10 minutes

The other day I went downstairs to get the laundry out of the dryer and discovered it still had 10 minutes to go, so I thought, lets see what I can achieve in ten minutes!!

1. Have a pee.......then while in the downstairs bathroom, gave it a quick wipe round.  It's never dirty per se, but it gets dusty for some reason.
2. As I was going shopping after the laundry, I thought I'd check to see what coupons I had and what had expired.  I don't have many, so it didn't take long to sort out, all expired ones went into the recycling.  I did however find a $3 off coupon on cheese and used that while shopping....so a win there.
3. Checked a drawer where I put spare coupons and gave that a good clean out and threw out an old pair of sunglasses; don't know why I had hung onto them.  Also found some medication that has expired and needs to be taken back to the pharmacy for safe disposal; which reminds me, must check out another cupboard to see if we have anymore expired meds to take back.

By the time I had done that, the dryer buzzer had gone off, and the laundry was to fold.

It may not seem like a lot, but those jobs were good jobs jobbed.  I need to make myself do more of these short ten minute clean ups!!

Do you do that sort of thing?

All about groceries, deals and food prices.......

Had to go into town and run some errands, plus go to my quilt club.

Called into a couple of places on my travels and picked up some grocery items.  I signed up on the Gay Lea website for their newsletter and I got a $2 off coupon for sour cream and a free product coupon for their squirty cream, so sign up as you may get one also.

I called into Sobeys as they had mushrooms on sale for 99 cents per 8oz package.  The sour cream was on sale for $1.99 a tub, so with the $2 coupon it was free.  Not sure if you can see on the package of cereal but there is a mail in offer for a $5 gas car, and that was on sale for $3.97.  Local new potatoes were on for $2.99 for 10 lbs.  The lunch meat was on for $1.99 for 500 grams.

All in all paid $10.92 for that; had $2 in coupon savings and earned 12 Sobey's points.

When I was in Cookstown I called in at Foodland to pick up a couple of things.  I had the free product coupon for the squirty cream so saved $3.99 there.  The Kraft Romano grated cheese was $6.99, but I had a $1 off coupon for that as well.  The liver was $2.36 and I plan on making liver casserole, that's why I bought the mushrooms.  I am a HUGE fan of black licorice and that was $2.49.  Foodland has a great deal on at the moment.  If you print out this coupon when you spend $10 at Foodland you can get a package of kabobs up to $8 for free.  I spent a total of $11.16, and had coupon savings of $11.86.

This is an interesting article:

Canadian consumers cope with dramatic increase in food prices.

"Inside an east-end No Frills around dinner time, customers are lining up with coupons and grocery carts full of discounted items.

But, these days, discount shopping isn’t necessarily enough to keep grocery bills low.
The price of food in Canada is steadily on the rise. The cost of basic staples such as bread, meat and eggs is increasing at a relatively rapid rate.

A recently-released report by Statistics Canada which looked at Canadian food prices between 2007-2012, found prices rose nearly twice the rate of the Consumer Price Index.

“The report showed that prices have increased at a cumulative rate of 19% over the last five years,” said Mark Brown, from the federal agency’s economic analysis division."

The rest of the article is here.  No wonder we are all struggling.

And the first clue was?

I had a few things planned on Friday so had to get organized and get going first thing.  So I printed and sorted out what coupons I needed then got in the car to drive where I was going.

As I was driving along the car was making a funny sound as though one of the windows were open.  So I checked all windows and then pulled over in case it was the truck.........I know I have a sensor that indicates if the truck is open.  Set off again, there was a clatter up and it was as though a stone was flying around the wheel hub area.  All of a sudden there was a noise and the next thing I know the sensor for low pressure in my tire came on.  I pulled over and sure enough I had a flat tire.  I have NEVER EVER changed a tire in my life......

After calling road side assistance and being told that it doesn't cover changing a flat tire and being told that the charge was $50 I called our local towing company and asked them to come out.  I decided to at least take the spare tire out of the car in preparation for them coming.  I was actually proud of myself actually doing that. 

I then decided to get out the manual to see if there were instructions on how to change a tire and was surprised to find there were instructions:

So I stood by the car reading the manual and a young girl pulled up and asked me if I needed help.  I asked her what was her first clue that I had no idea what I was doing and she pointed to the manual!!!  I told her I about the tow truck and she left.  Not long after a gentleman stopped and he told me to cancel the tow truck and save myself some money and he would change the tire.  So I cancelled the tow truck and he changed my tire and wouldn't take any money or even let me buy him a Tim Hortons coffee.  What a lovely man he was.

