Since we had to bring cats in for neuters yesterday, and would be hanging around until they were done, we took advantage of being in a city. We wanted to pick up a few things before the polar vortex hit, so there would be no need to go anywhere during the coldest days.
Of course, we got more than was on the list.
This is what $293.80 at Walmart looks like.
Except for the three boxes of tea. My daughter bought those separately.
Gosh, that added up fast.
Part of it was because I needed to pick up some supplements.
The “white cheddar” at the top is actually a popcorn seasoning. We still have plenty of lactose-free cheese.
The “mineral” is my potassium, which I got along with some magnesium and zinc.
My older daughter had sent some funds, and part of her list included more energy drinks. The cases of 4 were on sale, so we got two cases.
My husband let us know we were almost out of peanut butter and molasses, one of his favourite snacks since childhood.
Next is a 5 lb bag of carrots – a good price, there. The vinegar is 7% cleaning vinegar.
It took some searching, but I found a small bag of seed starting mix, since I finished what I had left from last year, when starting the onion seeds.
The “sticks” is pretzel sticks; my husband requested something crunchy.
Not on the list is something we spotted on clearance. 3×10 heat vent covers. We need to replace several.
Pizza pops at under $20 is a good price, these days. At least compared to other places.
Next on the list is a new sponge mop head. My daughter tells me our current one has started to disintegrate!
Then there’s a bag of brown sugar, followed by a case of XXL puppy pads, feminine hygiene product, and a liquid soap refill.
Normally, I’d get a flat of 30 eggs, but they don’t fit in the hard sided insulated bags, so we got an 18 of eggs, instead. Then there are four loves of rye bread, followed by a couple of chocolate bars, one of which became part of my “lunch” on the way home, several hours later!
I got a 4 pack of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier. He wasn’t out, but the prices are much better at Walmart, so he’s well stocked now for some times.
Next on the “multi discount” list: We got a couple of energy drinks for right away, rather than for home. There is also a couple of coffee creamers for the girls, and 4 boxes of water flavours for my husband.
And that’s it.
Even with larger stuff, we didn’t fill a shopping cart, and it cost almost $300.
We did end up getting more.
After a had a bit of a nap in the truck, waiting for a call back from the vet clinic, I ended up going to the Dollarama. I didn’t get a picture of what I got, though. I found some 10% acid cleaning vinegar, so I got that. I really ought to remember to go there first. Walmart only has up to 7% acid cleaning vinegar, and it costs almost twice as much. I also got a roll of clear, self adhesive plastic that will be used to protect things from cat. I finally found a particular small size of hair elastics I’ve been looking for, for ages. I also got a small cat bed/mat for the inside cats. Last of all, I grabbed a small bag of roasted, salted cashews, which became part of my lunch/supper during the drive home, after picking up the cats. In the end, the total was about $16 and change.
That done, I rejoined my daughter in the truck. We didn’t stay there for too long before we headed back into the Walmart so my daughter could use the facilities, and then we just looked around at other things.
To get to the bathrooms, we had to go through the shoe section, which is where I spotted something hilarious.
Yes, I did end up getting them.
I found slippers that perfectly matched the pattern on my new coat.
Different brands of product, but same brand in pattern!
I didn’t even try them on, because I didn’t want to fuss with my boots. When I had the chance at home, I spread out my coat and found the matching pattern sections for pictures.
I also found some underroos in one of the few brands that are actually comfortable, in stock for a change, so I got a package while I could. I “splurged” on some cheap yarn in graduated, rather than variegated, colours. My daughter picked up a sketch pad and drawing tools for herself, which is where I found a small spiral bound sketch pad for my mother. None of the drawing tools in that section were things my mother could manage, so we went to the stationary section, where I found some coloured pencils that don’t need to be sharpened.
Altogether, with the slippers and undies being the most expensive items, it came out to just pennies over $60.
It ended up being a long time before we got home but, thankfully, nothing we got was damaged by the cold while sitting in the truck box. The insulated bags made the difference, so we didn’t have to worry about frozen eggs.
The last thing I got, just before heading home, was $30 in gas. Gas is currently $1.249/L
As for my splurge on slippers, when I tried them on, they did fit – sort of. Something about the toe design doesn’t fit my feet right, which would have caused blistering.
My daughter now has new slippers. They don’t bother her feet the way they do, mine.
And that’s it. Our mini stock up trip of almost $300 at Walmart, plus a few unplanned extras that brought the total to just over $400.
Did quite a bit of running around today, which I’ll cover in another post. Since I was in town anyhow, I did a small grocery shopping trip that turned out to be bigger than originally planned. I was only there for bread, milk and cheese! 😄
This is what $121.25 looks like, but I got $20 off from my loyalty points.
Yeah, most of it fit into the one hard sided bag I brought.
One of my daughters mentioned we were running low on glass top stove cleaner, so I picked up a bottle of that. I also got a 12 pack each of Coke Zero and Fresca for the four of us, which were on sale.
There was actually ginger snap cookies in stock, so I got a box for my husband, along with two jugs of distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. I also got him some frozen tater tots as an each snack that he can prepare himself.
Then I got two packs of marble, two packs of white Old Cheddar, lactose free cheese, which were on sale. They didn’t have any 2L 3% milk in stock, so I got 2%.
I spotted hoagie sausages on sale, so I got two packages. The sale price is what used to be their regular price. The girls really like those. I also picked up a ring of garlic sausage, made by a local company.
Then, finally, I got the bread I was there for. Four loaves of regular white and whole wheat bread. The rye bread I normally get was on sale, and completely out of stock, so this was the substitute.
And that’s it. All that, with sale prices and discounts, came out to over $100.
*sigh*
On another note, our pantry just got a boost for canned soups and a few more cans of beans. With my mother still in the hospital and not going back to her apartment, I’m going to start clearing some things out, little by little. My brother and SIL had picked up a lot of canned soup and such for her, as it was a lot easier for her and something the home care staff could prepare for her. After talking to them about it, they told me to take them, since we have “more mouths to feed”. 😄 I certainly won’t say no to things to add to our pantry!
While shopping today, I saw the canned beans we used to get regularly were on sale as 2/$3 A sale price of $1.50 per can, that used to cost 97¢ a can, regular price, not that long ago.
What isn’t pictured is my stop at the pharmacy. I got ibuprofen for the girls. Two smaller bottles that were on sale, making them cheaper than getting one larger bottle. I got acetaminophen for myself, which is safe to take with my anti-inflammatories. I still have some prescription painkillers left, but I don’t want to be using those if I don’t have to. I also got a tube of Voltaren for myself, that was on sale, and lactaid for my husband, which was not on sale. That all came out to something like $98.
I did stop at the hardware store before going to visit my mother, trying to find some Roof Melt. Turns out, they don’t even carry it, though the website made it look like they did. The city stores carry it, not the small towns. The first staff I asked about it didn’t even know what it was. I ended up talking to a manager? I think? who has helped me before. They tried really hard to find something for me. One of the other staff came by and heard what I was asking for, and got all excited, because it’s a product she would be getting, too! In the end, the manager said he was going to try and order something in, but he wasn’t sure if it would work.
