Snow

 And just like that - a winter wonderland is here! (this is looking out my side dining room window)

There was maybe an inch on the ground when we left to go to the city. It had started coming down pretty good when we returned and then was just dumping snow for the next several hours. DH got lots of plowing in, so that made him happy and was good to get him a bit of exercise shoveling, as well.

Friday at 1pm and Costco was a zoo, as always. I have yet to go there when it is not filled with people. After this little trip we both decided we really do hate shopping at Costco! LOL. It wasn't quite as crowded as other times (by view of the parking lot) but still lots of people and it seemed nobody could move their carts - they were just either stopped or barely moving. When my membership comes up for renewal in a few months, I will think about if I want to renew. I do want those beautiful and well priced Christmas wreath's next year, but I think I will do a work around to get them. Next year dd and sil will be coming for Thanksgiving and maybe I can get them to get the wreaths from their Costco before they come. Or I will have her purchase me a Costco gift card and from what I understand you can use those in-store and not need a membership card. Before my membership expires this year, I will try to get us in there for one last "big" shopping trip and we can try to really stock up on anything we might want there and that should last us quite awhile.

I had also gotten the Gold membership and so far we have not spent enough to make that worthwhile either. Though the lady at the membership desk did say that even if I don't earn $65 in rewards, to pay for the added cost of the Gold membership, Costco will pay me the $65, but it sounds like, reading the fine print, that I'd have to downgrade to the regular membership. I'm not going to worry about it or go to the trouble of doing that, if that's what's required. As it stands right now my 2% reward is about $31 and only that much because we spent a lot of glasses and sunglasses. It also sounds like they will be issuing me the annual rewards certificate a couple of months before my membership expires, which I just checked and it expires on 3/31, so at least I can get it used one last time, before the membership expires. I did just look at my account online, because I thought I might have been on auto renewal, and I was, so I canceled that.

I got into the bank, in and out quickly to get some cash out and then we went to Walmart. It was snowing then so my job - to stand at the back of the pickup and put the cold stuff in the coolers and bags, I was getting snowed on. DH was loading at the side of the truck, into the back seat area, so he was staying dry, haha. We did decide to treat ourselves to Wendy's on the way home. DH only ordered a single burger instead of his usual double, so good for him for cutting down a bit. Plus it saved like $3 or $4 from what the usual total is. 

I've been tracking what I've been spending on groceries since October. I used to budget $600 a month for groceries (this includes paper, cleaning, and personal care since I get most of that with my Walmart order). It appears, thanks to inflation, I'm going to have to bump that monthly budget amount up by about $100 a month. That's almost a 17% increase. Boo! I've also just done the math and just realized the packages of frozen hamburger patties from Costco, while large in package size, are not saving me any money. They work out to $1.39 per patty and I can get the ones I like from Albertson's for $1.20 per patty.

While dh was outside plowing, I got started watching the first show, Shrinking, on AppleTV+. I watched it the rest of the evening, getting about halfway through the new season. I should finish that up today. 

Since we had both eaten some lunch around 11:30, before we left to go pick up groceries, and then the burger and chicken sandwich (me) around 2pm, we didn't do much for dinner, so it was nice not to have to make anything. DH just had a sandwich and then later in the evening had the last of the 2 frozen taquitos we had left in the freezer.

Our power went out sometime during the night. I had woken up a bit before it came back on at 6am and realized it was out. The snow is very wet and heavy, so I'm not surprised it went out. 

It kind of feels like a Sunday today. Being off 2 weeks from work it gets easy to lose track of what day of the week it is. No more snow is predicted, which is probably a good thing. DH needs to work his way back into shape to shovel ;)