* Received a few belated birthday presents. I saved the gift bags, bubble wrap, tissue paper and gift boxes to use again some time in the future.
* Picked silverbeet for two meals,
* Went through all the birthday and Christmas presents I've stashed away for the next couple of years. I've now allocated them and written them into my present / gift book.
* Gratefully received a tomato plant and a few colored chard ( silverbeet ) plants from my Dad.
* Hand washed the dinner dishes a couple of nights.
* Dried the washing on the line and clothes horses ( when it rained ).
* Saved the shower warm up water to water all the fruit trees.
* Wrapped up my handmade rose soaps ready to give as presents.
* Made a double batch of Cranberry Hootycreek biscuit dough for the freezer. I baked some that day and the rest of the dough will be baked just before Christmas to give as presents.
* We ate freezer meals ( leftovers ) for dinner two nights.
* Filled up both the cars with petrol using discount dockets and paid $1.14 a litre. Darren's old car was on gas / petrol. Now that both our cars run on petrol we need to watch the price cycles carefully and use dockets to get the best price every time.
* Darren organised a better deal on both our car insurances. He saved $154 on mine and got a better excess and windscreen replacement included. For Darren's new car he saved $172. Our insurances were not that dear to begin with compared to what you see on tv. So we are happy with our savings.
* Bought rice bran oil on a better than half price sale. This will be used to make a different type of soap.
* Bought eight kilos of broccoli for $1.50 a kilo. I spent 1 1/2 hours cutting, blanching and freezing all of it. I even cut up most of the stalks and froze them to use in casseroles.
* We went out for dinner to celebrate Jessica graduating high school. We used a coupon for 25% off the food bill.
* Bought five legs of lamb for $5.99 kg from a new local shop called Fresh Value Market in Cranbourne. This will be enough lamb roasts for Christmas Day and until lamb comes on sale again next Spring.
* Made a batch of Miracle Spray to sell to a cleaning client. I also made a double strength batch to use at home. It's time saving to make it double strength then dilute it when it's decanted into spray bottles.
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| Rose soaps wrapped to give as presents |
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| They all look so pretty |
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| Do you think I have enough broccoli ? |
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| Raspberry plants are growing in leaps and bounds. |
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| Cherries. We hope to get more than 6 from last year. |
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| Our first ever pears. We hope they stay and grow. |
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| Our only peach. The plant has curly leaf. |
What does your frugal list look like ?
Hi Wendy, firstly congratulations to Jessica for graduating high school, Best wishes to her for her future. You have had a great week Wendy, you did well getting legs of lamb at that price.
ReplyDeleteMy week was pretty quiet but I managed to do a few things.
I dried my washing mostly on the line this week.
Gratefully received some meals from my parents
I had 3 no spend days
Made 6 more Christmas cards , using free scrapbooking paper that came with a craft magazine
Organised my Christmas gifts and realisedI had more thanI thought done.
Did my menu plan for a month, planned meals using what is in my freezer, pantry and fridge first.
Had morning tea/ afternoon tea on my front patio using baking goodies from my freezer rather than going out for morning/ afternoon tea.
Your garden always looks so lovely Wendy . Thank you for the inspiration and motivation to live a frugal and fulfilling life.
Barb
Thankyou Barbara. You had a great week too. I bet you enjoyed your baked goods far better than anything you can buy. xoxo
DeleteI certainly did Wendy , I am usually disappointed when I buy something like cake or muffins at the shops, it us often not the same as home baked. I made muffins using bananas that were given to me and chocolate chips from my stockpile of baking supplies. I always have flour, sugar etc at home so it is easy and cheap to bake at home. I am actually going to bake your cranberry hooty creek biscuits for the first time this week. I want to have a trial run at making them because I would like to give some as Christmas gifts. Barb.
DeleteYou'll love the cranberry hootycreek biscuits. They are a favourite in my home. xoxo
DeleteHi Wendy
ReplyDeleteWhat a great week you and your family have had... a graduation from High School is always such an important thing in a young persons life.
This week has been a quiet one for us. No expenditure and nothing exciting happening. I have spent the week gardening and doing housework. My raspberries are flowering and the strawberries are growing. I expect us to harvest peas today and a lot of them. I will then transplant tomato and capsicum plants into the containers we remove the peas from.
We have managed to get lots of free capsicum or tomato plants from our worm farm. I put the castings into a pot and up sprang the plants. They are small at the moment and I am not sure what they are yet, but at least one hundred have surfaced so far but definitely tomato or capsicum... freebies are great aren't they :-)
have a good week Wendy
Linda
You did have an exciting week in the garden Linda. Every task is important to the simple way of life.
DeleteOh - cherries, lucky you. Your pears may just drop in the first few years - this is normal for pear trees establishing themselves.....however pear trees can live for a couple of hundred years so that is the flip side. Pears have so much natural fibre compared to all other fruit.
