December 2022 Frugal Chat (when Autumn turns into Winter)

[coupon girl]

lilo-i truly believe it is hard to come back after 2 yrs of lockdown and no xmas with family for me .I am limiting my going out ,sticking to babysitting the girls after school as i so want to celebrate xmas on the 26th with family (yes we are doing it on the 26th as i have to take into consideration my daughter shares sebastian and i find it will be so much more relaxing for my son his wife to only go to her parents on xmas afternoon (i hated going to my dear moms then hubby,s mom and dads in one day on dec25 when my son and daughter were little ,too much in one day )
Who cares what day it is as long as my grown kids and grandchildren are here with us to celebrate .

Back to not sleeping well,such is life.Laundry today then off to pick up the girls after school.

[walkonby]

lilo-i truly believe it is hard to come back after 2 yrs of lockdown and no xmas with family for me .I am limiting my going out ,sticking to babysitting the girls after school as i so want to celebrate xmas on the 26th with family (yes we are doing it on the 26th as i have to take into consideration my daughter shares sebastian and i find it will be so much more relaxing for my son his wife to only go to her parents on xmas afternoon (i hated going to my dear moms then hubby,s mom and dads in one day on dec25 when my son and daughter were little ,too much in one day )
Who cares what day it is as long as my grown kids and grandchildren are here with us to celebrate .

Back to not sleeping well,such is life.Laundry today then off to pick up the girls after school.

well said @coupon girl ! No matter if it's boxing day, your time together is what matters! Enjoy every blessed moment with them on the 26th!

I am bracing for when the white stuff will arrive. Are we going to have a white you-know-what? or will I be able to navigate walking up and down my pathway with glee?
I DO enjoy looking at it from inside the house and nothing is cozier than enjoying the Christmas Day meal and festivities with the blinds wide open and lights reflecting down on it.
That is when I like to offer hot chocolate or cider to any takers...tastes better when you know it's cold outside.

In the meantime, I'll keep removing items from the 2 freezers to get cooked up prior to the 25th so that there will be more available space in there IF needed. Sometimes the array of baked/boiled or microwaved foods are not complimentary to one another, and it's the comments from DH that keep me laughing.
Like " oh! so we're having a full on Carbohydrate Chow Down with boiled/fried perogies, oven baked tater Tots, Fish Sticks and sweet potato fries ?
I'll call 911 right now and reserve an ambulance. "
Today I baked up a tray of store bought mini quiche that has been in the freezer for a year! lol.

[SassyAshley]

@coupon girl , I wish more people would realize it isn't about what day but just getting together.

Now that most of my siblings have significant others with two sides of the family as well choosing the day is always the hard part because there is always a conflict.

[Skippy]

Good day fellow thread dwellers!
The weather out is still blah but at least nothing to shovel. That said some sunlight would be nice!
Now less than 3 weeks till Christmas and the wreath is on the door so off to a good start.Only a few gazillion things to do but as they say donÂ’t sweat the small stuff as it is indeed small. And as always, it will get done.
The main guest Turkey Lurkey is sitting in the freezer. The rest of the fixings will find themselves in my home soon enough. I suppose I should buy DW something for Christmas but I hate crowds and online sites that arenÂ’t easy to navigate.No worries still plenty of time!
My latest way to save $15.00 is to not buy a Butterball Boneless turkey roast as taste and texture not even close to the real deal. I would even buy a utility turkey but donÂ’t think they have them anymore.
Whatever youÂ’re up to today stay safe and warm and have a great week ahead my friends!

[SassyAshley]

I think I did pretty well today, my goal was to try to tackle all of the little things.

A) I wanted them off my to-do
B) I just needed a day where I could knock things out. Mentally I needed a get-it-done type of day.

I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, although the only dishes to go in were my dishes from Breakfast. There are a few hand dishes that still need to be washed, will probably wait and tackle those after dinner.

Cleaned the kettle, by boiling it twice with vinegar in it. Then boiled it twice with water to make sure there was no vinegar taste.

Cleaned our drains using Baking Soda and Vinegar. I did this well I was cleaning the kettle so I could use the boiling water on the drains.

I needed to take out the basement Garbage and Recycling. The Garbage was full of lint dust and full and I am always bad about taking out the Basement Recycling because I forget to bring it up.

