December 2020 Frugal Chatter thread (ring in the holidays)

[crafter]

would love to try your loaded potato soup recipe @SassyAshley please share. Take care of yourself. Hugs

Good Evening Everyone,
I have come to learn I must be a little weird. I have been discussing working on some projects for work and today I did some testing and found an easier way to do the project. It will be easier in the long run but to start I need to manipulate a 60,000+ line spreadsheet and oddly it made me feel like my life was getting back to normal.

I shovelled off our steps so I could take the garbage out. WOW the snow is heavy, after just doing the stairs I felt very done. Will have to dig out the cars tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was Loaded Baked Potato Soup, love this soup it is so easy, tasty and just a nice meal on a cold day. Mom helped me tonight make it and she was surprised at how little goes in the soup but still have such great flavour. I was torn between this or One-Pot Chicken Lo-Mein but after shovelling the steps and not taking many breaks today just was not feeling all the chopping after a long day.

Did get the dishwasher emptied and a few dishes put back in and that is about it for me today. Although it is still early I might tackle something else before bed, we shall see how I feel.

Not much else going on. I find these shorter days are making me feel very tired, it is only 7 pm but I could totally go to bed LOL.

Stay Safe everyone (Bro & Step Mom both said the roads around here are not good, bro called the highway a skating rink) and have a great night

[Frugalbigmama]

Didn't feel like it but i just made myself prep potatoes, onions and garlic for the crockpot. Its all ready to just dump in the crockpot with the roast beef that is thawing. I will appreciate it when i get home from work tomorrow. Cleaned up kitchen so just have to put dry dishes away in the morning.

[Angela273]

Dh arrived home at 8:15 tonight and I hurried out the door to Sobeys. I stocked up on extra lean ground beef $3.49/lb before discounts.
$175.71oop
$25.78 10% off Tuesday
$59.41 in coupons
$0.50 Eclipsa rebate
$1 CO51
$10 Sobeys gc promo (submit receipt)
124 Air Miles earned

[Ciel]

The snow this morning (around 7am) was light and sort of wet. I was outside to take snow off the containers waiting for weekly collection and took care of the sidewalks but that effort with my handy little shovel took some of the energy right out of me. I just did another shovelling round on the walkways and the snow seems to be sticking more due to colder temps. I anticipate that some kind of melt-off will happen tomorrow or definitely on Thursday, as Friday and another day have more snow coming!

Will admit to feeling achy today so spent time in bed during the day where it's warm. Mom's been achy for two days and she's very sensitive to the cold that I have to check to turn down the thermostat if she turns it up2-4 degrees higher. However, she has not shifted her main cooking/baking to daytime, just at night, so we have steamy kitchen at night then an open window. I cannot deal with the steam.

It'll be a very long December if the snow keeps up sticking around for 4 weeks. I understand winter is supposed be a humdinger of a long one this time around. The local sidewalk plow only came around mid-afternoon to plow the sidewalks. I feel for everyone who had to walk on the roads to get to bus stops or school because the sidewalks were a few inches deep with snow this morning. Plus the slush or puddles on the roads!

Observation from briefly watching CHiPs on the new tv (aka digital billboard)-the screen makes the cops look like plastic fashion dolls under lights in a store window or like people under stage lights on a stage. Very weird. On the older tv, the show cast looks like they are on old videotape.
I have resorted to connecting the old tv (circa 2012) to the dvd player to watch season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery. Michelle Yeoh has some of the best comeback lines on that show! I did try connecting the dvd player to my laptop but I could not see it listed (connected on the hdmi port) since the device is about 7 years older than the laptop, maybe there's a reason it does not read on the computer.

No mail as far as I know today. Feel like checking out groceries on Voila as I'd like to place an order this week or next.

[Frugalbigmama]

Morning! Good thing I put the crockpot on the counter last night or I would have forgotten to put the stuff in it for the day! Geez!!!

Warmed up the vehicle and shoveled a bit while waiting to take DS to school. He will finish up when he gets home. A huge drift was on the garage last night over the walkway and it fell during the night. There was a lot of snow!!

Tonight while cleaning up after dinner I will give the fridge the last once over and make space for my grocery shop tomorrow. I know I will be buying a few OJ that are on for $2.97 to have for Christmas and other holiday brunches I am sure that we will be making often over the Christmas break. No where to go so may as well eat well

Ok I am off to clean up the budget and move some money around. Have a wonderful day everyone!

[coupon girl]

Morning off to get my haircut -i would usually wait til dec 18-20 ,but cant chance it as we may go into another lockdown you never know and my hair is layered so i need a cut .

I am taking her the lovely basket i made up with 10.00 in a xmas card (as i didnt want to go into big walmart for a gift card).It has a much cherished big bottle of "rose" hand soap in it i got from winners -they have the nicest hand soaps when they are on reduced price for 4.00.I have a lavender one i got for myself and i just started using it .

Will cash my 15.00 raketan cheque i just got .

[Tweets77]

Got all my greens and decorations together to make my outdoor décor and will assist DD with hers on Friday.