ReplyDeletePhil, we are expecting the pears to fall. We didn't get any flowers last year.
DeleteIts probably too late to spray your peach tree, but a herbal alternative is to grow horehound underneath or pick it and place in jars in tree. We did this for our peach trees when we lived in South Australia as did my parents.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. I'll look into it. I heard on the radio today that a lady puts tea leaves under her peach tree and has never had curly leaf. You can guess what I did today.
DeleteDear Wendy,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great week! Well done to Jessica too.
I had a huge week also. It seemed more like a year! Today I am tired and having a quieter day. phewww.
But it is so good to have a good week, savings and progress!
The soaps look gorgeous. I am glad you are going to make more. I saw your comment about using rose petals... I am going to send you a picture of some soaps with rose petals on top in case you find that handy.
Have a great weekend, with love, Annabel.xxxx
Thankyou Annabel. You had a fantastic week. I look forward to the rose petal pictures. I'd better get busy drying some.
DeleteWendy,
ReplyDeleteYour soaps are very pretty. Your broccoli is pretty too LOL, as an avid gardener I enjoy seeing lovely produce though. Congrats to your daughter on her achievement. My youngest son is a junior this year so 1 more year for him. I look forward to reading more of your posts!
XOXO
Vicky
Thankyou Vicky and welcome my USA friend. xoxo
DeleteDoes anybody know how to blanch broccoli heads and stems? x Frances
ReplyDeleteCut into small florettes and blanch in boiling water for about 30 - 60 seconds. I pour them into a colander and tip cold water over them to cool Then shake well and put onto a cooling rack. Then flash freeze in a single layer on biscuit trays for a couple of hours. Bag into freezer bags.
DeleteHope this helps.
Hi Wendy,
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely way to celebrate Jessica graduating from high school and at 25% off, even better. What a great saving on your meat. Yes the petrol cycle can be a bit of a merry go round and great savings on your car insurance, well done Darren.
I had an interesting week as you know I made my own bread, bread rolls and garlic bread. Made pizza, yogurt, castor sugar, bickies, brown sugar, potato bake and roast chicken which made one meal, 4 days of lunches and stock.
Grated a block of cheese, used the tank water(thanks to the recent rain), given 8 loaves of bread, some fruit and 2ltrs of milk. Also blanched lots of broc and cauli from the garden.
Your Soap looks lovely,
Have a great week, xxx
Maureen
You had a very productive week Maureen. I'm sure you are happy with your achievements.
DeleteOh my goodness what a great week you had Wendy.
ReplyDeleteI love how your soaps turned out, you have done them up so nicely and they will be lovely gifts.
You have done so well with the broccoli score too! And your fruit trees are looking so healthy :)
This week I have been busy and not really keeping track of my money saving doings as most things are automatically frugal these days :)
~I had four no spend days.
~Dried clothes outside as it was hot.
~Saved pre dish water and collected air conditioner run off water for plants
~Sold excess eggs
~Cooked from scratch
~Decluttered my kitchen, and cleaned with miracle spray
~Dried my rose petals to add to potpourri
~Paid extra on the mortgage, I love seeing it decrease every payday :)
~Made more breadcrumbs and dried them outside in the drier
~Also dried more mushrooms and apples
~Picked silver beet and kale from the garden
~Mended a shirt
~Went for a walk instead of a gym
~No TV at all, saves electricity
~The chooks hatched out eleven new babies, so more eggs to be had later on. That's if they aren't all roosters lol!
Wishing you a lovely week Wendy :)
xTania
It's great picking your own fruit and veg isn't it Tania. What do you do with the roosters ? Roast chook ? I wish we lived where we could have more than 5 chickens. We'd never have to buy eggs again.
DeleteHi Wendy
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to share this website I found as I think it would be great coming into summer and I am sure that some of your followers would be able to do with left over fruits.
http://www.onecrazyhouse.com/homemade-ice-cream-recipes/
Aly
Thankyou Aly. I'll have a look when I have some spare time.
DeleteHi Wendy
ReplyDeleteYour soaps look lovely all done up and ready for gift giving.
This week I have been frugal by
Air drying all clothes
Opening all the windows when it has been nice (but had to use the air con a couple of times)
DP spoke with the electricity company and they have now put us on a monthly plan so we don't have to pay a bill. This is an estimate of what we have used in the last year, so we can just divide the monthly amount into weekly payments
Saved $12 in $2 coins to put away
Used some ripe banana to make banana ice cream for desserts
Used up some leftover carrot from canteen in our rissoles
Freeze bread as soon as I got it so it does not get forgotten
Started sorting through old Christmas cards to recycle into new handmade cards
Hope you have a wonderful week
Aly
Freezing bread is a great money saver. Don't forget to save the crusts to make dried bread crumbs.
