inflation

A visit and an unexpected $138 stock up shop

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Today, the plan was to meet my brother to help set up my mother’s air conditioner for the summer. Since I was going to be out anyhow, I planned to go to the grocery store after, and pick up some eggs.

Since I was out anyhow, my daughter asked if she could bribe me into picking up some stuff for her, at which point it was worth the gas to go to the town we usually shop at.

Of course, nothing quite goes to plan, does it? I like it when that turns out to be good, which is how it worked out, today.

My brother and I pre-arranged to meet at a gas station before going to my mother’s together, so I left early to tank up, first. Once we connected, we both headed over to our mother’s place. My SIL was a sweetheart and sent a lunch for us all, with enough extra to feed my mother for at least another day. She is such a saint. She no longer visits my mother, because my mother has been so incredibly cruel to her, but she still loves her and does stuff like this. Which makes her a much better person than me. My mother has literally thrown away food my SIL made for her – frozen in individual meal portions – so she wouldn’t have to cook while recovering from surgery, because she decided it wasn’t “fresh”. She actually gave it to me to give to the cats. It wasn’t until later that I found out where it was from. I’ve tried to bring my own cooking to my mother as well, but got nothing but complaints, so I’ve given up completely. Now, she complains because I spend money on food, which makes me bad with money in her eyes. We can’t win, no matter what we do, but my brother and his wife just keep being so sweet to her! Which is a big part of why I was happy to join him today. Not only do I get to see him, but my mother behaves differently when both of us there, compared to how she treats him when he’s there on his own.

Setting up the AC didn’t take long at all. It’s one of the portable AC’s, not a permanent window one. Basically, it just involved removing the Styrofoam insulation that’s set in the window for the winter, and hooking up the duct from the machine. He’d taken the original window out and replaced it with a board the exact same size, and the window part of the AC set up installed in the middle, then cut 4″ wide Styrofoam insulation to fit on the inside, taped in place, for the winter.

Of course, once it was set up and plugged in, we had to test it. The outlet it’s plugged into has its own switch on the wall, which he taped in the On position, and even wrote “AC” on it, so no one would flick the power off from that outlet.

And… someone did. The tape was still there, but the switch was off. He turned it on while I was next to the plug, which has a reset button on it that I heard beep… but the AC would not turn on. If the switch was pushed in further, it would beep again, but that was it. So there’s clearly a connection problem in there, but not something we could deal with. That’s something my mother should call for a maintenance request for, though she won’t do that, of course. My brother could fix it, another day – and knowing him, he probably will – but technically, he shouldn’t. At least not without getting special clearance from Public Housing.

What we found, however, is that once the tape was put back over the switch, it was enough to hold it in place and keep the power on, and the AC was working fine.

That done, we had lunch, which was way more difficult than it should have been. My mother had delayed her breakfast and made “extra” for us, so she kept trying to make us eat her toast and cheese chunks, while trying to not eat the food my brother brought, because she made breakfast… As we were setting up lunch, my brother went into the fridge and found it almost empty. Oh, yes, my mother says. I’m running out of things… but I’m good for a few more days.

*sigh*

It took both of us to convince her to take advantage of the fact that we were there and could do it right away, instead of having me come back later in the week. So once we finished lunch, I started making a list with her. That’s when she said she wanted bleach, for her bathroom sink.

???

The sink was draining very slowly, so she wanted to use bleach to clear it.

So we explained that bleach won’t fix something like that. She would need a drain cleaner – maybe. My brother went over to take a look, filling the sink to see how bad it was. It turned out to be pretty bad!

Then we took a closer look, and there was all sorts of gunk visible. So my brother got a wire coat hanger, turned it into a small hook, and started pulling stuff out.

While he did that, I did my mother’s grocery shopping.

By the time I got back, the sink was draining like a dream, and my brother was “fixing” her TV. She was complaining about how the picture was too small – she was seeing black borders around the images. The problem turned out to not be the TV or its settings at all. Her cable provider recently upgraded, but not all the channels she gets are HD, so some channels automatically fill her screen, while others don’t. There was nothing wrong with her TV.

Meanwhile, as I put away the groceries, my mother was checking out the receipt and suddenly said, I told you I didn’t want lettuce.

???

I took a look and sure enough, there was iceberg lettuce on there – and it was voided, then her cabbage was listed. The cashier had put in the wrong code, then fixed it. My mother, however, was convinced that she was charged for a head of lettuce because she once got charged for a watermelon she didn’t buy, some 10 years ago (which I’m not sure actually happened; I think she mistook a promotion on the receipt as a sale item, which she once did with shipping I helped her with). So once everything was put away, I got out my phone with its calculator and added it all up. The total I got, minus the lettuce, matched the subtotal on the receipt. When to told her this, she gave me a look we all know too well. She didn’t believe me. She then tried a different tactic and implied the change she got was wrong. Well, I’d given her her change with the receipt, and it was still on the table, so I added that up and it matched the receipt, too.

You’d think that would have made her happy.

It didn’t.

Instead, she now thinks that not only is the store cheating her, but I’m lying to her about it.

*sigh*

Still, we dropped that.

As always, my mother tried to bring up all sorts of things in the most negative way, even trying to twist things to make it so that her behaviour is not a problem, but that everyone else is – including a nasty dig at my brother’s wife in the process.

*sigh*

My brother was way more gracious than I would have been, by that point!

My brother had told her yesterday that he couldn’t stay long, as he had an event to get ready for later today, but as we were getting ready to go, my mother kept trying to make us have tea, or eat something, or… I had already told her I needed to run errands, too, and she started giving me a hard time about how I’m always running errands. I told her, if I’m going to be going out anyway, I want to do as many things as I can, so I’m not going out several times a week. Of course, we’d already been there for a couple of hours, so it’s not like we were rushing off. Then she tried to make me take a little jar of “keys” home. Why? Well, she doesn’t have room for them. I looked in the jar and didn’t see any keys. Instead, I saw a mix of all kinds of objects; the sort of stuff you’d find in a junk drawer. Any keys that might have been in there were completely buried. I asked her, why are you giving me your junk? Oh, there’s lots of room at the farm.

*sigh*

That’s the problem, I told her. There’s too much stuff at the farm, including stuff people gave to her and Dad 50 or 60 years ago!

So she tried to tell me that I could sell the metal to a scrap dealer.

…

At that point, my brother stepped in to end the conversation, because it just wasn’t worth trying to explain it to her.

I didn’t take her jar of junk.

Then we both had to leave.

Which just made my mother angry, saying we were leaving because we didn’t like what she was saying (at that point, she was into a completely different rant about a topic unrelated to any of us), and we were like, no, it’s time to go, that’s all!

Sadly, while that was true, we were both glad to be gone. I’ve tried to explain to her that her behavior towards people drives them away, and she just excuses it with “I just say what’s on my mind.”

*sigh*

While my brother had to rush off to get home, I was able to make a quick stop at the hardware store, where I finally picked up a bale of peat moss for the garden, first. Then it was off to town and for what was supposed to be just a few items.

Ha!

I didn’t get a picture of what my $137.99 looked like, though. Just the receipt.

My daughter had requested the energy drinks and coffee creamer. The cases of energy drinks were quite a bit cheaper than most of their sales, so I got two. Usually, it’s just maybe 50¢ off per case, but this time they were $1.30 off per case.

My husband requested the Coke, which was also on sale, so I got two 12 packs of those. Not much of a sale, but better than nothing. He requested the Sweet Chili chips and corn chips, which were not on sale… good grief, they are expensive these days! That came out of his budget, not the main budget, though. 😄

The flats of eggs were not on sale, but they are about 3 dollars per flat cheaper than at my mother’s grocery store – if they have any flats at all.

Pierogi were on sale as well, so I got a couple of bags.

One of the big savings was the butter. I haven’t seen butter for less than $5 each in four years! The other was the chicken, which was a buy one, get one free, deal. It was a mix and match option, but I chose two whole chickens instead of parts and pieces.

So while I ended up buying more than expected, we’ve got more butter and extra chickens in the freezer, and that’s always a good thing!

Once I got home and everything was put away, I really needed to just sit down and decompress for a while! Visits with my mother – even good ones like today (yes, this was a good visit!) – really take a lot out of me.

