Yummy Saves

I'm grumpy irritable and not every comfortable.

Two courses of antibiotics back to back have lead to the necessity to buy something else at that drug store.

Once upon a time that something was prescription and I'd have paid $10 - now thanks to them delisting it I get to pay just under $20.

Ain't life grand.

Oh and friday I bought some "premium" milk at the grocery store. Open it friday night and put it in my tea and the tea tastes weird.. no separating or floaties or anything but .. oooooo-weeeeeeeee does the milk smell sour.

Second time in a month same brand name milk from same store goes bad quickly or immediately.

I'm volunteering with a cat rescue group that is trying to get a grant from an insurance company (finally an insurance company giving away money). Its one of those insane get folks to vote deals... Pain in the butt and leads to posts like this one.

If you can vote (daily or once, all help is appreciated), it would be very much appreciated.

http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf3427

A picture of two of my foster kitties

Went to home depot and used the self service kiosk tonight. Said (silly of me to I admit) to the cashier that is there for the self service folks on the way out "thanks" - her response - "no problem" my answer "i should think so".

she did squat - glad it didn't inconvenience her or cause her any problem.. like really.

Customer service - a lost art

So why if tide is a premium laundry product do they need to make a stain release in wash booster?

Are they saying it isn't so good anymore?

the creepy little "have a free bag of cookies" if you sign up for mastercard guy at my local supermarket. A chain that William Shatner used to do ads for.

I avoided eye contact. I avoided looking in his direction. Still he entered my space and asked if I had a PC Mastercard. I muttered I'm not interested and kept moving. He followed me. Creep. Asked again if I had a card whereupon i said yes (i don't but i wanted him to f- off) Did he? no .. he instead said "oh everyone says that but mostly they are lying". Nice eh? After a short discussion when I asked him if he was trying to be rude and where he insisted he wasn't i went on with my shopping. I noticed him a few times giving me the evil eye before harrassing others.

The poor assistant manager got an earful from me when I checked out and promised to do something .. who knows.. the vent felt good.

I'm not getting another credit card .. well maybe if it came with a new car (for free) or a complete set of medium green fiesta (every shape made in that colour) in mint condition...

I just booked a hotel room in London, Ontario and got this message:

Now that you've booked your stay at Econo Lodge®, don't forget to pack your laptop. Because now Econo Lodge® hotels in the U.S. offer free wireless Internet hotspots.

So when did we become the 51st state? Did I miss something?

One of the fun parts about being careful with my money is being able to enjoy things I really like.

Here are some of my new fiesta pieces.Thift stores, and antique stores are where I found these beauties



And here are some more treasures



Who says you can't mix old and new, antique and vintage.

Why pay someone to make biscuit mix for you when its this easy:




Homemade Bisquick
10 cup flour
1/3 cup baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups shortening

Mix together til crumbly. Store in a a covered container.

Use in any recipe that calls for bisquick.


Notes:
*To increase healthiness swap out some flour for wholewheat - do not recommend that you do more than 50/50 mix

*I've found baking powder cheapest at a bulk store.

*if this seems like too to make - halve the recipe (half of a 1/3 of a cup is equal to 2TBSP plus 2tsp)

*contains no milk so good for anyone who can't handle lactose or who is vegan

If you buy minute rice (or other instant rice) - learn how to cook it yourself from regular rice. You'll save money and it will still be pretty convenient - and you can do what I do and make twice as much rice as you need. Rice freezes nicely. So freeze the extra rice and have some that is ready in about a minute the next time. To heat up put with lid ajar in the microwave for a minute or two.

http://startcooking.com/blog/72/How-to-Cook-White-Rice

Monday I tried to pricematch and use coupons at walmart. The "cashier police" stopped me from doing that as that's one deal on top of another .. and once can't do that. Since I've done this many times at Walmart I let them reverse the items (all 9 boxes of cling wrap) and just bought the other items I wanted.

I didn't feel like waiting around for a manager and the supervisor (err.. other employee?) had backed up the cashier's statement.

So when I came home I sent walmart an email asking for clarification of policy.

Today ... manager at walmart called. Assured me the cashier was wrong and i was right .. and that they have been SPOKEN TO (uh huh). One can use coupons on price matched items.

So I asked if I could come by tonight and do it with no problem - he assured me I could and I have the name of the manager and the assistant working tonight.

My guess is that emails to head office get logged and the manager gets a black mark for them and a really big black mark if I have to write another email tonight. He assured me that I should phone him if I run into any other issues and he'll handle it "quicker than head office".

Still he was very nice and I did get his phone number.. just in case. I'm keeping that number.

So on the way home I go there and get my cling wrap.

