Dark Ginger Ale

I don't drink pop very often, but when I do, my favourite kind is ginger ale.

Recently there was a coupon for a new type of ginger ale, Dark Ginger Ale. The deal was, buy two 2L bottles of the new ginger ale, and get $2 off. Name brand pop is often around $2 for 2L, so I waited for a sale. A $1 sale, to be exact. So for just $0.25 ($0.13 tax on each bottle, rounded down to just a quarter because we don't use the penny anymore), I got two bottles of pop. Deal!

Pretty near free pop is good enough on its own, but the best part is that this Dark Ginger Ale actually tastes amazing. With my first sip I wasn't quite sure, but then I drank one of the 2L bottles waaaaayyyy too fast. It is a wonderful mixture of spicy and sweet. I love it.

 

Deal Report: Air Freshner and BBQ Sauce

Coupon deals have been scarce lately, so I need to brag about it when I find a good one. The coupon booklets that come in the paper every few weeks have had nothing worth clipping (for me). I love saving money, but saving $0.50 on a product I would never purchase in the first place (and which has a price point of over $3.00 to begin with...isn't a deal for me). But I found a few coupons I could use in the past few months, so hence this bragging post!

I love using a coupon when something is already on sale to maximize the savings, and that is what I did with both these deals.

Using a buy one get two free coupon and pairing it with a $1 sale price, I got six cans of deal air freshener. So buy one ($1.00 + $0.13 tax) and get two free* ($0.13 tax + $0.13 tax [*free in Canada often means just the item is free; you still have to pay the tax]). So my six cans cost $2.78, which is $0.46 each. Not as good as the coupon deal from a few years ago that got me air freshener for $0.38 per can, but it's pretty close).

I also had two '$2.00 off' BBQ sauce coupons and paired them with a BBQ sauce sale of $2.00/bottle. So these were actually free-free, as there is no tax on most grocery items in Canada. I love when my bill prints out at $0.00 and I walk away with free product. Feels good. Plus this BBQ sauce is pretty tasty.

Sales Barn Deals

For the Civic Holiday weekend, Mom and Dad came up and we hit the Sales Barn looking for deals. The Sales Barn was really happening that day, and we had to park in a field, where we sort of made our own parking space. The place was full of vendors, regulars and new ones just for the long weekend. Dad got some DVD deals and I got book and salami deals. Mom got some Ontario veggies, and it was an all around great day.

Books were all $1.00 each, and I found the following books that day:

Cabal, The Damnation Game, Sacrament, The Great and Secret Show, all by Clive Barker.

Hearts in Atlantis, by Stephen King (a character from the Dark Tower is in this book).

The Bounty Hunters, by Elmore Leonard (his first novel).

The Silmarillian, by J.R.R. Tolkien (a nice soft cover to replace our beat up copy).

We also got some all beef salamis that we ate way too fast, and had to go back the following Sunday to get a few more. We love it!

We ended our fun get together with a trip to the fish and chip truck. It never disappoints.

All in all a great day of family, book deals, and great food!

Steak on the BBQ #FoodPicFriday

The price of beef has been too expensive lately, so we've haven't been buying or eating it. There was a recent steak sale, which wasn't that great of a deal, but with BBQ season here we were all craving a nice steak. Beef is just a once in a while kind of meat now, but we really enjoyed having these. Tastes like summer.

My Favourite Bun Deal

Generally I make my own buns for sandwiches, but if I'm in the grocery store at the right time, I don't mind picking up a bag of deal buns. The local Foodland has an amazing bakery and getting a bag of the 'end of the day buns' is the dream. It is always crammed full and is often incredibly assorted. It used to be $2.00 for the bag, now it's $2.49, but it's still a great deal. Bought individually the buns are anywhere from $0.80 to over a dollar. The buns are still fresh for a few days, so we normally eat as many as we can and put the rest in the freezer for later.

This 'end of the day' assortment had bagels, plain rolls, garlic and plain dinner rolls, a cheese bun, an onion bun, and two soft pretzels (not pictured because we ate them). The pretzels tasted like they had been dipped in all the butter. Yum. A few times we've gotten a chocolate chip danish in the bag. So good! We love the bun bag!

