February 2023 Frugal Chat

[harbie]

Good early evening.

Another busy work day. Still super cold and very windy here. Yucky snow is called for on Saturday late afternoon/evening. So far the frost cloth is working and staying put. I have to go down and place some mason jars upside down to help keep the cloth off the plants with the snow coming. I’ll need to remove the snow when it comes as best as I can.

Grabbed some sweet potatoes at Safeway on my way home so just about to start dinner.

Have a great night and stay warm

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning,
I was wide awake at 3:30 this morning, I woke up thinking it was about 5 am and my alarm would be going off any minute, nope. I tried to go back to sleep but that was not happening so at 4 am, I got up and started my day.

Honestly, I got more done between 4 am and 7 am than I got done all day yesterday but yesterday was a day full of training and meetings so I spent most of my day on my laptop. Which I expected, but still kind of sucked because by the time my last meeting was done all I got done was catching up on my emails and cooking dinner.

Decided since I was up, I would wash the bedding, the last load is in the washer, when it is done I will throw in the couch blankets. Then when Mom gets up I will see if she wants her done as well. The dishwasher has been emptied but needs to be reloaded.

Knocked out a bunch of work things. Although I caught up on my emails last night I knew I was too tired to tackle anything that took a lot of brain power so I put those into my to-do folder to tackle this morning, most have been done, but some I am waiting on answers for.

I need to take some time to work on my meal plan today so I can plan my prep for the weekend and write my to-do list. I do not plan to go out today so prep will be whatever we already have on hand. Honestly, next week I will grab a few fresh things but right now we have stuff to use up.

Need to decide on dinner for tonight, I was thinking maybe Steak Sandwiches or I have a Chicken Broccoli Ramen Stir Fry I could make, I have broccoli cut up and ready to go.

As insane as this week has been, it has been a good week.

Happy Friday Everyone

[harbie]

WOW @SassyAshley you are a machine! Up at 4 am pounding out the work. I only wish I could be half as productive.

Another iffy night's sleep again, up at 5:15 but awake at 4:40 when Dh decided to get up.

Off to work in the cold and dark. Boy I can’t wait for summer or at least a warmer spring.

Hope everyone has a great day and stays warm.

TGIF

[coupon girl]

sassy-my life is similar to yours this morning.Woke up at 3.00 a.m then decided to dye my hair and a load of bedding.lol

Yesterday i had a bit of inflamation in my right calf,dull ache all day.No i didnt do exercise or shovel,only the front porch.

I think it is time i had blood work done.

[barbis9]

Ol' Darrell is pimping the heck out of his $1.49 day sale at Sav-On Foods, so I decide to take a look on my way home. Regular beef is selling for $1.49/lb, as well as cans of Chunky soup. The beef isn't lean, but will be okay for my chili.

Got in around 1300 and there's a crowd. Everyone seems to be looking for it and the staff say that it is sold out. No rein cheques. It was a decent price, given how expensive meat is. I am certain families stocked up with 20-30 pounds at a time.

But there's no mention of it being a 'door-crasher' special or limited supplies. I can understand a good sale selling out, but this is early afternoon and they are already empty. What a bait-and-switch nonsense. Did they bother to have more than 10 packages available? Or, did they only do enough to maintain a legal veil of legitimacy? Either way, I cannot believe a business would expend so much effort to generate BAD will. Do they really think that folks are going to say, "We're already here, let's drop a ton of cash on your expensive items." Or that we'll fall for it again, next tuesday? I didn't expect much from Sav-On. I expected shady/slimy stunts like this, but I thought that I would give them a chance. I sure am glad that they were exactly on my way home and I did not waste a single minute or breath to go into their store. Fool me once, and all that entails.

@HermanH that is why I stopped shopping at No Frills. They would advertise items on sale but never bothered to have them in stock. I decided my time was more important than going to a store, that in essence is lying. A decent store would issue a raincheck in my opinion. That's why I like Food Basics, as they will lower the price by 10 cents I believe on a raincheck.

[Purdee]

@HermanH the ground beef was on my list to get last tuesday too but we got busy with the kids and didn't feel like stopping at SOF. Good thing, cause I had a feeling they would not have many in stock. I wonder if it was something that RCSS would willing to price match.

[SassyAshley]

@harbie , thank you, I wish it was the norm but it is a one-off for me so taking advantage.

I have been finding it so hard this winter to get up and get going in the morning. I was just thinking this morning how nice it was that the sun was up at 7 am. I cannot wait for the longer summer days to come especially the mornings.

[Frugalbigmama]

TFIF!!! Chilly morning here! But the sun is shining.
My office is like a sauna so I have the window open and had to strip down to a t-shirt lol

Busy work day but it is flowing right! Just going to keep chugging at it and do what I can.

Dinner- No plan. Will figure it out when the time comes.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

[barbis9]

As a single household, I love going to Costco as I find their lasagnas, stuffed chicken breasts and other items a good deal if you don't like cooking. I will bake the items, freeze them individually, and take out as needed, and add a side dish. for example the lasagna is 5 meals for me. And the pharmacy is great - 200 generic Claritin is just over $10. That alone pays for my membership.

[SassyAshley]

When I needed a break from work this week, I have been working on my budget. I just wanted to see if maybe I needed to reallocate some funds or move some things around. But I also wanted to see if I could allocate some funds to some of my 2023 goals.

I was pleasantly surprised, I thought I went over budget on groceries/stock up this month because of all of the meat I bought. But, to my surprise, I came in under budget.

I will admit, I am a bit worried about my grocery budget. I shop the sales but that is just it, I want to make sure if there is a good sale the funds are there so I will admit I built in some wiggle room.