He did mention that you can get beet juice granules. Somewhere. He didn’t know. This would be sprinkled on the roof and in the eavestroughs in the fall, where they would keep things clear all winter, and are completely safe for the grass and water table the melt water would drain to.
I’ve been posting about our stock up shopping trips for a few years now, including photos of the receipts. Those who follow those posts over the years have seen how much less we are getting for our money.
One of the frustrating things is, we can’t really buy beef anymore. Not even beef shares. A lot of farmers just aren’t doing the direct sales anymore. The beef has to be processed through a provincially licensed and approved butcher. That adds so much to the price, they can’t be competitive in their sales. Personally, I’d be fine with buying beef from our renters that they butchered themselves – or even a side of meat that we could process ourselves – but that would get them in trouble with the province. It’s hard enough to be a farmer of any kind in Canada, without that sort of thing.
One of the things that has amazed me, even before our inflation skyrocketed (cost of living has increased over 40% in just the last few years, thanks to our federal government’s actions), is how much cheaper groceries are in the US. I was blown away to find out even dollar stores in the US even have freezer sections and sell meat (do they still do that?). I know, for you in the US, it’s a relative thing and prices are high for you right now in many areas. Today, however, I saw this video that did as close a comparison as I’ve seen so far. He mentions Costco prices, which are even more insane than the Canadian beef prices he used to compare with in the video. You’re meat prices are so much lower than ours!
These high prices are all artificial, with much of it due to the “carbon taxes” our current dictator said was dropped to zero before he was installed in office, only for it to turn out to still be there, just under another name.
Canada is in serious trouble. Especially since our overlords are going out of their way to kill off more animals. Tens of thousands of hens are being killed off by the same department that horrifically massacred over 300 healthy ostriches, after months of neglect and abuse, that weren’t even part of the food chain (I’ve recently learned the bullets used were .22 longs. You can’t kill something as big as an ostrich with a .22 unless it’s a direct head shot). They’re also slated to kill off yet another herd of beef cattle, or may already have been by now.
Yet somehow, the people doing this stuff are able to play all the games to stay in power. It’s insane.
Today, my daughter and I made it into the city for our Costco shop, where we checked out a new location.
First bonus about this location is that we don’t need to drive through the city to get to it. It’s actually outside the bypass highway around the city. No city traffic, no frequent stops at lights, etc.
First down side: it’s near some pretty major event infrastructure, as well as some new apartments that weren’t there the last time we drove by here, years ago, so it shares entry lanes. Which includes two roundabouts.
I really dislike roundabouts. Yes, I understand efficiency of the design. I just have no faith at all in other drivers. The city we lived in before moving here had several roundabouts we had to go through regularly, much larger than the ones we had to use today, and they sucked when traffic was high.
Thankfully, traffic was not high.
When we first drove in, the parking lot looked really full. Our first stop was the gas station, which had more pumps than the other locations we’ve gone to. That went really fast.
Also, gas there was $1.139/L, instead of the $1.299 everywhere else. It cost me “only” $46.47 to fill my tank from a little over half.
As for the crowded parking lot, that turned out to be just the area closest to the entry. Once we got past a certain point and could see the rest, we found there was plenty of space to park.
The location is somewhat bigger than the others we’ve been to and, while they matched the layout of other locations pretty well, a few things were changed up. One of them was where the cat supplies were set up! We finally found it, pretty much opposite of where they are typically kept.
The shop itself was… well… okay, I have to admit. I hate shopping and I hate crowds, not that it was particularly crowded today.
I really hate it when people with half empty carts expect me, with my flat cart, to stop on a time to avoid hitting them as they wander and weave, not paying any attention to what’s around them.
Having said that, I was ready to abandon my flat cart only twice this trip.
My daughter is a sanity saver.
One of the things they have that’s different is their sushi bar, which was added on to where they have their in store made heat and eats, like Shepard’s Pie and chicken pie. I wasn’t able to check it out too thoroughly, though, because there was a lot of cart traffic and looky-loos. When pushing a flat cart, I’m just not flexible enough to get around everyone, though I still couldn’t see much even when I left the cart with my daughter and tried looking again.
Their food court menu was also different. They had sushi on the menu, but they also had their Montreal Smokes Meat sandwiches, too. The other locations dropped those from their menu, years ago. I was really looking forward to doing lunch after we finished our shopping.
It didn’t happen.
This is what $563.72 looks like.
That really isn’t much on there at all.
So, this is what we got today, starting with the non-food (at least, not for humans) items. There’s two 9kg bags of kibble – we have a good supply, but this should ensure we don’t run short at the end of the month – one case of wet cat food, a case of puppy pads, toilet paper and a dish detergent refill jug.
For drinks, there’s a case of Monster – yay! Finally in stock again! – a case of Coke Zero and a 3 pack of Oat Milk.
For meats, I got two rotisserie chickens, because it was cheaper than buying any of the uncooked chicken options. The fresh made sausage section was bigger and had new varieties, so we picked up a pack of Greek sausage, and one of Gouda and Cranberry. I also got two panini packs for sandwiches. That was it for meat. Beef prices were heart stopping. I should know better than to even look!
For dairy, we got a 4 pack of cream cheese, sour cream, 5 pounds of butter and a 2 pack of goat cheese. My daughter also grabbed some grated Parmesan, which I’ll be paid back for. We normally get blocks of cooking cheeses, but we still have plenty. I was sorely tempted to try new cheeses, though, as their cheese selection in much larger and more varied! Not in today’s budget.
In the frozen stuff, we got a box of perogies and a bag of mixed vegetables.
In breads, we got two 2 packs of rye bread and two 2 packs of tortilla wraps.
In the odds and sots, we got two large containers of mayo, a box of mixed instant oatmeal, a double flat of eggs (60 eggs) and a sushi platter to be supper for the girls. I meant to get something for my husband and I as a quick, heat and eat supper but I couldn’t find anything that both my husband and I can eat. More and more foods make him feel sick after eating, as if he were having a lactose intolerance reaction, even if there’s no dairy in the food. So I ended up not getting anything. It’s getting much harder to get food for him.
I was still thinking of going to the food court but by the time we were heading for the check out line, not only did I not want to have refrigerator/freezer items sitting out so long while we ate, I had basically lost all patience with being around people. In fact, we didn’t even finish going through all the food aisles. Aside from the usual cart traffic issues, I kept getting stuck behind one older couple that kept weaving back and forth in the middle of the aisles, stop suddenly, or split up and be doing the same thing in two aisles at the same time. We even ended up blocked by them again, while trying to get the the checkouts. At least I was able to get past them, though someone else was blocking the aisle from the other direction that I had to get around. We weren’t any any hurry, but I get really tired of trying so hard to not be in the way with my big flat cart, only to have to deal with people who are oblivious about being in the way. Even as lightly loaded as ours was today, flat carts are not easy to maneuver!
