September 2023 Frugal chatter Thread

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Oh, what a week. I have been training all week which is fine but I am not sure if it was the full moon or their weather changing but I cannot sleep enough. Literally, some nights I have gone to bed at 8:30 got 9 hours of sleep and was still exhausted. Such a change from last week when I felt like I was finally getting my sleep back on track.

I am thinking, it was the moon as this morning I was up early and got right to work. I have quite the to-do list for work plus with how tired I have been nothing has been done around the house. Dinners have sucked because by dinner time I am so tired all I can think of is going to bed. But, honestly, we did not eat that badly because I had prepped last weekend so I was able to get some dinners on the table with limited effort. Plus we had some nights we were not feeling our best so maybe I am just being hard on myself. But, today is the day to get everything back on track.

We have tons of options for dinners so I need to write a meal plan. I will also make sure to prep this weekend so next week is easy and ready to go.

I was going to grocery shop my way from work last night but I ended up working late so I skipped it. Then I was going to run out this morning but honestly, other than Buns I cannot think of anything we will need over the weekend. So if we want Buns we will have to make them.

I was thinking the other night I should think about taking the AC united out and packing them away, but then I saw next week's weather and they are calling for 26 & 27 so, yeah, not packing them up yet.

Happy Friday Everyone.

[Frugalbigmama]

What a beautiful day!! Take it while we can

[SassyAshley]

Not going to lie, the day started off a little rough. The first thing I needed to check off my to-do list was checking Homework, all our new staff in training have to submit homework. I do not know what it is but this is my least favourite task, probably because it is time-consuming and I usually let it pile up so I usually have a stack to check. Today was just one person but it was taking me FOREVER and I was getting frustrated but was determined it done.

Once I got that done, I got on a roll and knocked out a few things I had been putting off for far too long. I didn't get everything done but to get everything done I would have needed time to stand still as I had about 3 days, worth of work on my list for today. Plus of course, we had some day-to-day stuff pop up. But I am happy with where I am at.

I also got the Dishwasher emptied and it has been reloaded. Not a lot but something which is a win in my books. Shockingly we only have a few hand dishes so I might go get those done shortly.

Dinner is going to be "Grilled" (I am actually baking them) Chicken Sandwiches with Fries, keeping it simple as I lost track of time this afternoon and before I knew it, it was 4:20 and Mom still wanted to go take a bath before Dinner.

I think I am going to write a to-do list for the weekend. Honestly, there are a million things I want to get done but I am thinking maybe we should tackle the freezers. I really want to clean out the chest freezer as I see Costco has some sales starting next week I want to take advantage of. But if I am going to clean it, I should also defrost it, it needs to be done. But a bunch of stuff from the Chest Freezer should move to the Stand-up, which also needs to be defrosted. The question is, do I have 2 freezers in one day in me????

I also need to plan my prep for the weekend but to do that I need to write a Meal Plan. Think I will tackle this after dinner.

One of these days I will feel like my life is organized.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Up early and enjoying a cup of tea before the day gets started.

Trying to talk myself into getting started on the freezers. I know I will be happy once it is done but it is going to be some work. It won't be too bad as the freezer is still organized just needs to be defrosted. I just hate how long it takes to defrost before I can reload it.

Although I am up early which makes me so happy I am still feeling quite tired. I do not know what is up with my sleep, although it turns out last night was actually the full moon so hoping it only gets better from here. Last week I focused on getting to bed early so this week I will focus on making myself get up when my alarm goes off and not letting myself sleep in.

Time to figure out the plan for today.

Happy Saturday Everyone.

[walkonby]

good morning savvy shoppers! I had a plan. Bought 3 of the ( invite only ) Max Passes @ $10.00 each. One each for Metro,
Shell and Dollarama. The promo runs from Tuesday Oct 3 - Monday Oct 9th and the idea is whatever you spend at each place
paying with your linked AM credit card, you earn 40 times the AM.



I did this promo 2 years ago with decent success but Dollarama was not part of it then.

My clever plan was to NOT grocery or Dollar store shop OR get the fuel till it starts on Tuesday. Atm the vehicle has less than 1/4 tank, so very
doable to wait till Tuesday.

Then a wrench got thrown into my plans when I discovered the Reconciliation Stat is only recognized in the Western Provinces.
Here I thought my guys had Monday off of work. They'll need more than that 1/4 tank to get to get there and back so I gotta top it up to
1/2 tank this weekend.
Oh well, at least the promo runs till Oct 9th, still plenty of time to do a full fill up.
I've a list all made up for my Metro and Dollarama shops. I may be able to get some of my depleted supplements at Metro, the Advil too. The promo says
" you can shop at each place every day of the promo if you like " . I wish. Strategy is required what to buy, sales only!

