October 2023 Frugal Chatter Thread

[SassyAshley]

Good Afternoon Everyone,
Today was not my most productive work day, I spent most of the day spinning a little which seriously messes with my focus.

I did get up and take some breaks to try to help. It helped a little and I got some stuff done but not the stuff that needed super focus. I might work on those over the weekend depending on how it goes.

Laundry is done, just need to fold it.

Dishwasher is emptied, no dirty dishes to go back in. That in itself is something to celebrate as lately as normally after I empty it is either half full or ready to turn on again.

I still need to get the hand dishes done.

Dinner tonight will be Mozzarella Chicken, I had some Cherry Tomatoes to use up. I will make Cheesy Garlic Naan and Ceasar Salad to go with it.

I decided to make Monday a work-from-home day, this will give me an extra day to get some of the work stuff done. This will take the pressure off trying to get all done over the weekend on top of the house stuff I want/need to get done.

[coupon girl]

Evening tonight was leftovers for me and hubby just had a turkey deli sandwich .

I dozed off on the couch for a bit ,little cara said "i love you so much nana"i curled her long blond hair today with velcro curling rolls,it turned out a tiny bit wavy (ashlyn was off having her alone time).

[crafter]

Best of luck @walkonby on being one of the first 100 customers! Years ago, they used to offer a similar promotion at Sears and The Bay. I dragged the whole family out one morning to get their giftcards .

Heh heh on the handsome man comment

[Shwa Girl]

Rant? Brag? Not sure.
Fast food restaurant no longer has salads. So we ordered the smallest burger and added lettuce and tomato. Take out. Left. When we finally opened the bag, no lettuce and no tomato. Going back was not worth it, gas wise.

Another week, rinse and repeat. Again, no lettuce and no tomato. Spoke to the manager about the errors x 2. Got lettuce. Got tomato.

And

We got free meals, for the next order.
Niceee.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Anyone else really suffering from Fall Allergies? I am waking up so congested each morning it is insane and I look like I am crying but it is just my eyes watering. Hoping these allergy pills kick in soon.

Last night well I made dinner, I cleaned the kitchen and got all of the hand dishes done. There is one pan I need to put in the dishwasher because it needed to soak.

I did not get as much done after dinner as I had hoped. I hoped in the quiet after work hours I could have knocked out a few work things, but that did not happen. I had also planned to update my budget, and record all my receipts and everything but that did not happen either.

Kind of felt like I lost time after dinner last night, we had dinner and all of a sudden it was 7:30, still had the laundry to fold and I wanted to get to bed early.

Need to get my butt in gear and knock out my to-do list.

Happy Saturday

[walkonby]

Best of luck @walkonby on being one of the first 100 customers! Years ago, they used to offer a similar promotion at Sears and The Bay. I dragged the whole family out one morning to get their giftcards .

@crafter and anyone else considering the trek to NF. I arrived at 7:40 a.m. ( store opens at 8, there were just 4 people in line??? )
I smelled a rat! How could only 4 people have come out. Well, we found out once they opened the doors! Turns out you DO NOT get handed a $10.00 G.C.
It's a printed $10.00 off coupon ( which is still nice BUT.....you have to spend $50.00 to get the $10.00 off. )
It was a good thing I was planning to spend close to $100.00 as I had put off shopping for a few days. I put approx. $53.00 of groceries in the cart, at checkout the cashier scanned the coupon, so $43.00, then I used $40.00 in points. Loved that OOP. I was handed the free chocolate bar.

While bagging my things I told the cashier I was going to come back into the store to shop after I loaded these in the vehicle and I would be spending a minimum of $50.00 on that order, so could you give me a coupon for that order please?
He looked scared....asked his co worker and she said " only one coupon per customer! " .



Whatever! I trekked over another NF ( not that far ) and while traveling the aisles I bump into a young shopper who had just been at the first NF.
We started to laugh ( great minds think alike ).
She had NOT planned on a $50.00 shop, in fact she was insulted by the whole T & C . They were not spelled out very clear imho. She bought a small
item and got a free chocolate bar.
Most of us thought the $10.00 discount would be handed out with no purchase to the first 100 people.
Maybe there is No purchase needed for those chocolate bars? So she left as I was calculating my items to reach $50.00.

A short while later she comes running up to me and hands me a discount coupon and said " they're running out of them! ..here! use mine, I won't! ha ha
Then she told me that when she came back in the store she told a cashier that she had to give this to her " friend " .....what a hoot! I went shopping and made a friend.
I wonder how she even GOT that coupon. Maybe the 2nd NF store was less strict with them?

Either way imho this was a stupid promo for most people. I saved $20.00 on 2 $50.00 shops, which is good but not everyone does a large shop.

[Skippy]

@walkonby what a scam by No Frills!!!! I was pondering going but didn't sleep well.So sorry for you and everyone else that went as $10 of free groceries would've been quite helpful to many.At least you made a new bud but still... @crafter I too was one of those Sears coupons liner uppers but at least you did get $10 off with no minimum.
At least this weekend's Metro Air Miles offer of 100 Bonus Miles for a minimum spend of $10 is quite inviting, especially when it is close by!

[Skippy]

Good Morning Everyone,
Anyone else really suffering from Fall Allergies? I am waking up so congested each morning it is insane and I look like I am crying but it is just my eyes watering. Hoping these allergy pills kick in soon.

Last night well I made dinner, I cleaned the kitchen and got all of the hand dishes done. There is one pan I need to put in the dishwasher because it needed to soak.

