Good deals

I managed to snag some savings on some things I needed to purchase yesterday. First up was cat food. I buy the 16lb bag size that is about $32. Amazon had it, but I also saw Chewy had it for the same price and since I also needed more chicken scratch and mealworms, I figured I'd be over the $49 Chewy free shipping threshold. I used to buy 50lb bags of scratch, but that was for 4 chickens and even that lasted a very long time, so I just got a small 8lb bag and a small bag of mealworms and it came to $49.68. Then I noticed a coupon code in their banner that said we've missed you, take $15 off a $49 order with code. I figured that would put me below free shipping, so I'd have to find something else to order, but pleasantly surprised, it did not. Then I saw that the cat food was offering a free 4 pack of wet cat food with the purchase, so I added that with the code to get it free. I got all this, after the cash back I will get, for $34.

I also need some more of the shampoo and conditioner I like. I usually get them from Vitacost but they also have a $49 shipping threshold, but Rakuten was offering 8% cash back and sometimes, depending on price, I also get dh's Zyflamend Prostate supplement from Vitacost. Then I noticed they were offering 15% off with a code that would apply to the shampoo and conditioner and a 20% off code on the supplement. It was a no brainer to order from here, then. When I can get dh's supplement at around $25/bottle (30 day supply) I am happy. Regular price is $30-$32 most places.

I had a good day getting the company checking account bank statement reconciled. Most times that is a bear to work on. It's like a 7 page bank statement and I'll spend half the day trying to find where I am off - which is typically that I missed some ACH withdrawals or one of the many deposits we get that are ACH. Most everyone pays us ACH nowadays. But, I got the reconciliation done in less than an hour. My boss is out part of this week - it was supposed to be for PTO/time off, but she's been sick with a high temperature. She said she will go to urgent care this morning, if she is not better.

Now, I'm back to nothing to read. The library e-books always seem to come at the same time. I've still got 3 on hold, but looks like those are weeks and weeks waits. And I haven't come up with any new titles to see if they are available or add to the hold list. What have you read lately, that was a good read? I can't ask dd, because she has been trying to get through all the Outlander books and if you've read those, you know how long each book is!

Short and expensive

February, while a short month, is also an expensive month. Car insurance and car tabs on 2 vehicles due. Ouch. DH also bought 2 of the drawer sliding mechanisms and that was almost $500. Those were supposed to be delivered yesterday, but got delayed due to adverse weather conditions. They should show up today, now. Plus, he ordered that dust collector shop vac thing. Then he finally "cashed in" on his Christmas gift LOL. I had given him a picture of some truck towing mirrors (not knowing which exact one's he'd want), for him to pick out and buy. Well, he finally did that, yesterday. It ended up being cheaper than I figured, because neither he, nor our SIL, could find OEM mirrors. He had to settle for after-market and they were way cheaper.

And here's something interesting - dh said he found them for $164 on Amazon and sent me the link. I open the link and it says $179. I say I thought you said they are $164? He sends me a screen shot from his computer and it says $164. On my computer I was logged into the Prime account I share w/DD. When I logged out of that and opened my regular Amazon it then showed the lower $164 price! What a rip-off! I will be watching for that from now on!

The big snow predicted Monday did not come. It even warmed up enough that it was a bit of rainy snow, what we did get. It looks like next week our highs are supposed to get up into the mid 40's. 

I love how they are saying the SSA is ripe with ineligible payments going out, yet they can't (won't?) seem to figure out paying an actual legitimate payment. Government and bureaucracy at it's finest.  

We found out why neighbor dogs have been barking so much lately - Mrs is out of town visiting their son and family. Oh well - better than them here, LOL. I think Mr mentioned to dh awhile back that since they were here over Thanksgiving, they won't be coming next summer (fingers crossed!)

I cannot get comfortable temperature wise in my office this morning. At 69 I'm getting too warm. I turn it down to 68 (I can do this from my phone) and then I'm cold. It's getting annoying.

My boss is out sick. One of the salespeople needs his expense report approved, so he can get his money (he sent me a Teams message), so I guess I'll get logged in to work a few minutes early and get that taken care of, first thing.

