July 2020 Frugal Chatter

Good Morning Afternoon Everyone,
Working on adjusting my schedule for this week, turns out one of my trainees has left the company. So now I am only working with one staff members until more new hires are coming on. We do have a few positions still open.

I will now change my focus for this week and see what I can get done in other areas.

Done training for the morning and now I have an afternoon meeting, when my meeting is off we will head to Costco for our once a month shop. I am considering for the next 2 months doing a shop every 3 week to adjust when we shop each month to better line up with my budget. With the adjustment to every 3 weeks I will aim to come in under budget and build up a bit of an overage.

I do not need to buy meat this month but I do want to buy some cheaper roasts to throw in the Slow-Cooker and Instant pot for more variety. I might also check out the Ground Beef, we do not need Ground Beef but I wouldn't mind grabbing a package. I would turn half into Taco Meat for the Freezer and I would probably cook up the other half to keep as Cooked Ground Beef for Instant Pot or Slow Cooker recipes. We will see once I am there and see how the rest of my shop is going.

I mostly need produce, tons and tons of produce, hoping prices have not gone up but we will see. Also need more Dairy items but not too much. I am feeling very confident I can come in under budget but I do not want to be too confident as I may jinx it.

Hope everyone is having a great day

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Originally Posted by Granger

My "baby" turns 5 tomorrow. I pulled out a couple of things to pass on to my sister and my new nephew from her closet. Got sentimental with one of the blankets. I would rather see it used than have it sit in the closet, but it brought back memories of wrapping her. It is a soft muslin cotton with little pandas on it.

We have schedule birthday visits with family members one family at a time tomorrow. We will distance the best we can with the kids. I want them to have fun with their cousins. Outdoors on our playground and trampoline should help. We will be doing happy birthday in a Facebook "room." Haven't done that before so hope it works.

I spent the day in the garden (having people over is motivating). I have started watching House of Cards on Netflix.

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I’m with you on the 5yr old birthday celebrations. Our twins are turning 5 on Friday. They share a birthday with their Great-grandpa, who will be turning 87. Our closest relatives are 5+hrs away, so no worry about family visits. Depending on the weather, I want to take them to the paddling pool or spray park that afternoon. I only have my oldest daycare child scheduled that day. Dh and I will have the 3 day weekend home with our kids. We have a variety of fun, safe, and cost effect activities to choose from this weekend. We plan on taking them out to pick their own icecream flavours from a hard icecream place in town.

I know that this next part might be controversial, but we do not have any planned gifts for our children to unwrap this year. They’ll each get a helium balloon, and any cards that may arrive in the mail. They have enough stuff already.

I have been posting stuff for sale for months and making out ok with it. Our children have recently started to pick out their own items for me to sell, they get to keep the money from the sales.

Just ordered a $5 fruit box from Flashfood. Had 2 in my cart but deleted one since I still have peppers to use up and the 2nd box had peppers too.
Will pick it up later tonight and get gas at the same time before picking up DS from work.

Fruit box was awesome! 20 apples. 5 clementines 7 oranges. A container of blueberries. 6 plums and 7 limes!
Ive washed everything. Peeled clementines. Cut up tons of apples. All ready in sealed containers in the fridge.

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Originally Posted by Frugalbigmama

Fruit box was awesome! 20 apples. 5 clementines 7 oranges. A container of blueberries. 6 plums and 7 limes!
Ive washed everything. Peeled clementines. Cut up tons of apples. All ready in sealed containers in the fridge.

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I am jealous. I wish Flashfood was available where we live.

Angela when you say your twins are turning 5 too that really puts things into perspective because I remember being pregnant together! Ahh! Makes them seem so big.

I don’t think not buying gifts is controversial. My daughter’s gifts were homemade and secondhand. I don’t see the point is paying for new when they don’t take care of what they already have very well (without my micromanaging - hard pass thanks). It’s also better for the environment.

@Angela273 I think it’s smart not to add to the stuff if they have what they need. I wish I had been so smart as I deal with a lifetime of LEGO. I hated like seriously hated hosting birthday parties so by the time my kids were 8 I offered cash incentives to not have a party. They would get something small from us, a dinner of their choice and 50.00. Now they are older and the parties are long gone but unless it’s a milestone birthday it’s low key. I am sure my dislike of parties comes from the fact pretty much 80% of my family has a birthday in the same 2 week period.

angela i agree why add more stuff,when my kids were little my dear younger brother and my hubby's older brother bought way to much for their kids and my kids asked why others had so much .I loved giving them birthdays thou,mostly always at home when they were younger (one year the kids bobbed for apples in a pool for my sons feb birthday ,as he complained always about his sister's summer birthday's)

My daughter takes hand me down toys from their 10 year old nefew and clothing for sebastian ,she would rather save for his education (even when she was out of work)

My son on the other hand his wife buys way to much clothing and toys for ashlyn and cara (she is a shopper thats for sure)I say nothing as i am the mother-in-law ,we do talk with our son the odd time .I tell him i worry sometimes ,dont worry mom is what i get.


