April Showers of Savings the sequel - 2015 Frugal Chatter

[Frugalbigmama]

RE: Cost of food/low value coupons etc. I rarely use coupons these days it seems (but loving the OASIS/WONDER bread $4 coupon right now! and loved the Kraft cheese slice one) But they seem far and few between for me. (I find most are for processed food etc) I am not finding groceries too bad actually but maybe because I am a true sale/flyer shopper? I have my prices that I will pay and if its not on sale we do without. I try and stock up to carry us through to the next sale (Example- Romaine hearts were on last week for $1.99 for 3 (plus 600 PC PTS) So I bought at the start of the flyer and used it for meals and then made sure to go on Wednesday (last day of FB flyer) and bought 2 more to do us the next week etc. I am going to start seeds this weekend to give the stuff I usually plant a headstart since I am doing mostly container gardening this year (will plant in my moms garden too stuff we can harvest (tomatoes, peppers and zucchini, onion to make big batch of pasta sauce for the freezer)

[frugalmom]

Just want to say first of all that I love this thread and have been reading it off and on for about a year. I could sit all day and read, "Ways to save and cut back" Anyway I have a few ideas:
1. Can't stress enough that it pays to check receipts. 3 weeks ago I was charged 21.99 for a pound of butter. Yes you read that right! I was price matching it for 2.99 and the cashier made a mistake. ? It wasn't until I got home that I noticed it and therefore had to drive back across town the next day. To top it off the store I had shopped in right before this experience also had overcharged me 2.80. I caught this one before leaving the store. Walmart overcharges me it seems on a regular basis also.
2. I look for SCOPS and items at SDM that are free or almost free with the managers stickers. This month so far I have received: Sunlight laundry (40 load), Baby waterplay toy set, plus 2 boxes of tea all with SCOP and 3 boxes of cookies with managers stickers...all free. These items would have cost around 40.00.
3. I ask myself ...can I make it instead whether its baby wipes, all purpose cleaner, muffins-cookies-cakes-jam etc, etc.
4. It never hurts to ask. I waited 4 months for a replacement WM card. I finally called them back and asked if I could be compensated in any way for losing lots of reward points in 4 months. To my surprise they sent me a 20.00 gift card. Also this am I had a similar thing happen when I called 1-800-SHOPPERS. I complained that I had never ever received personalized emails with optimum offers while hearing about so many people receiving them. Again I asked if they could in any way make it up to me. The attendant offered me 2000 points and reassured me that I WOULD be sent email offers very soon as she took things one step further. (whatever that means)
5. Use less- whether its shampoo, dish or laundry soap, etc
6. Sell items on Kijiji, or garage sale sites. Last yea rI made at least 200-300 dollars by bringing home items left at curbs etc, cleaning them up/ paint touch ups and then turning around and selling them. Our city is having another curb-side swap this weekend.
I know lots of these ideas have already been mentioned but they are my favorite.

[thriftygranny]

I agree with checking receipts carefully, I am always finding errors, it get really frustrating..
beautiful day here, going to catch some sunshine this afternoon and tidy up the back yard a bit and plan what I am putting in my planters this year!!

[coupon girl]

-nice tips -love the curbside free pickup and making money off items
-anther item going tonight 4.50 wooden key holder=16.50 I my pocket the past few days

[Frugalbigmama]

Good Job Coupon girl! I have a few pickups myself the next few days too. Hope to have more. Decided I'm going to take the day off work tomorrow since I have to pick DS up early at school and then he has sports in evening. Tired of working through my lunch and rushing so this way I can walk DS to school then go home and get some things done, attend an out of town bank to see my balance since I got booted offline etc. All the stuff I never have time for and not rush for our busy night

[Angela273]

LO has a cold, mostly a dry hacking cough and interrupted sleep. He ran a fever on Friday night.

I have two 1/2 days and one full day pre-booked to teach this week.

I made a variety of productive phone calls this morning. I called our medical coverage this morning to check on our coverage. My coverage will pay for a semi-private room when I have the babies. If we choose to have a private room, or the Victorian room, then we pay the difference. The RUH semi-private rooms cost $100, private is $120, and Victorian is $150 per night. My coverage will pay the $100 per night and we would pay the difference. I think we will stay in a private room like we did with LO, but the Victorian room has a queen sized bed for dh and I to sleep in. It will be up for discussion. Our medical coverage does not have a maximum number of nights that it will pay for, which was nice to know. We hope for a short hospital stay for all of us, but you never know with twins.

I made sure that everything was re-set for me to have my next dental cleaning. I booked in a dental cleaning for next week (a cancellation spot), not my favourite thing to do. I decided that I wanted to get my teeth cleaned again before I go on medical leave and while LO still has his full-time daycare spot.