While I was out and about, we got hit with passing rain several times, so things are wetter out there now, then when I left this morning. The next two days should be cleared and warmer, so I’m hoping to finally get some work down outside – including working some of that peat into various prepped beds, and finally planting my potatoes! I’m hoping to get another bed of peas, spinach and carrots planted, too.

The rain has delayed getting other beds ready, but most things won’t be planted until after June 2, so we’ve got the rest of May to get those done, and build new ones.

If the weather holds out!

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up trip: this is what $911 and change, in total, looks like

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Today, we woke up to rain. Not a little bit, either, but a wonderful steady and heavy rain. It’s expected to keep raining through to tomorrow morning, and I am quite happy to see it. Even in the hours it took me to go to the city and back, the leaf buds on the lilacs beside the house have gotten huge!

It wasn’t heavy enough to cause problems with the drive to and from the city, even with reduced visibility, so that was good, too.

Costco was really busy while I was there. Almost weekend level busy! I was in no hurry, though, which was a good thing. They must have just gotten a huge shipment in, because the wider aisles all had rows of pallets down the middle, with barely enough room for a flat cart to get through on either side. Then there were the abandoned carts, and all the people who would just block traffic. I spent a lot of time waiting for things to clear enough to be able to maneuver around with the flat cart. Of course, there are always those who seem to think I can stop on a dime, and cut me off.

*sigh*

I hate shopping.

But, the first stock up shopping trip for May is now done. This is what a total of $911.58 looks like.

The scary thing is, this is almost all our budget for the month, yet this will not last us the entire month, and there’s really nothing there that’s being added to the pantry. Some things, like the paper products, will last us the month, and I did manage to pick up some good deals on protein. Our next trip will be for the fresh stuff that I generally don’t get at Costco, though I did get more of those bagged salads that they have as much cheaper prices than others.

Once at the till, I had the cat food put on a separate bill again.

With the leaky butt issues with the cats, I did not get the Kirkland brand dry cat food at all, and instead got six 11.6kg bags of Whiskas. For dry cat food, those are pretty much the only two options. Kirkland has 2 options, with one being smaller, more expensive bags.

I also got two cases of wet cat food. Each has 48 cans, which puts the price at 78¢ per can.

Grand total for cat food this time: $340.17 after taxes.

Six bags of kibble will probably last us only 2 or 3 weeks.

*sigh*

Then there was the stuff for us.

Among the non-food items, we got facial tissue (on sale), paper towel (with cat clean ups, we go through quite a bit of that) and toilet paper. There’s ibuprofen for my daughters and acetaminophen for me. That, at least, is inexpensive.

For dairy products, I got our usual 5 pounds of butter; I used to get 10 pounds every month, but with the price of butter going up, while the Costco buckets of ghee are still such a good price, we use that instead for many things. Whipping cream is a much better price at Costco, so I got two of those. Then there were the block cheeses (mozza and old cheddar) and soft cheeses (cream cheese and goat cheese).

Among the fresh items were the double bags of salad mixes; each pair of bags is not much higher than the price of one bag, elsewhere. So I got two double bags in two flavour mixes. That’s the one down side. Not a lot of flavour options. I also got a container of cremini mushrooms (the “mini bellas” on the receipt).

I got only one double flat of eggs this time, plus 2 two-packs of rye bread and three packs of tortilla wraps.

Then there was the mayo, peanut butter, strawberry jam, butter chicken sauce, a bag of hazelnuts, a bag of flour and popcorn.

I did grab a decent amount of protein this time, including fish for the girls. Some, like the ribs and the trout fillet, were on sale. I got canned chicken and their 4 pk of bacon, mild Italian sausage, cod fillets, a really nice, big meaty slab of pork belly, and two hot rotisserie chickens.

There were some good deals in there but, with the cat food, it still broke $900.

Ouch.

Then there was the gas. On the way out, I put $30 in the tank, at $1.449/L That brought my tank to half full so, of course, it was below half by the time I got to Costco.

Filling the tank at $1.329/L totaled $75.96, so my total for gas for the day was $105.96

With $911.58 spent at Costco, that brought the total for the day to $1017.54

Ouch.

The scary thing is, due to a “price break” our provincial government extended on the gas taxes, we have probably the lowest gas prices in the country right now. Yup. I just double checked. Our provincial average price is the lowest in the country. The highest provincial average today is $1.978/L in BC. I just took a look at BC prices overall, and the highest price they’ve got today is $2.239!

If we had those prices here, we couldn’t afford to do the driving that we do.

Speaking of which, my husband had a follow up telephone appointment with his doctor about the new pain meds they are trying him on, to replace the ones that aren’t available anymore. He had only 2 weeks of meds for the trial. His dose has been increased, and the doctor sent the prescription to the pharmacy. I didn’t realize when my husband messaged me about it, that I was supposed to pick them up on the way home. So I’ll have to do that, tomorrow.

While making these trips to the city to stock up saves us a lot, they just suck the energy right out of me. It’s only 6pm as I write this, and I’m fighting the urge to just go to bed!

The Re-Farmer

Walmart top up: This is what $150 looks like

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More specifically, $148.41, after discounts and taxes.

After parting ways with the Cat Lady, I actually headed to Canadian Tire, first, and saved Walmart for last, since I would have refrigerated items.

There’s 4 loaves of rye bread, four 4L bottles of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier, 4 blocks of cheese (mozza, old cheddar, Havarti and marble), a 2L of 3% milk, a 2L of soy milk, a 4L of 3% milk to make yogurt with, and a live bacteria culture container of Greek yogurt to use as a starter. The Kraft Dinner was really cheap, so I got a case for the girls, along with the feminine hygiene products. There’s also a large jar of olives, a jar of mayo, a 12pk of Fresca for my husband and another of Coke Zero for me. Last of all was a couple of packages of 50% off Easter chocolates, and a bottle of water for the drive home. Oh, I almost forgot. There’s 2 packages of rice crackers for my husband.

After I packed everything up in the truck, I actually went back in and bought a package of crew socks, which cost another $12 or so.

There’s a reason for that!

One of the things I went looking for at the Canadian Tire was a new pair of steel toed shoes. The ones I have now are splitting in the usual places on my right shoe. Because my feet are so wide, I’ve been buying men’s size 9 or 9.5, triple wide shoes. They are wide enough for my feet, but always too long. Of course, there’s about a half size difference between my feet (which is true of most people). Between the extra length and the different in foot size, when my shoes bend at the ball of my foot, it’s not the “right” area of the shoe, so they start splitting fairly quickly, with my right shoe always starting to split first.

Well, there wasn’t a lot of selection for steel toes shoes. Plenty for boots, but really just one for shoes. After trying a couple of pairs on, though, I was actually able to get my feet into some size 8’s!!! So I took a chance, and bought them. The shoes were about $80. Along with those, I got a couple more bags of stove pellets for the litters, so the total bill was just over $100 after taxes.

After loading the pellets into the truck, I promptly put on the new shoes, then went to Walmart.

As I was walking around at Walmart, though, my feet were starting to hurt. I injured my feet, many years ago, which is why they are so wide and totally flat. I’m actually under doctor’s order to wear supportive shoes all the time, including indoors. Which is so un-Canadian! 😄 I do have inside shoes, though, so I’m not wearing my work shoes indoors, at least! 😁 Anyhow, wearing shoes all the time has made a difference. It’s been ages since I’ve had a metatarsal suddenly dislocate on me.

But the more I walked around in them, the more I thought I might have made a mistake in going with the size 8s. They were really snug at the balls of my feet, where they are the widest.

Then I remembered something.

I was wearing my thick, thermal winter socks.

It’s getting warm enough out that I won’t need to wear those.

I clued into the problem as I was walking to back to the truck, so I returned to the Walmart once everything was loaded. I headed straight to the men’s section and managed to find some crew socks. I hate tall socks; they always fall down to my ankles, so I fold them down. For some reason, it’s hard to find crew socks. It’s either tall socks, or ankle socks, and ankle socks always end up getting pulled under my heel.

Problem solved!

