February Frugal Chatter 2022

[HermanH]

Anyway it is kind of a double bummer but at least we are not in hospital or very sick. LB

Doubly thankful that you are not sick in hospital in a foreign country.

[Ciel21]

@Skippy When Shoppers Optimum gives you the Friday or weekend only 20000 bonus points wus $60/75/80 offers, that's a grand time to buy printer ink at regular price if you know you will be spending just over the min. $ spend amount. I used two such offers in July and Oct last year a Burlington pharmacy that I knew carried the Canon Pixma black/colour duo cartridges pack. My sibling recently got ink somewhere (Costco/Walmart?) that has 2 black cartridges and one colour cartridge in the same package. The Shopper Canon ink packs of two were $74.99 (and still are that price when I see the item in flyers this year) so I got 20000 pts that I spent at a different Shoppers later in the day (usually one with a big food/grocery assortment-I mean snacks, bevvies, magazines!).
@Angela _273 Circle K rep for you! Fun to have a treat/chance to visit a store with the rewards program that is hard to find otherwise.
@cath007 Funnily enough, I watched a video this week (thanks Youtube) about how having too much salt in one's diet can make one get up at night often after bedtime. I no longer drink Perrier (sodium!) at night or in the early morning. I will give celery the boot for same reason--it'll be ok in daytime (just like when people who are caffeine-sensitive avoid coffee after 4pm or 6pm so as to be able to sleep at night. Today, I had my best rest this week and got up early once. Since I gave up the laptop, I have tried to be in my room by 10am to write, read or sleep. Some nights, I am sleeping by 11pm. I still have early waking issues (pain, or body saying I have to find a crunchy snack--which will have to be carrots or cucumber slices only).

Spices: As your father had his surgery last year, he probably has to watch salt in his diet. Try to see where you can skip adding salt to dinner meals if you are using salted butter, other spices or other pantry staples that are already salted.
The older people are, the more salt they may add to make up for taste buds less sensitive to salt (my mother can be heavy-handed with salt sometimes!) That's why you sometimes don't salt some dishes but let family know what seasonings you did use, so you expect them to try a spoonful first before they add salt or pepper or whatever! Your Dad may not like certain spices and you may also have some ones to avoid. I personally cannot stand dill or oregano!

*Recommend a MSG-free, no -salt Mrs Dash spice blend-lots of varieties (including kinds with citrus peels) and my brother uses it on skinless chicken breasts for flavour when he pan-fries 2-3 breasts at a time (though he's not been doing it this year yet).

*Metro/Food Basics have the bagged Selection dried spices. For 99cents or a little more, it's good for dried parsley or tarragon when you only want a little on hand.

*McCormicks Herbes de Provence (Walmart claims a $5.97 price but I have not seen product in months; other stores have a $8 price in some places)-I use it on potatoes that will roast in the oven, in my lentil stew if I don't salt it, add it to packaged Liptons Chicken Noodle soup or any Mr Noodle instant noodle broths for extra flavour.
Or get a jar of the dried Rosemary leaves (or get ground if it's easier)-great with anything roasted (meats, potatoes) or to add flavour to packaged soups. You do have to crush the Rosemary leaves into smaller bits so no one gets a dry needle in the through

McCormicks ground black pepper and ground white pepper. Some recipes have lighter colour ingredients and the ground white pepper blends in nicely to add heat without obvious pepper bits. Bean salad or fresh veggie salads, potatoes, casseroles, etc.

*McCormicks Mild Curry Powder (don't get store brand of this stuff-you get aroma and flavour-close all doors before cooking as the aroma travels everywhere)-it's dark yellow. I have also purchased the Red Curry powder-it seems a touch stronger but I could be wrong. Great in rice, for roasting potatoes, in curried lentil stew (key ingredient!) and added to Mr Noodle instant noodles!

*PC Black Label Smoked Paprika-gentle heat. When you add a teaspoon or tablespoonful to burger grease after pan-frying burgers, you can toss in some frozen No Name California mix veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots) for a couple of minutes and get red-coated veggies with some pizzazz. Use the paprika on roasted potatoes, in rice (when cooking it), on steaks (bison!). Great reddish-brown colour!

