This Week on the Dining Table

The "The End of Smoking Season" Edition................

Generally I have to do any meat smoking before the cold weather sets in because my little smoker can't maintain temperatures in the wind and cold.  An unplanned smoking session took place on Sunday as the weather hit 50F and I found some unexpected pork meat deals on Friday(see below)..........so this did happened.

Moving On....

Onward to the meal planning!

This is what was planned--

1. Sunday--Rigatoni w/Sausage in Sauce
2. Monday--Pecan Chicken, Roasted Carrots and Taters

3. Tuesday--?(We are working the polls until 8+pm)

4. Wednesday--Chicken Parm w/Spaghetti, Salad

5. Thursday--Haluski(Cabbage, Noodles, Onions and Bacon)

6. Friday--No clue yet(maybe soup or chowder and cornbread as it's going to be frigid)
7. Saturday--No clue yet

And this is what actually happened--

1. Sunday--Rigatoni w/Sausage in Sauce
2. Monday--Pecan Chicken, Roasted Carrots and Taters

3. Tuesday--A Salad from McDonald's while working the polls

4. Wednesday--Apple Sausage, Sauteed Cabbage w/Onions

5. Thursday--Breakfast for Dinner(Pancakes, Bacon)

6. Friday--Fried Chicken, Au Gratin Taters, Sugar Snap Peas
7. Saturday--Chinese Take-Out

Last week saw 5 nights of home cooked dinners,  0 nights of leftovers/ffy, and 2 nights of Eating Out/Take-Out.

What got put into the freezer last week.....

*  1 London Broil
*  Most of the Ground Beef
* 1.5 lb. Pork Tenderloin
*  2 large bags Mini Cheese Raviolis

What got taken out of the freezer and used.....
* 1 pack Italian Sausage
* 1 pack Apple Sausage
* 1 bag Sugar Snap

Two trips to Weis brought the current weekly spending to $72.92 and my November spending on food to $191.97 for this month.  I didn't plan on spending so much this past week but........I found discount sticker meats(chicken quarters and a pork tenderloin), London Broils were BOGOF(plus I had a $1.50/1 WeisQ), Ground Beef was $1.99 lb.(never that low here)and there were two Pork Butts with $3 off stickers on them.  $44.11 of that $72.92 spent was just meat. (Total should have been $70.32 but 2 items didn't ring up 50% off on clearance and I had to get a cash refund for that which went into my refund envie).
28.5 lbs. of meat for $44.11 ain't bad though.

My savings percentage last week was 41.63%(without Rite-Aid trips)and November's monthly savings total comes in at 38.98%(w/out R-A).

I have 19 more food shopping/spending days in November.

Leftovers going into this week......Fried Chicken, Sugar Snap Peas, Au Gratin Taters, Apple Sausage, Cabbage, Pasta Sauce w/Sausage/Beef but no Pasta for it.
None of the leftovers are enough for a full meal item so Hubs will most likely eat all this for lunches.

Here is this week's "food plan".....

1. Sunday--Fend For Yourself
2. Monday--BBQ on rolls, Cole Slaw

3. Tuesday--Beef Pie

4. Wednesday--Salmon, Asparagus, Rice

5. Thursday--Teriyaki Beef Stir-Fry

6. Friday--Beef Stroganoff, Rice, Salad
7. Saturday--Leftovers

As always this menu is subject to change or rearranging depending on what leftovers get eaten or not and what I am feeling like cooking(or not). lolz

What needs buying for this menu?  Salmon, Asparagus, Rolls, Snow Peas, Mushrooms.  Will hit the grocery store/produce market later today for these things.

What is getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Was last week's plan successful, did you go off plan or did you not even plan what was going to be eaten last week?

Any great deals on food at your stores this week? 

Sluggy  

The To-Do List.......October Update

Let's take a look at how the October To-Do List turned out.........

* Pay Bills  DONE  Always the top of the list, always my priority.

* Read 1,2 Books  PASS  I didn't get the 2nd book finished before October was over(and traveling got in the way of getting #2 finished)so I get a Pass.

I read this book..........

"Letters to America" by Tom Blair

An interesting and highly readable book.  Mr. Blair has written a collection of stories about everyday Americans, from the 1600's immigrants to Virginia, to the 1990's which was the actual authors life story.(None of the other stories are of real people, but anonymous ictitious  people who lived through certain times and struggles in our country's history.)
Some of the stories didn't seem fully fleshed out (the young girl who worked in a sewing factory at the turn of the 20th century and the Jewish youth with an Uncle named Mordecai)and some just went on and on and on(you can tell that Mr. Blair is an aircraft/aeronautics and WWII fan).
Could have been better but the good parts were excellent and worth the read.