So… yeah. That’s all we got today. A whole 35 items.
Once we were loaded up and heading out, things went smoothly. The only down side was my not eating yet. On the way out, we’d stopped to pick up some energy drinks and I got a bag of beef jerky. That was all I’d eaten all day, and it was about 1pm as we were leaving the city. On the way home, my daughter insisted we stop for food. I was thinking a quick stop at the gas station in my mother’s town that we had to pass through; the one that has the best fried chicken, but she was thinking an actual sit down restaurant. There’s a restaurant right on the highway that is under new ownership and completely redone that she hasn’t been to yet, so we ended up stopping there and she treated me to breakfa… lunc… an early supper?
By the time we were done, it was late enough for the post office to have reopened for the afternoon, so we made a quick stop there (my expected items have not arrived, including something that got mailed more than a month ago. Thanks, striking Canada Post.) before finally getting home. Just in time to feed the outside cats after unloading the truck!
No more softening the kibble. It’s just too cold. Some of the trays still had frozen kibble from yesterday stuck to them!
Today, we reached a high of -12C/10F. Which isn’t too bad, except even the slightest breeze made it feel much colder. Tomorrow is supposed to be slightly warmer, which is good, because I’m going to my mother’s do to her grocery shopping. Overnight lows over the next while are expected to drop below -20C/-4F Looking at the long range forecast for December is just an exercise in crazy. This morning, I was seeing some pretty nasty drops in temperature over the next couple of weeks – but then seeing expected highs of up to 5C/41F before Christmas! Looking at it again now, those days are now forecast as being below freezing, but warmer than -10C/14F Around and just after Christmas, they’re now saying we’re suppose to reach highs of -1C/30F
I highly doubt that will happen.
Anyhow. That is our Costco stock up shop for today!
Now it’s time to go through and look at what got missed, because we never finished going through the store, and what we’ll need to get locally.
For now, though, I just want to stay home and not be around people.
Before I start, I just want to say (an early) Happy Thanksgiving to all my visitors from the US. I hope you have a wonderful day of family, friends and lots of food!
Today’s stock up shop was intended to be a run on several stores conveniently down one major street in the city. Usually, it’s Walmart, Canadian Tire, the international grocery store or maybe a Superstore.
My first stop at Canadian Tire, I didn’t bother taking pictures of. I got our usual bags of stove pellets for the litter boxes, but today I was also looking for a kettle. Our glass kettle had started to leak. Knowing that kettle wasn’t going to last much longer (it actually lasted far longer than I expected), I took advantage of a clearance sale and picked up a spare glass kettle. The girls dug that out and set it up, but we immediately had issues.
It kept shutting itself off.
At first, they thought it was a wattage issue. We’d gone from a 1200w kettle to a 1500w kettle. With our old wiring, we already couldn’t, say, have the AC running in the summer, and boil a kettle of water, without tripping the breaker. Even the range hood, if it was on, would slow down while the kettle was on, then go back to normal speed when it shut itself off.
After a few days of this, though, I concluded it was not the wattage. It was the switch. The kettle itself had a temperamental switch. Once it got going and stayed going, it was fine. It was just that initial start that was a problem. Last night, my daughter tried to make herself some tea while she was working, and just couldn’t get the kettle to say on.
We do have a stove top kettle, but that’s a whistling kettle. Not something to use in the wee hours of the night, when everyone else is asleep!
While looking at the kettles available at Canadian Tire, I was blown away by some of the prices. Particularly for one kettle. A retro style Smeg brand kettle, for $280. !!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, it was a 2400w kettle, but that’s not worth paying almost $300 for! Crazier still was that it was sold out; there was only a display model on the shelf. Who is buying these things??
I’ll stick with my glass kettles, thanks.
It came down to two brands for what we wanted, and we ended up going with the exact same make and model as the one with the malfunctioning switch. At $45, it was the more expensive brand, but the design and the filter in the lid are easier to clean.
Since it’s not on clearance, we’re hanging on to the receipt, just in case it needs to be returned!
That done, my next stop was Walmart, with a brief side trip to a Domo gas station. Today is Thursday, which is when they have discounted prices. Prices had done down a bit, from $1.339/L to $1.279/L. With today’s discount, gas was $1.239/L, so my $40 almost filled the tank. I’ll do a fill at Costco and reset my trip meter for the month, later on.
I had been thinking of just getting some cat supplies at Walmart, then going to Superstore. I didn’t have any specific reason to go to the international grocery store on this trip. My Costco trip would normally be this Friday, but we’re taking cats to the vet on Friday, and I’ll be hanging around the area until they call me for pick up. I’m thinking of checking out a newly opened Costco location, but not on a weekend. So I figured I’d get more than usual at the Superstore.
I never made it.
I ended up doing a much larger shop at the Walmart, instead.
Though, really, it wasn’t that large.
It was almost noon when I got there, though, so I did stop for lunch before shopping. That cost about $15 or so.
This is what $382.00 (with a small donation rounding it up to the nearest dollar) looks like.
Yes, stuff is hidden underneath, but still… that’s not even a full cart.
The bulk of it was cat supplies.
I got two 32 packs of canned cat food; one for the inside cats, one for the outside cats. I’ll be more for the inside cats at Costco. I also got a package of XXL puppy pads and two larger bags of dry cat food. The item labelled “brown cat” is actually a Christmas stocking of cat toys – much cheaper than buying them individually! – plus I got a couple of $2 cat toys, one of them for the isolation shelter.
There’s a bottle of Murphy’s wood cleaning spray. We have the oil that needs to be diluted, but my daughter requested the pre-diluted spray for spot clean ups. I picked up a 2 pack of lavender scented spray, as we’re running low, and lavender is supposed to be calming, even for cats.
I found a 4 pack of Monster energy drinks that was on sale, but only one flavour, so I just got one box. I hope that Costco has the flats in stock again.
Next, there’s 4 loaves of rye bread. I’ll get more of that at Costco, too.
There’s a box of 3 cheese Pizza Pops in there. I had a request for heat and eats, so there’s also 4 bags of frozen chicken nuggets and fingers.
I picked up some toilet paper on sale, even though I’ll be getting more at Costco. Not something to run out of! There’s a 2L carton of Homo (3%) milk, and some dark coffee that was on sale, for my daughters. I can’t believe how expensive coffee has become! It’s cheap turkey season, though, so I picked up a medium frozen turkey. There’s also some Havarti cheese. I recently picked up some lactose free cheese for the family, so that’s mostly for me.
My husband requested turkey breast sandwich meat, but I was aghast at the price for that. I got a larger package of it, but for almost $12, it’s good for maybe 4 sandwiches, in total, and that’s if we skimp on the meat a bit. The Pepitas are pumpkin seeds, to powder as a supplement for the cats. Good for the digestive system.
I did splurge on a mug for myself. Sadly, one of my favourite mugs cracked in the sink. The kitchen isn’t heated and the stainless steel sink gets cold enough that glasses, jars and mugs sometimes crack when, say, a spoon gets dropped into the container. At least it was just a crack and not a shatter, this time. So now I have another larger mug, and this one has line drawings of cats all over it.
