February 2026-Frugal Chatter

[lizzie bargain]

We have altered course to avoid cyclone Dyes which will hit Mauritius-so stops in Reunion and Mauritius are cancelled. If substitute ports can not be found we are at sea for 11 straight days!

[coupon girl]

Barbis ,yes i am on statins ,family history is just too bad .My doctor has given me antiflamation pills .
Plus he told me to buy CoEnzyme Q10.It sure is hard getting older ,but you just keep going ,know your limits .

Have to pick up my pills this morning before weather gets bad ,never know in canada.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Took the car in yesterday, they say the battery is still good just had a low charge so they charged it as well as did a whole lot of other things, it was due for a bunch of things, needless to say $$$ were spent.

I want to be hopeful but, in my brain I still have questions. Like how did I drive her for almost 2 hours and 2 days later it wouldn't start. So needless to say with this cold front coming in, next week will be the true test of will she or won't she start. I am hoping she does but if she doesn't words will be said.

I was going to grocery shop my way home but what they said might only take an hour was then quoted as 3 to 4 hours but really took just over 6 hours. Luckily when they said 3 to 4 hours I made the decision to go to work and work there.

I will applaud their customer service, I asked for the shuttle which they told me was out and would be back in 15 minutes I was going to wait in the lounge but they called and paid for an Uber to take me to work. Then again when it was time to go back the Shuttle was out so they sent an Uber to bring me back. Both times I offered to wait but it is a nice service to have especially if you need to be somewhere at a specific time. Whereas I had an open schedule yesterday.

Today I am working from home but also pretty just incase for this weekend weather. My plan is to hibernate and pretend outside does not exist. But now that we are supposed to get these winds before we go into the deep freezer I want to be prepared.

All the devices are charged but last night I made sure we had books and movies downloaded.

Today I am washing the extra blankets, I had previously washed one but I used to well cleaning the freezer and the other one didn't washed. I also found another one I forgot about so in it went. Just in case if we lose power we will have extra blankets.

On my lunch I am going to do some cooking. We are an ingredient household we have tons of food but it needs to be made into something so I am going to cook some grab and eat options so we don't eat the whole bag of Doritos I just bought at Costco because it is the only thing that does need to be cooked.

Hoping for the best but would prefer to be prepared.

Happy Friday Everyone.

[walkonby]

^^^ lol! @SassyAshley you often crack me up in such a delightful way. I get it about having food in the freezers, cupboards & fridge that neds to be
" made into something " . In our house that's when DH opens the fridge, stares and declares " there's nothing to eat ! ".
His weakness is Tostito chips with salsa.
Also what a lovely service the auto repair place provided you ( an Uber both ways ). That kind of thing keeps their regular customers pleased.

Today I am staying put! Early this morning I made the guys a nice Shake 'n Bake pork chop work meal, then searched online for a Dutch baby
recipe that serves 10. Found one that'll do which serves 6, made in a cast iron pan in the oven. That just might be the Sunday breakfast surprise
to serve the guys. ( and me! )
I did make one this morning that serves only 1, made in a ramekin in the Air Fryer. Interesting and to my delight came out great!
Blueberries and strawberries on top AND the recipe is SO RIGHT about making sure to drizzle a small amount of fresh lemon juice over it before
adding maple syrup and/or powdered sugar. All the toppings compliment each other. AND less is more iykwim?
I cannot recall ever making a Dutch Baby before but they are very similar to a bread pudding.

[Frugalbigmama]

Happy Friday!!! We had snow overnight. Roads sound like a mess in the Barrie area.

DS is off today since he went out to work last night. They have the town contract to replace the street lightbulbs so every so often they go out at night so they can see which ones need to be added to the list. He is quiet so I am sure he is enjoying sleeping in today since he has been up and out of the house at 6:30am all week plus back out last night.

Have a fantastic day!

[cath007]

The blue cow coupon of $0.50 is in french too but no luck to find it ....

[lizzie bargain]

The captan just announced we are heading to Seychelles and the Maldives to replace our canceled ports. Sounds great to me as I likely won't ever be in this part of the world again!

[SassyAshley]

@walkonby , I constantly utter those same words that we have nothing to eat usually after I have just been shopping. Actually I think I did it when I got home from Costco where a spent quite a bit but it all needed to be cooked and at that moment cooking seemed like too much.

I love a Dutch Baby, Mom made them all the time growing up, although she called them German Pancakes. I now have a Blueberry version I make quite often when we need a quick dinner.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
I do not think the winds were as bad as they were calling for which I am happy about.

I did not get any prep done yesterday as I honestly, ended my work day feeling like I broke my brain. Yesterday was chaotic and I was dealing with another company trying to submit some paperwork and they were not easy to work with the information they provided was inaccurate and it became a thing and in the end when I submitted the paperwork they originally said they would not file it for me, but I think I got it resolved.