Deal Report: Cheese Replacement Vouchers

A few months ago, I opened a package of blue cheese and something just didn't seem right about it. But how can you tell if blue cheese is bad, right? I wasn't sure if I should eat it, so I put it back in the fridge and phoned the company for advice. The cheese was Castello brand from a company called Arla Foods. They advised me not to eat the cheese and said they would send me some cheese vouchers so I could replace the product.

About a week later I got $8.00 worth of replacement vouchers for their entire line of products, not just the blue cheese brand. The brands I could use the vouchers on were Tre Stelle, Dofino, or Castello, so I had a lot of options. Plus sending me $8.00 was really generous, as the original blue cheese purchase had been bought on sale for $2.99. Obviously, I am very impressed with their customer service!

I held onto the coupons and wasn't sure what I was going to get with them. More blue cheese? Fresh mozzarella ball? Some wonderful feta? Fresh grated Parmesan? I had a lot of options.

I noticed in the weekly grocery flyers that a Dofino Havarti (800g) was on sale for $10.99. It normally sells for $13.99, so $10.99 was a good deal. I decided to use my vouchers, and got another $8.00 off, which made this beautiful chunk of Havarti $2.99. DEAL!

So the original blue cheese purchase ($2.99) plus the out of pocket money I spent on the Havarti ($2.99), got me this $13.99 block of cheese for $5.98. Amazing.

Plus Havarti is amazing. So far we've had it melted on burgers, in grilled cheeses, in an omelette, on sandwiches, and I even melted some on nachos (it tastes so good melted). It will not take us long to eat this 800g block and we are definitely having a great time doing it!

Flea Market is Open

Mom and Dad are coming up today and we are heading over to the Elmvale Sales Barn (aka Elmvale Flea and Farmers Market). They are open Thursdays and Sundays throughout the summer and this will be our first time heading over there this season. The weather is good so hopefully there are lots of vendors out. Dad is on the lookout for cheap DVDs, and I'm always looking for book deals. They have some excellent meat deals too. Hope it is a nice day of deal hunting.

Previous Meat Deals!

It Seemed Like A Good Deal at the Time...

We started adding dried chives to our meals earlier this year, enhancing mac n' cheese, dressing up baked potatoes, and seasoning many other dishes. We realized we loved them in anything and everything and added them to our weekly grocery list.

We bought the store brand bag of chives, which were only $0.79 per bag and so easy to just throw into the cart. We'd pick up two or three bags at a time, as it seemed like a good deal.

I was at Bulk Barn a few weeks ago and decided to see how much bulk chives cost. They were $5.29 for 100g, which I initially thought was expensive because I'd been getting a whole bag of them for only $0.79. When I got home, I was surprised to realize that the bags I'd been buying were only 5.5g. Which meant that 100g of those chives actually worked out to $14.36! I'm so happy I looked into it, because it turns out I've been overspending on chives.

So I went back to the Bulk Barn and picked up 100g (...I got exactly 100g too, because my bulk measuring skills are awesome, apparently).

My giant bag of chives is equivalent to 18 bags of the ones I used to get. So we currently have ALL the chives and can now have as many fancy baked potatoes as we want.

This Year is All About Book Deals

I'm currently reading my 30th book of the year and am about 200 pages away from hitting my Goodreads reading challenge goal. There are still a few months left in the year and I'm excited to see how many more books I can read. I love books!

Part of the joy of reading is getting a good book deal, and I got plenty of them this summer/fall. I previously posted about picking up some books at the Elmvale Sales Barn, and I found many more there over the summer. We also went to some used bookstores in Barrie yesterday with the hope of finding some Stephen King so I could complete my Dark Tower collection. We did pretty well too! 

The following is the complete list of used books I've collected over the past four months:

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling, trade paperback, found at the Sales Barn for $5.00

On the Road by Jack Kerouac, paperback, found at the Sales Barn for $1.00

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King, mass market paperback, found at the Sales Barn for $1.66

Flashfire by Richard Stark, paperback, found at the Sales Barn for $0.50

Firebreak by Richard Stark, paperback, found at the Sales Barn for $0.50

Neuromancer by William Gibson, paperback, found at the Sales Barn for $1.00

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, paperback, found at the Sales Barn for $1.00

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling, found at the Sales Barn for $1.66

Lightning by Dean Koontz, mass market paperback, found at my friend's bookstore for no charge!

