April Frugal Chatter 2021 -Spring is there-!!!!

[GoodBoy]

It is a strange spring to be sure!

I already had all my herbs already for planting next week into their pots.
This morning I picked up 3 1.5' high cherry tomato plants. They will get planted also next week!
Never has that happened so early in the year

Only thing I am waiting on is some Early Girl tomatoes to show up at the garden centre - should be in the next week or so and they will be planted.

Crazy but I will take it!

[GoodBoy]

If it is spring it is time to repair! LOL

Realized my hose bib needs replacing. It is at least 50 years old and starting to drip.
Will be taken care of on Monday morning and then no worries

[Frugalbigmama]

DS and I finished cleaning his room!!!! Oh my what a job but after another garbage bag full we are done.
I have a pile of stuff to sell (good stuff too!!!!) and he has so many empty drawers. So happy we plowed through. I knew once we got started we would keep going till we finished! totally moved everything out and washed the walls. Every drawer emptied and dealt with (we did this part the other day) Emptied his book shelf off and dusted and organized stuff back on it. His closet floor is empty. Think I will move a clear storage bin in there and put his extra bedding in it so it is out of the linen closet. Now we will tackle his tv/computer room in the next few days.

I prepped the stuff for tacos this morning so DS and I just ate and it was easy to pull it all out of the fridge. Now it is all put back in the fridge and the kitchen is clean.

I have 2 x $10 cash pick ups on their way. I am going to go set up my portable table in the garage and start posting stuff for sale in the next hour. Need the money to start rolling in and the stuff to roll out!!!

[Frugalbigmama]

If you had a free $75 GC for Amazon what would you buy?

I have a few things on my list that I want to buy (underwear, beach cover, hoodie) But I really don't like buying this stuff online for quality purposes)

[grinchyheart]

If you had a free $75 GC for Amazon what would you buy?

I have a few things on my list that I want to buy (underwear, beach cover, hoodie) But I really don't like buying this stuff online for quality purposes)

I use my Swagbucks Amazon GC's for small appliances & Christmas gifts mostly. Last year when the Amazon Prime sales were on, I was able to get a few Instantpots & accessories with my saved balance, for gifts. If you access Amazon through Swagbucks, or Airmiles shops, I think you can get points or airmiles back from your purchases too.

As far as specific appliances, I've found my electric meat grinder & slicer to be well worth the $, especially the grinder. Beef round roast & pork loin often go on sale for way less than ground meat, & I can portion it for the freezer as I want. The slicer will also cut very thin 'cutlet' pieces which I froze on a baking sheet (on plastic) then bagged. Awesome for a single serving steak sandwich or a last-minute addition to a stir-fry.

[GoodBoy]

The weekend looks not to bad here. I hope all here can enjoy the weekend and maybe even some sun!
Carpe Diem!!

[coupon girl]

Well treated hubby and i to a meal deal at fortinos (wings ,fries and salad )28.99(with tax)-20.00 in points =8.99 plus got 4,800 in points

Grabbed my milk ,bread ,watermelon and chocolate milk .

Redeemed $6.00 off my CAA membership from petro today in points as they end their partnership the end of this month

I missed out on kijiji from getting a new puzzle that was 10.00 1,500 piece puzzle -oh well i will keep looking .I will not pay 15-20.00 for a used puzzle either,some pricing is insane .

Oh and my upper back is better today 8 days later -no sharp pains -yipeeee the little things that bring us joy when we are over 60 .

[lilo0003]

DS2 had a PD day as the final quadmester starts Monday. Bought pizza for him as I always do on a PD day. I bought our groceries at Metro today because I am reducing my entry into shops and I was there for my VACCINATION. Can you tell I am excited. While nothing changes I feel such a sense of relief. DH was vaccinated yesterday.

[SassyAshley]

Good Evening Everyone,
Fairly good day, I almost always feel like I could get more done but happy with what I did get done. Still working on being okay with getting some of the things done instead of all of the things.

I stopped working at 3:30 and took a nice hot shower. There is something wrong with our hot water tap, I had planned to look into getting Bath Fitters in to redo our bathroom, it really needs it but then Covid hit. I am not against getting the Bathroom done, I have the $$$$ set aside but I do not like the idea of someone coming into our house right now. My house is my safe place and someone coming in just not somewhere I want to go.

Dinner ended up being BBQ Chicken Wings for Mom, BBQ Chicken Caesar Salad wraps for me and we both had oven fries. Somehow I lost time this afternoon, I finished lunch it was just before 1, I took like 6 or 7 calls (not a lot for me in an afternoon) but then realized it was 3:15 and we had nothing out for dinner.

We ran out of BBQ sauce so Mom found a Copycat Sweet Baby Ray BBQ sauce recipe, it is good, I would not say exactly Sweet Baby Rays but we are enjoying it. It feels nice to get back to making things ourselves vs buying them. We used to make everything but life happened and we started buying more and more.

I have a feeling this weekend will go one of two ways and there will be no middle ground:
Option 1 - I will get all of the things done and be amazed with how much I get done
or
Option 2 - My body will laugh at me tell me it is the weekend and we will get nothing done

To be honest I do not have preference, for me, it is what it is, right now I just want to focus on me this weekend. Although my week ended on a high note it has been a rough one and I need to take care of me because I know next week will be busy. I am getting better at saying I cannot do that now but will put it on my to-do-list. Hopefully I can find some balance on these busy weeks when I have multiple trainees. Good news is, I think they are seeing I am at my breaking point and cannot keep going, I did kind of lose it this week just due to exhaustion and stress.