I then drove to the Ford garage in Alliston and they looked at it and had to order me a tire.  To cut a long story short the tire arrived Friday afternoon and I got the new tire installed.  I have insurance on my tires.........turns out I bought it when I bought the car?  It covers replacement tires, so it cost me nothing.

I honestly think after watching the guy put my spare tire on, I think I would be able to do it along with reading the instructions on the manual.

Now the bummer in all of this was I was only allowed to drive 80 kmph/50 mph when I had the spare tire on.  Do you know very few people drive that slow, including me.  

I called into a new to me store in Alliston called A Novel Idea I am going to take some books there and get a store credit for baby books for our home library.

There are some good deals on at Sobey's this week.  Buy Lou's  Sliced Pork Loin (same as peameal bacon) you get a free package of breakfast sausage and a free package of hash browns.  The pork loin is $5.99.  The Europes Best fruit is on sale for $2.99, I had $1 off coupons so got five packages.  Also the Natrel Fine Filtered Milk is $3.97 is on sale for the 4 litre bag.

Grocery shopping and other things........

Before taxes I had over a 50% savings on that little lot.  I paid $26.45 including taxes and used $13.74 in taxes.  Both the cereal and ground turkey were free.  The soap was $2.47 each and I had a $3 off coupon on two boxes, so that came to $1.94 for four bars of soap which wasn't bad.  I had never had the Beer and Onion sausages before and they were quite good, not spicy just flavorful.  I have updated my grocery total on my right sidebar.

One thing I am busy with is sorting out the baby shower along with dd best friend and a couple of other people.  The thing is I can't say or post anything about it as dd reads the blog.  So I will have to post photos and details when it's over with.  Suffice to say dd best friend is a creative whiz and it will be lovely thanks to her creativity.

On Wednesday I had a trip to the doctor to get some skin tags removed from the corner of the eye lid.  The one had gone black so it was going to drop off at some point but it hurt like crazy.  As this was a "cosmetic procedure," despite it hurting like crazy and was all inflamed and red, I had to pay $85 to have that and two other's removed. 

I read through dh's work's insurance book and have no idea whether I can claim it back?  I could have sworn when we first came to Canada this sort of thing was covered by OHIP (government) or am I just imagining it?  Granted things have changed a lot in the past 24 years.  I know my mother had the same problem and she got them removed at the doctors office for free; this is in Britain though.

I have a number of other skin tags that could have been removed, but as it took two lot's of injections to numb the eye area, I wasn't overly keen on having any more.  When I have forgotten how painful this was, which shouldn't be too long, as I am getting more senile by the day, I'll go back and get some more removed.

Couple of good deals this week.

If you have a Rexall store near you they have Swiffer products on sale for $3.99 this week.  Both the dry and wet clothes and the dusters.  If you got your Procter and Gamble coupons, there are $1.50 coupons that you can use.  They have a three day special on Tide laundry detergent for $4.99 and again there were P & G coupons for $2 off.

At No Frills I saw and bought a 500 gram bag of shredded Silani Cheddar Cheese for $3.  I did not see this advertised in the flyer. So check your store as that is a super deal.  I may go back later in the week and get some more, as it freezes no problem.  Also in this weeks paper was the Smart Source insert and there was a $1 coupon of 2 packages of Christie Cookies, and No Frills have them on for 2 packages for $3; with the coupon making them $1 a package.

I picked up the rental car on Saturday, although I am not paying for it.  It's a Ford Fusion and is a very nice car. Still want my Betsy back though and fingers crossed she comes back to me all mended and happy!!

Will be hibernating this week as it's going to be stinking hot and humid.

By the way anyone have any ideas on how to stop a male Cardinal from constantly flyer into our window attacking his reflection?  It's driving me potty!

Grocery Shopping and coupon policy.....

Another week of still trying to get as much as possible for as little as possible; and as always some hits and some misses.

My first stop was Zehrs as they had a no tax sale on Friday and Saturday.  Got this little lot:

I paid $38.37 for all that; only because I cashed in $40 worth of PC points, otherwise it would have been $78.37.  If I hadn't used $29.71 in coupon and tax savings it would have been $108.08, which is crazy.  I am not sure you can see, but there is a carton of strawberries on there.  There are four pounds of strawberries and I paid $4.99 for the four pounds.  They had one pound cartons of strawberries on for 3 for $5.  Are you seeing where I am going with this.......the amount of people who had the three cartons for $5 outweighed the people who had the four pound cartons.  Either people weren't thinking or just didn't care about getting the extra pound of strawberries for free!!!

My next stop was Sobeys.

As you see I didn't get much, but this proved to be a troublesome and slightly amusing experience.  The pizzas were on sale for $3.49 each and I wanted them as we were having the kids up for lunch and were having that with Cesar salad; an easy meal.  I had  a $5 off coupon for the Turkey Burgers from Websaver and there were $2 off Internet printable coupons for the bread, which brought the bread down to 50 cents per loaf.

