Just chilling in January (2015 frugal chatter)

[momof5boys]

Well more than a little jealous of your confession, I live in my laundry room. Was just thinking today how I have failed my 17 year old son, and have neglected to teach him the finer points of laundry. This is my mission for February, he changes way too much with the arrival of his first serious girl friend!!!

My boys are way too immature to be dating at 17!!! I told them they all had to wait until 30 but that ain't happening either lol. But at least so far they've waited until 21 or 22 years of age.

[Natalka]

thriftygranny, mine is Jan. 27

That reminds me to go renew my drivers' license!

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

[thriftygranny]

My boys are way too immature to be dating at 17!!! I told them they all had to wait until 30 but that ain't happening either lol. But at least so far they've waited until 21 or 22 years of age.

I wish we could have staved off the girls for a bit longer! I think it depends on your child, and who the girl is. This one is very involved in sports and works after school as well, with a mother that has laid out a lot of ground rules.They are both really busy kids and both serious about school and post secondary so they only see each other a couple times a week and it is usually at our home for a movie or her house if her mom is home.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Nancy so sorry to hear they turned down your DH

Angela Hope you start to feel better soon.

Granger so sorry to hear about your student.

Sweet Sparrow hope you get your daycare worked out

Sorry if I missed anything, a lot to catch up after a week, a crazy insane week.

It has been a super crazy insane week. Monday we had the switch up in our department which well did not go smoothly, they did not change the girl coming back rights so everything of hers was still set up to AP and not Orders. Luckily the girl who left is still with us and let her log in as her. Tuesday I was in another location working with them for the day and oh what a day it was. Our controllers guess of an hour per person so off, I started working with them at 9:30 am (I was there are 7 but did some of my own work first) and did not finish until 3:40 and there were no breaks for me, no lunch, no nothing. Not sure what I would have done if the 3rd guy had been there as I would not have gotten to working with him. So I have stretched out my schedule for this week a bit and after this week I will see what needs to be done for the next week. But the best part of all was our system has live company which we all work in but we also have a test company where we can go in try things mess around and it won't effect live company, so I planted all of this stuff in test company for the guys to work with and guess what they decided to update test company and pushed out everything I did so I had to wing it on the go with the guys. Wednesday back to my reg office as one girl was off so I was me and her crazy insane constantly on the go. Thursday off to visit a customer with our sales manager and product expert, a lot of things I need to work here as we need to have a better year with this customer than we did last year. I am not even fully sure what went on last year as I did not handle their account but had to step in part way through to try to get them back on track. Friday back in the office to try to recreate what took me a week and a half to do originally in one day so I can go to all the other locations. So I locked myself in my Dad's office (he was out of the office luckily) and got to work and some how I managed to get it all done.

Last night we went and did out grocery shopping, was not a lot we needed but a few things I wanted to grab. Soups from No Frills, Potatoes and Onion from Food Basics and Cheese from Freshco. As well I agreed to pick up Mary Brown's for dinner as my Mom has been doing well with no eating out due to $$ but I also see she is making comments as I get to eat out because of travelling for work. My mom has always seen eating out as her treat since she doesn't drink or smoke or anything else. So we had Mary Brown.

Also this week I left my Mom with the challenge to see what could be done with our phone/internet/cable. Over the past couple of years our cost on these things has sky rocketed as far as I am concerned. Our biggest issue being when new packages have come out and we got a deal on them Mom would accept them and than get used to them so even when the discount is over she would keep them as she was used to having them. After a couple of phone calls Mom was able to get our bill down over $130/month. We are now paying less for cable/phone/internet than we were just paying for cable before. So I am happy and this will really help our budget which I am having serious issues budgeting right now.

Hope everyone has a great day

[lizzie bargain]

SA-I would ignore the comments about eating out and not be guilted into anything-those kind of games/guilt trips drive me bonkers! Given it is her issue, not yours ( but she wants to make it yours) the most I would offer to do is to pull in on the way home and wait in the car while she runs in and picks up some takeout for herself! I must sound very tough! JMHO. But good on her though for getting your joint cable/internet bill down-nice to see she is finally trying at least in one way to contribute to reducing the high bills!

[thriftygranny]

Last night we went and did out grocery shopping, was not a lot we needed but a few things I wanted to grab. Soups from No Frills, Potatoes and Onion from Food Basics and Cheese from Freshco. As well I agreed to pick up Mary Brown's for dinner as my Mom has been doing well with no eating out due to $$ but I also see she is making comments as I get to eat out because of travelling for work. My mom has always seen eating out as her treat since she doesn't drink or smoke or anything else. So we had Mary Brown.