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King, trade paperback, found at the library book sale for $1.00

Song of Susannah by Stephen King, mass market paperback, found at the library book sale, $1.00

Pagan Babies by Elmore Leonard, mass market paperback, found at the library book sale for $1.00

The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Wilson and Shea, paperback, found at Kerry's Bookstore for $7.50

The Dark Tower by Stephen King, trade paperback, found at Rivendell Books for $10.00

The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King, mass market paperback, Rivendell Books,$6.00

The Stand by Stephen King, paperback, found at Rivendell Books for $4.00


16 used books found their way into my life since June, purchased for a grand total of $42.82.
Averaged out, each book was: $2.68

I bought Wizard and Glass twice because I couldn't leave the beautiful trade paperback I found at the library book sale, since it was only $1.00.

With the books we got at Rivendell Books yesterday, My Dark Tower series is almost complete. I'm still on the lookout for Wolves of the Calla (book #5).

I already had a copy of HP and the Half Blood Prince, but for $1.66 I got a copy that matched the rest of the books I have in the series. That kind of stuff normally doesn't matter to me, but for $1.66 I thought, what the hell.

Pennies for Pens

I got my first zero out of pocket coupon deal last night, although having said that, zero out of pocket in Canada is plus tax. So I actually spent $0.12, but that is as close to zero out of pocket as we get.

These pens were retail $1.87, but I price matched them to a sale price of $0.99. I had a coupon for $1.00 off, so all I had to pay was the tax. And because it was $1 off and I only paid $0.99, that extra cent came off my bill too. A fun deal for fun pens.

Winging Wings

I got an excellent deal on chicken wings on Monday and John quickly made them into a mouth watering meal. He works without a recipe, so I'll give you a rough idea of what he did, but mainly he just sort of winged it. (Bad puns for the win!)

First he split the wings. We had 14 full wings which made 28 split. He put them in a bowl and sprinkled them with olive oil, pepper, and Montreal steak spice (our go-to spice mix).

He spread them on a baking sheet and cooked them at a high heat (450°F) until fully cooked (about 40 minutes), flipping once. 

Once fully cooked, he added the wings to a bowl for tossing.

John made an amazing spicy BBQ sauce for them that included: prepared hickory BBQ sauce, Sriracha sauce, vinegar, chili powder, and salt + pepper. Not sure of the exact amounts of each, but it was damn good! Here are the wings right after the sauce was added. Look at them steam! It had a wonderful smell.

We snacked on wings strait from the bowl while watching the Emmys Monday night. Quite fun. The coriander seeds from the Montreal steak spice added an amazing flavour to these crispy and saucy wings.

Book and Meat Deals

I went over to the Elmvale Sales Barn (aka the Elmvale Flea and Farmers Market) yesterday to see what it had to offer this year.

The Sales Barn has changed over the years, the heyday being in the '90s when my family and I would go almost every Thursday in the summer to have a look around. The market was full of vendors and there was always different and interesting stuff to look at (and eat). We always got cheese curds from the cheese guy, a sno cone from the red food truck (that might have had hot items too?), and Mennonite sausage. I also got some band t-shirts (Paul McCartney) and TV shirts (X-Files) that I wore constantly in my early teen years. We always had a lot of fun looking around the Sales Barn.

The experience is different now, with new (and less) vendors, and the times I've been over the past few years have left me longing for the past. Yesterday was my first time out this season, and I have to say I had a pretty good time. There were lots of vendors and visitors - it was nice to see so many people out. The thing that caught my eye the most was all the used books. At least six of the vendors had used books, and all mostly just a buck or two. I love looking through a big pile of books with the hope of spotting something great. Yesterday I happened on two gems at two different vendors.

I got J.K. Rowling's Casual Vacancy for $5 (perfect condition) and Jack Kerouac's On The Road for $1 (also in great condition). I love finding a book deal, so getting two was great. I'm already planning on taking John with me next time to see what else we can find.

