I kept myself reasonably busy this week. Darren and I have started Spring cleaning around the house. Furniture is being pulled out and dusted behind. We'll start on the windows soon. I like to get them done before the Summer heat sets in. Our vegetable garden is growing and we'll be adding more seedlings shortly.
Here's my frugal list -
* Made chunky beef soup from two pieces of leftover roast beef. It made enough for ten single serves that I froze.
* Made bulk crumble topping mix. This is stored in an airtight container and made up when I pull some frozen stewed apples from the freezer. Apple Crumble is Jessica's favourite dessert.
* Baked six loaves of wholemeal bread. I was on a roll.
* Bought Dove soap on sale in Woolworths. It was selling for $3.40 for a box of four bars. This is the best price I have ever seen. They only had four boxes left on the shelf so I went to the service desk and asked for a rain check. I now have twelve months to buy another ten boxes ( of four bars ). After that I don't think I'll be buying soap for the next two years.
* I made pita chips. Half of them I left plain and the other half I sprayed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt . Both are very yummy.
* Made Lemon Butter with lemons from our tree and eggs from our chooks. It's delightful on toast for breakfast.
* I saved rinse water in the kitchen and used it to water some plants outside. Water saved from the showers was poured into the washing machine. The rinse water from the washing machine was saved and poured back in for the next load.
* Darren used some of our compost ( for the first time ) on the vegetable garden.
* I converted a pair of 3/4 pj troussers into pj shorts for Jessica. I also altered a Summer top I bought from the op shop. It now has a more fitted look.
* Made white chocolate and raspberry muffins for morning teas and lunch boxes ( if they last that long ). I froze most of the muffins.
* I made chicken curry in the slow cooker. There was enough leftover for four single serves. They are now in the freezer.
* Our chickens are almost back into full egg laying production. They only slowed down a little during Winter.
 |
| A couple of our chickens saying hello. |
 |
| Chunky beef and vegetable soup. |
 |
| Our little peach tree in full bloom. |
 |
| Grapefruit given to us last week. |
 |
| Lemon butter for my toast.. |
 |
| Leftover chicken curry ready for the freezer. |
 |
| Raspberry and white choc muffins. |
Would you like to share your frugal tasks for the week ?
Morning Wendy. This week some of my frugal tasks were to clean all drains, including the shower drains with bi-carb soda and vinegar. I baked a flourless chocolate cake, caramel mud cake, coconut ice, marshmallow squares and a coconut cake (I was on a baking roll) and every weekend my hubby makes pancakes for breakfast from scratch for the family. I find the pancake parlour incredibly expensive, so this takes away that temptation. I hope you and your readers have a great week. Regards, Liz
ReplyDeleteHi there Wendy, you certainly have been very industrious this week. Your cooking looks delicious :)
ReplyDeleteThis week I didn't go to the shops at all. I stuck with my menu plan and cooked every meal from scratch including lunches. I baked some of your yummy cranberry hootycreek biscuits and a chocolate cake.
Saved the cold water pre dishes to water plants, this works out to nearly two litres each time. We have an over abundance of oranges, lemons and grapefruit at the moment, so squeezing oranges and grapefruit for breakfast juice every morning.
My big job was to prepare my garden beds by pulling weeds and adding some of our homemade compost as well as mushroom compost. I planted out seedlings that included zucchini, kale, cucumber, baby spinach and mixed lettuce. I am already growing potatoes, sweet potatoes, strawberries, spring onions, carrots, garlic, tiny tomatoes, chard, rhubarb and celery growing. I also put some collected tomato and pumpkin seeds in our little hot house.
We had a bit of rain through the week so that helped to top up our rainwater tanks. The water will be used on the garden.
We are collecting about nine eggs a day and selling the excess ones.
We watched very little TV this week so saving electricity by not being turned on. It has been quite warm this week so the solar panels have been working well, charging our batteries to run our lights.
Wishing you and your family a blessed weekend,
x
Catching the pre hot water when you turn on the hot tap is so easy I'm surprised more people don't bother. There is a empty 3 litre milk bottle kept by the sink and my family does so automatically. Fourteen years of drought taught all my three kids not to waste water.
DeleteI love hearing the downpipe diverter filling a 120 litre bin to water the garden for the week K
Hello Wendy.
ReplyDeleteThis week I have cooked from scratch, kept to menu plan, made homemade mocha, kept & washed egg shells to crush & put around seedlings as the slugs ate my kale seedlings a few months ago & kept empty jars for relish/jam. I have made meals & frozen some for when I will do some uni exam supervision next month. Meat loaf, lentil roast & salmon slice.
I made miracle spray & room spray.
I have started getting our spare bedroom ready for decorating. I will be doing it & my disabled husband will supervise!
I think that is all so I hope you & your family have a lovely weekend.
Hi Wendy, we had a simple week this week. Visited friends last Sunday, I took a homemade sponge cake while visiting them on their houseboat along the Hawkesbury, a lovely family day was had! My shopping came in this week at $88.00 and all meals we made from scratch but a few lunch takeaways were bought from the girls while they were out with friends. Lights were kept off, electric blankets off, turned off at the wall were possible, my plan is to do some spring cleaning this week, and painting and upkeep on the home. Have a wonderful week everyone and Happy Birthday Wendy for Wednesday, enjoy your Lasagne it looks delicious. Simone x
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy, I have a question. I notice you have a peach tree - how do you keep fruit fly off it? I have two 'accidental' peach trees from back in the days when I had a compost pit rather than a compost bin. Every year the fruit fly gets to our peaches before they are ready to pick :( I am no gardener but my father is, and he said the only way he knew of to keep them off was to use poisons that then had you wondering if you should even be consuming the peaches!