Wow on the take out subject..I second Lizzy's sentiments. Jealous of someone eating take out is something a child would be, not an adult that is has limited funds. Yikes you do have some issues to work on with her.

[jasperandchar]

ashley what a week indeed, great savings on combining all your phone, cable/sat and internet

[jasperandchar]

Lizzie so sorry for the loss of your daughter, thanks for sharing I think it gives others a different perspective of the grief and sensitivity needed to approach and deal with the loss of a child (hugs)

[jasperandchar]

DH & I did very well today at shoppers, I put him through with his own order as I was having him pick up Leclerc, butter and a few other items that had limits of 4.

We purchased the gc's before going threw the cash so extra points there as well.

Now we are all stocked up on many items and I just need some good meat sales in February (hoping for ground beef, rib steak would be a nice treat (compared to moose steak) A GIRL CAN DREAM

Since we travelled into town to go to SDM we arranged to more pickups for items sold so another $20 richer and dh is meeting someone tomorrow am as well when he drops Logan off for a birthday party so another $40 as wel.

Sadly or gratefully depending on how you look at it we are running out of items to sell, so we definitely made alot of progress/de-cluttering this last month

Monday with dh and I will be working on the budget for February, I will stop in the bank on Monday to put the $ from items sold into the reno account aka spray foam kitty, we are getting there 1 piece of junk at a time .

Dinner tonight is very frugal - fish from the cottage/freezer, 50% off pack of corn on the cob, 50% off strawberries which I will serve with fresh cream whipped, yellow beans from the garden (freezer) and rice as a side .

Wishing everyone a wonderful day and weekend

[coupon girl]

angela hope you feel better
-lizze thanks for sharing hon
sweetsparrow good luck with the daycare

so went to he funeral mass this morning then popped into sister-in-law's for a coffee
-son just asked us if we could babysit tonight-no problem we said

[lizzie bargain]

J and C-sounds like a yummy dinner to me. I am amazed how much cash you and others are getting from things that you no longer need-that is great. I don't have a dinner plan yet but the house is looking spic and span as we just cleaned-although I admit DH did most of it but DD and I did some too-plus groceries and laundry. Weather is quite balmy so even opened the odd window/door to air out and DH said to remind him to take the Xmas lights down after he finishes his coffee break-he is on a roll today.

I may go outside too and chip away at some of the ice that is hopefully melting around the edges of our sidewalk/driveway. Tonight might even be a takeout treat-to celebrate the end of exams and the hard work DD put in on her studies-we will see. She is currently cleaning her room and bathroom. I told her I want to put up fresh pics of our house on the house swap site we use and see if we get any different offers-or not. So far we have one for England next summer but might see what opportunities might come along for this summer.

[jasperandchar]

great job Lizzie sounds like you and your family are busy today, hope you all enjoy a nice treat. So if someone from London wants to stay at your home does that mean you can stay in there home, is that how it works? just curious

[lizzie bargain]

J and C-that is right we just trade houses with no cost to either party other than the airfare or the drive there.Some people trade cars too. Then of course your normal vacation costs of sightseeing or eating out-but nice to have a house that you can cook many of your meals in and laundry so you don't have to take a ton of luggage. We just had a fabulous offer from Australia but the only dates that work for both parties are Xmas and with DD only having 2 weeks off then and the airfares doubling at that time of year it does not sound like good value to us to go that far and pay so much for just 2 weeks. We did 3 weeks there back in 2008 and had a blast!

My sister who just moved back from Germany and her hubby surprised us by driving by and called and stopped in for a visit. She is hoping his next job will be back in Europe and she said he has applied for something in Rome so who knows where he will end up-never know or might stay in Calgary. I think if they get a posting in say Rome or Paris they will get lots of company-maybe even including us!

I chipped the ice and DD and DH got the Xmas lights down and have now gone to pick up Chinese food-our guests were stuffed from eating lunch out so declined our offer to stay. Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.

[jasperandchar]

Lizzie that's really a great way to travel the world like you said airfare and whatever else but big savings in hotels savings and a house is always more comfortable than a hotel unless 1 can afford the penthouse (lol). Hope you all enjoyed your Chinese food.

[Frugalbigmama]

Morning everyone. Since my teen needs me this weekend to keep him motivated to finish some assignments I deceided to get up early and go do laundry at my moms and get a few groceries while he was sleeping. 2 loads of laundry on the go. Breakfast made. ( even fried up eggs for teen so I can make him a quick egg mcmuffin and heat up leftover pancakes for him. Now to finish cleaning the kitchen and get to my list of things to do.