and the birthday keeps on giving..........

I don't know about you but I have signed up for things over the year's and some sites ask for your birth date so they can send you a treat/code/discount on your birthday.

I have taken advantage of a couple of them.  I was driving past Panera bread, boy is that place expensive.  Anyhow I had a code for a free birthday treat up to $5.  So I picked up this cookie.  It's a Kitchen Sink Cookie and costs $4.19 CDN.  It is huge and really good, but I would not buy one for that price.

The Body Shop gave me $10 in points to spend in store.  So I went in to buy some soap at the outlet.  However it is now $7 a bar; granted there is a buy one, get the second item for 50% off.  I still think it's a bit steep for a bar of soap.  They had this three pack of body butter's on clearance for $11.

I use the body butter all the time and really like the Shea one, so this will come in very handy.

I ended up paying $1.13 for this and had had to go to the outlet mall to pick up something for dd, so killed two birds in one.

I do have some  more discount codes I could use and a $10 of my purchase coupon for a store I could use.  If I am passing any of these before they expire I may use them, however I will not go out of my way to use them.

Do you get freebies on your birthday?

Getting ready for Winter

First of all tried uploading some photos, I am getting "Internal error, try again." Tried again, same message, not sure if its me or Blogger?

Anyhow, on Saturday we had ds over, so ds and dh were busy, busy all day doing "stuff." Me I was doing my own "stuff!!"

They worked all morning in the attic getting small and tiresome jobs done. With ds here, dh got him to work under the half wall area, which is so hard on dh's knees. They did a few other things, not sure what but all in all got what dh wanted done, done.

One job they did in the afternoon, was in our bedroom we have a cable for the tv. Well the people before us had it strung outside around the outside of the house, to where it was connected and had drilled a hole in the window frame and brought it into the bedroom like that. So dh pulled it all out filled in the holes, and brought it through the attic and down through the wall and into the bedroom like that......the proper way. That was a two person job, which ds helped him out with.

They also got all the patio furniture put away for the winter. Got the pressure washer winterized; started the snow blower, to make sure that worked. They then went back up into the attic and did some more jobs which included putting in the new duct work for the heating vent in the attic, so we have a little heat up there. I do believe we are getting close to starting to put in the insulation. I hope so as its freezing cold up stairs in this house. Any heat upstairs is going straight through the attic roof.

What was I doing you ask while the boys were busy. I wish I could say eating bon bon's and drinking tea!!! However you know me better than that. I went grocery shopping in the morning. Dropped off a full bag of dog food for the humane society, as Molly can't have it as it has meat in it.

Did laundry and ironing, made meals, tidied up around the house, then spent a couple of hours in the garden cleaning out a couple more garden beds. I also planted my Fall Mum's that I had on the deck into a couple of the garden beds. Tidied up anything else on the deck that should be put away for Winter. I still have a pile to do this week outside, and the weather forecast is good for this coming week, so that will be my project for the week gardening.

I picked up some more Spring bulbs at Zehrs, which is part of the Loblaws chain, as they are all half price at the moment. I may have to go into town this afternoon; if I do I may pick up some more, as I got a 12 pack of crocuses for 94 cents, 5 pack of daffodils for $1.94. They had 40 pack of tulips for $4.94; which are a heck of a lot cheaper than what I paid for the other bulbs.

I shopped at Sobey's this week for a change, and I am glad I did, as they had some sort of brisket strips on clearance. As I am clueless about meat, I asked the guy would it do for stewing meat, he said it would be perfect for stewing meat, so I ended up getting just over 3lbs for $6.65, which is a super deal, as we pay $4.49 a pound for stewing meat here. I cut it up into cubes and put them into three bags into the freezer.

Oh by the way, I may have mentioned this before, but I totally suck when it comes to barbecuing. I made burgers last night, and they were the worst yet!!! I mean they were fatty so I ended up with a grease fire, so they were as black as the ace of spades by the time I finished. I really should just give up when it comes to barbecuing. It wouldn't be so bad, but ds did offer to do it, but I knew he was busy on the computer doing some work for work, so didn't want to disturb him. Dh doesn't cook period, so it was up to me. Now to be fair the boys ate them without complaining, so that was good of them!!

Boxing Day Sales and a cross stitch mystery............

It's a tradition in our house to get up early on Boxing Day and go to the sales to get some bargains.

