October 2023 Frugal Chatter Thread

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Was up early this morning which was exactly what I needed as let me tell you, this week is kicking my butt. Last week kicked my butt and I thought it was because it was a short week but this week just feels like a continuation of last week.

Tuesday was insane, all I got done around the house was emptying and reloading the dishwasher and making dinner.

Yesterday I was in a branch but was supposed to leave between 12 and 1 so I could get my own stuff done. Nope, Dad needed to talk to me and then our Regional Manager showed up and needed to talk to me. I left at 5 to 5. I still had some of my own work to get done when I got home so it was a long night.

Dinner was made but dishes were stacked beside the sink so I will have to do that today.

I see a few things in the flyers I want to pick up. I thought about not shopping until next week but might just go and get it done so I do not have to think about it.

Last night I ended up just making perogies bake for dinner, Mom was having a bad day, her knee was really hurting and all of a sudden it was 6:30 with no plan for dinner. Tonight is a mystery I am kind of thinking maybe a stew or something, something that can simmer on the stove all afternoon sounds cozy.

Happy Thursday Everyone (I typed Wednesday and had to correct myself, yep, that sums up my week).

[coupon girl]

Afternoon -i popped over to shoppers and spent $48 seniors day for me ,found 2 pairs of baby socks on clearance for .99 each .As i am having my nefew from quebec and his wife and 2 month old drop in .I have a beautifull gift for their baby girl gap items i got on sale pjs ,and a sleeper 2 pairs of socks and a blanket ,sweater set and a dress my dear mom made many yrs ago .

My nefew is 48 and his wife in her late 30's,but they are so glad they have one ,so he is dropping in on the way to his parents ,then he will continue on to stay at my daughters in toronto for 2 nights.

So i have spent a little bit more on groceries this month but hey that is okay ,tuesday was busy ,wednesday and today i am having people for lunch .So my spirits are up and thanks for all the wishes everyone.

Frugalbigmama-thanks for the tip about yoga pants ,i dont have a costco membership but when i am asked i usually go.

[Frugalbigmama]

It has just starting raining after a few nice days.
Off to meet my sister 1/2 way to return her animals (dog and 2 guinea pigs) I am reminded of how messy the pigs are!! Glad to send them home lol
The pup I will miss. He is a real cuddle bum!

[coupon girl]

I was just holding a 3 month old baby girl(lucile)felt soooo nice ,my nefew and his wife loved the crocheted baby items and the clothing i got from the gap.

The girls will be dropped off at 7.00 tonight for a sleep over as we dont care to go there at 5.30 a.m friday morning.Yes friday is there 2nd p.a day so far this year.

[crafter]

Good evening.
Well yesterday ended up being different than planned. I had an issue with my car and the mechanic advised against driving until it's checked out. Sadly, they are so short staffed that we have to wait a week to get in. Hubby has a car to drive me around but he's not exactly going to drive me to 5 different stores to pick up good deals. He has however agreed to drive me over to Metro to take advantage of the 100 Airmiles wus $10. **Question, does anyone know whether you can do a redemption of air miles and still earn the miles?**

We ended up going out for lunch with friends which was great. Last night, I was double checking my receipts for the week and submitting them on various apps eg receipt hog and receipt jar. After I finished, I exclaimed "I just earned us a $5 Amazon gift card"..hubby said wow, that's a pretty good deal for spending 15 mins submitting receipts" ....I started to laugh and told him that it took me a year to earn the $5 lol. Oh well, every little bit helps.

Today was somewhat productive but really not oh well, it's a lazy Thursday. I still haven't folded hubby's laundry in the dryer..it will be my second time putting it on for a bit to dewrinkle it lol.

Time to browse through the flyers

[SassyAshley]

Got the kitchen cleaned up well I waited for my lunch to heat up. One thing is done.

