August 2023 Frugal Chatter Thread

[lilo0003]

It’s looking dark and ominous here but it will help cool things off. Friday is supposed to be 21 degrees between go back to the high 20s. So all windows and doors will be open to drop the temp in the house.
The garden has provided some more beets and a few tomatoes so I will cook up some bacon. This week I found Schneider’s on the flash food app for 2.49 so picked up 4 packs. I rarely find deals so it was a nice surprise as I was checking out.

[harbie]

Another hot day but not quite as humid. It was 34. While I LOVE summer and warmth it’s the humidity that I despise. Not to mention this weather is horrendous for forest fires. They’re calling for dry lightning possibly and of course winds which breaks my heart for a lot of BC.

We will bike to the bank for my deposit when it cools down a bit.

[Frugalbigmama]

Good Morning! And Happy Friday! Cool wet start to the day here today (Sorry Harbie!) Feels like Fall! Which is my fav time of the year but I don't want to rush summer either.

Got a few extra things off my to do list yesterday. Tonight may be a putter in the garage kind of night. Can BBQ while organizing.

My sister and BIL are leaving for Vegas on Sunday so I am going to their house to watch my niece. On Monday I am dropping her off at her friends house and they are going on a RV trip. I will pick her back up on Friday and bring her back home and stay with her till her parents get home. oh and I am bringing their dog home with me for the week- I keep forgetting that part! I haven't told DS yet- it will be a surprise. Will get me back into the routine of walking later at night before be which is great (our dog does not like long walks).

So tonight and tomorrow I want us to get lots done around the house. The spare room is almost ready to move my desk into it.... just need to order the chair mat (work will order for me), I have 2 of those tall plastic bins/drawers that need to be cleaned out. I'm sure there is tons of paper to be shred.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

[Angela273]

On August 10 I bought over $100 in school supplies but did not receive the teacher discount at Walmart, even though I told the employee that I’m a teacher and the summer is going by too fast, etc. The teller didn’t ask me for the proof of my teaching credentials. I thought maybe WM wasn’t having their 10% discount this year. Last year WalMart had a well advertised 10% off for teachers promotion. I finally googled to find out when or if this teachers’ discount was happening this year. It’s apparently August 10-23. I bought all my kids’ back to school supplies and sons for myself, but I didn’t get the teacher discount. I have the receipt, but I doubt that Walmart will be helpful about this.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Feels like Fall out today and not to rush summer to be over but I am here for it. I have all the doors and windows open airing out the house.

I will admit I was in the kitchen making my breakfast and thought, I should put a roast in the oven and let cook on low all day. It is that kind of day. As well with the cooler weather today I am craving all of the comfort foods.

It has been a week I have been training all week with people sending me stuff they need me to do. My boss came to me on Monday as we were working in the same location and I just looked at him and said "There are not enough hours in the day, to complete everything you guys want me to do in August, I need to complete 2 training plans, write 2 training plans from scratch and write 13 manuals. Plus I also have 3 policies to write and I am in branches every day training someone, not working on any of that."

On Wednesday my boss called me into this office to tell me there was a list of stuff they were going to take off my plate, only issue is all but one thing I have done. The one thing I have not done has been sent back for clarification as the way it was worded it sounds like I do not have to do it now (in August but still needs to be done so not really off my plate) as well, we had already moved it to September so I am a bit confused.

Monday after work I ran into RCSS as we needed Milk, Peppers and mushrooms. Well, I was there I also grabbed Grapes and Mangos.

Tuesday after work I ran to Michael's to pick up an order for Mom and then ran to No Frills as Mom wanted the Ribs that were on sale but our store did not have any. So change in plans, then she decided on wings which we were out of so Wednesday night after work I went to Costco to get wings, some stuff that is on sale, plus a few staples we need. I did not get everything so there will be another trip in the semi-near future.

Last night we had dinner with Bro, don't think I have mentioned it here. Bro called off his wedding a couple of weeks ago (they were supposed to get married in September). So Bro is now living with our other Brother and his Wife so we all had dinner. I admit, we have never been a family who focused on Brother vs Half-Brother they are both just my Brothers and even growing up a lot of times when Mom would take us to do something she would invite the half-sibs. But it felt weird because my bro knows my mom but his wife doesn't. I guess this is the new modern family. We had a good night.

Now my kitchen is a disaster, it needed to be cleaned before Mom did the cooking so now it is next level.

But, I am trying to focus on work, I had two days, yesterday and today to knock out as much of the list above as I could as my trainee this week finished early. Yesterday was bad, I decided to jump head first into something I have been putting off as I thought it was going to take me forever. I was hoping once I focused on it, I would surprise myself and get it done quickly. Nope, literally spent all day from 6:30 to 5 working on it and am only 75% done. That kind of knocked me down a bit but today is a new day and going to push through.

Happy Friday Everyone.

[coupon girl]

Afternoon so tired had the girls yesterday and had ashlyn sleep over as we took her to a learning program put on by the school with tablets 9-11.30 then son picked her up here.

Next week have the girls for 3 days ,wednesday i am suppose to go out with a friend i havent seen in 3 years for lunch .

[Frugalbigmama]

I received 2 FPC's for Kellogg's cereal. Must have been from the promo on the box. Months ago I stocked DS up on cereal (I think they were $5.49 each and buy 2 get 5000 Pc pts) I did try submitting for the FPC online but I didn't think it worked. Guess it did! Should have tried redeeming for the others. Oh well a nice surprise.

[Frugalbigmama]

Think I have found the perfect hotel/resort/cono in Myrtle Beach. 5 mins from airport. near the ocean (ocean front from balcony) New, modern and clean and has large fridge etc. Will read the reviews later tonight and then mark it in my travel info for a future plan!