Well, I was in the basement I cleaned the Basement Garbage can as our Downy had leaked on the lids so I scrubbed it down.

Took out the Kitchen Garbage, I should have done it yesterday but, it did not happen.

There are still a few things I would like to get done but we shall see how I feel after dinner. If I am tired, I will just crochet and do the other stuff tomorrow.

Dinner tonight will be Homemade Chicken Tenders with Homemade Potato Wedges and maybe a Lettuceless Salad. I have to see if I have any dressing, since I haven't been buying lettuce I haven't been making dressing to keep in the fridge so I might be out.

My new Mattress Pad arrived today. Not sure if I will get my bedding washed tomorrow as I need to do regular laundry tomorrow, so maybe Wednesday will be bedding day. I could have done it today but held off as the Mattress Pad was supposed to come Friday and all of a sudden at like 6 pm they bumped it to today so I did not want to wash my bedding in case it did not arrive.

Time to finish off my work day.

[harbie]

Good afternoon all,

It’s been a productive day so far. I got my X-rays done and was in and out in literally 10 min! There was only 2 other people waiting which is odd and I only sat for 1 minute before going to the change room and sat in there for maybe another minute. Glad that’s done. Hopefully my tests on Wednesday will go just as smoothly.

Dh and I hit up a few places to get some odds and sods.

Save on foods.
1x Not Milk PMd to RCSS for $3.79 - $1 coupon=$2.79/ $2.00 CO51= 79c
2x WF Jasmine rice sale @ $13.99

RCSS.
Broccoli reg $4.99/lb PMd to NF for 2.69/lb + 200 pts ( woo hoo )
2X Scrubbing bubbles @$4 ea + 600 pts ( oh thank you Mr Weston for your generous offer )
1x 5lb bag Ambrosia apples PMd to NF for $5.99 RCSS price was $8.00

Safeway.
Green Giant canned corn 4/$5 * same price as RCSS but of course they had no stock.
1 rain check for 5lb bag sweet potatoes as they didn’t receive any.

Also claimed another Not Milk on Dh’s CO51 for $2.00 but paid $3.79 for the product.

Caddle receipts were also scanned for 30-40c more.

Splurged on a nice head on iceberg lettuce for $4.49. I really craved a crunchy salad so I’m ok with that. Should get us a couple of salads when I slice it up.

[Frugalbigmama]

Dropped DS off at his work Christmas party at 5pm.
Stopped at bank to deposit cash.
Went into Independant. Bought 3 dozen eggs @ $2.49 each. (we have a 30pk of the medium eggs to open still but thinking maybe I should buy a few more dozen...) Also bought a bag of the mini oreos and Honey Graham bears for $1.99 each for my nieces Christmas box. And Celebration butter milk chocolate cookies (lonely last box or I would have bought her more) for Grandmas Christmas box.
Texted with my sister today and she agrees that our mom is hard to buy for since she needs nothing. So I will do my usual of a box full of food stuff she likes (jams/cookies/tea etc) and a card with $ and breakfast/dinner plans at the casino. I guess its true that as you age people just want your time.

Stopped by the oldests office and dropped him off a packed dinner (Turkey Bacon sandwich, green apple, bag of smartfood popcorn, bottle of water and a can of gingerale) and he gave me back my small portable table he borrowed. I can now start wrapping one night this week I will set the table up in the spare room- it shall be the wrapping room lol.. Anyone remember years ago about Candy Spellings house apparently it had a "wrapping room"

[lilo0003]

@coupongirl when my boys were young I refused to go to the grandparents on Christmas Day. I was dragged around as a kid and expected to eat two Christmas dinners and I lived close to my grandparents. I was not subjecting my kids to that. it was also almost a 2 hr drive. All the grandparents were invited here if they wished but they rarely made the trip. So we always just picked a day, usually Boxing Day with my folks and NY Day with the in-laws. Once they were teens we started to do the trip. Since my dad passed my mom has come and stayed with us for Christmas and now my father in law will join us. And in what is a tradition my brother in law and kids family will celebrate with us on new year’s. It really does not matter the day that people celebrate.