Because I really am a crazy cat lady, these days!
I also found some Aurora brand bouillon cubes. I like that brand – plus, it’s a better price! I do miss all the interesting flavours they used to have. There was a European grocery store in the city we last lived in that carried them all, but now they’re not even available from their website.
Last of all, I got an energy drink for the road.
By the time I got everything, my back and hips were giving out, so there was no way I was going to another store after this. Especially not for another largish shop. I was more than happy to go straight home after loading up the truck!
So there we have it. Just a Walmart trip this time. A whole 34 items. It was $356.80 before taxes. $166 of that was for cats, including the pumpkin seeds.
Counting the stuff at Canadian Tire, gas and lunch, today cost about $475 altogether.
Oh! I just heard from my daughter. The new kettle is working flawlessly!
At least there’s that!
Next trip will be the Costco run. We’ve got Christmas dinner to think about with this month’s stock up shopping. We will be having our own dinner on Christmas Eve, and I expect to be going to my mother’s with turkey dinners already made up, on Christmas Day, weather willing. December is an odd month for when my husband’s disability pay comes in. CPP Disability, which normally comes in on the third last business day of the month, always comes in before Christmas and, with all the holidays at the end of the month, his private insurance (the one that actually pays the bills), might come in before Christmas, too. That one normally comes in on the last business day of the month. New Year’s falls on a Wednesday, so it might show up the day before. Either way, it messes up my stock up shopping schedule! 😄
It’s going to be another quiet Christmas. No gift giving. At least nothing purchased. Who can afford that anymore, when on a fixed income? Just a special dinner, and time together. Which is the most important thing, in the end.
November sure is blowing by fast. I expect December is going to fly by, too!
Today’s main thing was getting the truck to the garage to get that leaking seal replaced, along with the tire sensor, which would also replace the valve with the slow leak that was getting worse. I didn’t need to get there until 10, so there wasn’t too much of a hurry.
I still left early, of course. I always try to leave early! I’d rather be half an hour early, than 5 minutes late, for anything.
When dropping off the keys and talking about the work that was scheduled to be done, I asked if they could give all the tires a check, too. I freely admit, I’m paranoid about tires! There is one more that has a slow leak in the valve, but both rear tires will need their sensors replaced. Even the one tire that has been rock solid the whole time. The last time I got a sensor replaced, they checked the other tires and couldn’t get any readings off them, which meant the batteries were likely dead, and it’s repair by replacement for that. They were fine with checking the rest, too.
After that, I headed across town (all 6 blocks or so), with a plan of stopping at various places on the way back to look for things. I did have to stop for breakfast first, though. I forgot to eat before I left and was starting to get dizzy.
My first stop after breakfast was not productive; I didn’t find anything I was hoping to. I had some things I wanted to pick up for my husband that I wasn’t able to get yesterday, while in my mother’s town. I found some of those at the next stop. My last stop was a hardware store, were I was able to find a couple more things I needed.
By then, it was almost an hour past my appointment time, so I headed to the garage. I could see the truck hadn’t been moved, though. They had a vehicle stuck on a lift, waiting for parts, so they weren’t able to get to it yet.
At that point, I needed to just sit down, as my hip was starting to give out on my. Which was good, because I got to talk to the mechanic that was working on my truck. He knew he was from our area, and that he knew my brother, and really felt I should have know who he was. I finally had a chance to ask his name.
Well, no wonder he seemed familiar! He was the guy that helped us out on the road, when the truck started screaming at us and we discovered all the problems we were having with the oil system! That was two years ago! After having to replace the MAF sensor – twice! – it took this long to find where and why we were slowly losing oil.
They were able to get the truck in soon after I got there. The seal was replaced, then they worked on the tire sensor. Once that was back on, they ran the truck for a bit, then raised it back up on the lift to make sure nothing was leaking anymore, and everything was nice and dry!
Once it was at floor level again, they started checking the other tires. I could see them through the office window as they went around with their device, checking each tire.
Then doing it again.
Then they topped up all the tires for me, and went around again!
When they came back to the office and I was settling the bill ($226 and change, after taxes), we chatted about the tires. The new sensor was programmed, but they were not able to connect properly to the back tires. I was told that, after driving about 15km at speed, the new sensor should get recognized by the onboard computer and it would reset itself. The “service tire monitoring system” notice should go away, along with that one dashboard light for the tires, by the time I got home. If it doesn’t go away, they’ll need to check the back tire sensors again.
I told him I didn’t expect the light and warning to go away, and fully expect to have to replace both sensors on the back tires. When it’s in budget again. The tires are fine. That’s the main thing.
The warnings were still there when I got home. We’ll see if they’re still there when I leave for my mother’s tomorrow. I expect they will be.
Everything went well, otherwise, and the truck was good to go. My next stop was across the street to the grocery store. I still had one more thing on my husband’s list, plus I wanted to get ingredients for the chicken stock I’ll be making for my mother, tomorrow. I want to get it started before I leave to get her groceries, and planned to do the prep tonight, first.
I ended up making a much larger shopping trip than planned! Normally, I wouldn’t do a mid month top up like this, so soon after doing a Costco trip, but there were some really good sales I wanted to take advantage of.
This is what $155.69 looks like.
Which is actually quite a bit more for the money that usual!
Here is what I got – sorry for the poor photo quality. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I uploaded the image!
From the top: there’s a case of Fresca, which was the one thing left my husband had requested. On sale, but that just put it back to the regular price it was a couple of months ago.
The large bag of cornmeal was not on sale. When we first started buying these large bags, they were under $4. Now, they’re over $7! But, we were running low, and I’d like to bake some cornbread.
I remembered to get some white wine vinegar, as we were out. We were also running low on pancake syrup and it was on sale, so I got a bottle. The tea I got is something new to try. It has chicory root in it and is “coffee inspired”. We have chicory seeds, so I figured trying some in a tea would be a good idea.
The Monster was for the drive home. We were out of apple cider vinegar, and I wanted to use some in my mother’s stock, so I picked some up. I also got freezer bags that were on sale. One of them will go to my mother’s, so I can pack up the cooked chicken in smaller bags to make it easier for home care to prep her meals.
Lactose free cheese, mostly for my husband. The digestive enzymes I got at Costco don’t seem to be helping him, he tells me.
We did not need more eggs, but the 18s were on sale, so I got a couple. We’ll be hard boiling a bunch of them to keep handy for snacks, or to make egg salad with, now that we have so many eggs on hand.
The cabbage is for ourselves, but the onions are for ourselves as well as to prep for my mother, tomorrow. Same with the ginger root, carrots and celery. The 3 pound bag of apples was for home, though – and a really good sale! Apples have been insanely expensive lately. I look forward to having our own, but it’ll be a few years yet!
The salad mixes where the big savings. I’d already picked up some at my mother’s town yesterday at an excellent sale price, but these were even better. These salad mixes are usually over $7 a bag, but with the sale, they were under $4 a bag! Plus, extra points. If I didn’t know we wouldn’t have the room in our fridge, I would have gotten more.
