Marching Forward with Frugality & with Savings 2015 frugal chatter

[jasperandchar]

My chef is at work. I'm doing ham and scalloped potatoes. We r hoping to do a movie tonight. Last night we brought out a relic of the past....jurassic park. It's hard to believe it's 22 years since it came out (1993)

I love cuddles on the couch.

We tried pouring hot water down the vent on the roof re the sewer drainage issues...they improved slightly but not much...the washer still had water come up in the bathtub when it pumped out...but not near as far.

are u on a septic tank?

[jasperandchar]

@avoncallingu hope all is well and you are both relaxing before your dh's surgery tomorrow, best of luck and keep us posted when you have a spare moment, take care

[terry2144]

You are making me hungry! Really like the idea of taco meat in a soup..avoncallingu in my prayers. night all.

[saundyl]

We watched Jaws last night. All 4 of them were on but we didn`t stay up for all of them.

@ Saundyl At first I did like you. People would see what I was doing and would order things. I learned fast though that you need to get a payment from them. I got stuck with a huge ruffled doily...took the order when I was in the hospital. when I finished it I called the number I was given just to find it was no longer in service. I took over doing towels from my mom in 1981 so I kept on with the same places. They have all been out of business for years now. I saw a story in the paper when AnnaMaes opened. In it they said she would be taking crafts from local people on consignment. I had also been in a couple of the other stores and saw they had crafts on consignment so I asked if they would be interested in selling my things. I haven`t looked back since.

That is so cool.so far for my orders people have prepaid.

[saundyl]

are u on a septic tank?

Town sewer line. being on town lines is new to me.

Before I moved here I was on a septic tank. The solids I had pumped out every 4 years (i had to dig 5 feet down there before calling the pumper truck )liquids self pumped into a septic field across the driveway. Because of the pump I learnt to check the cord daily. I had someone steal my septic pump right out of the hole once when I was away. I was so mad I ended up with a sewer flooded basement. I also ran over the cord once with the lawn mower Anda dog chewed it once so I know how to splice extension cords back together and put new ends on cords. Once the cover came off and around the pump froze. I had a heat lamp down there to defrost everything.


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[saundyl]

You are making me hungry! Really like the idea of taco meat in a soup..avoncallingu in my prayers. night all.

It was really yummy. I'm looking forward to my lunch tomorrow there were left overs

[sweet sparrow]

If you haven't already I would call bell and ask to speak to someone about the rate you are paying. I called just before my surgery and was offered a renewal on my current discounts which were expiring, $10.00 off house phone & $10.00 off satellite.

Because we are rural and Rogers, etc cannot provide service I was pleased with the discount but if you are able to get other providers then I would certainly shop around and call Bell back to let them try and compete, just a suggestion, best of luck in your decision

About internet and phone bills..I always had rogers for phone, internet and cable. First my desk top broke..cancelled internet...then my tv broke ...cancelled cable . With everyone having their cells I called to cancel home phone.(cells not with rogers) They kept bugging over and over with incredible prices compared to what I had paid. At this point I had no use for any of these services. Later I got my laptop...low and behold a card came in the mail with ...I can't remember what my usage is but for 55 a month 3 of us stream etc and never have gone over. You have negotiating power. A guy at work tells them their offer is not good enough until he gets a great deal.

I have tried calling every year since 2008 since we've had Bell about discounts and found that they're getting harder and harder to come by. Last year, I remember being on hold for 45 minutes (yes, forty-five!!), before getting to speak to someone who immediately dropped my call during the transfer. I think I spent over ten hours calling and calling back, only to call again only a few months later because of the "unexpected price increase".

When we started with Bell, I remember agreeing to a 12-month promotional period at a discounted rate, only to have all services increased by $X amount the very next month. When I called to ask about it, they told me that I should have received notice on my bills for several months beforehand. When I replied that this was my first bill and I am a new customer, he gave me a credit for the amount, but we were still charged the tax on the full amount. He didn't have the authority to change that and I would have to call again, request someone higher up, wait twice on hold.... Oh yes, I called again.