[walkonby]

@coupongirl when my boys were young I refused to go to the grandparents on Christmas Day. I was dragged around as a kid and expected to eat two Christmas dinners and I lived close to my grandparents. I was not subjecting my kids to that. it was also almost a 2 hr drive. All the grandparents were invited here if they wished but they rarely made the trip. So we always just picked a day, usually Boxing Day with my folks and NY Day with the in-laws. Once they were teens we started to do the trip. Since my dad passed my mom has come and stayed with us for Christmas and now my father in law will join us. And in what is a tradition my brother in law and kids family will celebrate with us on new year’s. It really does not matter the day that people celebrate.

@lilo0003 we did the exact same thing when we started having our kids. Christmas day ( morning opening their presents ) was always spent in our own home from kid #1 until the 3rd one arrived. We also hosted the dinner for a few years when our 3 were still too young to help. lol. Usually my parents and 2 sisters came, a house humming with the noise of 6 kids overdosing on treats! DH's parents entertained and fed Christmas dinner to a few of their kids and grandkids.
Smoking....ugh!! The main reason we stayed away. Everyone smoked! Talk about second hand smoke, you simply could not escape it.

[SassyAshley]

OH MY GOSH!?!?!?!?!?! I cannot.

I just woke up to, 2 emails from the rental car company telling me I still owe them money for the rental I returned over a month ago. Plus it looks like what generated the emails is they charged my credit card partially for the rentals instead of my insurance company so now I have paid for the rental, not insurance.

I cannot figure out why they charged me for the rental, not my insurance company, plus why process partial payments?????????

And now there is a second car on the rental, like what the??????

I get it every company has a bad day, and staff have an off day but this is becoming beyond ridiculous. Generally, I am a calm person but I am about to lose it.

[harbie]

Sounds like a majorly incomplete company @SassyAshley . I hope you get it worked out once and for all.

Good morning all,

Cold and what I’ve heard possible freezing rain. Selling for some snow or snow/rain today. Yuck!

Off to work today. Hope everyone has a great day

[coupon girl]

lilo and walkonby -i wish .I had a very stubborn mother and mother-in-law that wanted it on the same day -mind you we only ate at one house for supper .
Next year we may do it earlier as my son works 3 days around xmas ,so maybe a week before who knows and again it doesnt matter to hubby and i .

Just had ginger tea as my throat was a little rough this morning (hopefully i didnt catch it from my dear daughter who was here on the weekend ) I may pop around the corner to dollarama and sobeys for a few sale items ,then home .

[Frugalbigmama]

Noticed cheese coupons out on the shelves ( save $3 wub 2 expires March 2023) Cracker Barrel/or BD (I can't remember now!!)

I cleaned out my shopping bag (my little bag that carries my change to spend/coupons I find in my travels/flyers etc)
Getting ready for the new flyers so I can plan my shopping next week.

[Ciel21]

There's a Cracker Barrel cheese coupon ($1 off?) that expires today! I pulled it out when looking at my small stack of coupons today. I also have another Cracker Barrel coupon with a later expiry date. Guess I must visit a grocery store to use at least one coupon.

My DVD movie failed to work in the dvd player. It could be that the player needs an update (but it's an old model) or the dvd isn't readable? Will ask library staff to check disc to ensure it works. Well, I can think about signing up for Amazon Prime to see the movie on Prime Video (and Bullet Train will air on Dec. 31!).

Last yard waste pickup for 2022 happened early this morning-the crew came by at 8:30 am or so while I was watching some of the morning shows.

@Frugalbigmama Yes, I remember the wrapping room! I also remember Martha Stewart showing how to make a wrapping station-dowels in a secretary unit or closet to store ribbon rolls, tape etc-in her magazines.
Would your mother like prints of photos taken during the year of your family (even family who only post on social media channels now) with her or just some memorable (i.e. casino win) outings? I make several prints during the year for Mom and put them into her album (which is running out of pages after 3 years' time and I have not seen a similarly designed one on the Winners' shelves this year, even at the location where I had purchased it). You could add the photos to her Christmas basket!

[Ciel21]

PERKS members get Grandparents Day today and tomorrow at Mastermind Toys. Saw the post today on Facebook while checking to see what today's contest prize will be (not yet posted).