November 2022 Frugal Chatter (Brr...temps are falling!)

[Frugalbigmama]

Good Morning! Nice sunny day here today.

Heading to the gym this morning. I need this in my life so it is happening. I feel so much better when I go.

DS cooked up a feast last night. And he has leftovers to eat today. So no cooking today. Fend for yourself day since we have lots of leftovers in the fridge.
(I have my prepped veggies and shrimp to eat at some point today)


Have a great day!

[walkonby]

Talked myself out of an outing, pretty easy to do while still lounging in the pj's. Besides that, I'm expecting 2 separate parcels today!
Tracking shows " Out For Delivery " which is always a tingle worthy bit of info. Both are Christmas gifts ( small ones ) and today is the
day I start to wrap the gifts I have already bought and hidden around the house.
Brain don't fail me now! I tried to pick only 3 spots to stash them in.

In separate news, I was pretty thrilled that my total OOP ( taxes incl. ) came to $50.48 for a fun project.
It involved the WalMart photo centre and their online offers. Long story short I have a 22" x 34" framed poster sized collage
up on my kitchen wall that holds 103 individual images of so many of the food/recipes/dishes I made during 2 years of covid.
( the lockdown led me to so much bread! )

It was a bit tedious to first upload and then wait for the 112 ( 4 x 6 ) prints to be ready.
I immediately laid them out into rectangular collages consisting of 2 blocks of 20 vertical pics
and 3 blocks 21 horizontal pics. Then I snapped an overhead shot of each collage.

Back into the online photo centre and had each shot enlarged to an 8 x 12 glossy photo.
Pretty decent at $12.49. The poster itself was only $19.97. Just a bit of fun and to give my Christmas
Day dinner guests this year a laugh as they will recognize the food fare items they enjoyed in Dec. 2020
and 2021.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning,
Mom needed to drop something off to a friend last night so I tagged along as I needed to go to our branch at closing to fix a computer issue. All fixed.

Mom needs a new laptop, your laptop died at the start of the pandemic and with her not working at the time getting a new one was not an option. But, her friend's son can get laptops through his work, so Mom got a refurbished one for $50, an amazing deal but not ideal. It is a little laptop the screen is small which does not work for Mom and it does not always work.

My plan had been to watch the Black Friday sales and see if I could swing one for Christmas but, we have had a few unexpected costs lately. So I found a deal at Costco, discussed it with Bro and we are going to split the cost and get her a new laptop for Christmas. The deal at Costco is great, I do not think we will find a better deal.

Funny thing is, getting her a new laptop is going to cost less than maintaining her current laptop. It is annoying that you cannot just buy a program outright anymore and instead have to pay yearly. The new laptop comes with a year of Microsoft free so we just have to renew her antivirus.

[Ciel21]

@SassyAshley Sounds like a great plan, getting Mom that new laptop! Hope it has an ethernet port or you have a USB 3.0 port on the laptop to plug in an USB/Ethernet adapter. I may point Bro to the same offer as his own laptop is about a decade old.

Bro's refurbished ThinkCentre ( 2yrs and 4 months old)crashed on me twice within 5min after 10pm last night. He's blaming me but I reminded him that during his vacation and afterwards, I told him I thought the hard drive is on its way to failure (and advised him to back up his files). Speaking as someone who had a tower failure and refurbished laptop drive failure within 1 year and some weeks of each other... It's Bro's only Windows 10 device (except for when I had the laptop during summer) and his vacation videos need Win10 for editing etc. Going to be *fun* to see what happens next.

Just printing off all the order correspondence. Got three emails this morning-2 from carrier regarding delivery and 1 from store chain that item is delivered. I'm guessing I won't be seeing that refund in my account today when I go to check. I'm in the midst of yardwork (actually on snack/bevvie break) since I checked the forecast for next 72h and today really is push day on getting stuff done outdoors.

Community paper bundle arrived during early morning. Leafed through flyers but since I read most of them here and online, only the CT holiday flyer insert is new.