I am always wary about using Internet printable coupons, so decided to print out Sobeys, rules and regulations regarding the use of home printed coupons and bring it with me.  So this is how it all went down.

Cashier: (The websaver coupon the company mailed to me) Did you print this out yourself?
Me: No, look at the back of it you'll see Websaver printed on the back of it.
Cashier: Looks a bit blurry to me.
Me: Well I didn't print it as its on their paper.

After another minute or two thoroughly examining the coupon she decides it's fine.  Hand over the two bread coupons that I had printed at home.

Me: Now these are printed at home, but I do have Sobey's rules and regulations regarding these coupons and they seem fine.  Would you like to look at the list of requirements to make sure the coupons are okay?
Cashier: No, I know all the rules and regulations.
Me: Oh, well I didn't that's why I printed them out; and from what I read everything seems right with the coupons.
Cashier: I have to check everything.

Cashier is still thoroughly inspecting my coupons as though her life depends on it.

Me: Would you like me to leave a copy of the rules and regulations for the staff, as I don't want them.
Cashier: We're not allowed to take that from a customer, and I know all the rules and regulations.
Me: Oh, I only thought maybe some other members of staff might not know them all.
Another Cashier then pipes up: Well I don't know them.
Cashier: Well I do and we can't accept the paper from the customer.

All in all despite the fact the cashier treat me as though I was stealing thousands from Sobeys.  I was able to use my $9 worth of coupons, so that little lot ending up costing me $13.97.  It also took me as long to complete that shopping trip as it did in Zehrs.  Also discovered I now have enough Sobey's points to cash in for $5 worth of free product next time I go in.

My final shop was in the same strip mall in Rexall.  It's not a shop I go into very often but they had a good deal on Deodorant:

It was on sale for $1.99 each and I had $3 off coupons when you buy two.  The cookies were on sale also for $1.77 a package and I wasn't sure if I would have time to bake.  So all in all I spent $6.55 there with savings of $6.

I spent a total of $58.89, with savings of $84.71, putting my monthly totals to: $164.28 spent and $122.38 saved.  Very little fresh fruit and veggies bought this week though, but have stocked up on shampoo and deodorant, plus have enough bread for a couple of week.

The three stores are within a two minute drive of one another, and it takes me a good ten minutes to drive to town.  It took me a good two hours to complete this shopping trip, plus I went to the bank and called in for gas for the car.

How long does it take to do your grocery shopping and do you go to multiple stores?

Coupons and quilting buys....

We don't get our flyers until Saturday now, which is a pain.  So I now look online so I can plan my grocery shopping trip. 

Sorting out what coupons I want to use:

Quilt club today, so picked out a few goodies for myself:

More things to keep me busy.......

What the heck happened?

I input my March grocery numbers into Excel and up popped $413.84 for the amount spent in March???  Savings, only $48.04...........pretty miserable if you ask me!!!

April HAS to better regardless.  Yes I know we had Easter, but in the scheme of things that shouldn't have made too much of a difference but I guess it did?  Ideally I would like to only spend $200 this month, but realistically $300 is a better number for us.  Remember also that my grocery totals include all cleaning and personal products as well as food items. 

For the first three months of the year I have averaged out at $315.36  a month in spendings, and $63.17 a month in coupons and savings.  I need to do better!!

I published another couple book reviews here, if anyone is interested?

I spent a lot of Tuesday morning on the computer catching up on blogs.  I know shocker.  If I didn't pop by your blog and comment on it, please yell at me!!!  I also deleted 310 Spam messages that I had received in my Spam box since March 26th.  I still get a lot of Spam messages coming through on my my comment page as well.  That's why I moderate all my comments.

An older friend in her 80's is deciding to have a cleaning out session in the hopes of having a garage sale when the weather is better.  She has a HUGE collection of Precious Moments ornaments like this one:

Now I don't claim to know anything about them, but said I would try to sell some on Kijiji, as I can do that for free.  Does anyone have tips or hints on selling these?  She doesn't have a computer, or a digital camera, so I thought I'd help out with this.

Grocery Shopping and mending socks

On Friday I went grocery shopping.  As always I generally buy what's on sale so it's not a balanced diet shop.  There is only some romaine lettuce and some banana's there as we have other fruit and veggies that need to be eaten up.  There is nearly 8 lbs of lean ground beef as it was on sale for $2.49 per pound and I had coupons for $4 off ground (mince) beef when I bought an Old El Paso dinner kit.  So I bought two of those to take advantage of the coupons; plus the dinner kits were on sale for $3.49.  I ended up buying two more kits as I had a free product coupon and a $1 of coupon for the kits.