So between everything, today cost me about $250, plus another $40 in gas. Gas prices here are mostly in the $1.439/L range (roughly $5.75/gallon), which is I believe the lowest in the country right now. Our province extended a fuel tax break, so when the carbon tax kicked in, the gas prices didn’t rise as much as in other places. I just took a look and the highest provincial average price right now is $1.937/L in BC (roughly $7.75/gallon) while the average across the country is $1.638/L (roughly $6.50/gallon).

*sigh*

In other things, I didn’t get a call back from the septic guy about replacing the pill switch in the septic tank, so I’ll call him again tomorrow. Between the cost of the switch, plus labour, I’m expecting it to be in the $300 range, but I want to know for sure before I take out the cash to pay him. With a tip, of course!

I really look forward to not having to activate the pump manually again!

All in good time.

The Re-Farmer

Critter count and April fools.

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First the cuteness!

We had visitors yesterday afternoon. Three of them!

They were very curious about that cat, too! They hung around for a while before coming into the yard and checking out the compost heap.

This morning I counted either 28 or 29 yard cats. I’m not quite sure.

It’s not actually the black cats I loose track with. It’s the “printer babies”. All the white and greys!

Here, you can see the one cat’s messed up eye. That inner eyelid is making it harder to tell, but the pupil has a cloudy spot on one side that seems to be clearing up, while the other side is still looking brown.

On the topic of messed up eyes.

We’re going to have to change focus for when my tax return comes in. We still have to get the pill switch replaced on our septic tank, but we’ll have to wait on the pipe clearing. We need to get the Wolfman to a vet. After talking with the Cat Lady and showing her pictures of his eye that looks like it got scratched by another cat, we treated him with the last of our Metacam and monitored him. The rescue’s donations had run out, so even though Wolfman is on the list for adopting out, there’s nothing for vet care. Any donations they do get are quickly used up with spays and neuters.

I have the hardest time seeing the condition of the Wolfman’s eye, but he was opening it more often and blinking, so I thought it was getting better. The inner lids are still pretty swollen, but we can’t get more Metacam without a prescription, we can’t get a prescription without an exam, and we can’t get an exam done until we have funds. The girls seem to have better luck with seeing the eye, and this morning, they told me it was looking deflated.

*sigh*

Which means when we go bring him in, most likely the eye will need to be removed. I have no idea how much that will cost. I don’t think it’ll be as much as an amputation, of course; those both cost in the $1300 range. Still, it is a surgery, and that’s always expensive.

Damn.

Today, I got a call from the tax preparer. They just had one question for me, and then our files were done. I’ve already made the drive over to pay the bill, brought my husband’s form home for signing, and got it back right away. I didn’t even look to see what the final numbers were until I got home. Mine was exactly as I expected. I have no income, so I’m getting my caregiver tax credit, and that’s it. My husband qualifies for the disability tax credit, but his private disability and his CPP Disability combined bumps him into a different tax bracket. Without the disability tax credit, he’d be owing. Instead, he typically gets less than $20 back. That changed this year, though, and he’s actually getting more. Not much more, but enough to be helpful.

What isn’t helpful is that as of today, appropriately on April Fool’s Day, yet another Trudeau carbon tax has kicked in, which will make the cost of everything go up. I’ll let Quick Dick McDick explain it, as only he can. Language warning.

Not only is the idea that taxing “carbon” is somehow going to make the weather gooder laughable (keep in mind that we are carbon based life forms on a carbon based planet, so taxing “carbon” is taxing life itself – oh, and if you take into account Canada’s vast Boreal forests, we are actually CO2 negative), but we keep getting told that we will somehow get back more than we paid in.

Our Prime Dictator has openly admitted that he can’t do math, but you’d think even a trust fund baby born with a silver spoon in his mouth would know better. Which I’m sure he does, but the psychologist in my recognizes a narcissistic psychopath when I see one.

We’re told that we are supposed to be getting these quarterly rebates to make up for the new tax. My daughters get them, along with the GST rebate. Paltry sums, really, considering how expensive everything has become because of these taxes. My husband and I don’t get either. Apparently, he makes too much money on disability, which is insane. Since we’re a married couple filing our tax returns together, that means neither of us get any federal rebates. Sometimes our province will throw out a bone, but even then, I get it but my husband doesn’t. No doubt there are plenty of other families in our position that will keep seeing our costs increase, but never see any of these “getting back more than you pay” rebates. Then the powers that be will and their propagandists blame the eeeeeevil capitalists and the Conservatives for everything, right on script.

For those of you who have been following Karlyn Borysenko, who has been deep diving into the “woke left” for years now, you know that this isn’t really a politically left or right thing, but the result of decades of neo-Marxism.

I don’t want to go too far into this sort of thing on my blog, though, but this is something that affects all of us directly. Even us, in our little corner in the boonies, and the choices we need to make, so I feel I have to talk about it at least a little bit.

Looking at just the past few years, on top of the carbon taxes, they’re also punishing the use of nitrogen (which makes up almost 80% of our atmosphere) to grow food, they’ve declared that home gardeners are actually causing more “climate change” damage than large scale agriculture, and cow farts are heating up the globe, so they’re trying to get rid of cows in favour of ultra processed “plant based meat”, even though they know this stuff is worse for both our health and the environment, and so on.

What it comes down to is that people like us – people who just want to be as self sufficient as possible, and produce as much of our own food as we can – are going to have a much harder time of it, unless there are massive changes in the next few years. Having homeschooled our daughters, we’re already used to autocrats either trying to make what we were doing illegal or, failing that, making it so they control what, when and how we did it. During our final homeschooling years, we came very close to losing so much in the province we lived in at the time, as the NDP and the teacher’s union tried to push legislation that would have literally controlled what parents could talk to their kids about at the dinner table. They tried twice, actually. They learned from the first time, so the second time, they framed it as a way to “fight hate” and “homophobia”. A remarkable number of homeschoolers fell right in line, and they succeeded in pitting homeschoolers against each other. I don’t think people realize just what a disaster it would have been, had the proposed legislation passed, it was so broad and ambiguous. It’s just another step to see the same thing being tried to control our ability to grow our own food and live self sufficiently. I mean, it’s already illegal for a lot of people to grow food in their yards or keep a few chickens in their back yard. Hell, the mayor of Toronto is pushing to tax rain, for crying out loud.

Of course, we’re already seeing the effect of this new tax, and it just kicked in today. When I was in town to see the tax preparer, I saw gas prices had gone up another 4 cents per litre. Honestly, I expected it to jump higher than that.

Meanwhile, the price of groceries is going to keep going up, tradespeople like plumbers and our septic guy are going to have to increase their prices again, and the value of our dollar is going to keep going down due to this artificially created inflation.

Which makes what we are trying to do here, just to feed ourselves, all the more important.

At least while growing and producing our own food is still legal.

The Re-Farmer

Costco shopping: this is what a total of $550 looks like

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Today has turned out to be a gorgeous day! We’re supposed to reach a high above freezing, though I don’t think we have. No matter. The “feels like” temperature is much warmer, and things are melting all over the place!

First, an update.

We are still having troubles with our plumbing. Every time we think we finally got the toilet clear, it doesn’t last. So we’re keeping the honeypot set up, for those in between times when we have to let it sit with the bio maintenance stuff – which still does a much better job than the typical drain cleaners. I don’t want to do that hot water thing if we don’t have to, since toilets are not made for hot water, so we’re just going to have to be patient until we can get the plumber in.

On a completely different topic, my husband had a phone appointment with his doctor to go over his medications. He has one painkiller comes in two forms – fast acting and slow release – and one of those is simply not available. The supplier has no idea when they’ll get more. It seems almost as if my husband is the only person on it, in the country! Or at least the province. So he’s going to be going off that, cold turkey (his choice), and they’ll try him with another painkiller that’s just one step below morphine, when he gets his next bubble pack refills. Hopefully, it will do the job. With his pain levels, that’s just no way to live. He also asked about switching from a CPAP to a BiPAP. His CPAP is getting old and, for some reason, he’s having trouble getting his replacement hoses, etc. Some issue with his prescription. The machine itself is overdue for replacement. BiPAPs, however, are covered in this province, and would be better than a CPAP, anyhow. To get a prescription for one of those, though, he’ll have to get another sleep test done. His new doctor is going to arrange that.

