* Made lots of jars of strawberry and apple jam.
* Gratefully received some home maker magazines. I'll be able to use some images in my card making.
* Gratefully received some lemon cordial from a friend.
* Gratefully received a beautiful hand made card with a gift suprise inside. Thankyou to my friend xoxo
* Decorated some recycled gift bags
* Baked a batch of Anzac biscuits.
* Picked a handful of strawberries every couple of days.
* Bought a loganberry plant of clearance for $5. It's looking a bit sad so Darren put it in a bucket of water.
* Sold excess eggs and two jars of jam
* Dried the washing on clotheshorses.
* Did lots of Christmas shopping. Most things were on sale or scanned at cheaper prices.
* Repotted some raspberry plants that are growing a little wild. They have good roots on them so I hope they survive.
* Bought some Village movie gift cards with 10% off from Coles. These will be Christmas presents. Combined with the discount offered by Telstra or RACV, the tickets will be quite cheap.
* Saved the shower warm up water to use on the veggie seedlings.
* Ate freezer meals two night this week.
* Bought a 500 gram punnet of cherries for $1.99 and a 1 kilo container of apples also for $1.99.
* Jessica put together four Christmas presents for some of her friends. She used recycled gift bags and tissue paper, handmade cards from our card box and regifted toiletry packs. Myself and the girls get given many toiletry packs as presents. Unfortunately we can't use them due to skin allergies. By regifting them, we save money and reduce landfill
* Picked some hydrangeas from the garden. I've been watching the blooms form for the last couple of weeks. They make such a beautiful cut flower.
* Darren saved $125 on our home and contents insurance by going online to our provider. The online quote was pretty good but it asked if Darren was happy with the quote. he typed in " no' an even better quote came up. He's very happy with the savings.
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| From the garden |
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| Along the driveway |
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| Decorated gift bags |
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| Jam making |
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| The haul |
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| Jessica's presents for fiends |
What did you do to save time, money or energy ?
Good morning Wendy, you have had another great week. The decorated gift bags look great. This week has been another quiet one for me but I have done a few things.
ReplyDeleteI gratefully accepted some meals from my parents
had 3 no spend days
Cooked all meals from scratch
Made some more cards
Cut down on my use of the clothes dryer
That is about it for this week Wendy. Thank you for being an inspiration to me. Barb
We all have quite weeks Barb. I stil love to hear from you xoxo
DeleteThanks Wendy, I love reading about your frugal tasks each week. I haven't been 100% so I am just taking it easy but I try and be frugal everyday . Thanks again Wendy.
DeleteHi Wendy,
ReplyDeleteWow what a great week you've had. Your bags look beautiful and the jam looks delicious!
Writing this list really helps keep me motivated to save money and also helps me look for opportunities to be frugal. This week I:
- Kept up with my no take away coffee buying - as someone who used to buy at least one everyday (it was almost an unconscious habit), this is huge for me. Now I take my own to work and use the staff coffee machine to make it.
- Made yoghurt, apple and cinnamon pikelets for snacks, all meals from scratch (with some saved for the freezer)
- Shopped from the stockpile and pantry, only buying milk and bread from the supermarket, and some mince from our local butcher
- Thankfully accepted some free food samples which I ate for lunch a couple of days
- Went to the op shop and bought some Grosby sneakers for my 1-year-old daughter that were pretty much brand new for $4. I have friends who spend $60 on sneakers for their children of the same age, which I think is absolutely crazy given how little time they wear them for at this age.
- Went to the library to attend their free activities for children and borrow some books. I am so thankful for our local libraries and the wonderful services they offer.
- Dried the washing on the line when it wasn't raining and on clothes horses under cover when it was.
- Didn't need to water the vegie garden due to all the rain.
This weekend I also plan to make peanut butter from some peanuts we have. I make three ingredient peanut butter biscuits for my daughter (1 cup peanut butter, 1 egg and 1/3 cup honey and bake - delicious and easy!) and I like to buy the 'peanuts only' peanut butter. At about $4.50 a jar (and a jar is about 1 cup) it can get expensive so I've decided to make my own.
Have a wonderful weekend, Wendy.
Jo
I'm glad to hear you've kept up your frugal coffee drinking. Think of all the money you are saving.
DeleteGreat op shop find on the sneakers. I think some people have more money than sense. My girls wore cheap sneakers and their feet are fine.
Wendy, can you please explain how the movie ticket 10% discount combined with the RACV discount can be obtained, as I am very interested in this deal. Many thanks, Marie.
ReplyDeleteThe gift card had 10% off. So a $50 card cost $45. To buy the tickets you go online with RACV, RACQ etc or Telstra ( if you are a bigpond customer ) and buy them for $11 each. It means the gift card stretches further.
DeleteHI Wendy your hydrangeas are gorgeous! Great tip on the Village movie cards too, thank you.
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely week.
Yes the hydrangeas add some color to my home.
DeleteAnother fantastic week for you Wendy. I LOVE your hydrangeas, I have recently bought another plant as my last one died in the heat two years ago.
ReplyDeleteMy frugal week;
*bought over two kilos of bananas that were reduced. They were brown on the outside but perfect inside. I chopped them up and put in the freezer to use later in smoothies and cakes etc.
*also bought a huge bag of apples that were reduced at the same time. I shall slice these and dry them.