ReplyDeleteWe've only had our peach tree in for three months. I'll have to do some research when the time comes.
DeleteHi Wendy, your lemon butter looks delicious - any chance of sharing a recipe? Hope you have a lovely birthday this week. Regards Helen
ReplyDeleteTuesday I promise. I've had lots of requests here and on my facebook pages. I aim to please when I can.
DeleteHi Wendy, well this was not as productive as I would have liked but as the little darlings were home on holidays, it was time spent with them. I made Bickies and saved lots of the shower and rinse water for the washing and garden. I made all meals from scratch except one as I was sick that day and didn't have enough freezer meals as yet, need to get on to this ASAP as it's a good lesson to learn if your sick to have back up meals. I attended my first Cheapskates workshop and found out things I would never have thought of ie: keeping your vegie peelings and freezing them to make vegie stock later. Just one of the many tips Cath gave us. I also visited Hindustan Imports, WOW!!!!! So cheap. Such lovely people and the smell of the shop was wonderful. I got my years worth of herbs and spices and a few other extras. I found the shop with the cheap toilet paper, excellent, and the Dandy Market. I saw pita bread which was the previous days for 4 for $1.00, rushed over to buy it and another woman bought the lot....I checked out Fountain Gate shopping centre, NQR and Savers. Savers was fantastic!!!! I bought a dress for $9.00 for summer(not adjustments required as I am short and always has to take things up), a summer scarf $1.99 and a necklace $5.00, a whole summers outfit for $16.00 that I can wear casual or dress up. Also an oil sprayer $1.99 (not sure of correct name) to use instead of buying oil spray and a nicer dicer for $3.99, bargains, only wish this store was near me. I gave you a wave Wendy as I went by Narre Warren and thank you so much for the advice on where to go, I had a great day and only got lost once. Thanks again, Blessings Maureen
ReplyDeleteMaureen, it sounds like you had a great day. I love Hindustan Imports and the staff there are lovely. Savers is where I go first to buy my clothes. The floral drees I'm wearing in the ACA story tonight I bought at Savers for about $5. The top I wear in the interview I bought about a week ago from Savers too.
DeleteHi Wendy. I made a fortnightly menu plan and made a grocery list accordingly. I bought a lemon tree,mandarin tree, some herbs, veggies plants and seeds to add to my new edible garden. Yesterday I made biscuits, laundry powder and fabric softener from scratch. I used your recipes for the biscuits and laundry powder. This week i'll be making dishwashing powder, miracle spray, muffins and bread from scratch. We also changed our Insurance to Coles Insurance (for Home Contents, Life and Motor). We are not only saving money on Insurance, but also earning flybuys 5 x faster and therefore saving money on groceries in the future when i redeem points. I also took out a Plant Plus rewards card and have saved up $8.00 towards plants at the nursery so far. I bought seed to rotate veggies instead of seedlings. They'll take longer, but will have more veggies for a fraction of the price eventually. I am now on the look out for chooks. Soon i'll be semi self-efficient and cut my grocery bills in half. Thank you for all your advice.
ReplyDeleteWe have some of our insurances with Coles because they are cheap and for the flybuys. Tracey, are you from Melbourne ?
DeleteHi Wendy. We've recently moved to Talwood, Qld. We are about 120kms from Goondiwindi. I do all my shopping in Goondiwindi. I'm planning to go to Toowoomba soon to buy bulk flour, sugar etc. It is a 3hr trip, but think it will be worth it. I use to buy ready made sauces etc, and must say that I feel alot more energetic and healthier cooking everything from scratch and my husband has been complimenting me everyday on how tasty the food is. There is no turning back now. I'm on a roll!!!!
DeleteHi Wendy, can you tell me where you got your chooks from? We had 3 girls (Isa browns) from a place near Cranbourne called "Crystal's barnyard pets", we had them for about 2 years, but unfortunately 1 passed away, and then just a few weeks ago one of our dogs (7.5 year old labrador) got the other two :'( He's never so much as chased them previously, but we got a new dog (a 1 year old cavalier) about a month ago and I think his pack instinct may have kicked in :( But we really miss having them (and I nearly fainted when we had to buy eggs last week, they have gone up so much!) and are fixing up our set-up so the chooks will stay in their pen rather than free-ranging so much.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your list, it's always interesting to read how other people go about their daily lives :)
I bought my chooks from Craig's Farm out in the Cranbourne area. Craig is a wonderful man and full of knowledge that he's prepared to share. His ad is on the right side of my blog. Click on it and it will take you to his webpage. If you buy chooks from him please let him know where you saw his ad. He will be thrilled.
DeleteHi Wendy, can't wait to tune into ACA tonight to catch your latest savings story. You have mentioned and have had photos of your wholemeal bread baking here on your blog. I bake bread too, but not wholemeal. I was wondering if you buy the wholemeal bread mixes or if you buy the bakers flour, thus controlling the amount of salt, sugar etc that goes into your loaves? If you buy wholemeal bakers flour, where do you buy it from? Cheers Donna Z :)
ReplyDeleteI buy no name plain wholemeal flour from the supermarkets and put in my own amount of salt and sugar. The bread I make isn't too great for sandwiches once it's frozen but it's lovely for toast and toasted sandwiches.
DeleteI love lemon butter (we call it lemon curd) so much! The problem is that I am tempted to just eat it by the spoonful! Sounds like you had a great week.
ReplyDeleteI love lemon butter on my morning toast. I didn't know anyone else did that besides me and my Granny that died. It was something we'd share over morning coffee back in the days when I was making a school bus run with the kids every morning.
ReplyDelete