[SassyAshley]

@walkonby , love it.

Also, I feel your pain, a couple of months ago I had a PC offer for Esso and thought oh perfect I have an out of town trip the 4 fill ups will be a breeze. But on my way out of town the Esso wasn't available so I had to go to Ultramar. Okay fine, I still have a second out of town trip. Nope, it got cancelled and I worked from home instead and missed the 4th fill up. I think you had to spend $40 and there was no way I was going to get $40 in my car.

[Frugalbigmama]

Good Morning!

Up and out of bed at 830ish this morning. Cleaned the kitchen and cleaned one washroom. Filled my water bottle and hoped in the car.
Stopped at a cafe in the next town that I have never been to. Paid $2.75 for a coffee and tossed .25 cents in the tip bowl. Yuck. Tried it and won't be back lol.
Walked around the block with my terrible coffee. Found a free book stand. Grabbed 3 really nice French books for my friends twins. (all about Canada and Canada Atlas- kid friendly)
Then drove to the docks and walked around there. Stopped at GT on way home to grab Spinach (they didn't have the other day)
Just made the best Spinach/mushroom/peppers/onion omelette.
AT GT they had the steak strips reg $9.97 marked down to $4 so I grabbed the 2 biggest/nicest packages of the 3.
So dinner tonight will be the steak strips, spinach salad and mixed veggies.
Now will wash up the breakfast dishes and then jump in the shower and continue the day. The sunshine is amazing!

[crafter]

Good morning! Well I started off the day okay with a walk along the trail by my house. I turned Strava on my cellphone and it really does make a difference. Instead of just walking enough to have my dog do his business, I've been finding myself walking a little further everyday..I guess it somehow makes me accountable.
I then came back to enjoy a nice cup of coffee (Ethical Bean Lush is so tasty) and catch up on some surveys on Nielsen homescan.
Lunch is already planned (a repeat of yesterday...a cheese croissant with some ham and shredded old cheese cheese with mustard and nuked for 15 secs) Dinner is easy too.
Hubby is going out for a night of poker with a new neighbour and I've invited his wife to join me here. She had mentioned wanting to learn how to make eggrolls so we may do that as a kitchen crafting session lol and then I'm hoping to find a good girlie movie that we can watch on Netflix/Prime or Disney. any ideas?

Have a wonderful day, it sure looks like the weekend is setting up to be a nice one

[SassyAshley]

Wahoo, both freezers have been defrosted.

I do not know if I have mentioned it here but ever since our Hot Water tank was replaced our water is SO HOT. We called the plumber to say it is too hot but he said it has to be set that hot. Well, it came in handy today. I emptied the stand-up and put bins of hot water in and closed the door like we always do. We switch them out every 30ish minutes and normally it takes about 2 to 3 hours depending on how long we let the frost build up. This time it took just over an hour.

I had planned to empty the stand-up, defrost it and it would be ready to reload when Mom got up, nope I had it done.

Then I emptied and started on the chest freezer. Mom was getting up at this point. After 30 minutes I went down to check and change the water and it was defrosted. I came up got our cups of tea and we ahead and dried out the chest freezer and started reloading.

Not much food waste, I threw out a few bags of bananas because I only used Sandwich baggies, not freezer baggies and Mom got rid of some stuff she had in the Chest freezer.

There is now so much room in the chest freezer. We threw out a few things it mainly just needed to be reorganized. Took stock of what we have we are good on Butter, found 6 bricks I didn't know where in there. We have Frozen veggies coming out of our ears, thank you PC personal offers. Good on Fruit for the time being. Will need to get some more bread on our next Costco trip.

My goal was to have it done by noon, I was close, when I came back in from taking the garbage out it was 12:20.

I have taken a shower and now it is time to relax. Think I will work on my bullet journal and get ready for October.

[Ciel21]

October's thread is live now:https://forum.smartcanucks.ca/448323...a/#post7241889

[Ciel21]

Same as others my offers are odd and rarely what I buy, this week for PCO I have a boat load of offers for No Frills and yet it they looked at my history they would see I have not shopped there in at least 6 weeks and if they looked at my location which we all know they can they would see I am at least 80 kms away from NF. Canadian Tire on the other hand is my points friend this week as we buy the stuff we need so far I have used 200.00 in points and earned another 100.00 which I will use tomorrow as I need blue bins. Blue and green bins are not supplied by the country.