I'm so tired of Bell. I have spent more wasted time on hold with them than am ashamed to admit. The guy last year told me Bell was stopping their discounts because Bell was losing too much money. The person this year said there were discounts but only if we were to get satellite with them. The $100 bill I received apparently includes the promo discount.

Also when we started with Bell, our internet didn't work. They sent over a new modem, new password on two occasions. It still didn't work. They told us to check the lines. They told us to wait for a technician, which I had to be home for twice. The first two technicians had no idea how to turn on a Mac. They then spent the better half of a half hour telling me how much they hated working with Macs and how they would never get one. The third was scheduled to come but we called their service line and finally found someone who knew a bit about computers. He told us to hold down the reset button and count to ten. When the other guys came, it was not a full reset. It worked! Duh!! Oh yes, and Bell said they would charge us for two service calls, to which I had to call back and tell them they didn't actually do anything except drink our water and use our bathroom.

At this point, I'd be close to saying if they offered us service for free, it'd be too expensive for the aggravation of dealing with them. I think we're just in too big of a city for them to care how many customers they retain.

If only it was as simple as calling in, waiting for a few minutes on hold, and asking for a better deal. It really hasn't been our experience with Bell.

[sweet sparrow]

Sorry about the ridiculously long post about my relationship with Bell. My condolences to anyone who read to the end. In my defense, I'm exhausted from cleaning the bottom oven drawer of mouse droppings. I've just finished scrubbing every muffin pan, cake tray, cookie sheet, and bread pan I own. I discovered the new mouse hangout after I started baking cookies. DH has been to Tim Hortons five times too many this week and I had to bake to bring down the potential cost this week. After taking out the cookie sheet with the Silpat baking sheet and putting most of a full batch of cookies on it, I took out the next tray and saw mouse droppings. DH set another trap and I had to clean every single last item, which was a lot more than I planned on doing tonight.

On the bright side, I've finished my laundry experiment with getting the towels washed and getting out any former soap residue. We shall see how well it worked tomorrow!

[Natalka]

Sweet sparrow, hopefully your mouse problem gets eradicated soon - I know how frustrating that can be. Peanut butter on a trap worked perfectly for us.

Milan, our son, came over last night for supper - and to finish up with installing some computer stuff; I had been without a printer for a week! One giant bonus of him having done all this restoring is that I FINALLY was able to print a coupon from the Save site - it's been frustrating me for so long that their program wouldn't download (and Save was never help in assisting me as to why), but yesterday it worked!

Now today I'll get a new mouse (ours stopped scrolling) - on sale for over half price at Staples, same one we have now, a Logitech.

Hope you all have a FAB day!

[cdngal75]

I thought of another goal. Find a new phone/internet provider. Every year, I say the same thing, but I think I've just had it with Bell. For 2011/2012, we had it at $55. Then it crept up to $57 in 2013, $82 in 2014, and now $100 this year for less service than we used to have in 2011. The least amount of service, the most amount of money. That's nuts. Any suggestions or recommendations on where we should move to?

Bell lost my business forever when I was told that $56 for my landline was the cheapest they could do. Mind you we made no long distance calls and did not have call waiting. What an absolute joke. When I called and asked them to match the price Shaw was quoting me for satellite they said they would not. That was it. I had paid my bills on time every time and was with them for 13 years. Loyalty to Bell got me nowhere. We are with Shaw now for satellite, Rogers for wireless home phone( $12 a month) and Rogers for cell phones. We live in the country so we have our internet with a small company as no big companies have cell towers here.

I have noticed my Shaw bill creeping up without me changing anything. I am seriously contemplating getting rid of satellite altogether as there is just so much garbage on tv anyways. I am tired of it. Would save $92 a month.

Hope someone here can give you some advice.

[jasperandchar]

Morning All,

DH has an appointment with our family doctor fingers crossed she was in her kind mood and not her (jekkle and hide) manners again, you never know what to expect when you see her BUT hopefully because he was the 1st appointment this am she will be in a delightful mood one can hope .

I have a roast pork out for dinner comtemplating on trying to make carnitas (spelling unsure) in any case I better get moving.