I needed to go to Dollarama to get Toilet Tabs, they are the best. Our Toilet always has marks under the rim from the water in the tank, these tabs get rid of it. Cleaning the toilet has never been so easy as I used to have to scrub and scrub and scrub and the marks would still be there. I even tried cleaning it multiple times a week and the marks were still there.

I got 6 packs and there are 2 tabs per package and they last about 2 weeks in the tank.

Walmart is in the same plaza so I ran in to grab mushrooms x 4 and Halls x 2 and decided well I was there I would check for the slippers I got Mom I guess it was 2 weeks ago now. I was expecting them to be sold out back to regular price. They still had tons of them, still nothing to indicate they were on clearance but I scanned them and they are still coming up at $9 so I grabbed Mom two more pairs as backups.

I ran to Food Basics and got 2 packs of Romaine and 2 packs of Raspberries. I also wanted Heavy Whipping Cream but they did not have any.

The last stop was No Frills, I got:
1 x Apples 6lbs $6 - Did not need apples but these are massive so I see baked apples in our future.
1 x Mini Cucumbers $4.44 (PM Zehrs)
1 x Bananas
4 x Tuna $0.99
1 x Trutaste 4L Milk $4.79
2 x No Name Fries $2.29 + 800 pts (400 pts/pack)

I wanted to Price Match Russet Potatoes as Zehrs had them on sale but No Frills did not have any. Also, No Frill's dairy section was bare, there were only 3 bags of milk that were on sale so glad I went today. But everything was bare, no Heavy Whipping Cream, No Half & Half, and most of the alternative Milks were empty (Oat, Almond, all of them). Very weird.

I have also noticed lately they are reorganizing the store again which is not going to help because they just need a bigger store. But I have noticed it looks like they are phasing out the No Name products. There are a few No Name Products we buy regularly and their space on the shelves has become smaller and smaller and now finding it in stock is hit and miss. We always buy their No Name Fries and they are now in the bottom corner of the freezer and are now a single row instead of like 6 rows, the last two times I grabbed 2 bags I grabbed the last two. Noticed the same thing with Sour Cream.

Kept tonight's dinner simple although it is one of my favourites. We had some leftover rice annoying me in the freezer, it was always in the way so we turned that into Fried Rice and made some Dumplings from Costco. I am obsessed with the Costco Dumplings.

[walkonby]

9 a.m. and no one has posted yet....tee hee. I reminded myself not to go out shopping today. The wet weather cemented that choice.
The fridge is nearly emptied out and my large pressure cooker is filled with diced blade steak, red onion, celery, mushrooms, soy sauce, raspberry vinaigrette dressing and red wine.
When the meat in the mixture is very tender I'll add diced carrots, potatoes and cook another 6 minutes. This will need two cans of beef gravy. Voila! Lunch, dinner or late night nibble.
I am free to tackle anything I want for the rest of the day! T.G.I.F. fellow smart shoppers!!

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Up early again this morning, YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Working on getting all of the things done.

Laundry is going, depending on how the day goes I might do the couch blankets next. Laundry is the perfect chore to do when working from home as it makes me get up and move well I am working from home.

I have some hand dishes I need to get done today and the dishwasher needs to be emptied. I need to get back on track with not letting the dishwasher sit with clean dishes in it.

Trying to get on track with all of the work things but I am struggling. My anxiety is making me spin a little bit today which is never good when you need to focus.

I got a little overwhelmed last night. I was getting ready for bed and sorting the laundry and it felt like everywhere I turned there was something else that needed to be added to the to-do list to get done. I feel like I keep adding things to the to-do list but things aren't getting crossed off.

I feel like I am doing better with work stuff and realizing when I need to take a break for me but the house stuff is still struggling. Ever since I fell out of my routine at the start of summer when I was travelling for work, I just feel like I cannot get back on track. I feel like I will have a good couple of days and then it falls apart again.

Today is a new day, a fresh start, I have a work-to-do list and a list of things I want to get done around the house and we will see how far I can get.

Happy Friday Everyone.