In other things, when I did the morning rounds, I found the cat with the messed up eye, all curled up in a cat bed under the heat lamp! I was happy to see him. Judging from how he’s moving around, he may not have full vision in either eye. Or he might be sick. Not in any obvious way, other than the slow movement. Hopefully, he’ll stay close to the safety of the sun room. In total, I counted 30 yard cats this morning, including Sad Face.

Once all the morning stuff was done, I was off to Costco. My first stop was actually a gas station along the way, as the tank was just below half, and I try to never let the tank go below half. I put in only $30, as the price is $1.409/L there. In the city, most places are $1.399/L When I filled at Costco, it was $1.339/L, and cost me $62.75 to fill the tank, so total for gas today was $92.75

Then there was the Costco total.

This is a total $550.91

And we’re going to need to do another shopping trip, because I didn’t get everything on my list! That will be after we get the plumbing problems fixed.

I remembered to have the cat supplies on a separate bill.

Since I got 6 bags of kibble a couple of days ago, I got only 4 of the 9kg bags today. I also got two cases of canned cat food, plus another box of puppy pads.

I just got distracted while writing this, by a ruckus. Susan is on the cat shelf at the window, frantically chasing her own tail.

She caught it, too. Repeatedly!

But I digress!

Cat supplies alone totaled $232.66 for this trip. The dry kibble is probably a couple of bags short to last us the month, but at least we’re set for a few weeks.

Then it was stuff for us.

We got the big Kirkland brand package of toilet paper, and I got two double flats of eggs – 10 dozen in total. We’ll be boiling some for Easter, to go with the ones that are pickling in the fridge right now, but mostly these are just for normal eating. I got 5 pounds of butter – they had salted butter in stock this time! – canned chicken, their big Kirkland brand jar of mayonnaise, frozen perogies, basmati rice, and salad mixes. The salad mixes come in two packs, and I got two of those in two varieties, because they’re about half the price as at regular grocery stores! I got a larger container of whole peppercorns, a block of Old cheddar cheese, cream cheese, a couple of 2 packs of rye bread, 4 packages of tortilla wraps and a large jug of laundry detergent. Oh, and two hot rotisserie chickens, one of which is for supper today.

And there we have it. Our second stock up shopping trip for April. Add in the gas, and the grand total for today was $643.66 A couple of days ago, we spent $623.68, plus $30 in gas. Between the two trips, it’s a total of $1297.34 in supplies and gas for April, and we still didn’t get everything we’ll need for stocking up. That doesn’t even count the fresh stuff we’ll be getting as we need them, locally throughout the month!

Ouch.

Thank God for my husband’s private health insurance! If he had only his CPP Disability, there’d be barely over $100 left for the rest of the month. If you’re fortunate enough to have a job with a good health plan, please make sure you’ve got the best possible option for disability coverage! Hopefully, you’d never need it, but things can change in a heartbeat.

Once again, I digress!

We are not getting a lot for our money, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, on April 1, the new carbon tax kicks in, so we can expect prices for everything to be quite a bit higher, by the time we do our next trip.

The only thing we have left that we need for our Easter basket is a special loaf of bread. I could have picked up some babka, which would be traditional, and they did have some. Huge ones in two packs. Too big and too much for our needs. So instead, I’ll be baking bread for the basket, tomorrow.

I’m quite looking forward to putting our basket together. It’s always been one of my favourite traditions. 😊

The Re-Farmer

This is what $624 combined looks like, plus an update

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$623.68 to be exact.

Ouch.

Today I did our first stock up shop in the city. While our temperature is a balmy -6C/21F, the windchill is brutal. My weather app says it feels like -22C/-8F, but at least a few times I was walking in it, it sure felt much colder!

The drive in was good, though. Swirling snow on the highway, but the wind wasn’t letting anything accumulate.

I decided not to do Costco today, in order to take advantage of some sales that end tomorrow. My first stop was at the international store, where I could first enjoy some dim sum for breakfast.

I didn’t feel like bagging at the truck with this wind, so I brought bags into the store with me, for a change.

I balanced the weight in the insulated bags poorly, though, so I shifted things around a bit. This is what I got.

For our Easter basket, I picked up a flat of eggs. We’ll get more at Costco, but I want to get some pickling right away. I also got a Polish sausage, a cheese ball, a jar of cheese stuffed olives and a small dinner ham for the basket. Oh, and the whole cloves, which are used as a decoration. We’re running low.

The frozen turkeys were on an excellent sale, so I grabbed two – and then got one of them for free with my loyalty points. The Honeycrisp apples were also an amazing sale, so I got two bags of those. They were $1.99 each instead of $6.99.

The Stash teas were also on sale, and I ended up getting 4 boxes of those altogether. We normally buy our toilet paper at Costco, and we still will get their big house brand package, but the house brand TP here was also on a good sale, so I got one for our stock up supply.

There’s some cleaning vinegar (10% acidity) and laundry detergent. Normally, I’d by detergent at Costco, but I don’t normally do the laundry and hadn’t realized we’d run out completely! I got some marble and Old Cheddar cheese as well, because the sales were good, but will likely get more at Costco. We use cheese a lot.

The Soy and Oat milks are for my lactose intolerant daughters, along with the coffee creamers, which does bother them, but they don’t use enough of it at a time for it to be much issue. I got a smoked ham for general eating, plus a slab of salmon for the girls that was on sale. There’s a slab of smoked bacon, the soy sauce brand my husband likes, and some bananas.

The grand total, after taxes, was $216.10, after just over $50 was taken off for the sales and deals.

My next stop was Walmart. I was really after just two things there. Cat food and supplements.

I did have a few extras that weren’t on my list. My “splurge” of the day was a small plastic shelf and 4″ plastic plant pots. I really didn’t want to use peat pots again and, with the larger seeds I want to be starting next, I went with these. I do have similar plastic plant pots that we found while cleaning up the basement, but they’re pretty old and the plastic is getting brittle, and the price was right on these. They had the giant bottles of shampoo and conditioner in stock, so I got one shampoo and two conditioners.

Then there was my supplements.

*sigh*

I got two boxes with 32 tins each of wet cat food, plus 6 bags of dry. The two more expensive kibble bags were about 9kg, and the others were 7.24 and 7.5kg in size. I also grabbed a couple of small bags of chocolate eggs for our Easter basket – our one non-traditional basket item is a bit of chocolate. I had run out of my supplements almost completely, so I got my magnesium, B12, Zinc and D3. D3 is the only one that was cheap! With the others, I did get the ones that were the best deal, so they should last me a while, but… ouch.

Those plant pots were a really good deal, and not even on sale. A package of 6 was $1.24, so I got four packages.

Aside from all that, I got a bottle of water for the road, for a grand total of $410.22 after taxes.

*sigh*

I’ll be doing our Costco shopping in a couple of days, and I want to make sure to tank up and get everything we can squeeze out of our budget, because on April 1st, our Prime Dictator’s new carbon tax is coming into effect, and the price of everything is going to go up. Another tax on top of a tax on top of a tax. Meanwhile, all our MPs are getting a raise on the same day! Because, of course. 🫤

On the way home, I made sure to hit a bank machine and take cash out, then stopped at the septic guy’s place to pay him for emptying out our tank yesterday. Including a tip. I will always tip the septic guy!

While driving on the highway, on the lookout for his driveway, a thought occurred to me. When I called him to do our tank and arrangements were made, he never asked for our address. He’s been here often enough to remember where we are!

When I got there, I met the lady of the house and had some questions. The guy was in their shop out back, so she called him and he came over to talk.

I told him that the septic pump it still not shutting itself off and asked what he could see while emptying the tank. The first thing he confirmed for me is that he saw nothing at all out of the ordinary. The float was not stuck.

