“I’m on my way!” ~Winter
I’m pretty sure this is what the wind was whispering to me on this cold Fall-like morning. It was so cold (low 50s) that I turned on our furnace just to take the chill out of the house. While there should hopefully still be some warmer days ahead, Winter does come early to our area of the country. With it comes plenty of cold weather and snow. Now that we are prepared for our heating needs, we need to think about the upcoming snow and how to keep up with it!
We have a long driveway, so plowing is a must. We also live on a lake and the winds that come off the lake cause a lot of drifting in front of our garage. It is not uncommon to wake up to 2-3 foot snow drifts in front of our garage, yet the rest of the driveway is okay. Rather than place a call to have this area plowed (at the cost of $45!), I became overly familiar with a shovel. There were times it seriously took me well over an hour to shovel out a path for my car. Removing snow is hard, backbreaking work, and I’m not getting any younger!
This year we will be purchasing a snowblower. While we will still need to have our driveway plowed, at least I won’t be risking injury (or worse!) by shoveling those drifts and our walkway. I am setting a target date to have one purchased by November 1st. This gives us just shy of four months to save. Our tentative plan is to buy from Lowes, and here are the reasons why:
- We already have $125 in Lowes gift cards earned via hotel rewards and Swagbucks. Earning another $75-$100 from Swagbucks before November is not unreasonable. Hubby should also have another $50 or more to cash out for his hotel rewards. t is a nice perk of his job!
- We can get a 10% military discount from Lowes because I am a veteran. This discount is also usable with sales.
- We would order via Swagbucks to get yet another additional discount (I’ve seen as much as 6% back) so that would further offset the cost.
My goal is to have very little (if anything) out of pocket. I had been saving Lowes gift cards for a household expense that might show up, and I certainly feel this pending purchase qualifies. While it was an overlooked expense, I feel good about having a plan in place cover it! Budgeting is a beautiful thing as we are now in control of our money rather than have it control us. We have certainly come a long way since starting our journey a mere 7+ months ago!
it’s getting in the 50’s very early in the morning, but only lasts a couple of hours and still getting up to mid 90’s during the day. I would love an 80 degree day LOL. That sounds like a good plan for the snowblower. If you are still having to pay any out of pocket, you might try buying a discounted gift card to Lowe’s online for the balance. You can usually save around 8% or so. When we remodeled our bathrooms at our old house I bought Home Depot cards discounted like 10% and saved over $300 as our remodel cost over $3000.
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I’m sure you are thankful for a few hours of cooler weather! That is a great idea about buying discounted gift cards for any possible balance. I hadn’t thought of doing that!