All  in all that little lot below cost $78.13.  However I had savings of $43.48 in coupon and tax savings, as Friday was pay no tax day as well.  I will also be getting a $5 PC gift card as I had to call customer service when I got back home, as there was a discrepancy between the flyer and the sticker on the product shelf.  To cut a long story short, I think there was a problem with the flyer but the customer service person would NOT give me my products for free (scanning code of practice) saying it was a flyer problem.  Very happy though with how Loblaws customer service handled the issue.

All the items in the photo below was what I had free product coupons for, so all were free.

I then went into the other town after lunch as I had to go to the library and run some other errands.  I called into No Frills and picked these items up as they were good deals with my coupons.  I paid $5.22 for all those.  The Lunch Mate is a treat for dh, as he takes sandwiches every day, paid $2 for it after the coupon.  The butter was $3 for the pound block, that is a super price and I had a 75 cent coupon for it.  The Crispers were $1 and I had a 75 cent coupon so only cost 25 cents.  The pasta sauce and tomato paste cost 59 cents for both when I bought them together, as again I had a $1 coupon.

So all in all I spent $83.35, but I am going to get that $5 gift card, so I guess that takes me down to $78.35 and had $46.98 in coupon and discount/tax savings.  I am going to have a cooking/baking session on Sunday and will be using some of the items I bought on Friday.

Friday afternoon was blustery and wet.  It's also a lot cooler so I wear socks all the time.  I am rough on my feet and am forever putting holes in my socks where the heel seam joins the sock.  So I spent part of the afternoon mending them.  Sorry about the photo, it turned on me.

Got some freebies in the mail on Wednesday......

I have had a run of bad luck with some products recently and have had to call up companies a couple of times to ask about their products.

At the top of the photo is a flyer telling me that next time I use my credit card I will get 10,000 bonus points which I think is worth $10.  Mind you in the small print it could be next April before I get the points.    Regardless that's a bonus.

I then got a coupon for a free bottle of Dove "Style Care" Frizz Proof Cream/Serum.  Which I will say is more useful in the Summer with the humidity than this time of year.

I bought Blue Water's Simply Bake Haddock.  When I cooked it it shrank by more than half.  Dh wondered what he had done wrong when I plopped this tiny bit of fish on his plate.  Even I looked in the bag to see if it had broken in two and the rest was in the bag!!!  Anyhoo, turns out the company has had shrinkage problems and have changed the cut of haddock it uses and were more than happy to send me a free product coupon, which I thought was awfully nice of them.

However will say General Mills gets the gold star for customer service.  I have recently discovered Old El Paso's Extra Mild Taco Kit  It is not at all spicy so I am a big fan of it.  The first time I bought it when I come to open the taco package most of the taco's were smashed to pieces.  So I called them to get a suggestion as to what to do with it.  The lady told me to smash the rest up, heat them in the oven for a few minutes then pour the ground beef mixture on top along with the rest of the toppings.  It was okay, but not as good as the original way of serving them.  She also sent me a free product coupon, along with a $1 and two 50 cent coupons off of any General Mills product.  So I was more than happy.

Went out and got another box from the same store as before and you know what's coming next.......the tacos were broken, not as much as last time.  So I call them again to see if this is from the same batch.  She didn't know but insisted on sending me the same coupons as before.

Do you call to complain when you are not satisfied with a product?

I posted a couple of book reviews here yesterday, really lovely books.

A Weekend doing odds and ends......

Not sure about you, but this weekend just flew by; however not only the weekend but the month also.  We're now entering the last quarter of 2012, and again have to admit the year is moving along fast as well.

On Saturday we went to dd house as dh had to do some prep work as he's doing some electrical work at her house next Saturday.  Dd made us lunch and we had a M & M's Meats, Supreme Homestyle Lasagna.

Have to say it was really good, and will be buying it in the future. There is a promotion on at the moment, that when you make wine using the Glad Hatter brand of wine you get a $25 gift card to use when you spend $50 in M & M Meats.  I am going to use mine at the end of the month, to stock up the freezer.

We then went to pick up the laminate flooring for the basement.  It was on sale for $1.89; it should have been $3.29 per foot.  It is 12.3 mm and we are hoping to get it installed this month, so I'll show you photos when we have it laid.  I had hoped to keep it under $1.50 per foot, but this one was well worth the extra money.

On Sunday I cleaned out my coupon file, a job well over due; but as I am going grocery shopping today it was a good job done.  We then went to the Orangeville Fall Home Show.  Luckily we didn't have to pay to get in, as we were in and out in less than half an hour.  Came home and had lunch and then I did some more sewing on the baby quilt.  I only have to sew the binding on now and then I'm done.  However the Indian baby shower has be moved to the middle of November now, so no urgency to get it finished, but I want it out of the way as I need to work in the garden and the basement for the next couple of weeks.