I don't often buy milk much. Occasional 1L carton but I do like to buy coconut-almond milk tetras 2 for $5 at Shoppers when possible or if grocery store has the tetras for $2.50 (sometimes possible) or just one at $2.99. Coconut adds some richer body taste to the nut milk; I recently got almond milk and it was ok but not so great on cereal or in tea. Coconut-almond beverage is also great for cooling mouth after eating spicy Chinese takeout!

Because I have a craving for pop still and Perrier is out for now (also to cut down on carbonation), I am trying the Mio water enhancers. The Fruit punch one has a slight Jello aftertaste and the Berry Burst one is ok if I squirt the right amount into 1 cup of water. Am having 2 or 3 Mio portions (250ml) in a day to deal with sweet cravings when an apple or banana won't hit the craving!

[flemeth]

@Ciel good to hear from you. Hoping you are staying safe and being careful with the icy sidewalks when you are out

[cath007]

@Ciel21 :Good to see you posting!!!

[endi2000]

Holy smokes Ciel - where have you been hiding all those tidbits nice info - thank you


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[cath007]

It is wednesday so dont forget to save yours pc offers if you have good ones

[SassyAshley]

@lizzie bargain Oh no, hope both you and DD have mild symptoms and a speedy recovery.

@Ciel21 good to see you

[SassyAshley]

The weather today was not what was expected. I went into a branch this morning and these little squalls kept blowing through. I drove through 2 squalls coming home and in areas with open fields lots of blowing snow.

They were moving some of the snow banks today so we had to move our cars, oh it was not nice when I went to go move my car, bitterly cold wind. I am ready for spring.

We did not go out after work due to the weather.

I was going to make Roasted Cauliflower Soup for dinner but Mom was not feeling the Cauliflower so quick pivot and instead of had Baked Potato Soup with homemade Focaccia.

[coupon girl]

ceil -good to hear from you .

Treated hubby to take out tonight as he put a new toilet in my sons house,and changed his tire for him as he was at work .

[lilo0003]

DS2 is going skiing this weekend. He will have to rent as he is 6 inches taller than his dad and 4 inches taller than his brother was when he last used his skis and we have not skied in a few years so never got around to buying him new equipment. Thankfully the helmet, goggles and other warm gear we have. So this forced me to sort and purge the storage closet.
My brother’s house went up for sale today, like many they are leaving Ontario and moving to Nova Scotia. We do have some family out there with another cousin going this year as well. I am happy for them but sad for me. So I have decided a summer road trip is our vacation plan, my mom and I will drive out and then DH and the kids will fly out. I have 5 weeks vacation a year so will use 3for this. I told him to make sure he buys property big enough for my truck and trailer as that’s our retirement plan. Soon.

[harbie]

Sorry you have to cancel @lizzie bargain . At least you have cancelation insurance so that’s a positive if you want to find something good.

DH and I had a great fiscal weekly meeting. I love that we chat every week and go over our spending/savings. It’s been a game changer.

Car insurance is coming up but the good news is that it’s much lower than I was expecting so that’s good. I’m waiting on our insurance company to get my last bit of dental work done. I’m waiting on 2 crowns and had the first two done in December so that come the new year it would reset and I could get the last two done before the prices go up again but the office sent it in at the end of December so obviously it was denied and resubmitted it and I’m waiting. Good news is that the office is going to honour the lower price!

Needing to restock my spices badly so tomorrow after work I’ll be hitting up RCSS. Won’t be too much $$$

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Up early and started right in on work trying to get a few things done.

Yesterday I got the phone call I have been expecting but would hope it would not come, sometimes I like living in denial. One of our locations goes short staffed next week, the manager and their manager spoke and I got the call asking if I will be there to help until a replacement has been found. I was talking to my boss last night but he had to go and was supposed to call me back but did not. I will call him today.