Another good sale was on whole chicken, so I got a larger one. Normally, it would have cost almost $20, instead of just under $12. The pork sirloin roast was Buy One Get One Free, so I picked up a couple of the largest ones that were left. There was bacon on sale, too, so I picked up a package. Last on the receipt was a chicken salad sandwich to eat during the drive home. It was well past lunch time by then.
Then, when it came time to pay, I had enough points on my loyalty card to get $10 off – but got enough points with all the promos that I once again have enough points to get $10 off the next time I use it!
So with all the sales and discounts, not counting the sales on items priced by weight, since that’s applied before they get to the checkout, I had a total of $54.34 off. Add on the loyalty points discount, I got a total of $64.34 taken off my bill.
Not too shabby.
After one more stop at a gas station, I finally headed home. After my daughter helped me unload the truck, it was late enough to feed the cats outside. I even remembered to call my mother to remind her to take the chicken out of her freezer for the stock I will be making her tomorrow. I made sure to tell her not to get her own little pot and frying pan out again, as I was going to be bringing a bigger pot to use this time.
I was out again, about an hour later, to do my evening rounds, cutting some fresh herbs to use in my mother’s stock, before commandeering the kitchen. I now have a bag ready with our smaller stock pot, a good, sharp kitchen knife, and various ingredients that don’t need to be refrigerated, set aside. In the morning, I just need to grab some prepped ingredients from the fridge and that’s it.
Normally, my mother doesn’t do much when she makes her chicken stock. Last time, I included carrots, celery and onion, and she told me she only just used onion. I know she normally would not be too keen on trying new and different ingredients, like the apple cider vinegar, ginger and turmeric I’m bringing. She can get very angry over the idea of trying new things. She has been talking about problems with her digestion, though, and I specifically looked up a recipe for “gut healthy” chicken stock. I think it might help her be willing to try something new, if I explain it that way.
Meanwhile, I found we still had two last packages of meaty beef bones hiding in the chest freezer, from our last beef share purchase. I’ve got those thawing out with plans to make bone broth in the slow cooker.
All in all, it turned out to be a more productive day than I originally expected!
Tomorrow, we’re expecting a high of 10C/50F, but I won’t be home to take advantage of it to get stuff done outside. The next couple of days will have highs of only 2C/36F, which is when I’m planning to do some final mulching and covering the septic tank for the winter. After that, our highs will stay below freezing for a few days, and then we’re supposed to warm up again, possibly reaching a high of 5C/41F by next weekend. Which means there’s still a possibility of getting more progress outside.
Once we get past the first week of December, the long range forecast is now predicting quite a drop in temperatures, including overnight lows of -28C/-18C, so the more I can get done before then, the better! It’s been harder to keep things stocked up, but I really want to have at least a month’s worth of supplies on hand, before the deep freeze hits. The hard part will be stocking up on cat food.
Oh, I just got a message from the renter. They do have a straw bale they can spare, and will hopefully be able to bring it over on the weekend. Perfect timing! We’ll have straw to cover the septic tank, instead of the insulated tarp, and it’ll be much better for mulch in the garden, too.
Well, I made it into town today to do a small grocery shopping trip.
I forgot about daylight savings. Most of our clocks automatically shift, but not the truck. I got there, thinking they were already open for a while, but I was 15 minutes early.
The truck now has the correct time! 😄
I was not the only one waiting.
As for the truck, it did run fine in general, though I was still feeling some shuddering that I couldn’t attribute to the wind. On the way home, I was headlong into the wind and actually had a hard time getting up to speed! I think it’ll run smoother after the oil change, though. Once I get the all clear from our mechanic, I’ll do the Costco stock up trip in the city.
For now, I did what is a more typical local shop. Getting a few things we needed, plus taking advantage of sales.
This is what $183.20 looks like.
I did end up getting a fair bit more than planned, but still… that’s not a lot for almost $200!
This is what I got.
I got a 4 pack of Monsters, mostly for my daughters. I did get one more from one of the store fridges for the drive home. We’ll pick up a case at Costco (which I get reimbursed for by my daughter). I also picked up some Coke Zero and Fresca. Those are for all 4 of us. I can’t stand Fresca, and my daughters don’t like Coke Zero. My husband likes both.
The Mafalda Corta is a pasta. I was actually looking for broad egg noodles, but the only ones I found were skinny ones from a specialty brand and cost over $13 for a bag! Nope. I got the pasta that was on sale. I want to make haluski, so I’ll try it with the Mafalda Corta pasta, instead. The radiatori pasta is something fun I like to get when it’s on sale.
The rice crackers were for my husband. I also got four packages of pudding mix because they were on an excellent sale.
I got two 18s of eggs instead of a flat of 30, because the cartons of 18 fit in my hard sided insulated bags.
There’s a couple of pounds of butter, because we ran out completely. I also got a 2L each of milk and oat milk.
Then there was the box of mandarins that were on sale, and a cabbage and onion for the haluski.
I wasn’t planning on getting meat, but took advantage of sales to get a pork roast, a couple of packages of breakfast sausages and hot dog wieners. I also picked up a garlic sausage, made by a local company, and dried salami sausage for my husband to snack on. The sushi was my breakf… er… lunch for the drive home.
While my daughter did do some bread baking, I picked up more bread products. A couple of packages of mini garlic Naan, a loaf of sourdough, a couple of loaves of marble rye, and some hot dog buns.
Between the sales and my points card, I saved $44.71, or 20%. I could have used my points to get $10 off, too, but I decided to save that for another time.
So, there we have it. A total of 36 items, almost all on sale.
It was enough to pull up to the house to unload. After everything was in the house and I headed out to park the truck in the garage, I spotted the adorableness.
The little tuxedo staring out the other side window is also feral. There is another tuxedo, even smaller, that is less feral and I’ve even been able to pick it up and snuggle it a bit. I have suspicions about that, though. I think it might be at least partially deaf, and possibly have vision issues. Maybe I’m just paranoid, after what happened with Button over time, but it seems the tiny tuxedo’s eyes are dilated more than they should be, all the time. If it’s at all like Button, that would mean it can see shadows and movement, but not much else.
Or, it could just be that it was very scared when I picked it up.
We still have an ongoing Canada Post strike right now, but they have moved from a full strike to rotating strikes, so mail is starting to get through. With that in mind, I placed an order with Amazon last night. One of the things I picked up was an outdoor cat shelter (not an affiliate link).
This is something I’ve looked at in the past and rejected, as there is no way they’d handle our winters. However, we now have the catio and it’s winterized. I am thinking of setting it up inside there, along with the box nests that are already in there. I will just have to find something to put under it, so it’s not directly on the ground, just in case water pools inside again in the spring. It is waterproof, insulated and self heating. Between that and being inside the winterized catio, it should provide better shelter – and a private hiding place – for the most feral cats. Who knows. Adam, Sprout and Sprout’s clone baby might actually start using it, instead of disappearing into the outer yard until feeding time.