Let's begin the week :)

Happy Monday. I'm going to start out with a positive attitude about Monday anyway, LOL. No holiday from work for me. We don't get this day off.

Dh got both planter boxes finished. He had just enough of that black sealant goop to coat the insides. I guess this means I'll need more flowers this spring ;) I wish I could just order flats of annuals to be delivered haha. Or maybe I'll try a few veggies in them? Are they too small for that? I'd like to try tomatoes again.

So, he's managed to get rid of extra lumber taking up space in his shop and got to dispose of 3 cans of stain and sealant out. We used up one of the cans of stain (just quart sized) and he used up the sealant stuff. He thought he had 2 cans of the sealant, but the other can was some REALLY old white stuff he had used like 15 or more years ago to seal the top of a car trailer. When he opened it and realized what it was - of course it was no good, so he will dispose. 

While he was out plowing yesterday, I vacuumed the upstairs. Watered my 2 plants. I'm amazed they are still alive. Collected my one egg from the chicken. She's on a schedule, 2 days on, 1 day off. It's working out great for both of us, LOL.

For dinner we used the leftover meatloaf for meatloaf sandwiches and also had a salad. It's nice to be able to use leftovers once in awhile. DH is not much of a leftovers type of person. Usually, if I use up leftovers it's as a lunch for me, or a dinner for me and I'll make him a burger for dinner. I'm hoping once I'm retired, I'll be able to have more time to plan out more meals and utilize leftovers more.  

I see we got a little more snow last night and today is supposed to snow off and on. It's lightly snowing now. We really are getting closer to spring, haha. I remember when we first came over here to look at houses (we weren't planning to buy land/build) and we decided to take a look at this property. It was the 3rd week of February and not a bit of snow on the ground. Also hard to believe that was 9 years ago! Dang!

Snow plow Sunday

Sometime between when I went to bed and came to bed, it started dumping snow. I'm not sure how much is out there, but it's still coming snowing a little. DH will definitely get to keep busy doing some plowing and shoveling today. This "snow advisory" says until Tuesday morning. I'm so glad we went and got our groceries last week, while the roads were bare and dry.

Guess what I did yesterday - if you guessed more wood staining, you'd be right. LOL. DH wanted to use up the last of the boards cut from our trees and he had enough to make 2 more big planter boxes for the patio. He cut the boards up on Friday and I stained yesterday. Boy, we had a hard time figuring out which stain we used on the first 2 (several years ago). We have several different colors of stain, leftovers from projects. Our back patio beams are stained in cedar, but different type of wood and they are a bit more orange toned than the 2 planter boxes. The wood used on the chicken coop is this same wood as the planters and that wasn't quite the same. We had some "red oak", "red chestnut" and "early american", so dh took one of the cut off scraps of this same wood and tried all 3 stains and we took it out the the existing planter boxes to see which matched the closest. None were exact but the "red chestnut" seemed to be the closest. Then after staining and dh put the boxes together, they look way more brown, then the other planter boxes, which do have a bit of orange tone in them. Oh well, not a huge deal, but left us wondering what the heck. Those top pieces are live edge pieces and will be put on the perimeter of the tops. He was trying to find scrap to use for the bottom, rather than spending $100 on a piece of treated plywood that he only needs not even half of (though I think he's wrong on the price, looks like it would be about $60 now). I think he found something to use out in his stuff. Then he coats the inside with this black sealant stuff.

These things are heavy - he's going to have to wait until the snow is off the ground to cart them to the back patio. Also, as soon as weather permits, he is just going to burn what scraps he has left, to get them out of the way. There's nothing he can think of to use them for and we have plenty of firewood, if we want to have a campfire.

Last night I made a meatloaf for dinner. I haven't made one of those in ages. Used to be in our regular dinner meal rotation - going back to when I was a kid, LOL. It was good, and something different for a change. And I do like cold meatloaf sandwiches, with the leftovers. I was thinking about the meals I still make (exact same recipe), that I carried on from my mom making them, and the 2 I can think of are meatloaf and tuna casserole. Do you have meals/recipes you still make, that you had as a child?

