Today was our first trip into the city to stock up for next month. I’ll be doing the Costco trip in a couple of days. This time, I went to three different places.

The first was a Walmart. This is what $249 looks like.

For this stop, I didn’t go to the grocery section at all, but while waiting in line, I saw the display of canned bean cases (9 cans). The price was about what Costco’s price for used to be. $9.97 instead of almost $13. So I grabbed one.

Aside from that one grocery item, I got:

Paper towels: $22.97
Wet cat food (shredded): $28.77
Dry cat food, 7kg size, cheap house brand: $19.97 each. I got 3 for the outside cats, plus one anti-hairball bag for the indoor cats to try.
Puppy pads, 50pk of 30″x30″: $26.97 The kittens are getting better and I’m not changing those as often, but ever now and then, a kitten just decides to pee right next to the litter box. They seem to wait until I’m not in the room to do it!
Men’s t-shirts: one for my husband, one for me, at $8 each
Shampoo and conditioner: $15.47 each Those have sure gone up in price – if I can even find bottles in that size at all!
bright orange acrylic yarn: $5.27 I plan to make baseball cap ear warmers and see if our grocery store/post office will let me sell them there. It took me forever to find yarn in that orange, for the hunters. I also have grey, which I will use together with reflective thread I have.
Dawn Platinum: $2.47 I got a tiny bottle of this to test out in the laundry. I got a couple of new t-shirts for myself not long ago, and both already have stains on them! Unfortunately, I didn’t see the stains until I put the shirts on after washing them. Which is why I ended up buying more t-shirts. From what I’ve been able to find, this stuff will actually get out stains, even after they’ve gone through the dryer. If not… well, I’ve got myself a couple more work shirts. 😕

The total was $223.24, plus $10.66 GST and $14.93 PST, bringing the grand total to $248.83 Plus, I added $100 cash back, which was their maximum.

So that was stop number one.

The next two stops were right next to each other, so it was just one trip. The first was a Dollarama. I was specifically looking for new food dishes for the kittens in my room. We’ve been using old take out containers, which is great for temporary use, or for adult cats, but they’re too big. Since we’re using my room as an isolation ward, it’s time to get proper food bowls. Unfortunately, they tend to be quite expensive, so I tried here. They did have some nice, stainless steel bowls with non-slip rings on their bases that I picked up.

Of course, that’s not all I got. This is what $75 looks like.

Pet food bowls, 8 in total: $2 each
Pet bed (for the kittens): $5
Cat tunnel (for the rest of the cats): $4
Cat toy (for the rest of the cats): $4.75
Cooling rack: $4.75 I’ll be slowly getting more of these. This style, with the squares, will be much better for dehydrating in the oven than the ones I’m using now, which have the wires running in one direction, with only a single support wire down the middle.
Odour remover, 2 of them: $1.50 each
Towel holder: $4 – to replace the wonky one we’re using now, that I made when I was in Junior high, so… about 1980 or so!

I don’t usually get food at the dollar store, but this store has a decent selection, and the prices are a lot better than the grocery stores. Especially the tinned meats. So I got a selection to try out and see if this is something we like enough to be worth stocking in our pantry for the winter, when we are likely to get snowed in for a while.

Chicken flakes, 4 cans: $1.75 each
Light Tuna, 4 cans: $1.00 each
Pink Salmon, 4 cans: $2.25 each
Black olives: $1.75
Artichoke hearts: $2.50
Chestnuts: $1.25 These are cooked chestnuts that I got as a snack for the drive home. 😊
Ice pack: $3.50 We’ve had to throw away some of our smaller gel ice packs, so I got a hard sided type to replace them.

This all came out to $69.25, plus $2.19 in GST and $3.06 in PST for a grand total of $74.50

After that was loaded into the car, it was a walk across the parking lot to my next stop, the international grocery store.

This is a store where we get a few treats or items that we don’t find in any of the other stores we normally go to, plus were we often find new things to try. This is also where I stop for some dim sum for lunch which, together with my drink, cost just over $20.

This is what $206 looks like.

Cleaning vinegar: $5.99 There’s a thing being passed around on social media about how companies have sneakily reduced the acidity of vinegar from 5% to 4%. For people who can, vinegar must be 5% for safety reasons. Well, I’ve looked around, and I’ve yet to see any vinegar at 4% Maybe it’s a US thing. What I did see was 7%. In this store, they have three kinds of white vinegar. Regular vinegar at 5%, canning vinegar at 7% and cleaning vinegar, what I picked up, at 10%. I got their large jug