Then he told me, it’s the pill starter. It has to be, because there’s nothing else it could be! I mentioned I’d talked to my brother about it, and that it had been changed relatively recently, but the septic guy said this is actually a pretty common problem. He was able to tell me that a new pill starter costs about $250. We won’t have a budget for that until I get my caregiver tax credit in, so for now, we’ll have to just turn it on manually every now and then. He told me that we shouldn’t need to turn it on for at least a week. That’s about how long it takes for both sides of the tank to fill. I’m glad he told me that, because I was concerned about running the pump dry, but I don’t really know how big the two sides of the tank are. Given our use of our plumbing system in general, I would still expect it to be filled faster than a week. He said to just take a look on Monday and see if both sides are full, then turn it on if it is. I won’t be doing that. Every time I look down into there, I’m afraid my glasses will fall off! And no, they are not loose or anything. I get that feeling every time I look down from a height. 😄

Then he mentioned that he could come out next week and replace it for us, before we’d need to turn the pump on again. I didn’t realize he did that sort of thing, too! I thought we’d have to call a plumber! Nope. Apparently, it’s a pretty easy thing for him to do. I suspect he wouldn’t be doing it the way my brother changed it out, before we moved out here, which was through the basement.

No matter. I would much rather get the septic guy to do it than call a plumber! I’m just really happy with this guy. He’s come out here when we’ve had septic problems several times now, and always been really fast about it. The last time we called to book the tank to be cleaned, my husband accidentally called a different company, and they wouldn’t have been able to come out for 2 weeks! They would have been a lot cheaper, but I’d rather pay extra for a guy that’ll come out when we actually need him. The cheaper rates are made possible because they arrange their schedules to do a whole lot of people in one area at a time, so there’s less driving around for them.

So that was done, and now we have more information to work with.

After I got home and everything was unloaded and put away, I assembled the small shelf I got. It’s for the cats. There’s a space in my room that currently has a stool over a circulation vent that has a cat bed on it. I want to replace that with the shelf, and set up four cat beds on it.

I found a problem as soon as took the straps off the package.

Along with the side pieces, there are foot pieces that each have a cap piece tucked into them.

There’s only three foot/cap pieces.

Without all the legs, I can’t put it over the circulation vent, so I ended up putting it on top of the foot stool that’s already there.

This must be pretty common, because it came with a sheet saying, “missing parts? or questions? DO NOT RETURN TO THE STORE to obtain replacement parts.” 😄 There’s a website to go to instead. This isn’t the first time this has happened. A few years back, after we finished clearing out the old basement, I got larger plastic shelves to use down there, to replace the wooden ones that were rotting from the floor getting wet every spring. I wrote to the company and got the missing parts very quickly. I’m pretty sure it’s the same brand.

Once we get the missing parts, we’ll set it up without the foot stool under it, and secure it to the wall more effectively. We’ll probably wrap the verticals with jute twine, too, for the cats to scratch at.

Meanwhile, I’ve got cat beds, caves and blankets on it now, and the cats have been exploring it. sometimes, even staying on it for a while.

They still prefer gathering into massive cuddle piles on my bed, though!

Which is fine. That’ll give me a chance to wash the cat beds and blankets, so they’ll be fresh and clean for tonight.

But first, I need to contact that shelf company about the missing leg/cap piece!

The Re-Farmer

Stock up shopping: This is what $355.15 looks like

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I am so glad to have the stock up shopping done, and to be home. While it’s still light out, too!

I took advantage of the gorgeous morning temperatures (-7C/19F at the time; we ended up hitting 3C/37F by the afternoon) and shoveled the last paths to the compost pile, outhouse and back door to the garage while doing my morning rounds. Then I headed out early to go to my mother’s, so I would have time to shovel away the plow ridge at the end of the driveway, plus have time to fill the tank before going to her place. I still ended up earlier than we talked about, so I called her from the gas station to make sure she was ready for me to show up.

She almost was! 😄

She really did not want to go out, and would rather have just given me her list, but she needed to go to the bank – the one thing I can’t do for her.

Because I was there so early, I mentioned that after I was done helping her, I still had time to go to the city. Of course, she immediately tried to guilt trip me, saying things like “can’t you at least give me one day?” Obviously forgetting that I normally do exactly that. She also seemed to completely forget that she was planning to go to Stations of the Cross in church this afternoon, so I wasn’t going to be able to stay long, anyhow. Then I got the spiel about how I go to the city sooooo often! So many trips to the city! Why do I need to go to the city so often? I told her, I go two days a month so I can save money by stocking up. It basically comes down to, she doesn’t need to go to the city to do her shopping, therefore no one else needs to go to the city to do her shopping, and she hasn’t gone to the city in 10 years!

Which isn’t true, of course. I went with her at least once for a medical appointment, and I know my brother took her for other appointments as well, just in the 6 years since we’ve moved here.

I reminded her that when she was still driving, she would spontaneously go exploring all over the place, and no one gave her a hard time, so why is she giving me a hard time now? I think that finally seemed to make sense to her, because she stopped after that.

So we did her errands, and she’s now well stocked up, including her prescription refills – that, at least, I can go in and get for her without her having to get out of the truck! By the time everything was put away, I think she was tired enough to be glad for me to go! 😄 She did really well, though. Considering how sick she said she was feeling yesterday, it was good to see.

As for my city shopping, I hadn’t really had breakfast yet (does a bag of beef jerky eaten while driving count? 😄), even though it was already past noon by the time I was back on the highway, so my first stop was at the international grocery store, where I got myself some dim sum before doing my shopping there.

This store was a smaller shop, but it’s things we don’t find at any of our other usual places we go to. This is what $148.36, after taxes, looks like.

I even remembered to take a picture of the receipt this time.

The Beaver Buzz is for myself and my older daughter, and this store is one of the few places that still carries it. Our local grocery store used to carry it, but stopped a year or two ago. 😔

There’s a gallon jug of soy beverage we don’t see anywhere else, plus some soy milk and oat milk for my lactose intolerant daughters. There is a half chunk of caciocavallo cheese my husband requested; no one else seems to carry that cheese, and he loves it as a treat (in spite of the fact that he is also lactose intolerant!). It’s quite expensive, though. The little flavoured goat cheeses are another thing we don’t find anywhere else, plus, they were on sale. My husband also asked for mustard, which is odd, since he doesn’t usually eat mustard. We rarely buy it, so I made sure to get a good one, choosing a more expensive, locally make, herb and white wine mustard. The applewood smokes slab of bacon is also locally made. The coho salmon was on sale; that’s another one for my daughters, but they’ll have to share the shrimp with me. 😁 Another purchase for my husband is a Filipino brand of soy sauce he likes. I even found some sushi seasoning for the girls that was out of stock, the last time I was here. Bananas were the only fruit fruit that I picked up because, even with the sales, everything else was really expensive. The coconut milk was a last moment thing, when I saw the display while waiting in line. My daughters like to use coconut milk in their cooking. I don’t. I was feeling dehydrated, so I got a couple of water bottles for the truck. They were only a dollar each, if bought in pairs. I also remembered to grab some septic tank treatment stuff. We’ve been out for a while, but I keep forgetting to get more.

Almost $150, and it split between one insulated and one non-insulated hard sided grocery bag, with the gallon jug on the side, with room to spare.

*sigh*

My next stop was the Walmart, and whether or not I would go to Canadian Tire depended on whether they were in stock of the stove pellets we use for litter.

I did not have to go to Canadian Tire. The only thing on my list that I couldn’t find was vermiculite, and I didn’t feel like going to Cdn Tire to look for it, when there was nothing else on my list that I needed to get there.

This is what $206.79, after taxes, looks like.

Yup. More cat food! I got four different flavours of kibble, to change things up for the cats. They were all the same price, but two were 7.5kg and two were 7.21kg

I remembered to get a picture of the receipt for this, too, though I forgot to have the cat food on a separate receipt.

With four more bags of kibble, plus another case of wet cat food, we should have enough for the month. With the warmer temperatures, the outside cats aren’t eating as much, so we should be going through less of that now. With the inside cats, we’re trying to increase how much wet cat food they get while reducing the amount of dry cat food. Mostly because of Leyendecker; wet cat food is cheaper than vet bills!

I only got one bag of pellets because, with the cat food, I didn’t have room for two.

I had a request for nacho fixings, and we already have plenty of cheese, so there’s nacho chips plus a big jar of olives in there. My daughters were running low on coffee, so there’s that, plus a couple of flavoured creamers. I grabbed a couple of boxes of cereal that were on sale; with non-dairy milk, the girls actually enjoy eating cereal and not getting sick. There’s a big case of facial tissues under the cart. My last moment spontaneous purchase was the strawberries. The display was near the line for the cashiers, and they were over half off, so I got one clamshell for each of us.