I did not get as much done after dinner as I had hoped. I hoped in the quiet after work hours I could have knocked out a few work things, but that did not happen. I had also planned to update my budget, and record all my receipts and everything but that did not happen either.

Kind of felt like I lost time after dinner last night, we had dinner and all of a sudden it was 7:30, still had the laundry to fold and I wanted to get to bed early.

Need to get my butt in gear and knock out my to-do list.

Happy Saturday

@SassyAshley I'm sorry for your allergies on top of your other concerns.Mine finally resolved themselves last week after a long haul.Hopefully yours will too!
Be kind to yourself as you attempt to conquer work and home as I still marvel at your meals and that you get the dishes and wash done too!

[SassyAshley]

@walkonby , I was wondering about the coupons as I saw someone post a booklet they got and was wondering if they were limiting what you can spend the $10 coupon on. It looked like all No Name products which I understand them promoting but wasn't sure if that was linked to the coupon. I am suspicious by nature, it is bad.

I decided not to go since I already went shopping this week and I got everything off my No Frills list. Which even if I held off wouldn't have worked because I only spent $30 this week.

[coupon girl]

Morning as walkonby posted under rants the p.c program is not loading on their page today ,why we dont know .

I need to get my halloween candy may go to fortinos where they have a points offer plus it is closer than no frills .

[SassyAshley]

Pantry is clean again, just another area of the house I cannot keep up with.

We are fully stocked on Tomato products, I have way more Diced Tomatoes than I thought but most are good until 2025 but I know they won't make it that long. Plus I have started buying crushed tomatoes as Mom has started using them. Plus we have Passata which I am fully stocked on. I may grab a few more pasta sauces if they go on sale for the right price. If not with all the other tomatoes we have we can make our own.

Also fully stocked on Pasta, I forgot I grabbed some at Walmart and then bought more at No Frills so our bin is very full.

Discovered I had a bad Potato, my own fault. Normally I open the bags of potatoes sort them and put them in a box (helps them keep longer) but I have been lazy and left them in the bag. I was surprised considering how much liquid there was I found we only lost 4 potatoes. But now I have potatoes I need to use up. Will factor this into this week's meal plan.

There are a few things I still need to stock up on, I need more Velotine and there were a few other things. I will take my phone down later and make a list.

Going to keep puttering around and see if there are some other areas I can get knocked off the list today.

[Ciel21]

Best of luck @walkonby on being one of the first 100 customers! Years ago, they used to offer a similar promotion at Sears and The Bay. I dragged the whole family out one morning to get their giftcards .

Heh heh on the handsome man comment

Was it on those Sat mornings when Sears staff would open bright-eyed and bushy tailed doors to customers at 7:30am???

On the topic of Air Miles-when Sobeys was still with Air Miles, I had earned Air Miles on the day's shop even though I redeemed 95 points to knock $10 off the purchase total. So you should be able to earn and redeem on Staples shops plus Metro and anywhere else.
Sobeys used to take 3 weeks to give me my Air Miles bonus miles and regular miles in the first two or three months of shopping there with AM cardand once their program got an idea of my shopping patterns, my Air Miles bonus or otherwise miles usually showed up about 5-7 days later in my Air Miles account
I remember such promotions!

[Ciel21]

@coupon girl Ah, deals on baby stuff! You might want to venture to Hudson Bay at Burlington Centre to check out the discounts on toddler and baby and girls/boys apparel for next summer (as merch is all spring/summer with smattering of 12mo-24mo Xmas onesies) at that location. Don't forget to visit Winners and Marshalls on Upper James-good mix of brand names (and prices) for tots and babies too. Not so much mix at the Winners in Burlington Centre (I popped in last week and was disappointed in the under 2 year old categories of stock. I was looking for specific brands and came up without them). Hudson Bay at Burlington Centre even has some floor models of baby high chairs or other gear on clearance pricing, though I am fairly certain the Peg Perego high chair is actually part of the Dear Born Baby third party vendor inventory. $100 off the price of that high chair at the location only.

I plan to do a Lime Ridge Mall crawl next Monday and check out Mastermind Toys for an exploration tour of holiday gifts (not to buy unless it's for someone's first birthday next year to save me shopping in the New Year). I received the Mastermind holiday gift guide in Thursday's mail and cut and paste the items I'd like to see in-store onto a page. There's a gift card offer with purchase promo until month's end-will post it in the Deals-Gift cards thread.

[Ciel21]

Burlington Centre has ink cartridge recycling cartons in the mall and I so wished I had brought my Canon printer cartridges along as not all Staples stores have ink cartridge recycling services.

Today the Burlington Centre is doing a Zero Waste outdoor recycling event until 4pm. There's also a Repair cafe event but it closes at 2pm.https://burlingtoncentre.ca/event/Ze...fe/2145560776/

Last week, I could not locate any kind of e-waste bin at the Halton firehall near the Fairview location of the Longos plaza. Guess that program ended or was closed due to a seasonal deadline?

[Ciel21]

@lilo0003 Welcome back to Ontario! Your sons will be very popular on the marriage scene when they are ready to settle down! They will have high expectations of their prospective spouses as well (maybe strengths in other domestic areas so they share the household chores and outdoor maintenance/vehicle washing etc.). Brave of you to drive back. The flight option might be better during the wet and wintry season when conditions allow. Someone I knew who drove to Nova Scotia and back said never again with the dark twisting roads and rains-white line fever or similar variant. She said she'd fly out next time (though I am aware that Westjet has cut some of its Canadian routes recently).