Got a busy week ahead of me.  How about you?

Grocery shopping and other deals....

Poor dh is having to take me grocery shopping as I can't drive.  Got to say he is a sport as I needed to make 6 stops this trip.  First we had to go to the bank, then I went to Shopper's Drug Mart, then to a medical supply store to see if they sold CPAP masks, as dh could do with another one; they didn't.  Then to Zehrs, then to the pet store, finally to Canadian Tire.

I ended up spending $60.19 in total, but didn't really stock up on anything.  Had $19.12 in coupons and savings though.  However that was not my best deal.  Canadian Tire had a scratch and win promotion going on Saturday, with a minimum of $5 off your purchase.  So we went in to get some oil for the lawn tractor that was on sale for $18.  When the cashier scratched our ticket we had a $50 coupon.  So we went and got a tool for cutting out holes in doors for the handles/locks, a bag of dog chews for Molly, 2 x 8 packs of toilet paper and the oil and it ended up costing us $9.74 for all of that.  Then our friend gave us her coupon, so dh went and got the oil for the snowblower and that ended up costing him $1.64 as he had $5 off.

I also ended up buying Molly's dog food at the pet store this week, as that had $5 off which I have never seen before, so instead of costing just under $91, I paid just under $85.  After all that running around I took dh to Timmies for a coffee and a muffin, so that cheered him up!!

This isn't the best photo but in the afternoon, we went to a garden centre and I bought a Primula and a parsley plant, the Primula adds a dash of Spring to the house and I'll pop it in the garden when it warms up:

That's dh in the photo, all wrapped up fetching wood to the patio door for the fire.  It was still blowing a gale force wind.

Saving Money with Groupon, Swagbucks, Coupons

I got the info below in an email.  I have bought a number of deals from Groupon as I find them good value and of interest.  For Christmas I got my dear friends snow shoeing lessons from Groupon.  We got a great deal for a trip to Johnston's Cranberry Marsh and I do believe, there is another deal for them for there.  So take a peek and maybe you might find something of interest for you in your area.  If you do sign up, could you do it under my referral link?  I would really appreciate it, please and thanks.

View this email in a browser | Unsubscribe Earn $20 in Groupon Bucks when you refer a friend* Dear Gillian, For a limited time, you can earn $20 in Groupon Bucks when you refer someone new to Groupon.* That's twice the normal reward! Your personal referral link: http://www.groupon.com/r/uu33522661 Post to Facebook Tweet this Tell your friends to click your personal referral link above to subscribe. If they buy their first Groupon deal by January 25, 2012, we'll reward you with $20 in Groupon Bucks.* Hurry—this offer is only good through January 25, 2012. Learn more here. Sincerely, Groupon Rewards www.groupon.com Need help? Have feedback? Feel free to Contact Us

For those of you who are into Swagbucks, I have found the easiest way to accumulate Swagbucks is if you have a laptop, have it on Swagbucks tv when you are sat down, reading, watching tv etc, and have it continually going.  My total is coming up nicely and you will see I am ready to cash in again for another $5 gift card.

Some of you were asking where I get coupons from.  Our local paper has flyers in them certain times of the year.

(photo credit)

I order coupons online, doesn't cost a cent and sometimes you can get really good ones.  At the moment on Websaver there is a coupon for $1.00 off two dozen eggs.  Save.ca is also a place where I order coupons from, and Go Coupons has a lot of Royale paper product coupons.   I use them when Shopper's has toilet paper on sale. 

By the way I ordered more coupons while looking up the sites!!  The cheese coupon I received as I purchased Silani's sliced cheese and there was no paper in between the slices so it was one big lump.  I called the company to tell them and they sent me a $5 money off coupon.  It doesn't hurt to call the 1-800 number on products that you use and like and ask them if they have any coupons they could send you.  Also if you do have a problem with a product call the company and tell them more often than not they will compensate you with either Free Product Coupons or money off coupons.

I also swear by a couple of sites that let you know about deals in Canada.  Smart Canucks and Mrs. January are my favourite and I subscribe to both.  Although I am not a fan of Facebook, you can find some good deals on there as well. 

I know some of these ideas are no applicable to everyone, calling companies is something everyone can do regardless of where they live.

Grocery shopping, coupons and deals.........

I do feel for my poor dh, as yet again had to take me grocery shopping today as I still can't drive.  Of course I didn't want to go to just the one store, I had to go to numerous stores and when I told dh that, he was ever so pleased!!!  Bless him though he didn't complain, but he personally couldn't see the point of shopping at various stores.