I highly recommend adding a Swiffer heavy duty duster with the 3ft handle for dusting monthly any ceiling and trim etc. THough the cost of refills is unreal, I get the regular ones and use one per month (clean the nicest room first!) and end up with quick dusting of basement pipes overhead and any nook that spiders build their webs plus baseboards.

[Ciel21]

Good morning! Well I started off the day okay with a walk along the trail by my house. I turned Strava on my cellphone and it really does make a difference. Instead of just walking enough to have my dog do his business, I've been finding myself walking a little further everyday..I guess it somehow makes me accountable.
I then came back to enjoy a nice cup of coffee (Ethical Bean Lush is so tasty) and catch up on some surveys on Nielsen homescan.
Lunch is already planned (a repeat of yesterday...a cheese croissant with some ham and shredded old cheese cheese with mustard and nuked for 15 secs) Dinner is easy too.
Hubby is going out for a night of poker with a new neighbour and I've invited his wife to join me here. She had mentioned wanting to learn how to make eggrolls so we may do that as a kitchen crafting session lol and then I'm hoping to find a good girlie movie that we can watch on Netflix/Prime or Disney. any ideas?

Have a wonderful day, it sure looks like the weekend is setting up to be a nice one

Give the animated Elemental a go. I like the scenes when the Fire miss and Water young man try to figure out their dates! Some of the story has been done before. The father of the Fire miss sounds Greek to me so that makes up for the fact I still have not seen the new My Big Fat Greek wedding 3 movie yet.

[Ciel21]

When I was at Walmart two days ago, I looked for the Ziploc Endurables freezer to oven/microwave to table standing pouches. The small and medium ones are an eyewateringly $12.49 there. But the products might help someone who may need to store small quantities of leftovers or sliced produce until they are needed. Keep tabs on flyers to see if there is any chance of a less than $10 price in the near future?

Canada Post delivered (on Thursday) about half of the usual grocery/retail flyers that used to come in the weekly community paper. The Canadian Tire flyer arrived a day or two earlier, so there is some print material filling the box every day now. On Thursday I managed to finally use a CT points multiplier on brooms (new Vileda Oskar for one place that was a sore spot for me) plus a $4 points bonus wus $25 or more (our 10 yr old Tfal iron was just about not working all summer and failed to heat up one of two attempts that day) as I bought more Affresh and a cheaper Tfal (lighter too but I saved the water filler from the old iron for the new one). NOw I have just over $5 in CT e-money to spend and I intend to do so next week.

Had an online order setback as one highly desired item I could not find locally at two stores was sold out when it was time to get the order fulfilled. I have requested the order be cancelled and money refunded. Trying to figure out alternate plans as I want the gift items sent by end of next week if possible. Have another order on the way from BC that is part of two gifts plus there's a shirt for me (sale priced one as gift for myself).

There are still a few flyers to peruse for gift card deals-apologies for not getting to them on Wed when I last posted.

[Ciel21]

@barbis9 Check to see if your new premium might have any clause dealing with climate change risks? I saw something on Youtube in recent days that insurance companies are going to hike premiums for such things. Also in Florida, just about everybody with homes is going to have get insurance due to all the water damage from regular occurances of flooding due to hurricanes/tropical storms. Some residents are moving out of state due to the insurance situation and some insurers are opting out of providing home insurance!

Hamilton is likely getting a 20%!!! water rake hike in 2024 because Ontario won't allow city to get development charge money from new construction to fund infrastructure. The water/sewer billing entity is ending its role next year as well (by June?) and we've no idea if municipality will resume billing or contract it out again. Irksome issue is the estimated water usage. Maybe 3-4x per year someone actually reads the dark meter with special device. Aggravation is getting periodic notices to SUPPLY the meter reading to the utility contractor! We cannot read it! One would think the biller would have been notified as to which households have the dark meters so as not to bother with such requests for readings. I bet that outdoor water fountains and splash pads will become a timed feature next summer...to the public.

[Ciel21]

PC Mobile has discontinued the sale of those long distance calling cards for landlines but they are still valid until expiry or Dec. 31/2024 whichever is first. I had the second of two trips to both area stores for cards but Fortinos can scan but not sell them (error code) to me while Shoppers has no calling cards what so ever. Don't know if the PC deal with Bell ended in due course or if it's connected to Bell's fiscal losses and summertime job cuts at its media division.

I am going to ask Mom to top up the remaining card by phone as I need a means for a call very soon. Not keen on buying Bell LD cards-they were finicky and dropped calls at random while costing me by the minute even if connection was a few seconds long.