Sorry for the long read. This is probably one of the hardest things I've had to do in quite a while. But first a little back story... As some of you may know, I'm a medically retired person with disabilities, making ends meet on 2 different disability pensions. One is a provincial program, the other federal. Unfortunately, due to a significant amount of fraud that has been discovered, the provincially run one is undergoing a severe overhaul to weed out the fraudsters. As a result of said overhaul, all recipients are being reassessed for their qualifications. Those of us who do not meet the new provincial "requirements", will be put on a new pension program aimed at helping us return to work. Sadly, this new program comes with some significant reductions in benefits and a potential to disqualify some of us from the federal pension program as well. For the last two weeks I have reviewing and researching the new requirements and they are VERY specific. These specifics basically disqualify many currently recognized disabilities. This basically means that when the new program is in full effect, those like myself who don't meet said requirements will be in a pickle. How is this going to affect The Skool Communities I run? Well, basically, I am going to have to retool and pick a different focus and direction. This unfortunately means I will have to shut down this community and focus on The Pinchpenny DIYer community. The reason for this is simply functionality and finances. It will be easier for me to maintain The Pinchpenny DIYer community and create content for it while I am doing income-generating fabrication. This decision did not come lightly, and to be honest, even though the situation is out of my control, it still feels very much like a failure. I will be posting a further update early next week. For now, I need to take some time to come to terms with all of this and develop a game plan to fix a problem I didn't cause.

due to extreme weather with lightning forcing a safety shut down of all our electronic devices, today's coffee hour is cancelled. they will resume next week

Due to unavoidable family related business, the coffee hour scheduled for this morning at 10 am has been moved to 1:30 pm. I do apologize for the sudden change. We will return to our regular 10 am time for the next Coffee hour.

When you are out shopping are you taking advantage of the off brands and store brands? If you aren't, you're probably leaving money at the grocery store that could be going back home with you. I mention this because many of the store brands actually contract the same facilities that make name brands. All they do is adjust the recipe a wee bit and poof, now ABC Grocers has their own brand. These are often sold at a lower price and the profit for the grocer is made on quantity sales. The next time you are out shopping, take a few minutes and do the price comparison between the off brand/store brand items and the National name brands. I'm confident that you'll notice a reasonable price difference. The Canadian Example. As a Canadian example, I searched Walmart.ca for chicken noodle soup. You know the kind in a can and you add a can of water. Anyway I looked at the price of Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup and it was $1.97 per can. A little farther down the page I came across Aylmers Brand Chicken Noodle Soup for $1.27 per can. Walmart Canada didn't seem to have their Great Value brand chicken Noodle Soup anymore. The difference was $0.70 between the two. Might not seem like much but that's a difference of $8.40 on a case of 12 cans. Those 12 can cases by the way aren't always a deal so be careful. Often the savings aren't savings but just the total cost of 12 off the shelf cans. Grocery stores kind of rely on shoppers not taking the time to do the math needed to see it is little or no savings. The U.S. Example At walmart.com I searched for the same thing. Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup was $1.24 per can. I then found Walmart's Great Value Brand Chicken Noodle Soup for $0.70 per can. That's a difference of $0.54 per can. On a case of 12 cans, that difference works out to the amount of $6.48 between brands. If you did this price comparison for all your canned goods, how much do you think you could save? This price difference holds true for many canned goods. The difference per can can be as little as a few cents to as much as a dollar depending on the item. Every bit saved adds up, and it can add up fast.