Thinking about the kibble prices, while shopping with my mother, I was stunned to see 11.6kg bags selling for $55.99 each – and that was on special!! Yeah, it’s most definitely worth it to make the trip to the city for kibble.

So that’s it; our second stop up shopping trip, for a grand total of $355.15.

I look forward to not having to do this again for another month!!

Ah, who am I kidding. I’m sure something is going to happen, and I’ll have to make another trip. 😄

Between yesterday and today, we spent $1313.33 in total – and that doesn’t include the cost of gas or meals while I was out.

Ouch.

One positive thing I can say right now is that I’m glad my husband’s disability payments come in monthly. It’s a lot easier to budget that way, and a lot easier to do these monthly stock up trips. His payments – both his private insurance and CPP Disability – do actually go up a little bit every year, but the cost of everything is going up so much more! We are very fortunate, in that my husband’s private insurance is as good as it is. We are making ends meet, even with the new monthly payments on the truck. We have much to be thankful for.

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up shop: this is what $960 looks like – sort of! And family dynamics… *sigh*

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I finally made it into the city today, for our first stock up shopping trip!

I am so, so tired.

But not because of the shopping. More on that, later!

Today was expected to be a much nicer day than yesterday, except for a quick system blowing through this morning – heavy in the “blowing” part! I was going to meet my SIL for a late lunch, so I didn’t start leaving until shortly before 11am – about an hour later than I originally planned. The wind was so wicked cold, it was painful just to unlock and open the gate! I’d brought along my down filled parka, just in case, and ended up wearing it over my light coat, and was still feeling that wind!

By the time I reached the city, though, things had cleared up quite a bit. I got to the restaurant I was going to meet my SIL at about half an hour early, which turned out to be a good thing. There was a message from my husband waiting for me. My mother had phoned, and wanted me to call her back. I had time then, so I called her from the waiting area in the restaurant.

When I asked her how she was, she launched into how she was feeling soooo terrible, and was wondering if she needed to go to the hospital…

I know my mother well enough by now to recognize the tone. She was wanting attention.

I told her I was calling from the city, and she started back tracking immediately, saying she’d been in bed all morning, and was feeling well enough to get up and make herself some food. After talking about her symptoms, I suggested she call the public health nurse and they could better say if she should call an ambulance or not (I knew they wouldn’t, based on what my mother was telling me). Then she told me that the exterminators were supposed to show up today. I only knew about that already, because my sister told me yesterday! My mother didn’t say a thing about it to me, even after telling me about the last time they came by, and how they checked but didn’t spray. Since she wasn’t feeling well, though, she hadn’t done anything to prepare for them.

Anyhow; she told me she would call the public health nurse after she had something to eat, and I asked her to call us at the farm number and let us know how things went, even if it was just to say something on the answering machine.

Then I got a table, and my SIL came soon after, and we had a fantastic visit. Of course, we talked about my mother’s situation. Unfortunately, she has done this to my brother several times, calling for him to take her to the hospital, only for her to actually turn out to be fine – except for the one time she got food poisoning. She still insisted my brother and his wife drive the 1 1/2 hours out to her place, then drive her another 20 minutes to the emergency room, where she was told she should have called 911! She doesn’t want 911. She wants us to take her to the emergency, and spend the hours with her in the waiting room while she complains about how terrible the staff is because it’s taking so long, or makes nasty comments about the other people in the waiting area, etc.

Since we’ve moved out here, at least I’m handier to be able to take her, but she still manages to get my brother to do it every now and then, too.

My SIL was totally understanding about what was really going on with my mother. They’ve been through this a lot more often then I have!

Anyhow.

Oh, I just have to share something. When we meet up, it’s been almost always at this Smitty’s location, and there’s a waitress there that even recognizes us by now. Which is impressive, considering we’ve been here once very month or three!

Since I have given up sugar and simple carbs for Lent, I ordered a meat lovers breakfast skillet, and said to skip the toast and skip the hashbrowns, because I wasn’t doing sugars or starches. She started asking what I might want to replace them with, and I told her I was basically doing carnivore, so she was… so, no fruit, then… I did say yes to mushrooms, though.

When the food arrived, she actually sat down next to my SIL to face me to tell me about what I got! The kitchen staff “felt sorry” for me, so they added extra bacon and ham and sausage to my dish! Then she realized the mushrooms were forgotten, which I said I was okay with, but when my SIL asked for a side of Hollandaise for hers, she brought me a bowl of mushrooms! She was just fantastic, and it was so sweet of the kitchen staff to add extra meat to my meal!

After we had our most excellent food and a fantastic visit, it was off to Costco to do my shopping.

First stop was to fill the tank. Costco regular gas was 123.9 cents/litre. When I drove through my mother’s town, regular gas was 134.9/L, while all the stations I saw in the city were 133.9. Well worth it to wait to fill the tank at Costco! A half tank cost me about $50

Here is my Costco shop.

When I going through the cash desk, I had all sorts of people asking if I needed help loading my vehicle, and one of the supervisors even came over to ask if I had an Executive memberhip.

Which I do, and I’m glad she asked, because I had a rebate check I’d forgotten about! I also needed to renew our membership. I’d already paid for the cat food, so it was applied to the rest of our purchases.

With cat food, I got eight of the 9kg Kirkland brand kibble; the name brand has gone up in price, but the Kirkland is still $26.99 so far. I also got 2 cases of canned cat food, at $38.99 each. The grand total for the cat food was $329.17, after taxes.

Then there was the rest of the stuff.

The “bottom of the basket” stuff included a huge Kirkland package of paper towels; with cleaning up after the cats, I finally broke down and got a Costco size package, instead of a smaller one at Walmart or something! I also got a big Kirkland brand package of toilet paper, clear “leaf” bags that we use for our recycling and burn barrel garbage, a big bucket of ghee, dish detergent, four 2 packs of flour tortillas, three rotisserie chickens, a double flat of eggs (60 eggs), a flat of Coke Zero, a sack of basmati rice, and a 9pack of mixed pasta.

Along with that, in the order they’re on my reciept, I got two big jars of mayo, a large container of popping corn, a double package of parchment paper, a large jug of olive oil, a 2 pk of lemon juice, a 6 pack of canned chicken, coconut oil, peanut butter, a package each of AA and AAA batteries, more of that amazing parmesan, black garlic and truffle seasoning powder, a panini pack of sliced meats (three types), two 2 pks of Asian Cashew salad mixes, 1L of whipping cream, a package of smoke ham slices, a wheel or brie, a 2 pk of goat cheese, a 4 pack of cream cheese, a block of Old Cheddar, a block of Mozzarella, a 4pk of bacon, a package of pork breakfast sausages, a package of 4 whole mackerel for my daughters (I’m not a fan of fish!) , two 2pks of rye bread, and a package of walnuts.

I also got 5 pounds of butter, but the cashier noticed they were unsalted, and he double checked if that was what I wanted. I hadn’t noticed, but I was going to just take the unsalted. He insisted that they could get me salted butter instead, so I agreed. So 5 pounds of salted butter was rung in, and a guy left to get them for me while I paid for the whole thing. Since I was waiting for the butter anyhow, I got the other guy to part my flat cart aside while I dashed to the bathroom before heading out.

The guy wasn’t back with the butter when I was done. In fact, it was quite a while before he returned – with 5 pounds of unsalted butter! It turned out the reason I didn’t grabbed the unsalted butter without realizing it was because there was no salted butter left in the fridge room! He’d gone looking for salted butter and did find a pallet of some, but it would require a forklift to get it. He was very apologetic and said they could get me the salted butter, but it would take a while.

I just laughed it off and said I’d take the unsalted butter!

Having worked at a grocery store before, I knew to ask if they needed to fix my receipt. The other guy had to double check with a supervisor, and yes, he did have to. He took me over to the supervisor’s cash desk, where he had to charge me for the unsalted butter, then refund me for the salted butter I’d already paid for.

I appreciate computer inventory systems, so I didn’t mind going through this at all.

As for the actual main purchase… The sub total came to $672.52. I then had the Executive Rebate, which took off $169.51, while my membership renewal cost $120. After taxes, my grand total was $629.01

That, together with the cat food, came to a total of $958.18

Ouch.