Bananas: $4.27 for 2 bunches.
Beaver Buzz, 3 Saskatoon berry and 3 Citrus: on sale at 2 for $4.50, or $2.25 each, instead of $2.69 each, plus one cent per can for the enviro fee
Coke Zero: $7.29 plus 12¢ enviro fee
Blade roast: $20.50
Two frying chickens, locally produced and free range: $15.36 (usually, that’s about the price of just one whole chicken)
Smoked applewood bacon (unsliced): $11.24
Smoked bacon (unsliced): $8.17 Both bacons are a locally produced item that we get as a treat.
Raw white prawns, frozen: $9.99, on sale. Regular price, $14.99 These are a treat for the girls.
Truffle olive oil: $15.99 – another treat!
Old Cheddar: $13.99
Mozzarella: $13.99 Normally, we get these cheeses we use mostly for cooking at Costco, but we’re out of cheese, so I got smaller packages for now.
Truffle Gouda cheese: $12.52 This is something we don’t usually see in stock, so I made sure to grab some. Yes, another treat!
Mild goat Gouda: $10.06 Cheese like Gouda are something we get as an “eating cheese” that we enjoy as snacks, rather than in cooking.
Eggs, 1 flat of 30: $9.79
Soy sauce: two at $4.59 each. This is a Philippine brand my husband likes, so I like to stock up on it for the pantry.
fresh green peppercorns: $2.02 We’ve never used these before! We’ll have to look up what to do with them.
Stash Tea, three different flavours: on sale for $3.99 each (regular price, $4.49 each)
Coke Zero: $7.29 plus 12¢ enviro fee
bottled caramel frapp, cold, for the drive home: $3.99 plus 3¢ enviro fee
Jarritos Grapefruit soft drink, cold, for the drive home: $1.99 plus 3¢ enviro fee. At least it was supposed to be for the drive home. I made the mistake of drinking the dairy drink, first. I forgot the caps aren’t a twist off, and I wasn’t going to pull over to the side of the road to dig out a bottle opener! I think I do have one. I’ve returned a multi-tool knife to keep in the car, and I’m pretty sure it has a bottle opener in it.

The total for all this was $202.04, plus $1.65 in GST and $2.29 in PST, for a grand total of $205.98 Plus, I was able to take out another $100 in cash back. We now have enough to get the septic guy in to clean our tank for the winter. He’s really fast about getting to us, so I wanted to make sure I had more than enough cash on hand, before we made the call! Otherwise, I’d have to rush to my mother’s town, where there is a branch of my bank, to take money out before he arrives.

As I was loading up the car, I checked my phone and found my daughter had transferred funds over. I messaged her, asking if there was anything in particular it was for, but it was mostly to just help with the groceries – but it did remind me of a couple of things I meant to pick up for them that I forgot! So, once everything was loaded (with most of the frozen ice packs I brought from home), I went back in and got:

Coffee creamer, largest size bottle: $7.99
soya drink, 1 gallon size: $6.39 This is one of those specific items we don’t find anywhere else. I do wish the girls weren’t drinking soy, though. That stuff’s pretty nasty. Especially since they both have PCOS.

Anyhow. That totalled another $14.38

So that was the damage for today, plus gas, which was just over $20 to fill the tank. Prices have dropped to 163.9¢/L recently, though in the city, I saw places at 162.9 and 161.9 With an energy drink and a snack for breakfast, plus some lotto tickets, the gas station purchases totalled a little over $40.

Not counting my lunch and gas station purchases, the total for today was $543.69 in total.

The international grocery store printed out entry forms with every receipt for a contest to win free groceries for a year. Since I came back for stuff I’d forgotten, I ended up with two entries. Today is the last day for the contest, so I’m glad I made it today. Plus, the receipts for the grocery store, and the Walmart, both have entries to win $1000 gift cards after filling out a “how did we do” survey. Normally, I don’t bother with those, but with the prices of groceries these days, I think I’ll be entering those!

After this will be the Costco and Canadian Tire shop. Canadian Tire is for the litter pellets and another few fire bricks for our outdoor kitchen, if they have them in stock. Since we don’t have a replacement van yet, we will likely have to make a second trip to Costco, just for more bags of dry cat food, now that I know that twelve 9kg bags will not last us a month. In that size, we would need 16 bags for 1 month! If we don’t get anything else that’s large or heavy (like the litter pellets), I can fit eight 9kg bags in my mother’s car, though it really doesn’t like it.

That reminds me. I should book it to get checked. I mentioned how the mileage seems to be getting worse, and he has some suggestions for me to get looked at.

That would be a good time to talk to our mechanic about how things are looking for finding us a vehicle within the financing budget.

I keep saying to myself, as long as we have it before winter, I’m good. In truth, I feel dread, every time I drive my mother’s car. It has had so many problems since my mother bought it, and since we took over keeping it registered so we have a vehicle she can get in and out of, it has had more problems then our van did! The faster we can get a replacement vehicle, the better.

The Re-Farmer