Our first port of call was the dreaded Wal-Mart, where they had turkey's on for 95 cents per pound.  Dh picked up a one that is at least 16lbs as it was $15.32, also picked up a couple of other things and my total came to $16.79.  Paid that with the money I had saved up in my pot and used a $1.00 off coupon for one of the items.

We then headed to Shopper's Drug Mart where they has a 20 x the points event when you spent $75.  One of the best things you can do is use all your high value coupons at the 20 x the points events, as the total is before coupons.  I had three $15 off coupons for vitamins and a $2 and a $1 coupon.  So the total of my bill before coupons was $84.36 - $48 in coupons = $36.36  I am also mailing in my receipt for a $4.79 mail in rebate on the Quantum Finish Dishwasher Cleaner  I may be giving that as a joke Christmas gift to our son-in-law.  I of course purchased a $50 SDM gift card before buying anything, so I could get another 500 points, and altogether earned another 15,500 points today.

We then popped into to Zehrs and spent another $16.79 there, and they had 10 lb bags of potatoes on for $1.77 a bag.  Everything else we purchased had 50% off so saved another $12.13 there, plus will be giving my receipt to the church as always.

We finally popped into Sobeys and I spent $16.78 there, my main purchase there was Lean Ground Beef  that was on sale, for $1.79 a pound, so picked up nearly 5lbs of that, and I saw sausage meat for my stuffing.  I didn't use any coupons there, but have accumulated enough points to cash in for $10 off my next bill if I want.  I am going to keep on collecting them and cash in at a later date, for more info on those click on this link.

By the way if you have a Food Basics near you, they have turkeys on sale for 77 cents a lb.  I neither have a Food Basics close to me, nor do I get a flyer, so I can't price match either.

So all in all I spent $86.01 buying groceries and personal items and cleaning products this week.  I had coupons and stickered savings of $61.13 and will be receiving a cheque for $4.79 from the mail in rebate.  The envelope I am mailing my MIR in was free, ask you local greeting card shop if they have any spare envelopes they don't want, and they'll probably give you a bunch.  The stamp I will be using I bought them when they were 10% off, so saved money there also.

So as far a the Christmas Day lunch is concerned the only thing I need to get now is some white bread for the bread sauce and a loaf of white or brown bread for the stuffing.  I still have $56 in my pot that I had saved up for the groceries, so all in all things are looking good.

Starting January 1st I am going to keep a running total of what I spend each week and what savings I have.  I am hoping to spend only $75 a week.  I want to be more organized with my menu planning as well.  In fact I basically want to be more organized period in every aspect of my life...........

Thought I'd post about saving money when shopping......

You know when Christmas is coming when you try to cut back on your grocery bill so you have money to spend on gifts.......

This is mainly for the Canadians out there as they all pertain to Canadian companies, though I am sure some things will apply to other parts of the world.  I can't say I was the one to think of this, but have been doing it for years, contacting companies either by telephone or email to tell them how much you like their products or to see if they can send you any coupons.

Mrs. January has a great list here, along with links to emails of companies that do send coupons out when you request them.  I recently contacted Chapman's ice cream and requested a coupon, they sent me out a $5 off coupon and will do that once per year.  I also contacted Colgate and they sent me 5 x $1 coupons.  I also contacted Tetley, but they don't send out coupons but asked me to join their mailing list, which I did.

Just with those coupons I got a tub of Chapman's Cheeky Monkey frozen yogurt for 49 cents and 5 small bottles of Palmolive Washing Up Liquid for 65 cents (the taxes) and all it took was a few minutes of my time.

I also "order" coupons online from the following companies:

Go Coupons.ca

Save.ca

Websaver

Brandsaver

It doesn't cost anything to order off of those sites.

I am a big fan of coupons for certain things and this week alone I used $45.49 in coupons.  I think my best deal was at Zehrs where I always go to the half price rack in the bakery, where they had Wonder bread with 50% off.  I bought two loaves @ $1.79 each - the 50% = $1.78 - $2 coupon, gives me an overage of 22 cents which went towards the rest of my shopping.

I picked up the frozen yogurt, tub of regular yogurt, two loaves of bread, 2 tomatoes, 4 litre bag of milk, package choc chip cookies and ended up paying $8.55 for it all after coupons.

Shopper's Drug Mart had their 20 x the points day on Saturday and went twice to use some high value coupons I had.  I ended up spending $88.70, used $34 in coupons and got 26,100 points.  Add that to what points I had and now I have enough for $200 worth of free product at the next bonus redemption day (December 3rd I think).

