Odds & ends

 It's been another crazy week. 

• I only bought some produce at Meijer this week. Blueberries (my favorite berry) are on sale for 3/$5, so I bought 6 pints, oranges, bananas, apples and carrots. I was happy to see that Meijer still had apples for 59c/lb.

• Well, the budget looked good until I went to Sams. All I needed was bread & yogurt (for both DS & myself. He prefers drinking yogurt and I like the plain greek). Sams was completely out of greek yogurt the last few times I've been there.  That was supposed to be a $25 trip. Next thing I know, I'm leaving the store with a pumpkin pie (as if I need sweets, cause I've gained 2 lbs again) and also picked up another box of Pringles for DS. I don't know what this Pringles shortage is at Sams. They never have enough stock. Since they had a few boxes this time, I decided to just get an extra one. Rather too much than too little.

• Bought DH's last Christmas gift on my list at 50% off and paid with a gc.

• Target had B2G1F book sale last week, so I ordered 6 books as my Christmas gift from DH. Only cost him $33. I always tell him I'm a cheap date, cause I always buy my gifts on sale/clearance. Turns out that one of my girlfriends took a page out of my book and now does the same for herself. She fills a box for herself with clearance items she wants and then just lets her DH wrap it for her at Christmas. I don't know if I'm a good or bad influence...lol Well, the good news is that we at least get exactly what we want so...lol

• This same friend told me how she stocked up on lightbulbs when her local store had them BOGOF. I never thought about stockpiling lightbulbs, but that's not a bad idea. I'm gonna buy some extras soon.

• I bought a new instant pot. Not just any instant pot. I got the Ninja Foodi 14 in 1 pot. I've needed a new pot for months, because my inner pot's coating has worn off and the lid no longer seals well, so steam always escapes whenever I use the pot. My old pot is a Power XL pressure cooker, which I love, but it's not cheap to buy their replacement inner pot.

A few months ago, I took a mypoints survey about a new Ninja instant pot that cooks, steams and air fries. This thing looked awesome and I decided to wait and see if it actually comes to market. Well, it finally did. I was excited until I saw the price - $350!!!! There's no way I'm paying that much for a pot. Kohls only had the 9 in 1, which wasn't good enough for me (I have high standards...lol). I wanted the deluxe model. On Sunday I received a 40% off Kohls mystery discount and they finally had the 14 in 1 pot. Say no more! They also had $10/50 home purchase. So I bought my pot at a discount and earned $50 KC and will get another $15 KC/Y2Y on November 1st. I also received 1% Rakuten (ugh, Kohls used to be 6% minimum) 

Pot sale price $329.99

Less 10/50 (10.00)

Less 40% off (128.00)

Total $191.99

Tax $11.52

OOP $203.51

Earned $50 KC (I also bought DS's Christmas gifts - see below) + $15 KC + $1.92 Rakuten

Total earned : $66.92

I used the KC to buy things to resell so I can make my money back for the pot. I might not earn back the entire amount, but I'm gonna try my best to offset most of the cost. Well, I went to Kohls yesterday and according to my calculations, I should be able to recoup the cost with my new purchases.

I'm excited to try this new pot. Even DS is excited. This thing is humongous though. Before I ordered it, I asked my friend about the pot size (I only know the metric system). It turns out that my old pot is 8 quarts too, but this thing is way bigger. It's so big, it looks like I'm cooking for my large family again (not that I would mind that, but there's just 3 of us). The size is great for freezer cooking though. I'm most excited about the dehydrating feature. I've wanted a dehydrator before, but DH convinced me otherwise. I wasn't crazy about our air fryer before (it didn't cook my chicken completely) and got rid of it shortly afterwards. I'm hoping the air fry feature works better on this pot. Now I can do all kinds of things with just one pot. I want to try making my own yogurt too. Fingers crossed. I might have to try the baking feature too. But first I need to read the manual...lol. I haven't even gotten around to that yet.

• While I was shopping at Kohls, I decided to check out the price of a gift for DS I had purchased at regular price from another retailer before. Well, well, well. Not only could I apply my 40% off, but I still had $29.10 gc and ended up getting 2 pairs, instead of the one I paid full price for. So I'm returning the original one to the retailer for a full refund. 

2 x Gifts $114.98

Less 40% (45.99)

New cost $68.99

Sales tax $4.14

Less gc (29.10)

OOP $44.03

The one that I'm returning cost $52.99 (incl tax). So I got 2 for the price of one and saved an extra $8.96. 

• We went to the Indian store to stock up on spices. I got all this for $29.43. I even got a 5% discount (don't know why) too. This might look like a lot of spices to some, but I grew up cooking with lots of fresh herbs & spices. I actually only cooked with pure Indian spices. My aunt had an Indian friend who owned  spice store. On her annual holiday trips, my aunt would stop at her friend's place in Durban and stock up on spices for the family. 

I love going to ethnic stores, because you get much purer herbs & spices and the prices are fantastic. I recently paid over $8 for Tones paprika at Sams. I should have waited, but I didn't know when DH would take me to the market (he knows exactly where the store is, since he discovered it). I also wasn't sure if they would have lots of inventory, because of supply chain issues. They were fully stocked though. 

• I haven't done any other shopping, since we don't need anything. I need to make a Trader Joe's run, because I've been craving samosas again. I love that stuff! I also want some Ezekiel raisin bread and TJ's has the lowest price. 

• I treated DS to some donuts at Dunkin Donuts. My card balance is up to $80 again and we rarely get coffee on the go. After seeing Sluggy's DD pic, I decided to just get us some donuts. I initially wanted some Krispy Kreme (I have KK gcs too) since they have BOGOF dozen donuts on Saturdays, but the lines went all the way around the building. I still have a lot on my Starbucks gc too, so I'm just gonna treat him to frappucino's too, which we both love. 

That's about it for me. I'm done shopping for the week. I don't even need anything at Sams, so I'll wait until I need meat again before making a trip.