[SassyAshley]

Good Afternoon Everyone,
Very tired today, I woke up multiple times last night thinking/feeling like it was morning and each time had a lot of trouble falling back to sleep so feeling it a bit today.

I went out and dug out both cars (kinda) mine is completely dug out but I did not take Mom's keys with me so I got the snow off but it still needs to be defrosted. Stairs have also been shovelled again, at least this time was a lighter snow.

Plowing through my work to do list, hoping I have some ambition this afternoon to tackle a few small things around the house. I am still struggling to find time to get stuff done around the house.

I will post the Potato Soup recipe once I am done work which I better get back to.

Have a great day everyone.

[Frugalbigmama]

Anyone interested in Save $2 Starbucks coupons expiring Dec 31st. Cleaning out my coupon bag and won`t use these.
If so send me your address and I will drop off at the mailbox today!

[crafter]

Good afternoon. It was snowy here this morning, now it's melting with radient sunshine.

Well dinner is easy tonight, more cabbage soup. I think I'll make some rice to add in with the soup to mimic a deconstructed cabbage roll.

I need to finish wrapping gifts to send to DD, I included a yoga wrap sweatshirt which is taking up most of the prepaid large postal box. I think I have one of those bags you can use a vaccum with to shrink down the items. I just have to weigh all the gifts to ensure the weight doesn't exceed 11 lbs. It's too bad that they don't allow a higher package weight with the larger boxes.

Have a wonderful afternoon!

[coupon girl]

Afternoon -i got my haircut feels soo good .

Then on the way home i picked up my free photos from walmart photo shop-15 free photos ,3 magnets and a calender -all lovely

[Frugalbigmama]

Anyone interested in Save $2 Starbucks coupons expiring Dec 31st. Cleaning out my coupon bag and won`t use these.
If so send me your address and I will drop off at the mailbox today!

These are spoken for

[Frugalbigmama]

Sunny here too! Enjoy it while we can

[Ciel]

Snow overhanging the roof-some fell down during the day but there's a big enough section that will crash soon (I took off some of the heavy slush from the porch as no one else wanted to do it).

Late last night, a few minutes before midnight, I read my Hudson Bay e-mail about free shipping expiring and I managed to put an underwear order in just as the deadline came. Then off to Voila--poked around, started an account after putting first item in basket. Noticed some Farm Boy and Well.ca items are shown. The fresh fruits are usually sold in 4s unless item is in a bag or at set weight with price given per kg. Found a couple of new to me items and put them in basket then started to add items I wanted plus used the $15 off Voucher code (a field appears above the Checkout button where you will be able to enter a code). Have delivery set for tomorrow, as the day should be lovely. Got some negative feedback from Mom and Bro about my order, which I think is better than their Costco runs to stock up on the same things already in the house. Had to create some space in the freezer to accommodate two frozen items that need room. I'll take the big bag of California mix from my order and separate it into 3 freezer bags to make things easier for when I need a cup or more of veggies.

My brother scarcely sends Xmas cards - a friend of his already sent him one. Mild envy as I sent a batch out! Canada Post's holiday coins and stamp card plus a new Bed Bath & Beyond flyer came in today's mail.

Logged into my Disney + account and while the Mulan live action movie trailer is available, we still have to wait two more days for the movie to stream.

I understand that there was a new Coming Soon trailer for the Wonder Woman 1984 movie on tv this week. I did not see it. Did find trailer 3 from mid-November. It ought to move sales of Wonder Woman 1984 Lego (which was missing from all the toy catalogues).

[SassyAshley]

Good Evening Everyone,
I really felt like cleaning today (weird, I know) and mid afternoon I needed a break, I was ready to fall asleep. So I tackled the kitchen. A couple of months ago they came in to inspect our attic as their had been squirrels living up there so we had to clear everything from our Hallway which was now living in the kitchen. This afternoon I had Mom break down all the boxes well I moved the Christmas Tree to the basement (we aren't setting one up this year). Then I swept the floors and decided well I had everything off the floor I would also Mop. The I scrubbed down our Garbage Can and Stove. Well I did this Mom cleaned the hallway floors. All and all did not take my long only about 30 minutes and that included a couple phone breaks.

I was gently pointing out other things I would like to get done in the near future. I want to clean out our Front Hall closet as my plan is to store my cleaning supplies there. Right now the Mop and Bucket live in the basement, the broom just lives in the kitchen in the corner and our closest is full of stuff we never use. So I did put the mop and bucket in the corner in the kitchen in hopes this will push us to clean the front hall closet and I can turn it into my cleaning supply closet.

I am trying to make homemade cleaner although I am cheating a bit. You are supposed to use orange peels but I do not eat oranges often so I am seeing what happens if I use Clementine Peels. Only thing is thing it needs to sit 2 weeks and I lack patients, I want it done now LOL.

Trying to talk myself into cleaning off this piles that has been building on the Love seat but part of me is ready for bed, we will see what happens. If I do not get it done I am good with it because I did get the kitchen done today.

Off to write my to do lists for tomorrow and see where the night takes me, have a great night everyone