I called the blood lab at our local hospital to get some information regarding bloodwork that the doctor gave me a requisition for last week. I later came in person with LO and it still took a while to sort it out. The doctor wants me to do a fasting glucose test, plus the glucose challenge test, and check my iron levels and CBC. I did the glucose challenge test with LO, but was not required to fast for it. The general policy here is that you take the test the first time, if you fail then you do the fasting glucose test with a higher glucose amount. I passed without any problems when I was pregnant with LO, and I don't want to do fasting bloodwork if it is not necessary. The doctor was unclear in his instructions to everyone. I need to do this test between 24-28wks, which isn't until next week. Sp we will try again another day.

On Saturday I picked up two pairs and pants and sleepers from a garage sale for our little girl for $2. Today I bought LO a pair of runners for $3 from the Salvation Army. They had a crib mattress, but were asking $20 for it. I'll wait for now. I bought LO's crib mattress from the same Salvation Army for $10. They only had one dresser, but I didn't really like it and they were asking $26 for it.

I'm currently cooking a type of tomato soup, which I will eat for lunch once it is done. I know dh doesn't like it, but I thought it sounded pretty good and he is at work...so more for my lunches later in the week.
Ingredients: Campbell's cream of tomato soup, milk, frozen mixed veggies, elbow macaroni, rinsed canned kidney beans, garlic, maybe some other spices.

Tonight's supper is between meetings. I think I will be making a type of goulash.
Ingredients: ground beef, carrots, onion, celery, cream of mushroom soup, etc. Served over elbow macaroni.

[Ciel]

RE: HYDRO. I had no idea about this new thing they were doing. What an unfair idea.

I think this hydro tax will become a new "health tax" you have to see if you pay on your 2015 income tax return. Just as the health tax is income-based...

[Ciel]

RE: Cost of food/low value coupons etc. I rarely use coupons these days it seems (but loving the OASIS/WONDER bread $4 coupon right now! and loved the Kraft cheese slice one) But they seem far and few between for me. (I find most are for processed food etc) I am not finding groceries too bad actually but maybe because I am a true sale/flyer shopper? I have my prices that I will pay and if its not on sale we do without. I try and stock up to carry us through to the next sale (Example- Romaine hearts were on last week for $1.99 for 3 (plus 600 PC PTS) So I bought at the start of the flyer and used it for meals and then made sure to go on Wednesday (last day of FB flyer) and bought 2 more to do us the next week etc. I am going to start seeds this weekend to give the stuff I usually plant a headstart since I am doing mostly container gardening this year (will plant in my moms garden too stuff we can harvest (tomatoes, peppers and zucchini, onion to make big batch of pasta sauce for the freezer)

Zucchini is the vegetable that's hard to give away-see if there's a gardener willing to gift you some zucchini because it can grow prolifically and maybe you can request the veg when it's smaller rather than be given monster gourds (which is how a couple of relations and a friend of brother's gifted us with their spare veg).

You can plant any radish/carrot seeds with some lettuces to start right now.
I need to see if the herbs that I planted one week ago are doing any sprouting in the flowerbed.

[Ciel]

@SassyAshley -vacation pay is either paid out every paycheque or when the employee goes on vacation. Have not heard of an employer doing its own version of payout date determination but it would not surprise me if this is a way for company to save cash with these games of theirs.
It might 15.1 (3) that applies to alternate vacation entitlement year.

Additional requirement, alternative vacation entitlement year

(3) If the employer establishes for an employee an alternative vacation entitlement year that starts on or after the day on which section 3 of Schedule J to the Government Efficiency Act, 2002 comes into force, the employer shall record the following information for the stub period:
1. The amount of vacation time that the employee earned during the stub period.
2. The amount of vacation time, if any, that the employee took during the stub period.
3. The amount of vacation time, if any, earned but not taken by the employee during the stub period.
4. The amount of vacation pay paid to the employee during the stub period.
5. The amount of wages on which the vacation pay referred to in paragraph 4 was calculated and the period of time to which those wages relate. 2002, c. 18, Sched. J, s. 3 (9).

http://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/0...h=vacation+pay
However, your Mom needs to phone the payroll number and find out what's going on.

[coupon girl]

darn people on kijii messaged me -saying sold I will come an get the key holder at 7.00 tonight -then get a message at 6.55 cant take the item sell to the next person (there is no next person )ugg could have went to library
hopefully the next lady shows up tuesday at 930 to 10.00 for the shoes -as we are going to sons to visit at 10.00
-kiiji is a love hate relationship

[Granger]

Teachers are the lunch room/yard supervisor in our board. We are capped at 80 minutes a week right now. We have two nutrition breaks that are 40 minutes a day. One is my lunch. The other is supervision twice a week, usually a meeting once a week and the other two are flexible. I usually end up going to the washroom and prepping my lessons for the flex periods.