Got to the cash, not a bad line up.. only two in front of me though dyno-boy on cash is straightening the baby clothes on the hangers before he takes them off of the hangers (it was interesting to watch...). Anyways the customer service manager - hey it said so on her tag- came over and took over cash. She assured me no problem about the price matching and coupons. Totally not an issue.

I smile and hand her over the 9 coupons I had - I bought nine boxes of cling wrap (price match for $1 and $1 off coupon .. the sort of deal one gets to like).

And of course you know what happened then don't you?

Yup she tried to tell me that it is one per purchase (you KNEW that was coming didn't you??). So I tell her yup, 9 coupons, I'm purchasing 9 items what's the problem. She looked dubious and she paged someone. I said, well if you want you can do it in 9 transactions. She didn't like that answer much. (and yes I'd have used my debit card for each transaction *grins*). Finally she gets an answer but not before she suspends my transaction and has dyno boy start on the next order.

Luckily for her she didn't end up up having to do 9 transactions for me as someone on the other end of the phone authorized her doing them on one bill. She took me to the cash at customer service so I'd not have to wait any longer. She was very pleasant but .. come on .. shouldn't a customer service manager know policy?

Never mind .. that last question was rhetorical

Gawd saving money is hard work.

Yvonne

Went to walmart today and did a whole bunch of price matching and couponing.

Hard to know what exactly I saved with price matching but here are the highlights.

Royale TP - $8.57 each or so .. pricematched with shoppers $4.88 and used 2 $1 off coupons

Ritz crackers with the free cheese - $2.67 or so at Walmart - pm'd to shoppers and got them for $1.79 X 6 plus whatever the free cheese is worth..

Lipton Sidekicks - $1 something at walmart.. pm'd to Superstore $0.99 cents each - bought ten then used 5 of the buy 2 get $2 off coupons - ALL FREE

KD -$1 something.. pm'd to Zellers 49c sale..

Coffee Mate - $3.50 X 3 - 2 $5 off TMF coupons = 50cents for all three

Bic Soliel - 7.88 minus $5 off coupon x 4

Used a free pledge coupon $3.27 - so free

In the end I used $45 in coupons, spent $106.62

I think with price matching I saved at least as much as in coupons or very close... my guess is I got very close to $200 in groceries for $100

And the cashier was sweet about it all! Personable, friendly and didn't need to scrutinize every coupon.. woo hoo

And to think some say couponing isn't worth it.
Y

I know sellers on ebay quite often sell low and do high shipping to maximize profits.

However this takes the cake.

http://stores.ebay.ca/bahawaters

She ships to the US for $25 and she ships internationally to Canada for $50.. however she's canadian..

I'm ashamed. And not buying from her.

The cashier I had at Dominion last night was funny. I think she was Polish or some such - she had an accent that made me think Europe. She was likely in her 60's.

She was very approving of my choice of strawberries and commented that the ones I found looked excellent. I lapped up the praise and felt virtuous for nearly destroying the strawberry display in the store in my quest for perfection (or more like as few over ripe berries as possible).

She pulls off a stick on coupon off of one of my purchases. Goes to read it and blurts out "what language is this"? It was a bilingual coupon that was a bit more french than english. I pointed it I had the right product and it was a "try me coupon" - pointed to the words. She was fine with that and put it though

Had one more coupon and she had no issues with that.

Then she looks and realises I have another of the item that had the sticky on it (I could only find one on any of that product in all the various varieties). So she asks "how come you don't have another of those coupons. Gees after the initial fuss I'm surprised she even thought of my having another coupon. I looked at her, did a mental WTF and said that's the only one I could find. She looked puzzled but was okay with that.

I'm still amused.

I got to say she was fast and efficient about it all and it came across as more surreal than annoying.

... of earth day that is. Future Shop (one of the Best Buy companies) mailed me a flyer with "earth day savings".

Um.. how about including it in your regular weekly flyer or emailing it rather than killing more trees by sending out paper flyers....

The Wendy's on my route home had a sign up tonight "this friday, free breakast 6am to 10:30am.

To bad I saw the sign at 7pm tonight.

The route I take to work is different than the route I take home. Didn't go past it this morning - turned off that road one measily (but long) block before.

Did some gender bending at the shoe store when I bought a pair of mens dockers for me. I wanted flat black comfie lace up shoes that weren't runners.

*note to self - hard to find in March in ladies*

Found nothing in ladies I liked. Tried two pairs on in mens and OMG these dockers are comfie. Gel insoles.

I pass oned on the lousy buy one get 1 20% off.. that works out to 10% off on each if you buy two (sorta). Blech, that's not exactly the sale of the decade. I passed on spending more so I could save almost nothing.