I see we are under another weather warning, I have to admit these are starting to become a bit depressing. It feels like it is one after another, I get that it is winter but could we have a few nice days LOL.

Found out Mom is taking an online course this weekend so I will see what I can tackle around the house that won't be in the area she will be taking her course.

Will need to take a look at the new flyers, I checked out a couple but have not gone through them all yet. If anyone needs potatoes there are a few options this week. even though I grabbed 3 last week I tempted to grab a few more.

Happy Thursday Everyone

[coupon girl]

Off to shoppers i went (seniors day)
spent $78
but managed to get my dry mouth tablets (half the time they are out of them)(3)peek frean cookies 1.59 after personal offer ,bag of apples 3.19 after discount plus cheese sices and various other items.

I got a 10.00 promo card for next time (love when they have this on).I noticed not much cereal ,no ice cream except magnum,wierd seeing just p.c chips not lays lol.

I got my son hersheys eggies made with reeses 3.99 for his birthday(plus some money) on sunday 37yrs old wow -hey you are never to old for chocolate.

At least it stopped snowing was blizzard like conditions when i left ,oh and got 2 books out from the library.

I just cashed out of checkout51 $50.95 and caddle $23.49 last checked out in may and june last yr .

[Ciel21]

I'm trying not to fall on slippery ice on my walks (not so newsworthy-mesh runners are not ideal winter gear for windchill days but whatever). With today's flurries of little curly snow, some ice was a bit dicey on the windy walk in to the library. I'll postpone a walk to Staples to get a $2 deal I ordered yesterday in order to run down a less than $3 Visa prepaid card balance as the card won't work in store card terminals. Have a few days to collect item. Glad I did some shopping yesterday at two stores so I have a few cooking options for weekend.

Can't wait until I get a bank debit card again (probably next week). Or go to the movie theatre (as new photo ID card came in 3 weeks' time since I went for the photo on Feb. 1). Yes, I'll probably heat up my online shopping soon!

Fun headline on this morning's CHCH Morning Live-Peppa Pig theme park opened at the Florida Legoland today.

Took a quick look at Burlington Centre's mall website-woohoo, one can recycle Brita water filters and plastic cards (goodbye used gift cards!) at the TerraCycle boxes! And the food court uses OSCAR system for waste recycling. How modern! Definitely need to check them out on future visit. https://burlingtoncentre.ca/event/Ze...ne/2145558151/

Was pleased that the weekly ad bag arrived overnight or in early am as Bro brought the paper in when he came home from work. Sobey's and Walmart flyers were included-yes! Am looking around at digital flyers.

Quick recap of January-bought two things in early Jan as Xmas gifts for me: 2nd pair of GT gloves ($5 sale-yes) as 1st pair have wear from 3 months of use and I splurged on the $32 puzzle I've wanted from a local store to add to the toy bag for future little visitors. I love the farm/garden theme and the two women wearing scarves on their heads remind me of my late grandmothers. Assembled the puzzle twice so far (100pc)! I took the handles off the Disney tote bag (tag inside actually had a strangulation notice for little tots!) so I could attach Velcro squares (from past sewing projects or past umbrellas) to close the top of the bag. I want to add a toy car from Carter's to round out the "stash." Birthday-day of, stayed home (windchill) and watched hours of Youtube. Day before, treated self to Highliner Lemon Peppercorn fish, beer and McCain spicy fries. Three days later, used the $10 Starbucks giftcard from friend for the desired Chai Latte (have not had one in 2 years' time) and two treats (had to pay a bit over $10). SO WORTHWHILE!

Random fun find of Feb-a dropped Walmart gift card on a walk. It was scratched and well, no way to check balance online. Did the toll-free phone check and $8.53 was on it! Yes, I applied it towards my next Walmart shop (bandages and more) so that was a lovely bit of fun on a winter day. Mind you, the cashier had to swipe the card a few times before it was accepted (or she got a code) but I was thrilled.

[coupon girl]

Nice find ceil with the walmart giftcard.

Off to pick up the granddaughters from school bus soon ,i will take them 2 bananas and a few apples and a few chocolate chip cookies .