A lot going on right at the end of the day. Then I logged back in 7 last night because I am fighting with a document that won't print the footer and after some googling I thought I had it figured out, made a bunch of changes but still no footer.

Dinner was just Chicken Bites and Oven Fries, honestly I could not handle much more last night.

Today is a new day I was up early, wide aware at 6 am, having a cup of tea and then I will start my day and see what I can knock out today.

Happy Saturday Everyone.

[coupon girl]

Afternoon out the door and got 3 boxes of cereal at shoppers after 3,000 instore pts ,2,000 when you spend 10.00 and checkout51 2.00 =3.98 for all three.

Then around the corner to Homesense they dont have much left in their clearance i got
(1) puzzle 5.00
(2) lovely white towels 7.00 each gift for next xmas .

We have the girls overnight tonight as son is taking his wife to Niagara falls for the night .We have to pick up the girls at 1.30 from a birthday party.

[SassyAshley]

Good Afternoon,
After posting this morning, I decided to get my b*tt in gear and see if I could get a few things done.

Bathroom has been scrubbed, including the tub, and I even did the floor (who am I, cleaning the bathroom and the floor in the same day, what can I say, I always get the floor wet so I cannot swiffer right away). Does it still need to be steam cleaned and the walls and ceiling washed but we are working on the baseline.

The I cleaned the kitchen because I didn't clean it last night, dishwasher is dirty so I added some dishes, did the hand dishes and scrubbed down the counters.

Then as my reward I made myself waffles, but for some reason the first one seriously stuck and came out in 500 pieces so I had to clean the waffle iron and then the rest were fine.

After Breakfast I was feeling tired so I decided to work on our meal plan and my prep plan for tomorrow. Still working on this, I have a few meal ideas but ideally I would like to add a few more options. Last week was not our best week so hoping for a better week this week.

After dinner, I am going to go on pinterest and see if I can find something to bake for either a snack or dessert.

Dinner will be Meatballs in Mushroom Gravy over Mashed Potatoes.

I have potatoes I need to use up so I am going to turn them all into mashed potatoes, use what we need tonight and then the rest will become a mashed potato bake one night. It will be an easy dinner just need to make a protein and veggies and dinner will be on the table.

[coupon girl]

Evening i treated the girls to McDonalds and i had a firehouse online sub deal sooo good sub ,drink and doritos 11.99.

Girls went outside for about 13 minutes thats it too cold out.

We are playing barbies for a bit and the girls made a fort ,fun times.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Happy Sunday.

Today needs to be a prep day although, I think I have a solid plan and hoping it won't take all day. But that will also depend on me getting up and getting started.

Only thing is nothing really called out to me on Pinterest last night so I did not find anything for a snack or dessert.

My eating was really bad last week, I missed lunch I think 3 days in a row and one day I am pretty sure breakfast was a granola bar. So to overcome this I want to put options in the fridge or have stuff I can just grab and eat because nothing motivates you more to eat then something you are really looking forward too.

After my Costco shop I do have some veggie prep to also do, I bought the 6lbs of Green Onions because this was a better deal than buying a small bunch of 4 or 5 onions for $1.99 locally. Also got Celery because it is that time of year and Mushrooms although I am regretting not buying 2 packs of Mushrooms because we are going through this pack so quickly.

I have been buying the Costco Mushrooms even though they are a $1 more because even though we have been buying the naturally imperfect mushrooms for years lately I have noticed they are going bad so quickly. Maybe it is my store but it seems like everytime I go to buy Mushrooms the "new" packs on the shelf look about the same as a pack I have had in my fridge for a week and then we struggle to get through the pack before it goes bad which had not been an issue in past. I mean generally we go through a pack in a week give or take a day or two.

I did cook up most of the old potatoes last night, I think there are 4 or 5 left I just could not fit in the pot. There is a large container of leftovers in the fridge for dinner one night. Will whip those into a Mashed Potato Bake on a night when I need a side dish.

Ok, I better get going or this adventure (prep) is going to take all day.

Happy Sunday.

[barbis9]

Barbis ,yes i am on statins ,family history is just too bad .My doctor has given me antiflamation pills .
Plus he told me to buy CoEnzyme Q10.It sure is hard getting older ,but you just keep going ,know your limits .

Have to pick up my pills this morning before weather gets bad ,never know in canada.

@coupongirl please pm me, I also have terrible family heart disease history.

[barbis9]

I forgot to add to the Clinique users on this forum. If you register at the Clinique website for "my rewards", you can submit your store receipts to Clinique and earn points for free full size products, even if you buy them at Shoppers during seniors day. I used to work for the company so I figured out the best way to get deals, freebies, discounts, etc. Feel free to PM.