This morning woke up to a peed bed with me in it with sebastian ,do i have a mattress protector yes just a cloth one .So got out the vinegar and baking soda (the mattress is 7 years old but still)ahh the joys of grandkids .It was hard on monday night as we let ashlyn sleep over with sebastian (ashlyn slept in the spare twin bed room ) but they tend to fight over stuff a bit.I told them to be nice to each other(they played barbies nice ) and we treated them to takeout mcdonalds yesterday.

Off we go at 2.30 and head to toronto that gave my daughter and her hubby almost 3 days of work with no 3 and a half year old asking a ton of questions or asking them to play with them ,we may sleep over or we may not as their house is hot ,even the basement is not that cool on these hot days .

Good Morning! Happy Hump Day!

I have my work list and personal list to accomplish today. A pretty good work day ahead of me with lots of clean up getting ready for the long weekend. Did the long weekend sneak up on everyone like me??? Geez summer is slipping away :(.

We need to take the canoe out for sure this weekend. Weather is suppose to be nice too which is awesome!

@coupon girl - Don't forget to save your PC offers :)

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Originally Posted by coupon girl

angela i agree why add more stuff,when my kids were little my dear younger brother and my hubby's older brother bought way to much for their kids and my kids asked why others had so much .I loved giving them birthdays thou,mostly always at home when they were younger (one year the kids bobbed for apples in a pool for my sons feb birthday ,as he complained always about his sister's summer birthday's)

My daughter takes hand me down toys from their 10 year old nefew and clothing for sebastian ,she would rather save for his education (even when she was out of work)

My son on the other hand his wife buys way to much clothing and toys for ashlyn and cara (she is a shopper thats for sure)I say nothing as i am the mother-in-law ,we do talk with our son the odd time .I tell him i worry sometimes ,dont worry mom is what i get.


This morning woke up to a peed bed with me in it with sebastian ,do i have a mattress protector yes just a cloth one .So got out the vinegar and baking soda (the mattress is 7 years old but still)ahh the joys of grandkids .It was hard on monday night as we let ashlyn sleep over with sebastian (ashlyn slept in the spare twin bed room ) but they tend to fight over stuff a bit.I told them to be nice to each other(they played barbies nice ) and we treated them to takeout mcdonalds yesterday.

Off we go at 2.30 and head to toronto that gave my daughter and her hubby almost 3 days of work with no 3 and a half year old asking a ton of questions or asking them to play with them ,we may sleep over or we may not as their house is hot ,even the basement is not that cool on these hot days .

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Kids birthday parties are exhausting but both my kids have enjoyed them. Having all your friends over to your home is what both my kids loved. (well the entire classroom for my oldest since we lived in a rural area and I couldn't leave anyone out)
My sister always helped with the parties which was I was so thankful for.

My youngest turns 16 in September. I can't believe it! I will invite all his friends over (he hangs out with a lot of kids that he has kept friendships with from school and hockey) for birthday dinner (tacos! That is always my youngest sons birthday food that he and his friends all love! and cake and ice cream) Will have to arrange it around his work schedule and try and surprise him.

Good Afternoon Everyone,
We shopped last night, spent more than I had hoped and not really sure how our bill got so high, going to have to go over it hopefully after work tonight. I knew I grabbed a few extra things but nothing that should have added that much to our bill. I will work it out. I am happy with what we got but now I need to deal with what we got.

Normally I love the putting away and prepping part of shopping, this is one thing I truly missed when we went to once a month shopping but this time I just don't want to deal with any of it. I am hoping come Friday since I am off work I will be like okay let's get this done and dive in Head First.

I meant to write myself a to do list for around the house for today but it did not happen. Even know I think I should but my whole body is like nope, not today LOL. We will see how I feel after work, I still need to figure out dinner too. I am struggling to find variety when we are so limited on our cooking options, although today does not seem too bad maybe I could use the stove, we will see.

Today is one of those frustrating days, not sure if others have these at work but everything I go to do I realize I do not have all the information so now I am trying to gather the information I need but it feels like I am getting nowhere. Half my to do list has notes beside each item on who I am waiting to hear back from.

Maybe it is time for a break and see if I can find some ambition to move around and get a few things maybe. Maybe moving around will help.

Have a great day everyone.

thanks for the tip about saving p.c offers frugalbigmama

I just picked the first few Saskatoon berries from the backyard. Last year I had at least 100 apples on my tree and this year I have 15-go figure! At least they are bigger. I better not be planning to eat from our very meager garden all winter-lol.

@Granger and @Angela273 - Lots of birthdays this week. My daughter just turned 14 and will be going to high school next school year. She has Autism with Global Developmental Delay. I stopped buying her Christmas and Birthday presents after we bought her a Refurbished iPad. She was never big on toys. But she is obsessed with watching tv.
@Frugalbigmama - I just bought my son his snow pants for this year. Not gonna wait until mid-August to buy one like last year and ended up with out of stock sizes.


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Hi,I have a silly qotd: When you have an issue with a product are you shy to make a complaint or you just dont report the problem

I had to put a complain to pepsi because I noticed it was not my fault but 1 can of the 24 can case had a big hole and it leaked all over the box ...dad was not agree to this...that is why I ask the question....