December 2025 - Frugal Chatter

[coupon girl]

Morning Angela sounds like you have it down pat with all the deals,rebates and promos.I have a tote year round with a few toys small ones i pick up thru the year on clearance ,plus walmarts clearance rack i got 2 pkgs of dishcloths reallly really cheap so i put one or 2 in with gifts.

My grandson Sebastian asked for an big orange in his stocking ,so i will buy 3 this year and put in all the grandkids stocking -his reasoning because it use to be like this many years ago.I remember my dear mom telling me she never had a stocking as a kid ,her mom passed away when she was 2 .Mrs.Wilson down the street made my mom a doll and gave it to her one xmas -this is the stories we like to hear .

In fact this year i just ran out of tags,so will buy one at dollarama and wait for a sale after xmas to buy more.

My cold is breaking up so i am feeling better,always blowing my nose .I cut up a few soft rags i use and then wash saves on the tiny kleenex they now put in those boxes .I swear they have gotten smaller as everything has or else it has gone up in price.

We watch the girls tonight after school.

[walkonby]

Yes...kudos to you @Angela273 !! With your large family you've still managed to seek and destroy! ( You seek out the best deals and destroy
the " myth " that Birthdays, Christmas, charitable causes and everyday shopping for groceries and clothes have to break the bank ).
So heartwarming to read that your DS chose an item from your stash and reused a gift bag for his gift exchange. Apple not falling far from the
tree?

@coupon girl the tradition of finding a large orange in their stockings was carried out by our long gone relatives too. Maybe Sebastian received
a sign from your Dear Mom to get that tradition going again. (((hugs )))
During his childhood, my Dad's family were stretched so tightly for $$ every month that gifts under the tree was never a thing BUT they all got
a stocking with a few sweets and a large orange!

I often wonder what the heck our relatives of olden days would think about the excess spending some families do. AND credit cards !? No such
animal existed in their world.

We had a messy Tuesday with snowfall and Alexa keeps updating me on the Yellow warning that more is going to fall....it will be ALL day today
she says. That's why I'm not speaking to her atm.....hrmph!

Stay warm everyone!!

[HermanH]

Had a neighbour drop off a dozen mandarin oranges that she thought was past their prime. I had let her know that I don't mind eating up stuff that she was going to put out to re-cycle. So, she kindly thought of me. They are fine and I ate a couple of them. I may be turning into the neighbourhood garborator.

Went into RCSS and saw that they are no longer using the pink 30% discount stickers. They seemed to be replaced by yellow discount stickers with specific prices. I asked one stock-boy the reason and he told me that they were moving away from the pink standard 30% discounts, but did not know why. The new system would cost much more, since each sticker has to be printed individually for each product. He had no idea how discounts were calculated. It seemed as though meat was about 25%, fish 30%, and milk 35% I did not do an exact calculation.

Anyone know why this is happening? I asked Customer Service staff and they had no idea, either. They said that the bakery would soon be phasing out the pink stickers, too. I do not know if they will also include the produce.

The yellow stickers seemed to appear at the Loblaws wholesale store, too. I do not know if NoFrills is doing the same.

[SassyAshley]

I do not know if all Loblaw Banner stores are the same but I was told at my No Frills that each department manager gets to decide what Discount Stickers their department uses.

Generally speaking Produce and Bakery are 50% but Meat is 30%. I never see stickers in the Dairy section and general merchandise seems to vary.

We also have a Zehrs kind of close and I have noticed they use 50% for Bakery and Produce but a discount on meat is rare as it usually ends up on Flash Food or lately I have noticed they will mark down the price per lb instead of giving a discount. I do not shop here often usually if there is a good deal, I will price match it but I have heard discounts are harder to find in Dairy & Bakery because most of this now gets donated to the community fridge.

But my guess would be if they move to these Yellow sticker will be the fact that it is no longer a percentage so they can mark them down based on what will move at a lower discount and give a higher discount to the slow movers. It sounds like the same system Wal-Mart uses.

[SassyAshley]

Growing up we always did stockings at both Mom and Dad's but they were very different.

At Dad's we got the huge Orange and our stocking usually had our German Candies & Chocolate in them.

At Mom's our stockings were huge, when I was little like 3 and under they would put me in my stocking after I was done emptying it could carry me around in it (there are photos, I have no memory of this). At Mom's instead of a huge Orange we got a Huge Apple. Our stockings at Mom's were huge but it was a lot of needs, batteries, socks, undies, hair accessories, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, plus then some other fun things or sometimes things we normally wouldn't buy ourselves, like a higher end products for a treat.

[lizzie bargain]

After watching the news last night I decided we would adopt a local family for Xmas. A local charity provides needy families with gift cards-I like this idea as they can then buy what they need/want.