But overall, I was quite happy, the only area I really have concerns about is groceries because it feels like that is a losing battle some days.

I know I am doing my best but lately, it seems like it is nothing but doom and gloom on the future of grocery prices. I saw an article that Nestle said they have already put through an 8% increase and are preparing another increase. I read that Loblaws said they received over 1000 price increase notices in January. There was another article that said although prices seem to be softening in the US on groceries, do not expect to see the same in Canada although they could not seem to explain why.

But overall when I put it down on paper everything looks good, I have allocated some funds to my 2023. I do wish certain areas I could add more each pay and I probably could in some cases but I want to leave some wiggle room just in case.

[HermanH]

@HermanH the ground beef was on my list to get last tuesday too but we got busy with the kids and didn't feel like stopping at SOF. Good thing, cause I had a feeling they would not have many in stock. I wonder if it was something that RCSS would willing to price match.

Good thing you did not waste your time at either SOF or RCSS. I tried to PM at RCSS and was rejected. They said that they do no match online offers. I told them it was no different from an online flyer. No luck. A pox on all of them and their stupid games. So, neither store got a dime from me.

[Ciel21]

Ever thought about making/cutting a little CAA sticker and affixing it to your mother's credit/debit card as a reminder?

That's a thought! (Should print out the CAASCO list of retailers to go along with the sticker.) Bro has a Brother label maker but I have to use it when he's not around. Will ask Mom if she wants a label on her credit card.

[Ciel21]

Excel 2016 update....school cannot answer my question the responsable teacher is on vacations...come back after spring break...so I will bring my laptop and ask the teacher to check I hope it will work....otherwhise the school can pass me a laptop with excel 2016...

Your school likely has a dept or area that rents out laptops for 2h. See who offers the tech services/laptop rentals-at Mohawk College, that rental place is near the main library at Fennell Campus.

Or as was suggested to you, go into your Excel settings to see if there is a 2016 version you can switch to on your laptop within your newer program. Remember how in Word, users are given a lot of file endings to save fils
as a certain kind of file? YOu probably can save your Excel files in 2016 file mode!

[Ciel21]

February 2023 issue of Consumer Report has an article Big Discounts on Groceries. An employee at CR is a couponer and he had some interesting bits and pieces for the US grocery shopper. One store chain is testing a self-service kiosk so shoppers without smartphones or not wanting to overshare personal data can enter their phone number or swipe their grocery card to get a printed booklet highlighting the deals/specials of the week. There's another chain that will offer discounts at the checkout if one does not get coupons.

I looked at a few of Youtuber's CouponwithStar videos. The best tip I thought she had was to use store loyalty points or overage to pay for multiple copies of Sunday papers with coupon inserts. I believe that could work here for PC Optimum cardholders, if they know of a grocery store or large Shoppers that carries a large assortment of newspapers. Fortinos only stocks the Hamilton paper and the 3 major Toronto dailies-pre-pandemic, the NYTimes was carried and a few other newspapers (we also lost the magazine section during the pandemic-the magazines have not come back but RCSS has a selected range of magazines; not sure what papers RCSS actually sells). I know Chapters-Indigo carries some international/US papers but they are kept behind the checkout area-not sure which US papers are stocked if one has Plum Rewards points ready for redemption. I managed to see some Extreme Couponing segments on the Tlc.uk channel (all US couponers) but hit a paywall in trying to access the actual Extreme Couponing 1 Season link. So I'm impressed there are some couponers using their skills to sponsor church fellowship meals or helping local charities with personal care and food items (but so many hours and coupons and helpers are involved!). I am feeling some difficult feelings when I see stacks of bottled beverages on their sides in the stockpile rooms (what happens when one or more leak?) or products couponers only buy to get overages but those products are still in the rooms, rather than given out to places that could use them. Best couponer challenge-one sober home for male teens wanted a $150 budget used to get organic foods (two week supply) for the staff/residents. Couponer wanted the job (she applied to the home) and managed to use mfr and store coupons at Whole Foods to get a $107 total bill with help of two teens. Staffer was impressed.Couponer was thrilled to meet challenge as she did not shop for organic items before with coupons.

Took a glance at the Brickseek.com store to look for clearance/discontinued items at US big box stores. Some Cdns have indicated that stocktrack.ca works the same way here in Canada-need UPCs to use it but I picked Best Buy's tab and navigated the categories list to look for baby products and checked off which things I'd like to look at. Have to spend more time on the site-it's very basic looking and cluttered to my eyes. My results came up with products in those categories in right window and locations with stock came up in the left window.

Noticed some videos on retail arbitrage for Canada. Seems there's a place in Ontario to score bulk item pallets for sale, if one wants to be a reseller (and you have $$$ to spend). Think I know where the surplus outlet store is getting its banged up stock now!

Glad I took the bus to the library (it was closed yesterday). My street's sidewalks are not cleared but the sidewalk for the afternoon bus stop was cleared so that was good. Most of the main street's sidewalks are still under snow and windrows from street plows with an icy coating on the snow (it was dicey walking down the driveway but I managed). The sidewalk from Halson St to the library was cleared, so the City Public Work's sidewalk plows in town got the village core walks cleared at least! I intend to bus back on my transfer (if bus is on time or use a second fare) as it's chilly outside despite Ms. Sunshine's beaming efforts. Forecast is for another snowstorm on Monday, so I needed to get a third Internet session in.

[Ciel21]

Glanced at my teeny coupon pile-the $1 off Cracker Barrel cheese (shredded, bars etc) coupon expires on Mon. Feb. 27. If you have this coupon, pull it out and use it this weekend!