Oh!! I just thought of a name for Sprout’s clone baby.
Sprig.
Both are still completely feral. Sprout’s fluffy orange and white is also feral, but is at least willing to come closer and I’ve even managed to sneak a pet or two as he runs by.
Speaking of the more feral cats, as I was driving into the yard, I spotted a cat running across by the driveway by the pump shack, disappearing into the tall grass. I didn’t recognize it.
If this works out, we might get a second one for the garage. Pinky does use the isolation shelter, but at night, I think she is once again retreating to the rafters in the garage, above the truck. If we had some sort of self heating shelter in there that would be better or her.
Best of all, of course, would be for her to get spayed and adopted out, but that might take a while longer. The rescue is still working with the six they took from us not long ago.
Meanwhile, we need to work on socializing the littles! At least they have the shelters. Right now, we’re supposedly 7C/45F, but with the wind chill, it feels like -5C/23F. We are under an ongoing wind warning, with some areas expecting gusts up to 90kph/56mph.
I’m glad I was able to make the small shop today, at least, even if it did mean fighting the wind the whole way home! We’re good for a while, even if the truck ends up needing work and the Costco trip gets delayed.
Today was definitely a full day! I was able to both head into the city for the stock up shop, plus get winter sowing and garden clean up done. The garden stuff will be in its own post, though.
I headed out early, though I did wait until it was light out, first. The deer are very active right now. Sunrise is at about quarter past 8 now, and sunset at about quarter past 6, so I didn’t have a lot of daylight hours to work with!
My first stop for today was the Walmart. I did get breakfast there, which cost a whole $13.00 (I rounded up for the donation option). There wasn’t a lot I planned to get at Walmart, though. Basically, just cat food.
This is what $181.09 looks like.
That’s 7 items in that cart. There’s two cases of wet cat food.
The paper towels were on sale, so I got a package. I picked up some 30″x36″ puppy pads. The dry cat food actually went down in price. The wet cat food did not.
While driving in, I started getting notices on my truck’s onboard computer that my water fluid was low. It kept turning on, over and over. Very annoying! Anyhow, I picked up some all season washer fluid, rated to -40C/-40F.
That’s it. Seven items at almost $200, and that was taking advantage of cheaper prices!
My next stop was Canadian Tire. Yesterday, I noticed one of my headlights was out, so I picked up a new low beam headlight, along with a couple of bags of stove pellets for cat litter. That totaled $39.17, but I decided to use my Canadian Tire dollars, so it didn’t cost me anything. Instead, when I headed out, I stopped at a gas station and put in $50, until I can do a fill at Costco. That’s when I reset my trip meter, which is currently about 1900km since my last end of the month fill (we didn’t go to Costco last month).
I did have a weird thing happen with the truck. As I was leaving Walmart, I started getting an alarm dinging, the “slippery” icon showed up on my dash, and the onboard computer told me my stabilization system was turned off. Then it told me my traction system was off. Then it told me to service my stabilization, then traction, systems.
Then all the low washer fluid warning came on and all the other warnings went away.
Now, it could be a sensor thing again. GM vehicles are apparently notorious for sensor problems. How am I supposed to know if a warning is for real or not?
Meanwhile, we still need to replace the inner handle on the driver’s side door, replace three more tire sensors and, when I get the oil change we are due for, we need to find out where there is a slow leak happening. I’ve had to top up our oil a couple of times, since our last oil change, and that is WITH the leak-stop additive.
So before I headed into the Canadian Tire, I sent a text to our mechanic. I told him I was going to book an oil change soon, but then I got these warnings (which did not happen again for the rest of the trip). We simply can’t afford any more fixes, after the huge expenses we had this past month. I told him it might be time to talk about trading the truck in for another vehicle. It would have to be something that would give us lower monthly payments. We may end up getting a car instead of a truck.
*sigh*
We shall see. He got back to me and I now have an appointment next week for the oil change.
Fun stuff.
Which means that, while we won’t have to skip our Costco shopping trip again, it will have to be a bare bones trip. With that in mind, my next stop was Superstore.
I actually did all right there!
This is what $195.31 looks like.
I focused on somewhat on protein on this trip.
From the top, there’s a large no-name container of peanut butter; my husband has been going through the peanut butter a lot, lately. There’s a big bag of penne pasta, and a Monster energy drink for the drive home.
From dairy, I only got a giant block of Old Cheddar cheese. The Oat Milk I got for my daughters is in the natural foods section.
In the frozen section, there’s two bags of perogies and a bag of mixed vegetables.
Not much in produce. A bag of “ugly” avocados. There were 7 avocados in a $6 bag, so that is a really good deal these days. I also got a small back of seedless red grapes.
With meats, I got a box of frozen chicken nuggets and two boxes of brand name chicken nuggets and strips. Those are mostly for my husband. All were on sale. I spotted some bacon on sale and grabbed a packages.
Chicken drumsticks were an excellent price, and I ended up getting three packages. My husband won’t eat those, though. He can’t tolerate meat with bones in them anymore.
There’s a package of pork and beef breakfast sausages and a package of pork tenderloin. They weren’t on sale, but were some of the best meat prices I saw today. For the girls, I got a frozen pink salmon and a fresh whole trout, both on sale. I also grabbed a pack of sandwich meats, half turkey, half ham. There are two packs of the torpedo buns we love so much (Italian buns, on the receipt) and a loaf of sliced sourdough bread. Last of all, I remembered to grab a couple of bottles of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier.
I believe that came out to 27 items in total.
So the two grocery stops totaled $376.40. Add in the $13 for breakfast, plus $50 for gas, plus the $39.17 that was paid for with Canadian Tire dollars, I purchased $478.57 in goods today.
Oh! I almost forgot. On the way home, I stopped at the feed store and picked up two 40 pound bags of kibble for the outside cats. That cost $124.99 in total. That brings the total for the day to $603.56 Of that, about $275 was cat food, puppy pads and litter pellets.
Well, one thing will be different at Costco. Since I got the kibble already, I’ll just need to get more canned cat food and maybe more puppy pads. They have a very good price for puppy pads, but only have one size. I’ve found the XXL size to be much more useful. It sucks that we even had to buy the things, when we’ve got litter boxes all over the place.
Anyhow.
That’s the status of the shopping!
Time to enjoy the supper my daughters have made, and then do and update on how much got done in the garden today. I’m rather pleased!
As soon as I get up from my office chair, or go near it, Clarence runs ahead of me, jumps onto the chair and does this. As if to say, you can’t be mad at me! I’m adorable!
Then he goes all rubbery when I try to take him off.
Sorry, Clarence. You ain’t THAT cute! 😂
I fooled him this time, though. I didn’t need the chair. He was so disappointed. 🤣
Today, my daughter and I went into the city for our first stock up shopping trip. This is the one where we hit multiple stores along one strip.
Just as we were pulling out of our driveway, though, my cell phone started ringing. My first thought was, oh, no. It’s home care calling to say they can’t do my mother’s med assist.