And I still need to go the rest of our stock up shopping, tomorrow!

Maybe.

I was much appreciating our longer days, as it was still light out when I got home, well past 5pm. After everything was unloaded, assembly line fashion, the girls put away the groceries while I fed the outside cats to get them away from the truck, so I could park it!

Once everything was settled, I called my mother to check up on her.

When I asked how she was feeling, she said much better – and what are you doing tomorrow?

…

I told her I’d planned to go to the city for my second shop, but if she needed groceries, I could help her with that, instead.

It turns out she’s apparently out of everything, and started listing all the things she was out of.

*sigh*

I keep asking my mother to get me to do her shopping before she runs out of stuff, but she says she likes to have things “fresh”, plus if she has food in the house, it’s “temptation” so she eats it.

…

Which is kinda what food is there for, but she has decided that eating is bad, because she’s fat.

*sigh*

Then she asked if I could come over early, because the church was doing Stations of the Cross tomorrow afternoon, which is just fine by me. That way, I can still go to the city and finish my own shopping. If she feels up to it, she wants to go out and go to the bank, as she skipped that last month entirely. That’s one thing I can’t do for her! If she’s not up to it, she’ll just give me her list and I’ll do her shopping for her.

That was the easy part of the conversation.

She was clearly feeling much better, because my goodness, she got herself wound up!

Long story short:

The exterminators showed up today to check/spray for bed bugs, but when he arrived and said she had to leave her apartment, she told him she had a cold (from how she described things, I think she’s got hay fever) and didn’t want to leave. So he never came in. She’d already tried to tell them not to come at all, because they steal things from her (she is convinced the exterminator stole a jar of change and her father’s old passports from deep among her papers – a year ago!). I tried to explain to her that they HAVE to come in. It’s a requirement.

That didn’t go over well.

I ended up having to cut that conversation off and bring it back to my coming over tomorrow. Then I mentioned I needed to do a few things, then have supper, as a wind down to the conversation, to which she told me to have a good evening, and don’t eat too much. Because I need to lose weight. Which she managed to repeat several times, and I called her out on it, before I finally ended the conversation because she was winding herself up again.

For someone who was ready to go to the hospital this morning, she sure bounced back to her usual self quickly… 🫤

*sigh*

That phone call with her was more exhausting than the entire shopping trip, and I find shopping incredibly draining.

Tomorrow could get very interesting. Hopefully, my mother will be on better behaviour, but there’s just no way of knowing, from one day to the next! Or even one minute to the next.

Ah, well. Such is life! Tomorrow will bring what it brings. Until then, I’m not going to worry about it!

The Re-Farmer

First stock up shopping: This is what $ouch$ looks like, plus I have a computer again!

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Last night, the fog rolled in. It was weird to see it rolling in on the garage cam live feed. The road and field beyond the gate was glowing! Really amazing to see.

It was still quite heavy this morning. The trees were covered in hoarfrost and looking gorgeous. Even Driver’s long black fur had hoarfrost on it!

I was 99% sure that my husband’s CPP Disability would come in today. It would normally come in on the third last business day of the month, but if that falls on a Monday, the funds get deposited on Saturday, which is what happened today. His private insurance disability payments, which comes in on the last business day of the month, also gets deposited on the Saturday, if that last business day falls on a Monday. It wasn’t always like this, but I’m not entirely sure when it changed!

No complaints, though. It meant I could go into the city and do the first stock up shopping trip – and finally pick up my desktop computer from the repair shop!

Yes, I am finally typing this post out on my computer, using my ergonomic keyboard and my nice big monitor! 

This is soooo much better than using my phone!!!!

Getting my computer was not my first stop off the day, though.

I left pretty much as soon as I was done my morning rounds, so things were still quite densely foggy out. It got denser the closer I got to my mother’s town, where I stopped briefly at the gas station. Her town was so thickly covered in fog, it was hard to see the turn off to the gas station! I didn’t actually want to get gas, as the prices there have gone up to 123.9/L (122.9 in the city), and I was planning to fill the tank at Costco, but I had someone tailgating me in the fog, and I wanted to get him off my a$$!

For this trip, we decided not to do the Costco shopping, but the “little” shopping, and save the Costco trip for when main pay comes in next week. My first stop was at the international grocery store. There were a few things we wanted to get there that we don’t find anywhere else, plus I was planning to have breakfast there.

Sadly, I was a bit too early for dim sum or the Chinese buffet. There was none set up, yet. The self serve chicken wing and pierogi bars were open, though, so I picked up some hot food there. I was just going to get a variety of wings at first, but all but one type were spicy hot, which I can’t tolerate😭so I got some pierogi and sausage.

It was disappointing. None of it was out there long enough to be fully hot, yet. It was just barely warm.

Note for future reference. Don’t leave home before 9am, if I plan to get breakfast at the international grocery store!

With a variety of these buffet items, sold by weight, plus a drink, my breakfast cost about $15. Not too bad. Dim sum would have cost more, but would have been worth it!

It turned out to be a good day to shop in this store, as they had some really good sales on, so I got more of what was on my list than what was specifically for this store.

I realized I forgot to take a picture of my cart only after I left for the computer store, so… this is what bagged up $187.37 looks like.

Normally, I would have picked up the paper products at Walmart or Superstore (I ended up not going to Superstore), but the toilet paper, paper towels and facial tissue were all on sale. I’ll still get more TP at Costco, but extra toilet paper is never a bad thing!

That gallon jug had been on the other side of the red bag, but I had to brake harder than usual as I drove to the computer shop, and it went flying to the front of the truck box! It’s a good thing I keep that garden cultivator tool in the stuck, as I had to use it to retrieve it! 

The gallon jug is a soy beverage my daughters requested. One of those items we don’t find anywhere else. In the hard sided bags, we have: avocados (bag of 4), bananas, 2 clamshell packages of blueberries, 3 Saskatoon and 3 Citrus Beaver Buzz, blocks of marble, Old cheddar, Extra Old and Old White cheddar (they were 50% off), two different flavours of coffee creamers, rice vinegar, seasoned rice vinegar, two different flavours of frozen dumplings, smoke bacon (slab, not sliced), Sockeye salmon fillets (package of 2 big fillets for $20, which is an unusually low price for salmon), frozen cooked prawns, Bergamot Earl Grey tea, powdered milk and dental floss picks.

All of which fit into those two bags and cost almost $200 – and that’s with almost $30 off for the various sales. *sigh*

Then it was time to get my computer.

The computer did not get repaired. He got it running again, but for the cost of replacing everything that needs to be replaced, it would be better to get a new machine. So I was charged for the diagnosis, not any repair. That was about $60. He was able to do a “premium” data save, which was almost $80, plus I got at 2T external hard drive to put the data on. That was just over $110. After taxes, the bill came to $280 and change.

Ouch.

I’ll get to how things are with the computer, later.

Costco is pretty much across the street, so gas at Costco was my next stop. I was at just over half a tank. Costco’s price was 114.9/L, and a fill cost me $56.89 Much better than if I’d filled anywhere else!

From there, I went to Walmart. This is what $264.90 looks like.

*sigh*

Those three bags of cat food are 10kg bags, and they cost $32.97 each. The canned cat food cost $28.77 each.

Besides food for the cats, I got a family pack of breakfast sausages and a family pack of pork chops. There’s 2 loaves of rye bread, a 2L of soy milk for the girls, a large jar of olives, 2 bottles of hydrogen peroxide for shocking the hot water tank, and a new toilet roll holder, because the cats knocked over and broke the one we had before. Plus a bottle of water for the drive home.

That’s 17 items for almost $260.

*sigh*

So the groceries cost $452.27 altogether, plus the computer, lunch and gas, which means I spent over $800 in total just today. I decided I didn’t want to go to the Superstore and spend more money! The rest of the stuff on my list can wait until the Costco trip.

And to think, by doing these stock up trips to the city, then buying mostly fresh stuff locally, we’re saving at least a couple hundred dollars a month. The big difference in cost is with the cat food. Those 10kg bags – if we can find bags that size in the first place – cost about $45 each locally. A 7kg bag will cost about $32 locally – and that’s going with the cheap brands (not too cheap, as the quality is so bad with those). 