I also got some smoked meat (salami and pepperettes) before I left.

Salamis were $5 each (840g) and pepperettes were 2/$1 (but they actually threw 3 in the bag, so that was cool).

Are there any neat flea markets near you? They are definitely a sign of summer around here.

Boxing Day = Relaxing Day

It's Boxing Day here in Canada. It's a statutory holiday, and much like Black Friday in the U.S., retailers advertise "crazy deals" and people leave their homes at 6am to go and get them. In the snow. Still full of turkey. I am not one of those people.

As with the pre-Christmas sales, there was nothing in any of the flyers that would encourage me to get out of bed so early to fight traffic and crowds to get a deal. Plus if I was out shopping, I wouldn't be able to eat all these treats.

Are you out trying to get deals today? If so, what did you get?

I Got An Awesome Deal with PC Plus Rewards

One of our Canadian grocery chains, Loblaws, recently introduced a loyalty card program. The main idea is you get rewarded with points when you shop at their store. 1000 points = $1.00 in store credit, so add up enough points and you get free stuff.

The closest Loblaws chain to us is The Real Canadian Superstore. It is actually the grocery store I shop at the least. My only reasons to shop there are for the hot deli and various PC products (usually bacon or chips - and sometimes a combo of the two). From time to time they do have sales worth going for, but mainly I do my grocery shopping at the Food Basics.

I was interested in the PC Plus loyalty card though, as the flyer indicated that the bacon we normally buy would earn us 1000 points ($1.00 in store credit). The points never expire, so I really just thought I would buy bacon over the next few years and get my 20,000 points ($20), which is the amount of points you need to earn before you can redeem your rewards.

Then I looked at the flyer more closely. Last week value size Palmolive dish soap (1.1 L) was on sale for $2.47, and also came with 2,500 points. So basically spend $2.47, get $2.50 back. I thought that was a pretty stellar deal. Since you need at least 20,000 points to redeem them, I bought 8 bottles of Palmolive (obviously!). Each bottle earned me 2,500 points, so 8 x 2,500 = 20,000.

So 8 bottles of Palmolive with tax was $22.33, but then 20,000 points ($20) was put on my rewards card. Getting the deal was great, but the experience was made even better because the cashier was really excited for me. He said: "I know someone who is going to get a great deal if they have a points card!" The cashier even tried to use me as an example to the guy in front of me of why he should sign up for the program (it's free to join). The guy in front didn't want a rewards card, but it made me feel good to be a celebrated deal getter.

Here is why I loved this deal so much:
(a) what you spent and what you got back was equal (plus you got a lot of product too)
(b) the product was practical and non-perishable
(c) it was a low cost investment (I only spent $20)

Now it wouldn't be a deal for me if I just wasted my free money on just anything, so I went back to the store and bought what we usually buy: bacon.

We love this bacon and buy it regularly, dividing it into portions and freezing it for weekly meals. 1kg of this stuff (2.2 lbs) is $9.99. Two packs cost $19.98, but in order to redeem my points I had to spend at least $20. So I bought a grocery bag for $0.05! I normally take re-useable bags, but this was a great reason to buy one. The total sale was $20.04, but we don't have the penny in Canada anymore, and to my surprise, The Real Canadian Superstore rounds down their prices to accommodate the lack of the penny. So my total was $20 even, all paid for by the loyalty card.

Plus, the bacon also earned points (the flyer said 1000 points, but they each rang in at 2000 points). So I currently have $4.00 on my loyalty card. How cool is that?

So to summarize (because I am so damn excited about it!):

I spent $22.33, got 8 bottles of dish soap and $20 in store credit. Then spent the free $20 on bacon and a shopping bag, and currently have $4.00 in store credit. The way I look at it, I bought bacon like I normally do, but got over 8 L of free dishsoap and $4 in store credit.

Now having said all this, last week was the first week of the rewards program, which could be why they had such a great points deal. This weeks flyer didn't have any deals that appealed to me, so who knows if something so good will come around again. I know I will be watching for it, though. If it turns out this is my one and only PC Plus deal, I'm happy to say it was a damn good one!