When you hear about "local issues" with teacher bargaining, increasing our supervision time is one item that school boards want to do. From a pregnant stand point, as my lunch is at 10:10 am, it is difficult to make it to the end of the day without going to the washroom when supervising second lunch at 12:40 pm. Technically, I have to wait from 10:10 until 2:50 to go (4.5 hours). As I work in a portable I can't, duck out for a minute. I usually get a neighbouring teacher to help and watch the last five minutes of my supervision so I can use the washroom. (First world problem, I know!)

I have course work to do, but am feeling very unmotivated. I have been distracting myself on SC instead.

On the pregnancy front in relation to Angela's post. I am a different beast altogether since I am not having twins and I don't have the same medical concerns making a high-risk pregnancy. For interest sake...I am using midwives and plan to birth at home. My first was born with midwives at the hospital and second with midwives at home because there were no rooms at the hospital. This pregnancy I plan to begin labour at home and if all is well I will stay there and if I or the midwives are concerned I will move to the hospital.

My active labours are short. 4 hours with the first and 3 hours with the second. Being open to a home birth is wise at this point. I found two books that I read prior to my first labour online through a local buy and sell. I offered $5 a book as I would like to reread them as it has been 3 years since my last labour and I found them helpful. I borrowed them from the midwives last time, but I wanted them in my home library for other women to borrow if they asked. The woman selling them is a doula and they were brand new! She had bought them for her education and never read them. The books retail for at least $20 a piece so I got a steal!

I decided to decline the glucose test. I can always take it later if symptoms arise or there is an irregular urine test. I declined with both my others and was not symptomatic of diabetes. I believe gestational diabetes is more common with twins. Hoping you don't have to fast Angela!!!

[jasperandchar]

@Andit prayers made for your friend's father and @avoncallingu hope you and your dh are hanging in there

[jasperandchar]

Evening all,

I finally got my arse in gear this afternoon.

I made a double batch of white chocolate macadamia nut cookes (drool), I left 1 container out and froze the other 2 before anyone saw them for lunch snacks and treats.

I also made a wonderful new chicken finger recipe from pinterest and I nailed it for real so it's a keeper, I will jot down the recipe in my recipe notebook for easy reference , are internet can be quite sketchy at times.

We had 2 pickups tonight, 1 dresser that dh picked up last fall along the side of the road and it was just sitting in the garage, he changed the drawer pulls (which he picked up at the re-use it centre so they were free) as 1 was broken and $40 later it's gone . Dh also sold a sink for $20 so all in all it was a great evening for sales .

We rec'd our pc banking welcome kit, we decided to drive to a pavilion instead of corresponding via Canada post and it will be quite faster. I'm kind of bummed out that regardless of driving to a pavilion I still need to wait for the cheques.

I have a running list of whom I need to contact to change our banking information but I was surprised to know that most of the changes can be done by telephone or over the internet so a little less stress. The biggie will be getting the payroll deposits done, I was hoping to catch them before the end of the month but it may possibly be to late, however, I will try. I really don't want to pay another month of bank fees but I am being realistic that I may have to pay another month to ensure that everyone is using the pc bank and not scotiabank.

Wishing everyone a wonderful evening.

[lilo0003]

J & C: sweet deal making money off of found treasure.
Avon: fingers crossed that things are looking up.
Angela: good planning on the baby girl stuff.
as for all you teachers, seriously no time to pee, that is insane. Our school uses paid staff in the lunch rooms, but a lot do the teachers aka the good ones pop in and out over the lunch break.

I just realized the April/May budgets are wrong, I forgot to consider all the extra gas for driving to Lacrosse. We tend to pack lunches and drinks and sometimes stop on the way home for a treat, but the dining out category has some left from last month so we can treat a bit. But the gas is going to be way off and is sucking up my leftovers from past months. But on the plus side I turned the furnace down to 16 degrees a few days ago and so far I have not neede to adjust it and the Ouse is still a comfy 20 degrees, but let's see what the next few days do to us.

[lizzie bargain]

Well I did a little informal survey in the aisles of my local grocery stores on their short dated meat markdown practices the other day( and I know we all have different stores).

No Frills-30% off
Superstore-25% off-perhaps they start there and drop lower if need be-not sure as I rarely go
Safeway-some 30% off and some 50% off
Sobeys-sometimes just puts a special sticker on and reduces the price per pound but does not seem to be a set percentage
Co-op- same as Sobeys
Walmart-can't remember as I haven't been in awhile but I think they usually mark it 30% off.


Anyway I am looking at each stores meat counter for markdowns when I am in-however if the price was really high to begin with sometimes I find you are better to just stock up when meat is on sale. My very favourite is when all the stars align and I find 50% off stickers on meat at10% off day at Safeway on the first Tuesday of the month, so I end up with 60% off-but that does not happen too often on meats I want to buy.


I, like everyone else, am finding meat prices high-my DD requested a taco salad the other day so I picked up a small package of lean ground beef round which of course was over $5.00. Who would ever have thought that buying hamburger would be a treat?