Jaden is home with a head cold, hopefully that will pass quickly. Logan also has a head cold but felt well enough to go to school.

Tomorrow is Logan's birthday I ordered and purchased his gifts ahead of time and tomorrow while out at my appointment we picking up his ice cream cake and Chinese food (we order a treat for birthday dinners) so it will be nice to have the night off from cooking AND the expenses were budgeted so all is well on that front.

Still need to do March's budget - today is the day even if I have to tie dh to the chair or do it all by my lonesome, preliminary figures look like I should have some funds left to put aside for the cottage taxes (not as a much as I would have liked) but better than nothing or ending up short .

I'm going to start a load of laundry once Jaden gets up from his nap as I don't want to wake him up so I'm feeling way behind today

I'm feeling so much better after my surgery and back to my old self but I must admit feeling lazy as dh was doing everything for me so I need to get back into the groove.

On a funny note when my parents visited yesterday - my mom decided that she really wanted to go to a Ham & Jam (dinner with dancing) 10 minutes from our home but I must admit my dad probably wore his worst clothes (seriously) SO we took him to the re-use it centre where he got a really nice pair of beige dress pants they fit perfectly, a really nice long sleeve shirt that matched the pants, he also has a few other items for another time . I must admit he looked really handsome so off they went to the Ham & Jam and had a lovely time. When I was helping my dad grab items at the re-use it centre that were his size, I felt like we were on 1 of those reality shows like you know those make over shows . My mom said he looked like a millionaire .

Well off to the races, anyone want to share their meal plan for inspiration

[thriftygranny]

Sorry Nancy, not doing a meal plan this week!! Hubby is away for the week for a course and it is just jay and I. Cleaning out all the little containers in the freezer , have some soup, spaghetti a couple of half packages of things like perogies, smokies etc.Won't be a calorie conscious week but it will feel good to get the stuff cleaned up! I am making no bake granola bars and date squares for jays lunches and have to go to a tarp shop to get a zipper replaced in the boys ice fishing hut, they melted it with the heater while ice fishing on Saturday...grrr. I have to work this evening for a few hours.It is snowing and blowing, really nasty day out there, hurry up spring!!

[Andit]

Good morning, everyone.

Last night's concert was a bit different. It was a dissection of the lyrics of American Pie, with various songs performed that touched on the theme. I found it a bit too chatty & informal, not as polished as I expected it to be. I did learn that all these years I have been singing *the wrong lyrics*! "Good ol' boys were drinking whiskey IN Rye", cause southerners drink bourbon not rye. It was hard to concentrate after that cause my mind exploded.

Brats are napping in the sun. Debating whether I should join them or go run a quick errand. Decisions, decisions.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day.

[MrsSunshine]

don't even get me started with Bell... $$$ down the drain on top of hours!!! of time.. never again.then they get dh in costco.. he's like hun.... i didn't even give him the chance.. i said I"LL find us something cheaper.. my mission for this month i guess.
OI.. mouse droppings in the oven.. daring little creatures.. trying to find warmth i guess.. sucks about the endless cleaning hours..
i went to make banana loaves and after a few minutes we realized 'they' weren't burning it was the spatula left behind in the stove melting.. luckily dh got it out in time..

we took ds out for pizza last night to celebrate his official start this morning. all on his own.. gravol and new boots in hand.. good start today.
unfortunately i didnt' get to sleep until 330 and the alarm went off at 5.. zzz yawn!!!!!!!
i have to make it through the next 4-5 hours and then im napping..

Nancy love the story.. bet they made a nice couple last nite, sure dear ole Dad got lots of compliments. good for them.
funny i actually bought a pair of mens dress pants for myself at costco. very hard to find pants i like cheap. these are haggars. no ironing, lightweight. yay. figured they would do well as interview pants, as apparently 'slouchy' pants aren't working. i have black relaxed pants, no crease. they just don't cut it, not professional looking.
so dh said yes go for it you never buy anything. lets hope they bring good luck.

well off for now. check back in later. stay warm all.

[lizzie bargain]

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