* Purge Inserts and Q Envie  DONE  If I don't do this one it makes like difficult as far as shopping goes so I do it monthly.

* Hold Giveaway  DONE

* Mail Giveaway  DONE  Mailed and received

* Make Tomato Sauce for Freezer  DONE  Well I made the sauce but I didn't freeze it.  We used it up in October.

* House Train Puppy  IN PROGRESS  Still working on this one.  A bit of a setback due to Dixie going into heat.  Not fun.

* List Items on eBay  DONE  I got about 5 more items listed and 3 items sold n October.  Nothing to write home about but I'll take it.

* Put Garden to Bed  DONE  Hubs did this mostly while I was in Ocean City.

* Work on Christmas Gifts  IN PROGRESS  I got Kim, her Sissie's, my brother and sister in-law's gifts wrapped and packed up.  Everything was delivered to the recipients in October.  I've got the rest of the folks I buy for to wrap up but that can wait until after Thanksgiving.

* Pack for Oct. Trip  DONE  I packed it all up and filled my car.

* Go on Oct. Trip  DONE  

Craziness in OC

And warehouse stores in VA

* Have FUN!  DONE  Fun was had and merriment ensued............
It was a good month.

Onward and upward to November!


Sluggy

Rite-Aid Hijinx This Week

Other than the Robitussin I bought on Wednesday I also bought this on Wellness Wednesday.........

There was a $3/1 WWQ that was specific to Gold Bond lotion-either the Diabetics or the Foot Scrub.
I paired $1.50/1 ManuQs with each bottle, so besides the 20% off for being Gold status I got $18 off with the stacked Qs, paying $10.94 in BC for all.

Gold Bond is part of a "Spend $30/Get $10 BC Winter Monthly Deal" too except we found out that the Foot Scrub does NOT qualify for that Offer after we rang it up.
So I am returning those 2 tubes later today.

The Diabetic variety does qualify for the deal plus qualifies toward the "Spend $50/Get $10 GC Beauty Deal" and I had a $1.50 Gold Bond Ibotta rebate in my account that I sent for(limit 2 per receipt so I got $3 cash back as well).
After the return I will be down $8.26 in BC(not counting the $3 at Ibotta)for the 2 bottles I kept.

After my BC I spent on the Foot Scrub gets put back on my account and the $1.50 Ibotta Gold Bond rebate reappears in my account there, I'll rebuy a different variety of Gold Bond that I have a ManQ for.
An update will follow once I finish off this deal.

On Friday I took the handful of Tresemme ManQs provided to me by "the kindness of strangers(like Blanche Du Bois, yes?)" and bought this..........

I tried to buy 4 in the first transaction but the $3/2 RA In-AdQ wouldn't let me use 2 of them in the same transaction.
The $2.50 wyb3 Tresemme Catalina Q shot out of the Catalina machine after she rang up the third bottle so even though the cashier cancelled the transaction she let me keep the Q. ;-)
Then we proceeded to ring up 2 bottles in a transaction and it went like this............


2 x Tresemme on sale=$10.00
I handed over 2 x $2.50/1 Tresemme ManQ and 1 x $3/2 Tresemme In-AdQ so $8 off, paying $2 in BC on the first transaction.
I couldn't use that $2.50 CatalinaQ because it was more than my total(and I didn't think to add something that was .50¢ to the transaction to use it. ugh).

After that transaction the $1.50 wyb2 Tresemme CatalinaQ spit out of the machine.

So used one of those for all the following 2 bottle transactions along with the ManuQs and the In-AdQ making each total 50¢ in BC(and earning another $1.50 CatalinaQ each time).
Only the CatalinaQ beeped because I forgot to hand that over before the other Qs and/or it had no product to attach to(4 Qs but only 2 items)and I didn't just buy a cheap filler item. But the cashier had a way to work around the beeping CatQ.

But a different cashier screwed something up on the third transaction(and then screwed it up again) and had to cancel and redo that transaction(twice)but $1.50 CatalinaQs still spit out both times she redid it and she handed them to me.  So I left the store with 3 bonus CatalinaQs...............