[lilo0003]

@Frugalbigmama I hope I get lucky too because my submissions seemed to get rejected so I gave up but an FPC would be a nice surprise.
My websaver paid out I did nothing to make that happen other than hit $10.00 so cool me impressed.
Thanks @Ciel21 for pointing out the Sobeys gift card offer. It’s a better offer in Ontario of 1000 Scene points for each 150.00 card. In NS it’s 200.00 and in NS Sobeys has gas stations so yes I did take advancing the offer. Rumour has it there is a limit of 5 and since I have 3 weeks in the fall out there I did the 5. These ones even have the gas station and drug store listed so that made me a little more confident this was a good idea.

[HermanH]

There was a brutal wind and rainstorm overnight. Lots of debris on the ground, including pine cones from our fir trees. Sadly, it probably means that much of the fruit I had been hoping to harvest is probably irrecoverable.

[Angela273]

On August 10 I bought over $100 in school supplies but did not receive the teacher discount at Walmart, even though I told the employee that I’m a teacher and the summer is going by too fast, etc. The teller didn’t ask me for the proof of my teaching credentials. I thought maybe WM wasn’t having their 10% discount this year. Last year WalMart had a well advertised 10% off for teachers promotion. I finally googled to find out when or if this teachers’ discount was happening this year. It’s apparently August 10-23. I bought all my kids’ back to school supplies and sons for myself, but I didn’t get the teacher discount. I have the receipt, but I doubt that Walmart will be helpful about this.

I was relieved and surprised that WM customer service was able to fix their mistake, which resulted in a refund of $12.27. Last year I received the discount on everything I bought, not struck school supplies. I plan on doing another WM shop on Sunday.

Our kids enjoyed a pizza party at the library as part of the wrap up of the TD Supper Reading Program. They each came home with a prize bag containing medium valued prizes and an envelope of coupons for free treats at various locations in town.

Tomorrow morning we are attending the funeral of our friends’ dad…we knew the dad for years. Then our community is having its annual street fair. Bounce castles for the kids and some down town sales to check out. Free matinee movie at the theatre, but it’s not a show that we want to see.

[flemeth]

Good morning everyone.

@Angela273 that’s awesome that Walmart did the refund . So sorry for the loss of your friend dad.

[Frugalbigmama]

Good Morning! The sun is shining and looks like its going to be a beautiful day!

Up so early! Already made breakfast and just enjoying coffee now while yesterdays dishes soak in the sink.
Kitchen clean up. Entrance clean up. Put a load of towels in the washer/dryer/put away.
Clean bathrooms. Wash upstairs hallway floor and the stairs.
That is my plan this morning. Then shower and enjoy the day outside! Thinking we will check out the chip truck at the water front today. Have to go at least once a season
Then putter in the garage. Now that the huge desk DS had in there for 2 years is gone we can finally clean it out. Will pull out the shelving units out in the driveway and move all the bins. I would love to post DS's hockey net for sale but sounds like he wants to keep it. Then his project next week is to hang it up high in the garage. He is tall and can take it down easily and then at least it won't take up precious floor space.

Enjoy the day!

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
I looked at my grocery list yesterday since I did not go shopping on Thursday like I normally do because our fridge was busting at the seams from my Costco shop. When I looked at my list most of what I am picking up, I already have I would just be picking up more peppers, green onions, and grapes, which we already have, so I decided to wait to shop, we have enough to get through the weekend.

*Knock-on-Wood* it looks like the wasps situation has been taken care of but they have not fixed the holes in the front of my house. Tuesday when I came home from work I noticed there was what looked like a white powder all over the area they were coming. I checked the basement and there were a few wasps but most of them looked like they were dying. Wednesday there were fewer and then *fingers-crossed* Thursday and Friday no wasps.

Now we are disagreeing about the holes in our house. They are saying they do not see them in the photos, um is it normal for someone to have paper towel stuffed in their foundation? But we are trying to keep on them because this is not a solution.

Got tons of work done yesterday which was what I needed but still so much to get done. But, they are working on ways to get me help only issue is I have to set everything up so others can help me. I have to admit I am having some self-doubt right now, if I have everything I need to make someone else sucessful at doing my job. So much of my job is me just knowing how the handle the situation, fix the problem, if A doesn't work try B and these are the things that are hard to teach.

Today's plan is to regain our kitchen, I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher yesterday but did not get the hand dishes done. As well all of the Costco bags are living at the top of the stairs.

Then, I need to clean up the basement there was wasps corpses everywhere. I assume whatever the powder is killed them but they were still coming through the wall and then dying in the basement. As well the spray we have been using was AMAZING, 100% recommend but because of the dish soap in the spray it has made my floor super slippery.

Happy Saturday Everyone

[walkonby]

Gosh, @SassyAshley that situation with the wasps has been all consuming for you, but from the sounds of it maybe they are finally dying out. ( thank goodness ) .
Our fridge is also bursting at the seams but in a good way. Mostly fresh, healthy produce, but the meat/cheese drawer is stuffed, then I got to cooking,
so there are things that we can all just reheat this weekend.

Managed to catch the nasty cold/flu? sickness that both my guys had about 1 1/2 weeks ago. Grrrrr, and just as I was making great headway with my chiro workout and stretches.
Both Thursday and Friday I did NONE of them. No stationary bike either.....ugh. I really tried too, but the body aches I was experiencing saw me cave and throw a pity party for one instead. Should be grateful that because I was so sick I wasn't interested in food.
Hoping this thing breaks today, atm I am soaked with sweat.
@Frugalbigmama I LOVE your energy level in everything you tackle! You always make a plan, dig in and reap the rewards after.