I will say I shop what's on sale in the flyers, so it sucked this week when we didn't get any flyers..........not a happy camper.  Thank goodness for the internet!!

Will mention that Shopper's Drug Mart has 10% off their ten pack of Canada Post Stamps, picked up a couple of those for sending Christmas Cards, that deal is on all week.  I also picked up windscreen washer for the car @ $1.49 each; however that was a Saturday special.

My deals for the week.....

My best deal for the week was at No Frills and I got a 7lb piece of Beef.  I did rotate the photo but it rotated back on me?

I must admit it didn't look too good in the packaging, but when I took it out and split the meat into three roasts it was a good looking piece of meat.  I could have cut it into four pieces but decided three was good.  So for $14.00 we will have multiple meals.  I haven't seen beef for just under $2 a pound in a long while.  Of course I will make my Cola Beef in the slow cooker with these roasts as it makes it so tender.  Here is a link to the Yorkshire Pudding recipe......

My other good deal this week was at Shopper's Drug Mart.  They had a 20 x the points day on Saturday and there was enough on sale to justify me shopping there.  I had coupons for Old Spice Antiperspirant saving $3 when you bought two, as they were on sale for 2 for $5 I got them at $1 each.    I stocked up on butter also on sale for $2.99 per pound and stuck them in the freezer for later use.  They also had eggs on sale for $1.99 per dozen, that's the cheapest I can get them here.

I managed to get 20,350 points today at Shopper's and now have enough points to cash in for $100 worth of free product on bonus redemption days.  I am saving my points though for Christmas.  I also used $22 in coupons at Shopper's and at No Frills I used $3.65 in coupons. 

I know that you guys in the States have a lot better deals and better coupons.  What are/were your best deals in the grocery stores this week?

Grocery shopping can be hard work and complicated.....

Friday I decided to go grocery shopping as I needed a few things.   However it's not as simple as just jumping in the car and driving to the store.


1. Look through the flyers to see what's on sale.
2. See what coupons you have to match up to those items on sale.
3. Make sure there are no bonus points coupons for any of the stores that you are going too.
4. Plan route, so you go the quickest way possible.
5. Get ready to go out, which means starting the car and warming it up, as it's still freezing bloody cold.  Due to the cold weather go pee.
6. Get dressed and go to car, remembering to take coupon book, flyers, purse and grocery bags.  Get in the car and remember you've forgotten the bonus points coupons for Zellers.
7. Go back to the house and find the coupons, and gosh it's bloody cold again today, so better pee again.
8. Get back in the car and drive off.


My first port of call was Sobeys where they had Green Works laundry detergent on sale for $6.49, I had $3 off coupons so picked up five of those.  Bill came to $21.67 after the coupons were taken off.  Discovered I only had $20 in my purse, then the cashier announced I had $5 worth of points I could cash in, so all in all that cost me $16.67.


Next stop was the bank, too cold to get out so went through the drive through and deposited my $5 Pinecone Survey cheque as well.


Next stop gas station to put gas in my car.  $1.119 per litre, however had coupon for 10 x CDN Tire money so came out of there with $1.05 in CDN Tire money.  Saving that up not sure for what.


Popped into Zehrs as they had Sunlight Laundry Detergent on sale for $4.14, had $4 worth of coupons so picked up three and 8oz of mushrooms on sale for 99 cents and a dozen bread rolls with 50% off.  Spent $13.01 in there and saved $6.  Made sure to keep that receipt to one side as we save Zehrs cash register receipts for the church.  I think they get 1% back on the receipt.


I then went into Zellers and things went down hill fast from there.  They had Green Works cleaning products on sale and the Supervisor decided I could only use one coupon per purchase.  I had 9 coupons and so I had to do 9 transactions..........totally wrong, but I could only argue with her for so long.  Needless to say cashing out took forever.  I bought a few other things as well and my total came to $26.54 and I used $25 in coupons.  Now I should have had another $3 in coupons, but I see she didn't take that coupon of :o(  I did however receive a bonus of 35,000 HBC points when I put the stuff on my card.  I then in turn paid off the balance on my HBC card.


I then drove to the other town close to me as No Frills is there and a great dollar store.  Picked up some good deals in No Frills, including lean ground beef at $1.88 per pound and pasta sauce at just under 50 cents per can when you bought 12 cans, so stocked up on those things.  All in all I spent another $33.88 there; will say though I didn't feel as though I got a lot for my money there.


I am stocked up on laundry detergent now for the year.  Probably have enough cleaning wipes for the next 6 months or so.  Enough dish washing liquid for the rest of the year and enough toilet bowl cleaner for the next six months or more.  Below is what I picked up on Friday, I have another "stash" of dish washing liquid, toilet bowl cleaner, and cleaning wipes downstairs.