Total spent in Bonus Cash was--
#1 Tran  $2.00
#2 Tran  .50¢
#3 Tran  .50¢
#4 Tran  .50¢
#5 Tran  .50¢

$4 in Bonus Cash spent on 10 bottles of Tresemme.
And then the Beauty Reward printed on that last transaction since I "spent" $50 before Qs and I got this............

The $10 Rite-Aid Beauty Reward Gift Card.
I now have 2 of these between two of my accounts.

So we spent $4 in BC and earned $10 in gift card back on Friday.
And I have $5.50 in Catalinas to spent too in the next 2 weeks.

When I go in today to return the Foot Scrub I have 4 more Tresemme ManuQ to use as well. 8-)

I also got a "Spend $70/Get $7 off your next transation" Q on one of those transactions too so I have to figure out how best to deploy that once the Black Friday Deals get here. ;-)

Have you done any drugstore shopping lately?


Sluggy

Frugal Friday....the November 8th Edition

Here's what passed for frugal this past week in my world........

* Hubs and I used a coupon when we went out to lunch last Friday.

$5 off our lunch?
Yes please!

* I got a freebie in the mail last week..........

Saturday's mail brought a free notepad and return address labels to entice me to donate to St. Jude's Hospital.  Good timing as we were running low on address labels.

* I used a 15% everything in the store Q Ollie's sent me a week ago and forgot to show the food/HBA/toiletries stuff I bought last week..........

1 lb. of cashews, 2 boxes of instant au gratin taters, 2 cans of tomatoes and a box of pasta noodles.
Prices were already low/discount but take another 15% off and now it's "Sluggy Cheap" at $8.88 for everything in the picture. ;-)

* I found money!

Hubs and I went out to lunch and I found a nickel in Bob Evans.

Then I found 2 quarters in the coin return of the newspaper box outside of Bob Evans.

After lunch we stopped in Dollar Tree for a few things and I found these two pennies on the floor, one by the register and one beyond the register as I was leaving.

.57¢ in one day.....sweet!

Then I found a penny at Rite-Aid on Wellness Wednesday.............

.58¢ total for the week and for the win!

* I got the Weis freebie last Friday.........

A roll of paper towels.  With Dixie puppy around we can always use this item. lolz

*  I picked up two clearance items at Weis on Friday as well......

.79¢ a box.  Add some of that clearance canned chicken I picked up a couple of months ago and you've got a quick and cheap few meals. 8-)

* Speaking of Wellness Wednesday I got these for free........

The Robitussin was $5.99 on sale this past week.  There was a WWQ for $2 off which I paired with a $1/1 IPQ on the manufacturer's website(Unfortunately we no longer received RMN Q inserts in our Sunday paper here because there was an insert $3/1 Q. 8-((( ).
So $2.99 out the door paid for with BC.
Then I received a $3 SavingStar rebate so a .01¢ moneymaker when all was said and done.
The L'Oreal samples were also given out on WW at my store.

*  I worked the polls on Tuesday.  It kept me out of the stores and spending $$ AND I earned a whole $125.  Even better that "pay" is TAX-FREE! 8-)

*  I received coupons in the mail from both Rite-Aid and Weis(PMITA)Markets this week.  The Rite-Aid mailer also had a $4 when you spend $20 Q in it.
The Weis mailer had personalized Q and this too............

A reminder to clip the digital Q for a large Stouffer's party size lasagna(making it .99¢ OOP)that was in our account.  I would have found the Q eventually anyway but still.  It's been duly clipped now and ready to use before when it expires on Nov 28th.

That's about it from here.  I haven't been back to the grocery store since last Friday so I am off to
get a few things today.

What frugal wins did y'all have this past week?
Tell us all about them!


Sluggy

Remembrances of Working an Election

A few weeks ago we got a phone call from the Grand High Poo-bahs who run elections in our county inquiring if we were free to work the polls on Election Day this month.
Hubs took the call and told me about it and how he never remembered signing up to do this and told the woman "no thanks!"(his immediate response to anyone who wants him to do anything lolz).
So I remembered I had signed on a Volunteers Needed List when we voted back in the 2016 election and that's why she called us.
Hubs rolled his eyes at me and I said well YOU don't have to do this but it would be A-a way to get you out of the house for a day and B-a way to put your political philosophizing(he can yammer on ad nauseum about politics if given a chance)into action and fulfill your civic duty.
So I shamed him into working the polls basically.  ;-)

We attended a training session back in late October which lasted 2+ hours.  This election the county moved from a physical paper book of registered voters to an electronic iPad system.  The voting machines were already of the electronic type(since before the 2012 election cycle).  I got trained on the iPad voter registry book and Hubs got the big training on the voting machines(which wasn't has involved as my training but it was an overview of all the jobs that need doing on Election Day).