We’re also going to be increasing the amount of wet cat food we’re giving the inside cats. The outside cats can supplement with hunting (no mouse problems here!), but the inside cats can’t. I think the ratio of dry:wet cat food is causing problems with some of the cats. Our vet budget is going to spays and neuters right now, so we can’t afford any sick cats! 

Speaking of which…

I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady. She has some donated items for us that will be passed on when we meet up on Feb. 10 for the cheap spay/neuter day. She has us booked for 5 cats. We have three inside cats to do, plus we should be able to grab the fluffy tortie from outside, plus one outside male. Hopefully, Shop Towel. The Cat Lady will be paying for two of them. She was talking to the lady who is donating the cat supplies, having just lost her cat of many years, that will be passed on to us. After being told about how we’re taking care of so many cats, she donated enough funds to cover another spay! That was so sweet of her! 

Okay, back to the topic at hand!

Once at home with the shopping and everything was brought in, we let the computer warm up to room temperature before turning it on. 

The first time, it wouldn’t boot. I had to do a hard shut down and tried again. After letting it spin for almost half an hour, I had to do another hard shut down. After talking to my husband about it, he asked if I’d tried his power cord, which he’d leant me to try before we took my tower into the stop. It turned out, that’s the one I was using. I found my original power cord and tried again.

This time, it actually booted up!

It took almost half an hour to finish booting up, but it did finally happen!

Everything is sooooo slow to open right now. At this point, I’m not sure I dare shut if off anymore, given the crunchy noises I was hearing from the hard drive the first time I tried turning it on. 

The main thing is that it’s running right now. I don’t know how much time I’ll get out of it before it finally dies, but hopefully not before we are able to set some funds aside and find a refurbished computer! Or maybe find somewhere with a payment plan. 

This machine is on borrowed time, but there are so many other things pulling at the budget – a much tighter budget, not just because of increased costs of everything, but because we have truck payments that have taken up pretty much all our unallocated funds. 

Thank God my husband’s private insurance was such a good plan. Who ever thinks they’d ever need to go on disability? We can still get by.

Okay, we’d be getting by a lot better if we weren’t buying so much cat food! But that’s a choice we’ve made, so nothing we can complain about. 

All right now. Time to finish this off and really put this computer to the test. I’ve got trail cam files to upload!

With me luck!

The Re-Farmer

Stocking up: this is what $181 looks like

/ Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

But first, the cuteness!

The cats just love this busted up bin with the garden netting in it.

When we first put the netting in it, we had a hard time stuffing it in enough to close the lid. The cats kept knocking it off the shelf, with both lid and bin, then used the netting as a bed. Now the netting is packed down so much, you’d never know it once filled the bin!

Also, I counted 37 cats outside this morning. Three times.

Which means that not only did the “missing” cats come back, but we seem to have gained another one. !!!

After the morning rounds were done, I was off to the city to do our second stock up shopping trip. This trip had three stops, all in the same general area, which is part of why we don’t do it at the same time as our Costco stock up trip. Another reason is because the Costco is in a different part of the city, and I just don’t want to drive around that much. I dislike shopping, and find it very draining, and one Costco trip on its own is as draining as the three stops I made today. Four, if you count getting gas.

My first stop was at Canadian Tire to get more hardwood pellets for the litters. That was just under $16, after taxes. We now have enough pellets to last us at least a couple of months.

My next stop was the international grocery store, where I finally had breakfast, at lunch time. I quite enjoy their dim sum. That, plus a drink, cost pennies over $20.

I completely forgot to get a picture of what I got there. I also can’t find the receipt; I think it’s still in the truck. 😄

It was a small trip. I hoped to get more fresh produce, but ended up just getting some bananas that will need to be eaten quickly, and mandarins. I did get an applewood maple smoked slab of bacon, which is one of the things we go to this store for. They also had a good sale on pork loin, but that was all I got for meat. Their sugar shelves in the baking aisle were empty, as they carry the Rogers brand of granulated sugar. There was cane sugar available in the international section, but it’s not granulated, and I’m not sure how it will do for baking. As I was still planning to hit the Walmart, I didn’t get any sugar here. I found some drinks, including the Beaver Buzz energy drinks we can no longer get locally – and they only had one flavour in stock. I got two boxes of Earl Grey Bergamot tea that was on sale, plus a spray bottle of cleaning vinegar of a type my daughters prefer. I even found a large block of Old Cheddar cheese for almost $25.

I can’t remember what else I got there right now, other than grabbing one of their food bank bags for the hamper. One bag includes pasta and pasta sauce, canned fruit, and a few other shelf stable items to make a complete meal for at least 2 people, with extras. The bag was only $9, which brought my total bill up to $108 and change.

My next stop was Walmart, and I did remember to put that receipt into my pocket.

I made a donation to the Children’s Hospital as well, so minus that, the final bill after taxes was $181.21

Yeah. This cost almost $200.

The food items:
It’s cheap turkey season, so I got a medium turkey for $24
The creamers were on sale at 2 for $9
The crackers were on sale at 3 for $7
Large jar of olives: $8.97
pecan halves: $7.00
walnut pieces: $5.00
Dark sugar: $1.97 They were, of course, out of the Rogers brand of sugar. With that shortage, they were also sold out of the Redpath white granulated sugar, but there was still some Redpath brown sugar left. We still have enough granulated sugar at home to last us, as long as we don’t do any serious baking, but we were almost out of brown sugar.
house brand popcorn, 2 bags at $2.47 each. I normally buy popcorn at Costco, but I never found it. Also, the popcorn we grew won’t pop, and I don’t know what we’ve done wrong!
vegetable bouillon cubes, 4 packs at $1.47 each
sour cream: $5.98
coffee: $9.97

The non-food items:
I got toilet paper for the pantry, as we currently don’t have extra. That was on sale for $13,97
Paper towel: $16.97
Facial tissues: $8.97
All purpose cleaner: $9.97
One “extra” item I got was a new cutting board, to replace one of our plastic ones that needs to be tossed. Because of how our counter is, I got one with a grippy bottom. It cost $11.47
Another “extra” item I got was examination gloves. We’ve finally worked our way through the boxes we brought with us in the move, plus the ones that were here that the homecare aids used before my dad went into the nursing home. My daughters like to use them when doing deep cleaning. Especially in the basement. One box of 100 gloves: $15.97

Then, for the road, I got an energy drink for $3.27, plus a water bottle for $1.47

Before heading for home, I remembered to fill the tank again. On the way out, I normally stop in the town my mother lives in for gas, but I skipped it this time. The price for regular was 150.9¢/L When I got to the city, I saw 143.9¢/L all over the place. Domo, however, has 5¢ off per L on Mondays and Thursdays. Today is Thursday, so I filled up at 138.9¢/L About a quarter tank still cost me $43.45.

With all three stops together, including donations, I spent almost $300 today. I had intended to check out the Fresh Co that’s along the same strip, but just didn’t have the spoons for it. I was okay for most of it, but after driving for over an hour, my feet, knees and hips stiffen up, so I’m limping for the first while until my joints are “greased”. By the end of it, it’s my lower back and hips that’s starting to go. Then it’s another hour + drive, leaving me with stiffened joints again when it’s time to unload the truck. At least then, I’ve got the girls to help me!

That’s basically it for our stock up shopping. We will do one more city shopping trip for my daughters, probably next week. They have their own list and budget. That can be a time for me to check out the Fresh Co, finally. Other than that, anything else we need, mostly fresh produce, will be purchased locally.

With December having so many stat holidays around weekends at the end of the month, my husband’s disability payments are always on different dates. Normally, he gets his main payment on the last business day of the month, and the CPP Disability on the third last business day of the month. In December, the CPP Disability comes in several days before Christmas, so that will likely be when I will do our first January stock up shopping trip, as well as anything we want to get special for Christmas dinner. The last few years, we relied on our stocking up supplies for January, as we often didn’t manage to get to the city at all until February or even March, either because of the weather and being snowed in, or both vehicles being too frozen. This year, between the mild winter we’re expecting and having the truck instead of the van, we should actually be able to do another stock up trip in January. I sure as heck don’t plan to go to the city to shop between Christmas and New Year’s, if I can avoid it!!

I would like to crawl into my cave and hibernate, now.

The Re-Farmer