Well, that's a bummer - I had received my Costco rewards for the year (just $30) and thought I could use it to do an online purchase, but I guess it's only in-store. So, now we have to stop in there again. But, it does sound like the rewards check is good until Dec 31st, so I could just hang on to it and use it next November, when I get the wreaths for next Christmas. I'm not renewing our membership (expires at the end of March) we won't be just stopping in there, anymore, after that. Maybe next trip in, we can just stop in and use it towards getting dh stocked up on some cases of Mountain Dew.

 

 

The pantry is restocked

TGIF. How about you? Glad it's Friday? I'm super glad we went and got our groceries yesterday afternoon. Now I have my weekend free. Plus it's supposed to snow some over the next few days. But, for some reason, taking off a bit early from work yesterday made it seem like it should've been Friday, haha. Now I still have today to work :/

It was about 10 degrees colder in the city and only 10 degrees out. I had on a hat and gloves while loading the cold food into our coolers (dh gets all the dry stuff put in the truck and organized) and I should have thought to wear some long underwear. Even though I was only out about 5 min it was cold! The 2 guys who brought out our order were super nice. But, it's just way easier to just have them hand over the bags, rather then let them try to load it. We have a system. We have 2 coolers at the tailgate of the pickup (with a canopy) and I have them set the bins of cold next to me and I load. Our pickup has a large backseat area where dh has the seat folded down and some collapsible bins he has set up to put the bags in and also get big items placed like cases of water and soda and ensure none of the bread gets smashed. LOL. 

First stop was at our HVAC's little office/warehouse to pick up furnace filters. There's 5 in a case and I think dh replaces them every quarter, so we shouldn't need more for 15 months. They are not cheap filters and dh could probably change them a little less often, but whatever. He's got his quarterly and semi annual system of house maintenance and that's how he wants it.

After our grocery pick up dh wanted to stop at Harbor Freight to see if they had the dust collector shp vac thing he wants. According to online you had to order it in store and then pick up when it comes. Well, they had some of those little tickets (for big items that are in back) that you take up to the register, so we thought oh, they must have some in stock (there were like 3 tickets left). Apparently we got the new guy, who didn't know anything, he rang it up and called in back for someone to bring one out. Well turns out the ones they had in back were all pre-ordered for pickup. So, another employee had to figure out what the deal was and ended up having to void the sale and re-ring it up as a "pre-sale", they will order it and call us when it's ready for pick up - like in a month. At least we did have a $50 gift card, that dh got for Christmas, to put towards the purchase.

It was dinner time after that so we stopped at Wendy's drive thru. That was a disappointment - it's usually really good and their buns are always so fresh. But, not this time, for some reason. We got home around 5:20, so not bad - a 2 1/4 hour trip with 4 stops ;)

OMG - Amos is being extremely annoying this morning. Keeps meowing. I keep trying to distract him by playing with him, giving him a new catnip mouse, letting him outside (but of course he doesn't want to stay out, it's too cold). He's been fed. He's had treats. Usually by now he's ready for a morning nap. 

It's payday, so at least today also has that going for it. I got a couple bills paid, that aren't on auto pay, so that's all done, first thing this morning. And it's now snowing.  Finally, I think Amos went to take a nap. Nope...I see him sitting right outside my office door - like he's waiting for me to try to come out and attack me! LOL.

Yesterday I had to try out a AI headshot generator program, for work. They are looking to add professional looking photos of employees to our company website, so my boss wanted me to try it (after one of the other owner/managers tried it, and hers looked really good).  It was kind of scary LOL. I had to upload 10 pics (ugh) and then wait about 90 minutes for the 40 headshots to generate. They looked ok (I mean, who much likes pictures of themselves) but the weird ones were the ones that made my hair shorter. And the funny part is the one that turned out to be my favorite has me in a turtleneck and in real life you'd never find me in one - I can't stand anything touching the front of my neck LOL. It will also be kind of odd having everyone looking all "business like" haha - as we are a very casual company, dress code wise. It's mostly a jeans and tshirts kind of place.

Savings here and there

I did a check this morning, while I still had a couple of hours to make additions/changes to my Walmart pickup order and now they do have some eggs available, so I added a dozen. We'll see if I get them.