I left the house around 9:30 am and got back in the house at 12 noon.  I wouldn't have been so long but for the Zellers fiasco.

I had put my shopping away and of course peed again and was sat down eating my lunch by 12.20pm.  Thank goodness I don't have young children as I wouldn't have been able to do all that in one go.

Oh and the snow plow driver is lucky I am not a violent person, as otherwise I would have hit him.  He drove too close to the end of the driveway and dumped another pile of rock hard ice/snow on the end of the driveway.  Good news for the mail lady, she isn't the most annoying person now, the bloody snow plow driver is!!

Did I mention:

I HATE WINTER!!!!!

Look what I got for $21.10............

It was bonus redemption day (finally) at Shopper's Drug Mart, so I decided to cash 75,000 points for $200 worth of free product. You have to buy $200 before taxes, and I bought $200.67, and the taxes were $20.43. So all in all it cost me $21.10.



I got:

4 x loaves of bread
2 x Lays Chips - though looking at my bill I think she only charged me for the one?
2 pack rubber gloves
4 x Quaker Granola Bars
3 x Dare Cookies
2 x Women's Multi Vitamins enough for 180 days
1 x LB Advil
1 x Advil Sinus (dh is sick)
2 x 8 pack Mach 3 razor blades, can you believe they are $24.99 a pack!!!
3 x Arm & Hammer Toothpaste
3 x 2 litre Ice cream
2 x Cheese
2 x Organic Canned Corn on clearance at 39 cents a can - super cheap
1 x LB rechargeable toothbrush
1 x 3 pack replacement heads for above toothbrush
1 x Hair Dye
3 x Kleenex Tissue
3 x Kleenex Dinner Napkins
1 x Garbage Bags
1 x 4 litre milk
2 x 12 pack Diet Coke
2 x Nativa Granola

I also used $8.78 in coupons. This bonus redemption is also on today (Sunday) I tell you it pays to shop at Shopper's Drug Mart, and I still have 84,385 points left, and I also have a lot more points to come in April from being a Plus member.

(In the back left of the photo, you can see what looks like dead plants, those are my geraniums I brought up from the cold cellar, they are slowly coming back to life!!)

A couple of updates........

First the washer........well Sears called and they weren't sure if they were going to be able to come today. So I said fine and booked it for Wednesday. Meanwhile, dh checked out the pricing at a repair store and to cut a long story short, it just isn't worth while getting repaired. So we are waiting until we see what happens with the house sale. If we are moving, we will buy a cheap washer and put that in our house, we found a washer in Lowes for $349 + taxes, so that one will do. If we are staying then I will buy a better quality one.

The house.......well we put in an offer on the house we want to buy, it was a low ball offer, so of course it was rejected. They counter offered and we counter offered back last night. We told our real estate agent that this was it, no more offers, this was the highest offer we were going to offer. They have until midnight on the 11th to get back to us. So we'll have to see. I find the whole thing stressful, and my face has all broken out in spots/zits because of all of this.

Dh's boots........remember I bought dh winter boots last week? Well on the weekend we got a coffee at Country Time Donuts and they had turn up the rim to win. Well I "won" a 20% off a Mark's Work Wearhouse purchase coupon. So I wander back to Mark's and ask them if I could return the boots and re-purchase them using the money off coupon. I ended up getting nearly $30 back, better in my pocket than theirs don't you think?

Monday was a super busy day, running here, there and everywhere, I am hoping today will be a bit quieter.

Grocery Shopping.....

I finally got around to doing some grocery shopping this week.

I did go to Fortino's to pick up a few things yesterday, but I didn't take a photo of everything.

I went to No Frills today and I picked up the three packets of McCain's Frozen Fries @ $1.99 each, I have a coupon for $4 off when you buy three packets so ended up getting all three for $1.97. Here is a link to the coupon for the Canadians out there. Milk was $3.97 for a 4 litre bag.



I then went to Price Chopper and got everything in the photo below. The best deal was the Nabob coffee which was on sale at $3 a can. I had 8 x $2 off coupons from when I did a Bzz Agent promotion. So ended up paying only $1 a can. All the fish had $1 coupons on the boxes, so they only cost $1.77 a box, which is a great price. The coffee creamer I got free as I had a Free Product coupon for that which dd gave me. The pies were on sale for $1 each, haven't had them in so long, so thought it would make a change.



Finally I called in at Sobey's and picked up the soup, again had a FPC. Then the apples were on sale for 47 cents a pound so picked up just over 10 pounds of apples.



So this week I spent $70.62 and had savings of $31.44. I was out for 1 3/4 hours and I also ran a couple of other errands while I was out. I drove probably 10 to 15 km's total.