2024 March Frugal Chatter (thoughts of Spring's approach)

[lilo0003]

I am not sure linking Petro Points to Triangle is worth the hassle. I did mine last week and DH filled his truck ant Petro and he earned 38 cents. At Canadian Tire he would have earned over $3.00. So back to Petro Can as my last choice for gas But I was able to transfer the points so that was nice.
It’s been a crazy week. I will be so happy to see Friday. I have been staying with my mom as she had a surgery. I planned to go home Friday but there is snow threatening so I may stay until Saturday.

[coupon girl]

Just got home from watching the girls -stopped into freshco on the way to sons today and shoppers for seniors discount on milk

some deals at freshco
1.99 for 10 pounds of potatoes
strawberries 3.99
bagels had a 65 scene points offer along with villiagio bread 70 points
plus got 2 vinegar 1.99 each 65 points
plus a few items for the girls watermelon $4.00,chocolate bar 4.49 we all shared . I was able to cash in 10.00 off so paid 31.25

At shoppers got 2 milk saved 2.00 on both gave my son 2 bags for the girls.
cesar salad 6.99-30%=4.89
chocolate milk 3.89-.50 cpn=3.39
shortbread cookies 5.00 a tin redcued

[Ciel21]

Welcome back @lilo0003 ! Thought you were in the Atlantic Region for a long spell. Wishing your mother well during her recovery period as Mr. Wind has been fiesty this week (cold!!brr!!)

I am not really thrilled with this so called Amazon sale. No emails but I did find the left-hand side Prime, Prime Early Access, and Prime Exclusive check boxes. What is with the price gouging some third parties are doing with baby items/gear/etc that may be sold out at store but have triple-digit retail prices on the platform (grr). Thanks to @harbie for saying she vacuumed-I need vacuum bags for our canister which can only be obtained through Amazon or likely a very pricey shipping charge on another website. Very tempted to buy some intriguing hand cream for $15 but I have other things in the cart and I want not to reach $100.

[crafter]

Thanks @Ciel21 yes I'm aware of the Rexall Be Well partnership with RBC. Funny thing though, I used to shop at Rexall when they had airmiles..I rarely shop there now but perhaps should revisit it.

We don't have Petro Canada stations out here. We have one Canadian Tire Gas station though so it will be interesting to see if I can benefit from both Petro Cda and RBC...I'll keep you posted

[Frugalbigmama]

TGIF! I am not feeling very worky today but have things to get done so going to just get it done!

The snow has started here . I was hoping for a clear day for a drive after work but looks like that is not a good idea.

Received some office equipment to set up (2nd screen etc) I have it all unpacked but I may need some help from my techie
The screen is huge...Will take some getting use to.

ok coffee sipping almost done. Time to tackle some work stuff!

Have a great day!

[coupon girl]

Morning need to get shovels out of the shed as hubby put them away .lol

Hubby is going to help son put up a light fixture today ,so lazy day for me .May try to get a walk in before the snow comes around noon or just after.

May start a new puzzle i heard on the news an ottawa woman did a 40,000 piece puzzle took her 14 months to finish -all disney .She said puzzles relax her,they are relaxing for me also.The cost was $800 her kids bought it for her.
I am working on puzzles that were giving to me ,then i will pass them on to others .

Have a good snowy day in ontario .

[Frugalbigmama]

I needed to get out of the house after work today so went to Dollar tree and Walmart (mushrooms!)
Grabbed chocolate covered almonds for DS. They rang in a $2 and I noticed a box of the ferrero rocher 3pk chocolate for .10 cents each! I asked the cashier to take the almonds off and bought 15 of them. Its in the fridge now

Was really craving a good burger. Grabbed ground beef. Made and cooked burger patties to match the buns we have. Put the rest of the ground beef in the freezer for pasta sauce/whatever.
Love those coupons to use on items with the dairy symbol. Grabbed a few cheese bars on sale. Decided to grab ice cream for DS. The last freezer caught my eye. Tons of clearance Natrel and other types ice cream. $1.06 each and they had the dairy symbol on them!! Grabbed all the chocolate (7) the other were weird flavours. The vanilla wasn't marked down. Even buying the fancy small Ben and Jerry's etc at $5.49 plus tax is cheaper then DQ.
DS will have his fill now!