Celebrating a Love of Turkey on Thanksgiving

My favourite meal to cook is a big turkey dinner. There is so much I love about it beyond the wonderful food I get to eat when it's done. I love having the house smell amazing all day. I love preparing all the sides. I love impressing people with my turkey making skills. I also love 2-3 days of leftovers and the option of making turkey soup. There is so much to enjoy.

For some people, a turkey is just served on holidays. In my family, we throw a turkey in the oven whenever there is an excuse to do so. When I was away at school, any weekend I came home was a reason to have a turkey. Now most birthdays or family get togethers are accented with a turkey. I often make one on my own birthday, as I like making them so much (but this year mom has volunteered).

I have a method for making a turkey that works for me (and works for mom, as I mostly copy her method). We cook the turkey for a long time, but somehow we don't overcook it. We stuff the bird. We make tonnes of sides. And we have a relaxing and enjoyable time preparing it. If you've never made a turkey before, there are some safe food handling concerns regarding preparation and ensuring the meat and stuffing are cooked to the proper internal temperature. For a good overview of how to make a turkey safely, please check out Butterball's Turkey Safety Tips and Turkey Ontario's How to Prepare a Turkey.
 
I will let the pros provide a step by step guide for cooking turkey, but the following are some of the things I do to have an awesome turkey dinner - every time.

An important aspect of cooking a turkey is getting a turkey deal. For me, a turkey deal is when the price is $0.99/lb or less. I love getting a turkey for $10, and a 10 pound turkey is my favourite size to prepare. There's enough for dinner with guests with the perfect amount of leftovers (too many turkey leftovers can be too much of a good thing). With Thanksgiving sales this past week, I got two 11 pounders at the $0.99 price point. Gotta love the turkey deal!

On the day of cooking, with a completely thawed turkey, I make my stuffing. I like a simple stuffing: bread, onion, garlic, mushrooms, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper, and butter. 

I use a turkey rack (when I remember) which makes removing the cooked turkey from the pan so much easier. Because I like to cook my turkey for a long time, it has a tendency to fall to pieces when taking it out of the pan, but the turkey rack helps keep it intact.

I stuff the bird right before it goes into the oven, stuffing the cavity and the neck. I sprinkle the turkey with salt, pepper, and some melted butter, and into the oven it goes at 325°F.

The turkey cooks throughout the day and I relax. I baste it periodically, but mostly I just let the oven do all the work. I do spend some time preparing sides, but I find that relaxing. Early in the day I peel potatoes, prepare and mash a sweet potato, and chop broccoli and carrots. 

I usually aim to have my turkey done at 5:30pm and then it is Go Time. The turkey comes out of the oven and settles for half an hour while I hop around the kitchen. The potatoes get on and boiling then mashed, the veggies get steamed, the gravy gets prepared, and the sweet potato gets reheated. Finally the stuffing comes out and the bird is carved.

And the beautiful dance that is turkey dinner is complete and is ready for consumption!

After dinner is done and (most likely) pie is consumed, I head back to the kitchen and de-bone the turkey. All the meat gets stored in a convenient tupperware for the next few days of leftovers, and the bones are frozen and saved for some fantastic turkey soup.

Best. Meal. Ever.

Beef Deals and a Beef Meal

We got a super fantastic beef deal on Friday. Giant roasts were on for $1.87/lb, and we got four of them, each weighing in at around 6 lbs. This is our favourite way to buy beef, because we cut them into smaller hunks so we have many options for cooking. The four roasts turned into fourteen 1.5 - 2lb portions that we froze and will use over the next few months as roasts, steaks, beef strips, or stewing meat. I have to say I am pretty excited about it and with winter coming I am loving that we have 24 lbs of meat in the freezer.

A 1 pound hunk of beef cut from a large roast

I'm really looking forward to turning these 14 hunks of beef in my freezer into many fabulous meals. If we cut the beef into strips we can make one of our favourites: fajitas.

A hunk of beef cut up into strips

Browning the beef strips and seasoning them with taco spice

Making my fajita: add beef and cheese

Add avocado and salsa

Add lettuce and roll up into an awesome hand held meal

Hard to Resist Stationery Deals