DeleteThis week I made a lasagne using lots of homegrown silverbeet. We had a teenage girl sleepover at our house so this was what they had for dinner, and homemade whole lemon cake.
ReplyDeleteMade a large casserole for the man of the house to take away on his weekend with friends.
Attended a fete and bought a few new games and books off the white elephant stall for $1 each - for the Christmas gift list.
Filled up on petrol at the current low price.
Mended a sleeping bag with the sewing machine.
DD2 made your hootycreek biscuits - we tried them for the first time and they are lovely - she gave some in a cello bag as part of a gift she gave at a birthday party.
Bought some gorgeous scarves at a market for $1 each - gave one as a birthday present for a 50th. The others will be for an upcoming birthday and Christmas.
Made yoghurt.
Made your potato cakes one night - I actually mixed the leftover mash with some leftover savoury mince and served with a salad they were a hit. Thanks for all the terrific recipes.
Still staying in my $300 month grocery budget for 4 people.
Marie
Congratulations for staying within the $300 food budget. And people say it can't be done !!! I'm sure you are eating quite well too.
DeleteI'm glad you liked the biscuits. They look great at Christmas with the cranberries in it.
Great bargain shopping for presents too.
On the one hand I'm inspired by your weekly tasks and on the other I'm exhausted by them :) LOL. Great post Wendy.
ReplyDeleteEvery task save a bit of money here and there. I post my list to inspire others to try a few different things. i also love reading everyone's lists too. We can all learn from each other xoxo
DeleteGoodness that is cheap for lamb! I love roast lamb and I too would have stocked up.
ReplyDeleteI have been working very hard at reducing spending, saving money and thinking outside the square -
I have been saving most of our warm up water from the shower too. It has been used on our garden.
I sold a child's study desk on Friday afternoon and gave the same buyer a second one for free because it was a little damaged and in return was given factory second hot cross buns (of all things!!) as they were experimenting with the dough as well as huge blueberry muffins. I have popped them all in the freezer. We have been looking for a little table, hall stand or the like for a corner in our lounge-room. We have not been happy with the price (new) and could not find anything we were happy with that was preloved. Hubby cleaned up and painted an old Singer table and replaced the table top with some of the leftovers from when he replaced my kitchen benchtops. We have been resisting using the A/C as much as possible but living in Penrith NSW, sometimes the heat and humidity is horrible. I used tank water to water the gardens in the backyard. Used the water left in the kids drink bottles each afternoon to water my herbs and strawberry plants. Made a double batch of burger patties and froze half. Declined to buy a new A/C (ours is almost 10 years old and very exxy to run) and decided to service the old one and use our outdoor / indoor blinds better. Hubby shopped around for a good price on his Greenslip. I am currently paying off a layby on my daughter's new bed rather than paying for it in full which would have left us short for Hubby's car rego etc, I am saving my $30.00 gift card from Woolworths (promotion from a few months ago) for 'special' Christmas food. I also won $5 on a scratchie (thank you present) and will put it towards Christmas as well. I also won $120.00 on the footy tipping comp at Hubby's work. This is being put away for Christmas too. My daughter wanted her own dirty laundry basket in her bedroom. Instead of buying one, we have cleaned out an old flip lid waste bin (was only ever used as a recycling bin) and we will visit a $2.00 shop to buy some girl stickers so she can decorate the bin. I will also ignite my creative side and print a laundry label which we will stick on to the bin by using clear contact (already have some). I think that is it for the moment.
Thanks so much for sharing everything with us Wendy. It certainly does get one thinking!
I love your list Vicky. It sounds like you are being very mindful of how you spend your money. The bin idea is great for the kid's bedrooms. I'm trying to find a new laundry hamper for our bathroom. They are either too expensive or too cheap looking ( and still dear ). They don't make them very big either.
DeleteI'm saving my flybuys $$$ for Christmas treats too.
Yes, also doing Flybuys. I remembered that later when I was opening some mail from Coles. The trick with Coles is not to buy anything that you would not normally buy or don't need just for the sake of these points.
DeleteI also found a good deal on broccoli and blanched and froze some. I love broccoli! I also mixed up some foaming soap for my foamer with inexpensive shower gel and water. It works! When I was at the food store on Saturday, I had the idea that surely I was clever enough to make up my own pumpkin spice coffee creamer... I checked out the ingredients on the expensive stuff and I think I can make my own with pumpkin pie spice, ground nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice. I'll be trying it out this week... fingers crossed! (I will be attempting to make the powdered creamer, not the dairy 'Half and Half').
ReplyDeleteJoy, the coffee creamer sounds yummy. Let me know how you go.
Delete