April 2019 Frugal Chatter Thread (spring, is that you?)

good afternoon. busy but good morning. i have my ovr night kids tonight again. its very rare that i will have them 2 nights in a row. but i do . we are baking cookies this evening and going to the library. should be a good night.


on my second tea. will clean up the kitcehn.
i got monthly master on sb. :) so the bonus will be very nice.

ordered a book called loose parts inspriing play in yourng children
some twist strub sponges ( they compost totally!!! so no landfill)
some silicone reusable bags - snack size. thank you clicking


that is it from here. pretty easy. :) and a tad frugal .

I wanted to get out to bank to pay hubby's bill to revenue canada ,then popped into fortinos to check for cpns and a few deals .I looked at the reduced table and got
2 bunches of broccoli 1.49 froze one and eating the other
a small tray of red potatoes 1.99 (don't need 10 pound or even 5 pound bags as we don't always want potatoes the 2 of us)

just relaxing the rest of the day -I feel like a train ran over me -my dear daughter chatted with me on her way to work this morning is it because you came to Toronto on sat then babysat on Monday she asked -no I felt like telling her I am aging I will be 60 this year .It could be this darn dampish weather or chilly days or my arthritis -wow knows !

Just heading to the airport to pick up DD and her two friends for a 2 week visit-I have a feeling our lives are about to get busier with 3 teens in the house!!

I worked at home Monday and cleaned the oven, that added some warmth to the house, I turned of the furnace weeks ago but I think I am going to have to turn it back on over the next few days as its still really cold here. I plan to do try and reduce the grocery bill by 200.00 in May. we have crept up to close to $700 a month. The joys of feeding 2 teen boys. But I did the quarterly net worth spreadsheet and we had a good 1st part of the year and I am feeling good about being on track for our retirement.

On the walk home yesterday afternoon, I heard the rain having a definite solidity to it. Picture tiny square cubes of frozen ice or fine coarse salt and you got a picture of what came with the rain. It was not the usual icy rain that freezes on an umbrella! Then later at night, when I was looking for Youtube videos for a city overseas, I find one of last June's hailstorm in that city. The water surge in the city (hilly like San Francisco) streets was like a small run of water from an unseen burst dam along with gumball size hail. Too many vehicles were in the flow's way as well.

Dinner was chicken flavoured rice and lots of Tortilla chips (while the rice was cooking). Later made tea to enjoy with jam crescent rolls that Mom had made on the weekend.

Spent over an hour after the videos to sort/resort all manners of papers/bills and staple utility bills to the relevant bank statements and cleared a drawer to hold only those files. A random thought-I suddenly felt concern for any SCer who was left to deal with a spouse's or parent's passing and trying to sort out the month's paperwork into some kind of filing system. I'm going to suggest that those of you who have married offspring or ones with partners and kids to tell them if they cannot afford to do a will and powers of attorney every 2-4 yrs to reflect changes in circumstances or additions to the family, then at the very least, organize their own financial documents, make a list and tell their spouse/partner what policies or benefits they have under whose plan, the contact names and numbers and where to find these documents-like before summer starts. It might not take a death, but if one spouse or partner ends up in hospital without a power of attorney for health assigned to the other spouse/partner and there's a child needing dental visit or a health care claim, parent number two better know how to handle/claim the health need properly if the parent in the hospital was the usual adult handling the children's health visits. There's nothing like getting a healthcare provider's "due to privacy concerns, we can only talk to the policyholder about benefits/claims" or "go online to file" when only the policyholder might have the access code for online claims.

Meanwhile, I am more or less backing out of challenging Mom's handling of the estate matters. She's not happy I am finding more issues (I read the mail and realize by her notes she's not UNDERSTANDING most of the papers) but she will not make the effort to call and ask questions>she always ASKS me to do the work and I've said no. The kitchen sink arguments of today seem to derive from her perception that I basically have to do whatever she asks of me and I said I have not agreed to do all things for free nor without consultation in consideration of what works for me. Most times, she tries to get me when I'm about to leave or wait until late at night. If I even ask her what she has asked of my brother (Internet search, or even questioning him), it's like I stomped on her invisible cat tail or something--she's angry. We definitely are having boundary and respect issues.:mad::rant: Oh and since the April property tax payment is due today, I have had to persist in recent days to ask if the payment was made. My brother must have only given Mom the payment stamped bill last night. She was telling me how she did not think she received the bill (face-palm, as City of Hamilton usually attaches two installment areas and dates to each property tax bill for homeowners: Feb/April and Jun/Sept. I cannot believe she does not know how the property taxes are timed or where the bill was...over 4 decades at this residence (in the past, I used to comment and show her the property tax bills when Dad was not around because he lied for years about not being able to pay them and I always wanted to see the numbers for myself).

