January 2017 Frugal Chatter - All Welcome!!!!

[Frugalbigmama]

TGIF!!! Honey and I are taking a drive when I get off work to casino for free dinner and use up our free slot play comps. Totally free evening. Then home for date night on the couch

[barbis9]

Went to Costco last night and spent $1.58 on bananas and that was it - the cashier joked that he has never seen anyone spend so little at Costco. Nothing really stood out as a great deal and find using coupons at a regular grocery store usually results in a better deal. My friend spent $150 so all was not lost on this trip.

[Angela273]

Sobeys in the West has a 3 day sale. Spend $50 and use the flyer coupon to get 20% off any one item. They have lean ground beef on sale for $3/lb, so I plan on buying one family pack and using the coupon on it. I pulled out a small pack of ground mile deer. I'm going to combine it with the ground beef and oven bake a lot of meatballs for the freezer. I have my 50% off Air Miles offers and some other things to purchase. I have a bunch of $2 offf any Sunrype coupons, I'm thinking about trading them away because we don't drink juice. I haven't checked out the other grocery flyers yet.

[Frugalbigmama]

Yes, I always felt the same way about Costco. I usually go up and down the food/cleaning aisles just to look. I do much better at RCSS price matching/coupons and PC plus pt offers! I do buy socks at Costo for my oldest and myself. Love the yoga pants Books for my youngest (he loves books and reads them over and over again so worth it for me) Dog food! And then the odd thing that seems like a good deal.

[Frugalbigmama]

Sobeys in the West has a 3 day sale. Spend $50 and use the flyer coupon to get 20% off any one item. They have lean ground beef on sale for $3/lb, so I plan on buying one family pack and using the coupon on it. I pulled out a small pack of ground mile deer. I'm going to combine it with the ground beef and oven bake a lot of meatballs for the freezer. I have my 50% off Air Miles offers and some other things to purchase. I have a bunch of $2 offf any Sunrype coupons, I'm thinking about trading them away because we don't drink juice. I haven't checked out the other grocery flyers yet.

I love having meatballs in the freezer! Lots of work to make but so rewarding when ready to pull for a quick meal. I absolutely loved the ones I made this past week. Will be making them again next time I thaw out a family pack of beef and will make 8 burger patties (to go with 8 buns lol) and the rest into meatballs.

[coupon girl]

I spent 35.00 at Costco last week with my son -we shared the cost of the 2 roasts (pkg was 25.00) and we shared the 2 Heinz ketchup 6.30 -the bananas I got went bad right away at home -just made banana bread this morning before 7.00 a.m as they were all bright yellow - a membership would never benefit me as I am happy buying thrift clothing anyway and the odd new clothing

[thriftygranny]

Costco doesn't do it for me either, I have to mentally prepare myself to go. Where else do you pay to shop at their store and get your underwear and your roast beef packed in the same box, that is if they even put it in a box. We have had a company membership for years and my husband loves to go once in a while for office things. I have seriously considered inventing a Costco flask to make the trip less painful for me, it would come with a really buff cutie that will drive me home and play jenga in my fridge while trying to put my giant sized items away.

[jasperandchar]

Afternoon all,

Supper tonight is rib steak on the bbq, can't wait.

It's the weekend and fingers crossed dh paints the trim in ds1's room (window casement, trim & door trim). I love to paint but I make a mess so having gone through all the trouble to strip the trim, it's not worth me taking a chance and screwing them up. If anyone is curious as to why I strip the trim it's because it's original to the house and nothing remotely similar is available at the hardware stores. We need to place an order to get some millwork done (baseboards & trim) for the downstairs now that it's finished. This way the whole house will match.

I was going to make banana muffins this am as I had the butter on the counter to reach room temperature only to discover dh put it back in the fridge, gr....so I could out what I need and it's now on the counter BUT I'm telling you these muffins better be fabulous as it's been a long time coming in making them.

Wishing everyone a great evening & weekend

[Frugalbigmama]

Afternoon all,

Supper tonight is rib steak on the bbq, can't wait.

It's the weekend and fingers crossed dh paints the trim in ds1's room (window casement, trim & door trim). I love to paint but I make a mess so having gone through all the trouble to strip the trim, it's not worth me taking a chance and screwing them up. If anyone is curious as to why I strip the trim it's because it's original to the house and nothing remotely similar is available at the hardware stores. We need to place an order to get some millwork done (baseboards & trim) for the downstairs now that it's finished. This way the whole house will match.

I was going to make banana muffins this am as I had the butter on the counter to reach room temperature only to discover dh put it back in the fridge, gr....so I could out what I need and it's now on the counter BUT I'm telling you these muffins better be fabulous as it's been a long time coming in making them.

Wishing everyone a great evening & weekend

Hope the painting gets done! I'm hoping the entrance closet gets painted tomorrow. I will bring the paint up and get it ready and like usual he will take over (It won't take long- he painted the trim Monday so seriously we should just get it done already!)