Now I have to say me and dh didn't really want anything in particular this year. Both kids wanted new tv's, however ds "negotiated" with the store where he lives and he is getting the same Boxing Day sales price when he goes back up to his home in January. Dd bought her tv online at the Boxing Day sale price on Christmas Eve. So neither of them had to get up in the middle of the night to line up for hours to get the special Boxing Day pricing on their tv's.

They did get up before 6am though and hit the mall for a few other things they wanted. We met up with them at 9am and had a look around, but honestly the stores were having such good sales before Christmas, that the Boxing Day sales were basically the same as before Christmas.

I did pick up my usual Boxing Day sale items, Christmas cards and wrapping paper. However we were back home by just after 12 noon.

I think with the stores having the pre-Christmas sales, in the hopes of boosting sales in this recession and the ability now of ordering things online, I feel that our Boxing Day shopping trip will be a thing of the past.

Now for the mystery, I am doing a cross stitch at the moment, this is how much I have done. I should have it finished in a couple of days as its a super fast and easy picture. I will post the finished product when its completed.

Gosh we have been busy today.....

and very productive for a change. Feel like I have ticked off a lot of boxes on my to-do list.

I read through the flyer's and figured out what I needed to get, and made a list....as I have a memory like a sieve!!! Then I sorted out my coupon book and envelope and discarded all the expired coupons, and that also reminded me what coupons I actually have. Before we went out I put the breadmaker on timer, so we would have a fresh loaf of bread for supper.

We went out and I called into Sobey's first. They had Lipton's Onion Soup Mix on sale and also they have started a new points card system, so wanted to sign up for that. Its called Club Sobey's and there is more info here I must admit I only buy the things that are on sale at Sobey's as I find the store expensive. So I won't be accumulating many points fast, but they will build up slow and steady. I also save the receipts as a lady I know through the internet donates them to an animal shelter, they must get some money back for the shelter?

After that we went to the planning/permit department for our city. We are going to finish the basement and you need a permit to do that. Most people don't take a permit out, but two of our neighbours have had a right carry on with basement apartments, I swear the building inspectors were around weekly at one point, so we'd rather pay the $100 and do it right and not get into trouble. Not that we are putting an apartment in, we're just drywalling and tidying the place up, so if we come to sell, it'll be classed as a finished basement. Dh did a great job on doing the plans and the guy seemed to be happy with it all. We should hopefully have the permit in a couple of weeks time.

So after that we drive to the dreaded Wal-Mart. They are having an anniversary sale at the moment. Evaporated Milk (cans) was on sale for 90 something cents which is a great price, of course they didn't have any left. I did pick up Chunky Soup (cans) for $1.38, again a great price, plus a couple of other things.

We then headed to the mall, as dh wanted some work pants with his birthday money. We went to Mark's Work Wearhouse, and they have a great system. If you can't find the size of clothing in the store you want, they will order it from another store and have it delivered to your home, via Purolator at no extra charge. We have used this system before and it works a treat. Prior to us going out I looked online for a coupon for Marks Work Wearhouse and found a 20% off coupon when you signed up for their rewards programme. There is more information about that here So that saved dh well over $20 there.

While on vacation we picked shells from the beach. So I wanted a glass container to put them in. So we popped into Home Sense to get one, plus a couple of other things. Here is a photo of the shells in the glass jar:



We then popped into Home Depot to pick up some wood. Dh had some Tim Hortons gift certificates, so I "suggested" it would be a good idea to take me there for lunch...LOL

We then called in at Food Basics and I picked up Choc-Chips, Butterscotch Chips, and Skor bits all on sale and stocked up on enough of those to last me through Christmas and probably longer. We then came home and dropped all the shopping off. Changed over to my car, then went to Canadian Tire to pick up some things.

I wanted gas in my car and as it was only $1.106 per litre I wanted to take advantage of the low price. I had half a tank, and it still cost me nearly $30 to fill it........

We then went to the bank, as I needed to get some British pounds and it is under $2 per pound which is good. However when I got home I see they have charged me a $5 service charge so will be calling them up to complain about that!!!! Called in at the dollar store and then came home...whew!!!

Picked some carrots from the garden to make carrot soup, recipe here, that will go just fine with the bread in the breadmaker.

I am closing off my month for grocery shopping, with again being slightly over budget. I had only wanted to spend $100 this month, instead I spent $113.75, and only had $31.50 in savings. Still I am pretty stocked up on a couple of things. I want to try and keep my budget under $300 for the month of October and hopefully have around $100 in savings.

Funny thing is, on Wednesday morning, we have another set of errands to run again. Stuff we didn't get done today, and actually they are in another part of the city, so it'll be the same tomorrow morning!!!