[Frugalbigmama]

Good Morning and TGIF!!

At the office today. Wrote out my to do list. Brought my lunch (a rice/chicken/veggie bowl) 2 clementines and hummus/crackers for a snack if needed.

Tonight- get ready for girls weekend. We decided on Sat-Mon and I like that! Can still relax tonight after packing and getting my food stuff ready.

Have a wonderful weekend!

[lilo0003]

We did the drive straight home to Ontario again. I said never again and yet when the hotels were all in the 300.00 range my frugal self forced me to do it. 300.00 is a cheap flight back. Arrived home about 2 am and DS1 had clearly worked on cleaning the house. Today will be a rest day, not sure what I need for groceries as DS2 picked up stuff after work. I may start shopping when he is getting off shift because the 10% employee discount adds up. But this week will be a metro shop because I also have the offer of spend $10. And get 100 Air Miles.
Now off to do my todo list.

[crafter]

Good morning. I'm off to a good start today. I've done some laundry, I'm merging shampoos and softsoap bottles to see what we have.

DH wants to go to the beer store and I negotiated one stop at Metro, now I'm working on stop number 2 lol plus I want to get rid of the empty cans of craft beer we have in the garage from when the kids visit.
Rexall offered me 10,000 pts for any spend since it's my bday month (thankfully it's across from the beer store
Metro has that 100 Air mile offer wus $10.

I'm so thankful that I usually have a car to drive. Do you think I'll have any luck getting him to stop at Frescho to price match Johnsonville sausages lol.

oh fun

Have a wonderful morning!

p.s. I was reminded that it's opportunity to take advantage of "magic hour" at SDM, I've never shopped online at SDM but hoping that it might make some sense this time with bonus points offers.

[walkonby]

@crafter I like the way you are inter-winding your grocery shops into DH's beer travel needs . Sharing one vehicle does make us do whatever we have to in order to score our reward points and get our sale items bought. Good luck!!

@SassyAshley awesome energy level for you today!!

@Frugalbigmama have the best girls weekend!

@lilo0003 whoa! the cost of the hotel rooms to stop would give me insomnia! Glad you made it back safe and sound with no stops.

[coupon girl]

Well have had the girls since 7.00 p.m last night both stayed uplater .I took them to dollarama today cause it was raining out ashlyn got a recorder and cara picked up silly putty type,cheezies and home we go .

I am tired now daughter-in-law will be picking them up at 4.15 p.m
I have played a memorey game today played legos ,played barbie ,di'd 2 loads of laundry i am supppper nana!!

[crafter]

Good afternoon. Well we dropped into Metro and hubby even enjoyed the shopping trip as I was very organized and only had 6 items on my list. I have to admit, it was kind of nice to have a handsome man carry my groceries out for me.
I managed to get my birthday 10,000 points from Rexall with one impulse purchase. (I also made $1 on C051 for birthday sweets)
The craft beer empties were returned and hubby is all stocked up on beer for the week.

So all in all, the shopping outing was a success. When in Metro, DH did ask if we were getting any Johnsonville sausages...I pointed out that they were on sale at No Frills if he wanted to take me there to get them (or to price match at Freshco)...nope, that was one store too many lol.

Now I think I'll need a couple of those beers to endure watching Women's curling with hubby. I love curling don't get me wrong but I find it tough to handle listening to the women yelling "HARD" and screaming out as they play...the men's curling is so much quieter. Have a wonderful evening!

[walkonby]

ha ha !! I loved your post @crafter especially the part about the " handsome man " carrying out your groceries....did your DH mind the guy doing that? ( I know! I'm so bad! )
I only JUST now got the silly offer from Metro in an email of get 100 AM for a spend of just $10.00. It expires Oct 22nd...geesh! I opted in but and it says it is ready to use, so
maybe I'll do that Saturday after I check out the Free $10.00 coupon that NF is supposedly handing out to the first 100 customers.
These stores are nice and close to me. hooray for that.