[harbie]

So the atmospheric river hit yesterday and it hit hard! It was a fun drive to work especially on the highway but I made it there and back. There are so many highway closures overnight and this morning but ones we don’t use. They had the flood warning sirens going off in the valley! It reminded me of the catastrophic flooding back in 2021 where it was so bad areas of the coquihalla were destroyed. Luckily we have bit of a break today.

Hope everyone is staying safe and warm and dry depending on where you live.

[coupon girl]

Well the freezing rain we had last night made the driveway a bit slippery under the one inch of snow .My neighbour called and told me to be carefull as she almost slipped.

Well i am prepared hubby bought this grippers that were on sale 2 weeks ago for 14.99 at canadian tire.I never slipped at all i wore his boots (we have the same size feet he is a mans 8 i am ladies 9)good investment the grippers were .

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
It stopped snowing around 5 pm last night, but then we were put under a squall watch for today, which I am hoping misses us, as they are calling for possibly another 20 to 30 cm .

It didn't seem too bad when shovelled the stairs but when I went to do the cars, OH MY. Mom built the electric shovel and I was happy to have it's help as it still took me over 30 minutes because it was the wet heavy packing snow. Even the electric shovel was struggling but I got it done.

I really should run to the grocery store today but I have so much I need to get done. This week is slipping away from me and with the snow it makes going out just that little bit more time consuming by the time you clear the snow, clear the car off, you can't just jump in the car and go.

We will see if I really focus just how much I can knock out and maybe I can take a late lunch and go, we will see.

Happy Thursday Everyone.

[walkonby]

The crunchy areas of snow and slippery frozen stuff were a navigation I was not happy to endure but......there were items I wanted at the stores so?
Metro had issues with their MOI online scanner, two of my saved ( loaded ) offers never got rewarded. One was 150 points, the other was an item for
$4.99 that I was charged $8.99 for on the receipt.
One phone call and they fixed both. I wasn't thrilled to get points in place of the $4.00 they owed me, but too tired to fight over that.
Then at NF, I was missing PC points on one of my offers ( again! ) Put a missing points inquiry in, should get the 6,000 points in 2 days or so.

This is now my nap time....nighty night....

[HermanH]

I also checked at No Frills and they still use both 30% for meat and 50% everything else. The manager told me that nothing has been sent down the pipeline for any changes. I hope they don't change. I checked at RCSS and the AsstMgr said that the entire store will be using customized yellow stickers, generated by AI according to time, date, etc. What a PitA. Now, you never know what discount you might get, if any. Who has the time or care to check every aisle and discount rate!? I'll try to stick with NoF, as long as they don't change.

What a weird day. The temp was about -24C with windchill at -32C. So, during my run, my hands were actually sweating from the effort. I had to stop and remove a layer of mitten liners to prevent soaking them. I thought that the day would be much colder, but I was surprised how easily I handled the conditions.

I rescued a sandwich from my Shell station and visited NoFrill. I found 11x 1-litre cartons of choc milk on their last sale date for $0.24 each with another 50% discount! I took them all and asked the manager about his discount sticker policy. I also asked if he had any other products that were on their last day and he led me to their cheese section. I found 22x 165g pouches of cheddar and halvarti for $0.44 each with 30% discount. So, about $0.90 for a pound of cheese. i cleaned the racks out. (Someone already cleared the Swiss racks. )

I ran across to RCSS and saw some strawberries scattered on the ground. Alas, such a shame. Walking further, I found a 3-pound package of chicken quarters! They must have just been dropped, since they had not even frozen.

A pretty good day, even in the brisk weather.

[coupon girl]

Morning off to get our haircuts at 10.00 a.m .

I really need to get a few groceries but this cold is hanging on making me tired .

[Frugalbigmama]

Happy Friday! Looks like a calm day today weatherwise compared to the last two days!

Hope to head away for a night or two tomorrow/or Sunday to redeem free hotel offer that expires Dec 31. Use it or lose it!
(Took Monday and Tuesday as vacation days- had 5 days to use up before Dec 31st so spread them out in Dec)

DS has his work Christmas party tonight so I told him I would be available to drop him off/pick him up if needed.

Now to get the work day out of the way and enjoy my 4 days off before having to think about work again!

Enjoy the weekend!

[coupon girl]

I went to pharmasave and spent 40.00 i did the flash offer and got 60 airmiles -i think it was 60.

Then on to sobeys for a few sale items
Case of clementines 3.99
pears were 2.29 a pound so got a few
reduced produce a large bunch of green seedless grapes 1.99 awesome deals and they are so crunchy
green giant peas and corn frozen 2/5.00

Then over to starbucks to buy a few gift cards ,by then i was beat.

[HermanH]

Found a bag of potato chips (only after I stepped on them!)