My daughter was thinking the same thing.
I was able to pull over immediately – one advantage of living off of gravel roads! It turned out to be the autobody place. They wanted to book the truck in for the insurance claim repairs. That is now scheduled for the 26th to the 30th of September, and they have a courtesy car for me, so we can still do our stock up shopping. Yay!
Our next stop was at the gas station in town, where we picked up $40 in gas. Prices jumped 10¢/L overnight, a few days ago. Since the town nearest us is a resort town, they have the same prices as the city, at $1.449/L My CAA card gave me a whole 83¢ discount. Better than nothing, I suppose.
From there, we headed to the city and our first stop was at Walmart. The main thing we needed there was cat food.
This is what $200.23 looks like.
We did get a few other things to, of course.
For the dry kibble, we got a different brand because we could get three bags, about 21kg (a little over 40 pounds) for about the same price as two bags of our usual brand, which would have been 18kg total (a little over 36 pounds). Those were for the outside cats. We also got two 32 packs of wet cat food, one for the inside cats, one for the outside cats.
There was a really good price on some boxed cereal my daughters like, so we grabbed two of those, along with some feminine hygiene products I’ll be paid back for later. We got a 4 pack of Monster drinks for now; we’ll be getting a case at Costco (which I will be paid back for as well).
I grabbed some water flavours for my husband, and a pound of butter, as we were out this morning. We’ll stock up on butter at Costco, in a couple of days.
That’s it. That’s $200.
*sigh*
Our next stop was the Canadian Tire, with a side trip to Michaels. My older daughter needed a certain size of envelop we haven’t been able to find anywhere and really hoped we’d find them at the Michael’s! These are to fit some prints, among other things, my daughter sends to some of her higher tier Patreon supporters. They come in two sizes and we haven’t been able to find anything that fits both!
Thankfully, they did have a size that worked. We got her two packs of 50. That should last a while! They cost about $36, but I will be reimbursed for those, too.
Next, we drove across the lot to the Canadian Tire and picked up two bags of stove pellets for the litters. They weren’t in the usual place, so I asked staff. They directed me to the BBQ pellets. Which are fancy woods and really expensive. I found someone else and she tried to direct me to the same area. After looking it up on the devices all the staff carried, she finally saw what I was talking about, but had no idea where they were.
They turned out to be in the exit vestibule.
All we needed were two bags! That came out to $16.78.
Finally, we were off to the international grocery store. It shares a parking lot with a Dollarama, so we went into there, first. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but they did have more of those metal fence posts that I am currently using to fence around our corn and squash bed. I got four more, for a grand total of $21.25
Looking at the receipt, though, I see they have them listed as “flower stand”. ??? I have no idea how they would be used as a stand for flowers. I just tried looking them up and, after tweaking the search terms a bit, finally found them – being sold as fence posts. Which is what they’ll be used for!
Then we finally went into the international grocery store. It was past lunch time by then, so the first order of business was food! I got a three item dim sum meal that was so loaded, I only ate half of it, and the rest will be my supper. My daughter got some fresh sushi (they were in the process of making more while we watched) which turned out to be available for free with points, so I used them. So my meal, plus our drinks, totaled just over $16.
This place is where we get a number of things we don’t find anywhere else – at least not anywhere we go regularly. Since we have to make special trips into the city, we won’t have the luxury of hunting down specialty shops, nor harder to get to locations. I was happy that we made it today, because it was the last day for some really good deals.
This is what $248.54 looks like.
Pretty much everything in there was on sale.
The main thing I really wanted to get was the frozen sushi grade Ahi tuna. They were only $1.99/100grams. I ended up getting to two biggest frozen chunks of tuna they had left. My daughters really loved it, the last time they had a sale like this and I was able to get one. They enjoyed it both raw and as steaks, lightly seared.
The other proteins we got was some regular ground beef, applewood smoked bacon slab and regular smoked bacon slab, which was on sale. I also got a salmon for the girls that wasn’t one sale, except that it was a deal connected with my loyalty card’s special offers, so that got price reduced when we scanned it through.
This store has an excellent cheese counter. They had lactose free brie that was one a “buy two and save” sale. I also got a pesto gouda, which is something new to try. Yes, it was on sale, too.
Let’s see. What else…
There is a bag of pearl barley – something only my husband and I like in this household. It was not on sale. I can’t believe these now cost over $4 each! We got the soy sauce my husband likes and, after much searching, my daughter found some liquid smoke I remembered to pick up, for something I want to try later on.
There is a clamshell of nectarines that was on sale, and the sale for the instant milk tea was so good, I got two. The Kraft Mac and Cheese was on sale, as were the granola bars and Greek yogurt. My daughter also spotted some hair accessories on sale, so we picked those up as well.
Finally, we got things for immediate eating when we got home. A huge Lumber Jack sandwich for my husband (that’ll be at least two meals!), plus my daughter chose three different sushi for herself and her sister that was part of a multi-discount, so they came out to only $5 each. Last of all were a couple of drinks for the road.
So my total for all that was $248.54 after taxes. I got bonus points that largely made up for what I used to get my daughter’s lunch sushi for free, plus I got $54.94 taken off with loyalty card sales. It doesn’t include the savings from items on sale that are sold by weight. Including those, it was probably closer to $65-$70 off.
In the end, counting the items not pictured, gas and lunch, our total expenditure for the day came out to just over $578, some of which I will be paid back for.
There were a lot of things we would have liked to get. They were even on sale. The problem was, what is considered a sale price now for these things is what used to be a high regular price, just a year or two ago! We stayed in budget, but even if we wanted to go over budget, we would not have been willing to pay those prices, sale or no sale.
It should be interesting to see what the prices are like at Costco, when we go in a couple of days!
Tomorrow, however, I’m heading out again, this time to my doctor’s appointment. If things go as I hope, I’ll be getting X-rays on my left hip to find out what the heck is going on there of late. It has actually gotten better, in that I can put weight on my left leg to go up a step or two, but it’s still really unstable. While I am ambidextrous with most things, I’m left dominant. Which means I’m more likely to step forward with my left leg rather than my right. I made the mistake of stepping up a curb with my left leg today. I really should not have done that! It messed me up enough that, even when I was stepping up with my right leg, I needed to grip my daughter’s hand to stabilize me as I did it. I know I have bone spurs in both my hips, along with the OA. It could just be that the OA in my left hip has gotten worse.
No way to know without getting X-rays done.
I’m quite curious about what showed up in the X-rays of my left arm. They wouldn’t have called me in if everything was fine, but it can’t be too bad, or they would have had me either come in earlier, or told me to go to a hospital.
I’ll find out tomorrow!
Then it’s back to the city the day after, for the Costco shopping.
We need to focus on stocking up. I’m seeing more long range forecasts for this winter, and the general consensus seems to be a mild fall (ha!) and winter (double ha!), with lots of snow and blizzards. Which means a higher potential of getting getting snowed in.
