion folder - $6.49

The end result was this:

Each file pocket has a specific purpose, one for unopened mail, the next for bills to be paid and the next for mail to be filed. Whenever I am ready to file/pay bills I can simply take the pocket off the tacks they are hanging on and bring them to the office.

At the very top, I have a small accordion folder we drilled a hole in to hang it on a nail. The folder will be used to house coupons and has the following headings: Food, Personal care, Crafts, Entertainment, Home, Pet, and Auto. My theory, and we will see if it works, is that whenever I am going out to do some shopping, I can just toss the folder in my purse and have everything available.

I will give you an update on how it works for us in a couple months.

Now it is off to put the Super Bowl XL VII on. Oh did I say watch the Super Bowl, I meant eat snacks and watch the half time show! I can't wait for the Destiny's Child comback.

Enjoy!