So we showed up a bit after 6 am yesterday morning for a very long day of work.

There were 2 of the 4 districts in this new polling place.  Turns out this township had broken up the voting population from 1 district into 4 for this election(after the tiny polling station in 2016 was so inundated by voters that the line was 500 people deep at times and it took until 11pm to get everyone's vote in that time).   So there was a lot of confusion among the voters where they were to report to for voting.  One person showed up after showing up at two other locations(first the municipal building-where there was NO voting being done, I guess she just assumed to go there, then to the old location where the whole district use to vote at and then they sent her to our location).  Had she known where to go the first time she would have saved a load of time and driving as the actual polling place was the closest to her house of the three places she went to. ;-)

Most people, even though everyone got a notice of where their voting location was in the mail a month ago, had no clue what district they were in and/or where they needed to vote at.
So we got a lot of practice on the machine looking up where someone was suppose to report and it was convenient that most of them we just sent across the room to the other districts table/polling location.

Of the two sets of election workers teams, ours was made up of "virgin" workers.....from the Judge of Election down to the Clerk of Elections all 5 of us were new to the process of working a polling site.
I was elected the Majority Inspector and worked on the electronic polling book with my fellow Minority Inspector Dan.
To lighten the mood I told our Judge of Elections that I was disappointed I wasn't selected as the "Modern Major General" instead and launched into the song...............




Dan and I had gone to the same voting registry book training class and shared a machine there so we felt comfortable working together and he was a hoot.  Our Election Clerk was a chatty dear as well and the three of us made the day fun inside of a 15 hours slog. 8-))

We three places bets on how many voters we'd get(the clerk won that one), we had a race with the other district on who got the most voters(they did)and we secretly ate snacks that the other districts workers brought(being new, nobody told us to bring food).
We showed "Come on Down!" to folks standing in the entrance who were unsure of where to go. And everyone was given a "lovely parting gift"(an "I Voted" sticker)along with their "Magic Voting Ticket" to take to the machine operator.
Between the clerk and the minority inspector they seemed to talk about food All. Day. Long!  There was much laughter among the serious business of democracy.

There were a few snafus throughout the day--I got trained to load the ballot thing into the voting machine as a back-up person too and on one occasion my finger slipped and I marked that the voter wanted their ballot to appear in Spanish instead of the English option they wanted.  Oops.  No harm as the other teams Judge knew how to back out of that one.

The biggest issue was that our electronic voter book started losing batter power quickly in the last hour(suppose to be a 20 hour battery life and we should have been fine)and the cord to plug it into the outlet(so it didn't run off the battery) wasn't working.  It was a race to 8 pm and then to have enough juice to print off the two reports I needed to do to enclose in the paperwork.  We squeaked by on that one.

We had one person show up after 8 pm who didn't get to vote.........the book was closed and the machines were shut down promptly at 8 and they showed up a minute or so later.  A flurry of phone calls to the higher ups about what to do but it was a case of too late, sorry, you should have gotten here before 8pm.

There were quite a few older folks who needed help with the electronic machines because they weren't techno-savvy but everyone who needed assistance got it.

My iPad book would sometimes indicate I had to ask someone to Show ID before they checked in and some folks took offense at this.  The Judge thought it was because they hadn't voted in a number of years(but weren't marked "Inactive" yet) but it seemed to be a random pattern.....maybe to see if the operating of the book was paying attention or something. lolz

I got a person who wanted to vote in German when I was manning the voting machines once but that was not an option. ;-)

A lot of folks asked about the voter turn out...whether it had been heavy or light or somewhere in between.  Being an "off, off" year turn out was light as I had expected.  Our district had a 30% turn out rate.

There were also comments made by some voters about using a church as a polling station.  Some expressed certain that churches were not appropriate places to vote(sighting separation of church and state-though they were totally misconstruing that issue here!).  Some said being in a church made some people uncomfortable(for whatever reason)and bitched about it to us.  I told them to be thankful they weren't in some districts in CA where you go to your neighbors garage to vote on election day and to contact the Grand High Election Poo-bahs if they had an issue with the location. 8-)

We where there almost an hour after the polls closed helping to finish up the paperwork and break down all the equipment. 
It was a very long day but I feel good about the job we did to keep American democracy chugging along.
And I made a couple of new friends in the deal too! 8-)

Sluggy