[Angela273]

I have corn chowder cooking right now, but I accidentally overlooked the bacon when I was preparing to cook the potatoes. I forgot to cover my garden potatoes after they were dug last fall, so they turned green and I had to peel them. Tomorrow I'll do up all those meatballs and then use some of the with supper and freeze the rest. I pulled pork side ribs out of the freezer to force myself to use my instant pot. I got a ribs recipe from a friend, but my instant pot is still in the box. There's a steep learning curve when cooking with the instant pot. I'll probably use it on Sunday, that way Dh is home to keep the kids away while I figure it out.

Our little ones have really been into building forts over the last couple of weeks. They are busy building a new one right now. I help them some, but I also change up their building supplies.

I went out to eat with a friend last week, but had a really bad time with the food and the service, so I made sure to keep the receipt. I spoke with a manager today and they are giving me a gift certificate for the cost of my purchases that evening. She apologized, is going to teach the server how to do better, and suggested that I ask for a manager when we come to eat there next time, even book a table to ensure better service next time.

Our friends returned home from their trip today, I had been house sitting for them. She texted me today to say that they will take our family out to eat later in the month, as a thank you.

[Angela273]

I thought I'd give a little update on our young children. They amaze me every day and I continue to try to soak it all in.

Our 4yr old son had his Pre-K home visit this morning. The teacher is pretty impressed with him. He has great gross motor skills and speaks very well with everyone. She wants him to practice more with cutting neatly and doing up buttons. He is a cuddly little boy. He still has a soft spot for baby girl, but he plays well with both of them. He is in gymnastics and skating.

Our twins are nearly 18 months old. Baby boy is certainly our climber. He has recently decided to bring me a burp cloth and tug on my shirt to tell me when he wants to nurse. I find it cute that he tries to clean up after he's done nursing.

Baby girl is already saying two word phrases. "Get out" to her twin brother when he is climbing under a computer desk. "Let go" when her brothers take away a toy. "Hi Daddy." She tells us when her twin brother is getting into trouble.

[Ciel]

Costco doesn't do it for me either, I have to mentally prepare myself to go. Where else do you pay to shop at their store and get your underwear and your roast beef packed in the same box, that is if they even put it in a box. We have had a company membership for years and my husband loves to go once in a while for office things. I have seriously considered inventing a Costco flask to make the trip less painful for me, it would come with a really buff cutie that will drive me home and play jenga in my fridge while trying to put my giant sized items away.

Howl! Too funny-Harlequin should contact you for book ideas! Totally visualizing this scenario! The big box format woes = Costco's design and metal everywhere-too noisy for yours truly. And the lighting-yowl.

[Ciel]

@Angela_273 -good that you have a dinner out from friend to look forward too. Suggest to DH that your birthday is in January this year, so you two still have a date night before his surgery. Always good to try to get your fun stuff into the calendar-long days seem more bearable. It's stunning how old the twins are right now! Wow!
@jasperandchar - I like your comment about the muffins better turn out given the time. I made two easy things. The usual coffee cake with fruit was baked in the toaster oven. Top looked done but when I cut it about 45min later, the inside was too moist. As Mom had a visitor, i put some wedges onto a toaster oven pan and gave them some time to dry up at 350F for a few minutes (and I had made a point to use the Longos bite size blend of frozen fruit too, so I was disappointed with texture of cake). The chiffon cake was in the gas oven and turned out as usual. Last item was late in afternoon-I had left an egg out and last lemon juice/zest cube so figured the ripe bananas had to be made into a loaf (I used a rectangular cake pan). I will see if the cake is done or is another toaster oven special.

Did some shopping at Longos-Cottonelle bathroom tissue for $2.99-I was there. Fortinos for eggs and pop (PC cane sugar soda that was $1.99 special was now 50% off so I got one 4pk to enjoy on way home). Found the LCBO tote at the other store and $2.20 in containers later...I was happy. Cdn Tire still has quite a selection of Xmas gift wrap and Xmas decor items. I bought a roll of paper that could pass for winter theme/nature along with the $1 Colgate toothpaste (not stocked in the cleaning/soap aisle but in the personal care appliances aisle). Given that the toothpaste was not in a wire bin and I did walk through 2/3 of the store (no garden seed displays as yet, in case you wondered), I marvelled at the store terminal indicating I had to ask an associate. So I did the rounds of the bins where specials usually are put and kept walking...

Longos receipt-there was a coupon (don't know if it was for all customers or those with TYR cards) for next week-free Longos soup with min. $40 purchase. If there is a big shop next week, I definitely will try for the soup. Good timing for a cold January.

[Angela273]

@ Ciel
Dh and I will be having a movie date night in mid February. Not sure what else we will be doing, babysitters are expensive and events are limited in our small city.
The 10yr anniversary of my bus accident is later this month, it is what caused my health problems and permanent damage. I still haven't found the way that I want to celebrate with Dh.
Feb 1 is dh's planned surgery
Feb 5 is my birthday.
Feb 14 is Valentine's Day.

[Natalka]

Happy Caturday!