Anyone want me to bounce on their backyard trampoline? I feel a week's worth of 15min sessions are in order!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lilo0003

I worked at home Monday and cleaned the oven, that added some warmth to the house, I turned of the furnace weeks ago but I think I am going to have to turn it back on over the next few days as its still really cold here. I plan to do try and reduce the grocery bill by 200.00 in May. we have crept up to close to $700 a month. The joys of feeding 2 teen boys. But I did the quarterly net worth spreadsheet and we had a good 1st part of the year and I am feeling good about being on track for our retirement.

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I tried to turn off the furnace too, but with the rain, it's been very damp, so I lowered the thermostat to 66 degrees during the day and 64 at night, until it warms up more.

Had a stressful day, so I popped into giant tiger and $55 dollars later.....I haven't been in the stores much over the last few months, so this was my treat. Found Easter eggs (foil ones) on for 50 cents, so I stocked up as I love them with coffee in the morning. Stocked up on groceries, a nice summer top, dog treats, etc. I love their no expiry return policy (provided you have a receipt) and that's it's Canadian owned. May pop into Walmart tomorrow as I need a pair of summer pants.

Barbis , I may try to visit giant tiger and look at their tank tops ,yes Canadian store is awesome and no expiry return policy .
I got my 3 pairs of socks from the bay today -ahhh 2 pairs fit so nice and the 3rd pair are a gift for my daughter (Toronto socks ,hot sox shows the c.n tower on them )lol

I went to the library and got my holds in movies and books ,that's all I did today ,then just vegged out .I guess we all need days like that sometimes .

Ciel - i hear ya on teh paperwork... my husband and i are in a interesting place with realtives.. MIL1- my SIL is in charge ( enter hysterical laughter on that one.... ) MIL2 - hubby is in charge.. he knows what he is doing.. My mom.. its me that is in charge - my mom is type A , and it is orgaised, so no worries. we still have FIL3 out there.. somewhere. last we heard hubby was in charge... but who knows...

hubby and i have most of our stuff in order... and yea. we wil have that stuff finished soon. but we know each others stuff.

but i tell ya.. get paperwork orgaised .... it just makes it so much easier on everyone.

My April total $579.07

Stuff Sold
$81 - April

Coupons redeemed
$94.67 - April

10% off Tuesday @ Sobeys
$7.78 - April

Air Miles
$140 - April

PCO - No Frills
$20 - April

Amazon.ca - from Swagbucks
$115 - April

SARCAN
$52.95 - SARCAN

SCOP (amount item scanned for)
$56.07 - April

Humpty’s
$10 - April

Found Money
$1.60 - April

Good morning all.
Will be indoors most of the day since it raining @Angela273 awesome job with your saving. Especially the SCOP amount that you have

fantastic job Angela!!!


ok. wednesday.

woke with a huge sinus thing... ugh.. took meds hope it goes away. forecst is rain. and that is ok...

thinking laid back night tonght.. i have 3 loads of laundry to put away.
prob something light for supper. thinking chicken quidllas. and rice . or maybe tacos. prob tacos. that is easy for today


i need to do up my list of what my found money is for the month. i think it might be good.

Morning! Rain rain rain here! Good day to be at work.

I need to make DS a feast for dinner. I was going to take out chicken but decided I needed to use up the cooked stuff in freezer so I took out cooked and sliced peameal roast and cooked chicken wings. I will make gravy for the peameal (then he won't even question what it is lol) I have a bunch of asparagus to use up. And will toss the odd and end bags of fries in the oven. He will be happy with that. I will take meat out of freezer for Thursday. Will either use crockpot or make up baking dish so its easy to pop in oven when home.

Laundry- So much laundry to do tonight! This is what happens when you have fun all weekend :) Oh well totally worth it. Laundry never ends anyway.

I switched my purse up from one in my closet. It's colourful for summer and I always get compliments about it. I bought it at Costco years ago.

Stay dry today my friends!

Moving over to the May thread :) Geez May 1st snuck up!