I think that was the best burger I ever made. Juicy and flavourful. Cooked it on the cast iron pan (would have Bbq'd but too cold for me)
The pup was in the kitchen watching the cooking/burger dressing. I think he really thought he had a chance at one the poor guy!
I'm sure the leftover will be gone by morning!

[walkonby]

@Frugalbigmama the end of your day sounded so much better than the beginning. ( work and all that snow ) . What a great deal on the .10 cent Ferraro Rocher's! I just opened the front door, peeked out and the walkway is totally covered, the deck too, the snow as high as the screen door. Who will shovel this asked the mystery voice in my head? Not I! ha ha Time for bed! It'll be dealt with tomorrow.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Where did last week go?????

I have been in the office all week with a trainee and of course the other side of my job got extremely busy as well with multiple projects coming my way. Well didn't that blow up when I responded to an email that I would look at their request next week as this was not an immediate need. All of a sudden the emails started flying with, why am I the only one doing this why is there no backup because people leave and we do not have anyone so I just do it and get it done. But the current project even if I was not training someone new would take me a week of sitting at my laptop for 10 hours a day to get it done.

Even with my best efforts to show myself I could train someone new and not work insane hours I worked insane hours. It all started last Friday when I got a 3 page document I needed to work through this week and it just kept coming all week. So almost everyday I was in the office later than I had planned, but then I came home and worked to try to knock things out.

Not that I wanted to work this weekend but even if I wanted to it is not an option because our servers are down for power maintenance. I know it has nothing to do with me but when I got that email yesterday all I could think was "seriously, you keep emailing me I am behind how do we get this done and now the servers will be down." But I know it had nothing to do with me that is just the smartass in me coming out because I was super stressed yesterday and if I didn't joke I might have cried.

Nothing got done at home but I did still make dinner a priority although by the end of the week I was seriously thinking "What Dinner again, didn't we do that last night?" I was done. But I made it work because with the weather Mom has had a bad week.

Wednesday night after work I had planned to grab a few sales ending last week but a good chunk of my drive home was in white outs so I did not stop. Normally, I shop on Thursday but it was just way too cold for me so I skipped shopping, then yesterday originally they said the snow wasn't going to start until later afternoon but it started around 11 am and a co-worker said the roads were bad. When I left they were just wet but still I skipped shopping.

Now to be 100% honest, I am not going today because I just do not feel like cleaning my car off and I NEED an at home day. The good news is we did not get as much as they were calling for, we were in the 15 cm area but I think we got less than 5 cm.

I have a million and one things to get done today but I also have no ambition, my body is shutting down and saying okay we had enough.

Think I might head to Pinterest and write a meal plan for the week, we have not had one the past two weeks but have done pretty good. The big thing for me is finding new side dishes, like this week it felt like everything we thought of for dinner the side dishes would have been fries, I need more side options.

Happy Saturday Everyone.

[Ciel21]

All of this snow will be meltwater once temps get above 0C-forecast is indicating 4C high which might be enough even if there's a slight windchill. I'd say about a half centimetre layer of snow is on the walks and top step, but Ms Sunshine is on duty so she can take care of everything.
@coupon girl Red Hill branch will have its next puzzle swap Fri Apr 5 @11am in case you want to swap some puzzles.

I'm dawdling after breakfast but will be on the next bus heading out for the mall or big box land. The plan is to get my Marks order, check out a couple of stores at the mall, scoot back to the Meadowlands and at least get into Sobeys (need popping corn and a chance at any clearance finds) if not also a Winners or Marshalls. Hourly local bus so I probably will have to get extra fares since my Presto card just has two fares right now.