At least this year, my brother’s equipment is all out here. Including snow blowers and a snow clearing tractor attachment. None of which we can use ourselves, though. Some need repairs, and some have “tricks” to using them, that only my brother knows! I expect they’ll be out here pretty much every weekend, once their grandson is back home. I know my brother has a lot of stuff he wants to get working on, including repairing a tractor that got damaged when they were moving their stuff out here. Plus, things need to be organized, just to be able to get at some of the equipment. When their property sold, they only had so much time to bring everything they were keeping out here, and were just shoving things wherever they could find the space! It’s not even something we can help him with, either. With their “new” mobile home/caravan they recently picked up, they will at least have a winter worthy “home” to use in the winter, though being an older model, even that has some work my brother wants to do on it to make sure it’s winterized and no rodents or wasps or anything like that can get in.
So while we can expect to have a much better winter when it comes to things like snow clearing, that can only happen while my brother is here. Which means there is still the potential to get snowed in. At least the truck is better able to get through the snow than our previous vehicle, but even that only goes so far.
I forgot. We’re coming up on a long weekend. Even though today is Thursday, Costco was insanely busy! When I was done, it took several minutes going further and further to the back of the store before I found the end of the line I needed. The self check out line was almost as long!
Thankfully, everything went quickly.
Before going to Costco, though, I made a stop at the mall nearby for breakfast, then made a quick run through the Dollarama. I found a few things for both kitchen and garden, totaling just over $35 – including a couple of boxes of McKenzie Seeds wildflower mix. I’m considering trying again in the same spot I tried winter sowing last year, only this time, I want to find some way to keep the cats from digging and rolling all over it, even though I never removed the leaf litter mulch. We really need more wildflowers for the pollinators. I’ve left the sections of the old garden area uncut because they were pretty much the only things blooming right now. Once they start dying back, I’ll start working on taming the jungle. I’m not seeing as many pollinators lately, though. The constant smoke from the wildflowers is causing them problems.
I also got a couple of metal pinwheels that are weather vanes, so they will turn with the direction of the wind to spin. I plan to set one beside the peas that are trying to recover, and another near the plum and apple saplings. The plastic pinwheels I have now don’t seem to catch the wind very well, but something that moves with the wind should work better to distract the deer.
I’m glad I didn’t stop to get a bit of gas on the way into the city. I normally put in just a few bucks if I’m expecting to drop below half a tank. I did stop at the gas station in my mother’s town along the way, but that’s because the truck informed me that I was low on washer fluid. The only fluid I have in the truck right now is for winter. Gas prices there were $1.349/L At Costco, it was $1.199/L!! There rest of the city was $1.339/L It cost me $67.15 to fill my tank.
When it comes to shopping at Costco, this is where we bulk buy most of our non-food items, so that took up a significant portion of the budget. This is what $636.55 looks like.
There were two things on my list I didn’t get, because Costco doesn’t carry them. Those are for the next Walmart trip. I lost count somewhere along the line, as I ended up going a bit over my budget for this shop, when I thought I was still under budget. Ah, well.
With the long receipt, I ended up taking two pictures of it.
Unfortunately WP messes one of them up, due to the different dimensions. You should be able to see it properly if you click on the image.
For the non-food stuff, we got:
scent free laundry detergent
puppy pads
four 9kg bags of dry kibble
one case of canned cat food
toilet paper
Shake ‘n’ Feed fertilizer (on sale)
a 2 pack of parchment paper
All of that cost $250 and change before taxes.
*sigh*
For beverages, there is a flat of Monster energy drink, which I will be paid back for, and a 3 pack of oat milk for the girls.
Then there’s the actual food:
spaghetti
Ramen noodles
2 pack of Honey Nut Cheerios (on sale)
2 jars of Hellman’s Mayo (the sale price made them cheaper than the Kirkland brand)
double flat of eggs (5 dozen)
4 pounds butter
Old Cheddar, 1 block
Mozzarella, 1 block
pork tenderlion
pork sausage (on sale)
two packs of drumsticks (on sale)
two rotisserie chickens (cheaper than raw, whole chickens)
two 2 packs of salad mix
Basmati rice
two 2 packs of rye bread
two 2 packs of wraps
1 bag hazelnuts
The food and drink part of the shop came to about $348 and change, before taxes.
What I didn’t get was beef. I checked out a fairly small flank steak, and it was over $88! A family pack of stew meat was over $43. They had a sale on ground beef, but they came in long chubs that all cost in the $60 range, before discount. Then there were the larger cuts of beef that were in the $200 plus, range. *choke* Even the pork is starting to creep up in price again.
We aren’t even going to be able to buy a beef share this year. Normally, we would have made payments throughout the year until they butchered in the fall. We already dropped from a quarter beef to an eighth, the last time we got a beef share, because of how tight our budget got once we had truck payments. We talked when I met to pick up the meat in January, and she said they weren’t sure what they were going to be doing, nor what price/pound they’d have to charge yet. All they knew for sure was that they were going to have to increase the price. So we didn’t start making payments at the beginning of the year, like I planned. Which, I suppose, worked out for the best, because we’ve had so many things needing to be replaced or repaired – and we’re still not done with that – that we couldn’t have made monthly payments this year, anyhow. They haven’t updated their website, nor have they announced anything on their social media pages, so I have no idea if they were even still selling beef shares.
I wonder if we can buy a steer from the farmer that rents most of this property? We have enough pasture in the outer yard to sustain 1 or 2 calves. Then butcher in the fall.
Oh, dear Lord. I just looked up the average prices for feeder steers and heifers, per hundredweight, in Canada right now.
*choke*
Never mind that idea! Yeah, we’d save money in the long run, but yikes! No wonder beef prices are so high right now!
Okay, so beef is going to be a rare treat for the next while.
😢😢
Anyhow.
That’s our Costco stock up shop for this month. It won’t last us the month, either.
*sigh*
Oh, that reminds me. Our federal overlords graciously “gave” people on CPP and CPP Disability a 2.7% raise that kicked in for July’s payment, which was a couple of days ago. My husband gets both CPP Disability, plus Disability through his private insurance with SunLife. With private insurance he was “allowed” to make a certain amount above the payments, then everything else gets deducted. The CPP Disability uses up all that “allowance”, which is why I can’t get a job. Anything I earn would be deducted from his SunLife disability payments.
He recently got a letter from SunLife telling him what his payments will be, starting at the end of July, meaning today.
Yup. While the CPP Disability payments went up by a few bucks, his SunLife payments went down by a few bucks.
They cancelled each other out.
🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Honestly, I thank God that the company my husband worked for had such a good insurance plan. It’s keeping us afloat. I also thank God that we have the arrangement with my brother to live here and take care of the place in exchange for rent. We still have to be creative in making ends meet – like making these trips to the city to buy in bulk and stock up where we can. Especially in years like this, where we have next to nothing to harvest from the garden, never mind preserve for winter. Like my SIL said about their own garden, years ago: if we had to rely on our garden, we’d starve!
Well, it is what it is, and we do what we can with what we have.
The Re-Farmer 