[coupon girl]

I went to shoppers (seniors day for me)
got strawberries $4.19 after discount and personal points offer
(3) pears 2.97 after discount and personal offer

plus i got melatonin on sale -1.50 cpn =12. something ,gonna start taking it ,maybe i will get a better nights sleep

[Ciel21]

Time outside was helpful. Most of the desired work was accomplished. Felt at 3:44pm that it was much later-tired! Had a vodka soda with leftover meat pie, did a few tasks and then went to nap. Was surprised my left foot is still acting up (when I woke up) despite wearing new shoes. I walk funny when foot is not happy.

Reminder about Remembrance Day-some businesses will be closed for day (check banks) and others will be closed until 12pm (beer/liquor stores, Mountain Equipment Co-op). City of Ottawa has a bylaw mandating no stores open before 12pm on November 11. Many public Remembrance Day services are back and open to all.

[HermanH]

Was browsing RCSS and saw 11-pound boxes of chicken legs for $12. That works out to $1.09/lb; not as good as $1/lb, but still acceptable. I was more surprised to see that there had been no advertising for this product. It's a pretty good deal; what's the point of having a sale and not telling anyone?!

This wasn't the first special price I've seen from RCSS. The past couple of months, I've seen a few occasions where there was $4/lb brisket and no mention anywhere. I took advantage of the price but, judging by how long the inventory took to clear, not many others knew/did anything about it. I would have expected the legs to almost fly out of the freezer.

[cath007]

exausted from today and special k blueberries at iga are not in the 3,49$ sale ...ugh...not paying 6,49$ per box!
to be updated

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Did our grocery shopping yesterday, a little disappointed, even though it was the first day of the sale, stock was sparse or non-existent. It was another week of going to all the stores.

Freshco:
7 x Pasta $1 with scene card
2 x Soya Sauce $2.49
My Freshco did not have the Beef Roasts that were on sale, instead, they were subbing bone-in skinless chicken breasts. King of disappointed as my plan was to cook the whole roast (normally we would break it down into smaller roasts and get 2 or 3 meals from one roast), have it for dinner one night, use it for sandwiches and what did not get used within a few days would be frozen for later meals.

Food Basics:
2 x Raspberries $1.88
1 x Pineapple $1.88
1 x Milk $4.69
1 x Apple Turnover $4.99 - 40%
Glad I went when I went, when I got there they only had about 10 packages of Raspberries, the good news was they were good packages. But I did notice as I was walking the produce section that a lot of their produce did not good so good. The bags of Lemons, Limes, Clementines, and Oranges all had bad fruit in the bags. The Apple Turnovers were an impulse buy but for $2, they went really well with the cup of tea I had when I got home.

No Frills:
3 x Oranges $0.68/lb
1 x Cherry Tomatoes 681g $5.99
4 x Bananas
1 x Everything Bagels $2.99
2 x Mini Tortillas $2.99 - 50% off sticker
4 x Crushed Tomatoes $1.00
No Frills had no Chai Tea which was my main reason for going to No Frills. I miss the day of Bagels for $1.99 but the other day well I was trying to find something for Breakfast all I could think was a simple bagel would be nice right now. I am going to make Baked Taco with the Mini Tortillas. Normally we buy Diced Tomatoes but Mom mentioned the other day she wants to try making her Tomato Jam with crushed tomatoes and she needs to make more so I grabbed a few cans since they were on sale.

Will have to check other No Frills and see if they have Chai tea. There are no other Freshco close by I can check for the Roasts.

[Frugalbigmama]

@SassyAshley - The raspberries have been really nice/good from my Food Basics store the past few weeks.
I plan on buying more this weekend as well.

[Frugalbigmama]

TGIF! Sounds like today is the last nice day weather wise. Turning cold tomorrow and on. So spoiled with the weather the past few weeks.

Hopefully this work day flys by. I'm sure it will because I have a million things to do. Bring on the weekend!