For some reason, it's hard to find 100ml Nivea Creme tubes. The 30ml travel tin is selling for $2.29 at my Fortinos but the blue tube is hard to find. Maybe I need to find another Dollarama to see if the product is there, just like my soap bars are.

Just finished looking at the Rexall and Shoppers digital flyers-only Rexall has a gift card deal (hiding in the beauty product page). But Rexall sort of hid its 10% off Cdn stamps deal on the Easter Savings page way at the back of the flyer where the treats are listed. There's also a 2500 Be Well pts offer wus $10 or more on Hallmark products.

[harbie]

Well that was a morning! I knew I should have stayed under the covers this morning.

Last nights sleep was atrocious. A wonderful group of young teenage girls were running up and down the streets yelling and screaming while making barfing sounds ( the fake and totally exaggerated kind) off and on from midnight to just before 3am and our alarm goes off at 4:15 . Needless to say it wasn’t a happy household this morning and poor Dh had to head into work

I decided to get the fresh veg shopping done as soon as NF opened. I was surprised to see a dozen people waiting too .

Everything was going good and according to plan when it happened. I went to grab a jar of PC pasta sauce and in what felt like slow motion it slipped out of my hand and smashed on the floor! Pasta sauce covered my favourite (and most expensive) New Balance runners . I was so stinking mad at myself and then to top it off I was soooooooo embarrassed!

I managed to PM the broccoli so that’s the only positive part. I got home and immediately went to cleaning. I spent a good hour soaking and scrubbing and I seem to have gotten about 99% out but I’ll have to wait until the dry to be sure. Of course I needed to clean both shoes! ARRRRRRRG! Is it too eats drink?

On the bright side I finally got around to washing my runners that I’d put off for way to long

Hope everyone’s day is cleaner than mine today

[coupon girl]

Ceil than ks for the tip about the puzzles but i gave a one to my sister-in-law as she gave me a bag of them and i gave 2 to a neighbour and then she gave me 2 back.

Off to visit hubbys brother and his wife then ,just chilling at home .

I shovelled around the car and front porch thats all i am doing , it is a bit heavy and slushy besides the weather will melt the rest .It will be 8 degrees here on Monday.

[walkonby]

Oh @harbie !! I would have stepped about 20 feet away and pretended it wasn't me that dropped the jar of sauce. I really felt your aggravation and embarrassment.
Items slip from my hands more now than they ever did....could it be age related? I also curse more now than I used to, but I see that as a healthy release. I hope all the
sauce gets removed from those favourite runners.

My morning was an early-ish one with just a hint of aggravation.

RBC Avion CC keeps sending me " offers " most of them useless to me. Today I thought maybe I could actually use a couple, so I did the first one, bought myself a McD's
breakfast and paid using the RBC CC. I am supposed to earn 200 Aeroplan points with that transaction.....we'll see if it shows up.
Then off to Petro Can to put $40.00 of fuel in to earn 5x the points!!
I was extra excited about the timing of this offer because I had just finished getting the 150 AM from the Shell March promo and the next one doesn't start till April so I
pumped in $43.32 and figured all was good.

When I got home and checked the receipt I see that because I had scanned my Fuel Rewards card first AND then paid with the RBC CC, I screwed myself with discounts.
The total of the two discounts ( $3.61 ) brought my OOP total down to $39.71 !!
I wonder if RBC rewards will have half a heart and give me the 5x the points anyway.

[HermanH]

EPasta sauce covered my favourite (and most expensive) New Balance runners . I was so stinking mad at myself and then to top it off I was soooooooo embarrassed!

I managed to PM the broccoli so that’s the only positive part. I got home and immediately went to cleaning. I spent a good hour soaking and scrubbing and I seem to have gotten about 99% out but I’ll have to wait until the dry to be sure. Of course I needed to clean both shoes!

Why not just throw the runners into the washing machine and be done with them?

You will be popular with dogs, as you trail your scent around the neighbourhood.

[harbie]

I would have walked away @walkonby except my shoe was covered in it and I was the only the only person in the isle. Besides the cashier had a view to see me. Plus I’d have felt bad…..