The one thing I do want to get done this weekend is making some homemade Dressings. We make most of our own dressings but are buying Caesar and Ranch, I will probably for the time being keep buy Caesar but would like to find a Homemade Ranch I like. I also want to get more variety right now we generally Greek, Balsamic, Caesar and Ranch on hand but I would like to add more variety, more options. I really want to up my Salad game this summer.

This one might give some of you a chuckle, I was online looking at some pricing for some summer essentials (vinegars, oils) and just happen to check the price of eggs. On this website last week they were $3 for a 12-pack, this week they are advertising "lower price" $2.99, it is lower but made my chuckle.

Have a great night everyone.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Still sleeping in, this is very weird for me normally on a Saturday when I can sleep in I am wide awake at 6 am, nope not today, slept till 7:30. I am going to assume this is what my body needs and go with it.

Good news is I did wake up with some ambition, although I have not gotten anything done yet this morning except I did try editing a video. I really feel like the only way to break this cycle I am in with the insane work hours and the pressure of making our house better than it is which honestly feels like more work is find something for me. With Covid I am restricted to something I can do in the house and as much as blogging intrigues me I think it is a little bit more "work" than I can commit to right now. So I am thinking videos is the way to go, I am fortunate I have a video editor for work and looks like I can use it for my videos.

This morning I put together and edited my grocery haul from this week, it is still some work the editing took me 30 minutes to an hour but this wasn't work it for me. I am also hoping doing this brings me some motivation and accountability to stay on track. I am very much the type of person if I know I need to do something it motivates me and hopefully this is a way I can make some of the more not fun tasks of life fun. Take others on this journey of trying to get my house in order and trying to get through day to day life.

It has been a bit of a morning working out all the things but happy tried, happy I got it done and now to move on with my day.

Have a great day everyone.

[Frugalbigmama]

Good morning! Stayed in bed till 10am. Watched a few youtube videos. Had a shower. Made breakfast and coffee.
Now I am off to the lake for a walk. Gotta enjoy the sunshine!

[Ciel]

If you had a free $75 GC for Amazon what would you buy?

I have a few things on my list that I want to buy (underwear, beach cover, hoodie) But I really don't like buying this stuff online for quality purposes)

Baby stuff like Oxo Tot if there's someone in your social circle expecting a baby. Dvds for foreign films or cds by international music stars.
New home or wedding gift item. Splurge on a new food (snacks qualify or box surprise to send to a friend or family member needing a pick-them-up mail moment), supplement or small appliance to see how you like it. Finally, books! Can't have enough. The Menopause Manifesto is coming out in early May!The author was on Twitter last summer asking her followers what they wanted to know. She had her book completed by December.

Are there things in the home that need replacing (not on the above list) that you need? Charging cords, batteries for remotes, new smoke detector, door mats, pet bedding, light bulbs (specialty ones you can't find easily at Canadian Tire or hardware stores), printer or computer supplies, UV sanitizer, car wash supplies, vacuum bags, shopping carts, bins for the cars, bike parts, organizers for the garage or home or even gardening tools?

[Ciel]

Had interrupted sleep (got up at 3am, 2h after going to bed, read a bit, then settled back to sleep until about 8am). Got some of last night's laundry dried, washed some items by hand and got them spun and hung. Finally got two apples and two celery bunches juiced. Washed my Baby Yoda bottle and noticed the cap acquired some gunk since the water was in the bottle for a few days. Wondering why the cap has plastic crosshairs (to keep fruit/veggies out if drinking infused water?) as the gunk required a paring knife and some pointed toothpicks to remove most of it. Did toss some baking soda into the cap to scrub but I probably need to soak it next time. Bottle fits about 3/4 of the juice so I took some out of the bottle and poured into my glass and added the rest of the celery juice from the juicer. Going to try to down the juice by Monday morning. The apples make the juice easier to drink if I want 1 cup or more (otherwise I gag after 2/3 cup).

Early morning thoughts went all over the place and suddenly I was thinking of the back door frame never having been puttied and painted. Seems to be a thing that Mom should have done last year instead of doing the living room painting all over again (I won't be doing more touchups as my torso is saying NO loudly). The door frame however would then match the interior side of the door (after painting) and I'm certain there's some ceiling white paint left over from last year. I was surprised I did not think of this "job" last fall.

Last night, I started cutting down my Favourites/Bookmarks on both browsers and changed the ones that show at the top of the browsers to align more with sites that my friend will use. I'll leave some photos and videos for her to enjoy after the laptop handover.

I'll head outside soon to give the garden a spot of attention and collect branches. Feel like doing a walk despite a 30% chance of precipitation. Just have to clean some wood surfaces on main floor and give the vinyl floor a quick wash while other two family members are out on an errand. Then bliss time and vitamin D time for me! Grab your me time today...

[Ciel]

The following vitamins sold at Costco and Walmart are recalled due to possible wire metal fragments:
https://www.hamiltonnews.com/news-st...anada-warning/

[Frugalbigmama]

Came home from my walk and happy there was still coffee hot in the pot! Now I'm puttering in the garage. Sorting the garbage and recycling. Put stuff in my vehicle for donation.
And posting stuff for sale as I touch it. Have a $10 pick up on the way now