DH sent me the link the other day to order the drawer slides (3 sets) he wants and said it would be free shipping. When I got them in the cart, shipping was going to be $92! I couldn't see anything on their website that said free shipping, so I asked him and he showed me a screenshot where he had searched for it in google and within the link's description on google it said free shipping. Hmm. I also, of course, searched for any coupon codes (because they had a spot for that in the cart) but only saw sign up for their newsletter and sometimes offers. I did that, but no instant email. I closed out of the cart and was going to wait a day or two and see if they sent any newsletter email. Within an hour or so I did get an email - saying "you left something in your cart - if you have any questions let us know", so I replied to the email asking if they offered free shipping.

I got a reply back that yes, over $150 is free shipping if you set up an account with them (free) and he gave me the link to set it up. They had to finish setting it up on their end, and I got an email this morning that was done. I was then able to sign in, order his stuff, and now it was free shipping. I'm so glad I waited and didn't just spend the $92 in shipping!

A few months ago, when I switched from Carnation instant breakfast to protein powder, I tried a few different brands, in chocolate, my usual flavor. Premier was good, but pricey. I tried Walmart brand and it was ok. Then I decided to try vanilla and that was Target brand and I really liked that. I also got vanilla in Walmart brand and it was yuck. So, I have almost a full container of that. I started using some of it in dh's smoothies, but then he decided to not have them for awhile (of course....). Yesterday I was down to the last bit in my first container of vanilla from Target (I had purchased 2) and there's wasn't quite enough for a full scoop, only about 2/3rds left. I decided to just add some of the Walmart vanilla to make up the remaining 1/3 scoop. For some reason the combo of the 2 is even better! So, that's what I will do to use up the Walmart canister and make the Target brand canister last longer.

While in the city this afternoon, we're also going to swing by our HVAC place and pick up some more furnace filters. DH used the last of the case we bought. We could probably get them a bit cheaper online, but dh likes to give them the business and whenever we have needed to contact them about anything, they are always very quick to respond or get out here to check on something, if needed.

Still no eggs?

I'm getting a Walmart order placed online, for pickup tomorrow afternoon. Do you really think they are still completely out of eggs? (same 3 weeks ago). If I went inside the store, would I find eggs? I can't believe they have none, still, while I can go into the grocery store down the street and they have plenty of eggs.....I just don't want to take the time to walk into the store and get back to where the eggs are in back and find there really are none. But, it sure would be nice to not have to stop at the other grocery store. Maybe I'll call and ask. I might be able to get by now without purchasing any this trip. I currently have 25 eggs - No, make that 26. I just went out to check on my chicken and give her some bread and there was an egg in the nest box. I need about 30-34 for a 3 week period and my hen is now giving me about 4 per week (if she keeps at it).

Negative 12 degrees when I got up this morning. BRRR! A couple more days of this and then it's supposed to warm up a bit. When I just went out to the hen house, it's now positive 12 degrees, so 24 degrees warmer LOL. These are the days he's glad we now have a little heat in our garage.

DH is keeping busy with little projects. Well, I don't think the drawers he wants to build for underneath his big work table is really a little project, but he's in the planning stages of that one. Another project is fixing/replacing the lighting up above our kitchen cabinets. It's all gone out. Kind of surprising, since it's LED and I would have thought would have lasted longer than 5 year (part of it went out a year ago). I've got the stuff ordered to fix it, now. He also has enough of the scrap pieces left from our trees cut down and it just going to use that up to build 2 more big planter boxes for the back patio. 

Also, now that he has his big wood/saw table where it's going to stay, in the shop, and is working out good, he also wants to buy some vacuum thing that collects the dust from sawing. Apparently that's going to be a Harbor Freight purchase.

I seem to have slowed way down on needing anything (ie decor-wise) for the house now, so that's good. I have a few areas I'd still like to add something/finish, but not much. I want more books for the bookcases upstairs. When we finished the hallway "library" area, I moved an old cedar hope chest into the loft sitting area. It needs some "stuff" on it. During Christmas I had moved the stuff on area under the windows to sit on the chest, while the Christmas village was there and it looked good having some stuff on it. I think when we go on our little weekend trip with DD/SIL in May, while dd and I are antique/gift store browsing, I'll see if I can find a few things to put on there.

Well, the day is more than half over and I've been working on this post long enough LOL.