[Ciel21]

About 30 minutes into last push on yardwork, some raindrops fell. Just finished mulching one area of high priority-put machine away and continued to rake shredded leaves (they are acidic and will need bagging next week). Raked the stringy leaves from another tree that also must be bagged-halfway through raking, rain fell more steadily. Wet leaves were harder to move along but I stuck it out. If Bro can be convinced to run the lawn tractor once more next week, then most of yard will be ready to snooze for the cold season.

The rain must have cancelled the warplane flight-did not hear nor see it at all today.

Have wet apparel sorted into two laundry loads and almost have first load done washing. Glad I had oatmeal porridge this morning mixed with some of the flavoured Gerber cereal and some cinnamon and ginger (and a spoonful of brown sugar) plus a chai latte, to get me through the morning. Needed all of that carbohydrate motivation.

Impressed with all the grocery deals and finds (chicken legs!) SCers are posting. I remember when I was in Sobey's (Wed am) a meat dept clerk was surrounded by three shoppers-not sure if there was a marked down ground meat special but I heard something about current date. If the meat area was quiet, I could have looked a little more closely to spot where the Ricardo prepared meats/roasts were as they are in the flyer but they are not available on the Voila platform. I miss having a leisurely long shop at Sobeys, then a refreshment/light bite in the classroom/eating area (former perks of doing those long walks in the area-memories). Case of 12 cans of pop was in the $7.47 range (ouch) but almost all of the Coke 8pk mini bottles were stacked in the back corner of store by the breakfast foods/ice cream freezers.

[Frugalbigmama]

About 30 minutes into last push on yardwork, some raindrops fell. Just finished mulching one area of high priority-put machine away and continued to rake shredded leaves (they are acidic and will need bagging next week). Raked the stringy leaves from another tree that also must be bagged-halfway through raking, rain fell more steadily. Wet leaves were harder to move along but I stuck it out. If Bro can be convinced to run the lawn tractor once more next week, then most of yard will be ready to snooze for the cold season.

The rain must have cancelled the warplane flight-did not hear nor see it at all today.

Have wet apparel sorted into two laundry loads and almost have first load done washing. Glad I had oatmeal porridge this morning mixed with some of the flavoured Gerber cereal and some cinnamon and ginger (and a spoonful of brown sugar) plus a chai latte, to get me through the morning. Needed all of that carbohydrate motivation.

Impressed with all the grocery deals and finds (chicken legs!) SCers are posting. I remember when I was in Sobey's (Wed am) a meat dept clerk was surrounded by three shoppers-not sure if there was a marked down ground meat special but I heard something about current date. If the meat area was quiet, I could have looked a little more closely to spot where the Ricardo prepared meats/roasts were as they are in the flyer but they are not available on the Voila platform. I miss having a leisurely long shop at Sobeys, then a refreshment/light bite in the classroom/eating area (former perks of doing those long walks in the area-memories). Case of 12 cans of pop was in the $7.47 range (ouch) but almost all of the Coke 8pk mini bottles were stacked in the back corner of store by the breakfast foods/ice cream freezers.

WOW! That is the price of pop now? I remember back in the day when SDM would sell it for $2.99 on a Saturday sale.
Fortunately neither of my boys have liked pop so I never buy it.

[coupon girl]

ceil-yes i looked at the price of pop in no frills last week$7.99,(we never buy it)so i decided to buy p.c gingerale 3.99 as hubby said he would like the odd pop with his lays chips ,well he doesnt care for the p.c brand gingerale .

I just xmas shopped at the gap ,as they sent me an email for an extra 11% on top of sale and clearance items .I spent 29.99 and got 3 pairs of joggers for the 3 grandkids for xmas and a top for ashlyn $2.66 at the gap (better than thrift store prices ) and mens socks for me in large (as i already bought the yellow pair last month now i will get the pink pair $2.66.

[lilo0003]

Finally had a decent Flashfood offer, bagels on for 50 cents and since I was going to be in the area I pick two types and by the type I got there the sesame was all gone so they gave me a package fresh from the department. I totally scored on FB marketplace, I have wanted a new lamp for the living room but refuse to buy new. I found an amazing set for a quarter of what new would cost and they are perfect.