*Saved the water run off from the air conditioner to water my succulent garden.
*Sold excess eggs.
*Picked up twelve hours work cleaning private houses per fortnight. I will be using homemade cleaners to do these houses.
*Cooked a big batch of spaghetti bolognaise and have frozen for later use.
*Mended my sons jeans.
*Only washed twice this week and line dried all the washing.
*used pre dish water to water pot plants.
*bought mushrooms on special for drying.
*Cooked from scratch all week.
*not necessarily frugal but I showed my friend Cath's and your websites and she is so pleased. I have also passed on some of your knowledge from the cheapskates workshop. She said it was like turning on a light switch. She is on a disability pension and buying her house, so she definitely needed some help.
Have a wonderful week Wendy :)
xTania
Tania, hydrangeas don't like he heat at all. Make sure you plants them where they get plenty of shade.
DeleteThankyou for sharing Cath's and my blogs. Hoping she finds lots of tips for saving money. xoxo
Dear Wendy, The gift bags look beautiful! Also I love the ones made up for Jessica to give.
ReplyDeleteThat was a good week. I like the way you say "gratefully received" this is true, it is wonderful to be blessed with things and be grateful for them. Being grateful is a happy way to be.
All that jam is fantastic. I use jam in so many recipes now. And for gifts of course too. Very useful.
Have a great weekend! With love, Annabel.xxx
Annabel, I was a bit nervous about decorating the gift bags. It was like card making for the first time. I'll get better at it.
DeleteWe are always grateful for any blessing that comes our way. It's a much better mindset than moaning about the things we don't have - not that we'd moan.
Hi wendy,
ReplyDeleteLove the flowers and the creativity this week.
Frugal tasks this week
Went to card making on Saturday and I had a blast! Went to Arthur daleys and picked up a few things then to kaiser Kraft and bought some beautiful paper
Received an abundance of food and little pressies for the kids off of my awesome new friends/family fellow cheapskaters and card makers you all know who you are and I love you all so much im so appreciative of all the things you have given me xoxoxoxox
Received a raspberry cutting from you wendy thank you so much can't wait till it fruits!
Received some bed covers for the girls thanks heaps again wendy!
Received some little bracelet making kits little lava looking toys off joy for the kids Christmas stockings *thanks heaps joy*
Received a beautiful dinosaur quilted blanket off of joy (will give that to stuey for Christmas) thank you again for that joy he will definitely love it.
Gave Hannah some cookie jars for her terrarium project
Put 4 tomato plants on the swap table at Caths
Stuart turned some more rotted out fire wood logs into planter pots for our beautiful flowers
Tied strings from our window to the beans so they can climb
Stuart turned the compost bin for me
Re planted a few plants
Planted some onions fennel and zucchini
Tied up some pumpkin to start training it to creep
Made a massive batch of washing powder
made all meals except 1 from scratch I've been quite sick this week :(
Did a little bit of de cluttering
Getting some pots ready for planting my mango seeds and citrus fruit seeds
Hope you have a wonderful next week wendy xxx
Anne, i was an absolute pleasure to bless you and your family. xoxo
DeleteSounds like Stu had a very frugal week too - hehehe.
Wendy i was at a market this morning and they had punnets of cherry's selling for $11.99 and she sold out. I love fresh cherry's but there is no way i would pay that for them. Love your hydrangeas, one of my favorite flowers to :)
ReplyDeleteAt that price I'd be leaving the cherries too. We will get about 6 off Darren's tree this year. Hoping for more in following years.
Deletemade all meals from scratch, including mushrooms on toast for lunch on Sunday, thank you Wendy
ReplyDeletemade bread and muffins
dried all clothes on clothes horses inside due to the unstable weather
did "not" buy all the lovely things in the op shops that I "wanted"
watered the newly planted roses with saved water
have been more careful with portion control for us and 1 cat, though he isn't too happy about it lol.
soaked the dishcloths, tea towels and cleaning cloths for 24 hours then used the 15 minute wash in the washing machine, all came out clean and fresh
I'm glad you enjoyed the mushroms Meg xoxo It was great to meet you.
DeleteQuiet week. Worked 3 days this week. It's hard to think what to cook for dinner now Tony is working til 9pm and 10pm. Managed most nights although we had pizza from the pizza restaurant tonight. Caite had a 15th birthday party to attend. She bought a book and block of chocolate for the present and made a card.
ReplyDeleteI saved my warm up water for the washing machine
Dried clothes on the line or horse.
Managed to get some free groceries thanks to flybuys.
Took lunch everyday. Avoiding take away coffee.
Harvested some strawberries and snow peas from our garden.
Janine, maybe you could cook up a couple of meals on the weekend and freeze them into single portions. Just pop in the fridge the night before to defrost. They would make life easier on those harder nights. Would save you a fortune too.
DeleteThank you for the suggestion. Will try that. Boy were the pizza restaurant pizzas expensive especially as we always make our own. I love your hydrangeas. I am growing one in my garden but it is yet to flower. Blessings
DeleteI love the green gift bag with the lace! It's so simple but lovely and perfect. I hope you don't mind if I steal that idea!
ReplyDeleteSteal away. I'm just starting out with the bag decorating.
DeleteThanks for the reply re movie deals Wendy.
ReplyDeleteSo impressed by your jams.
To my list for the week:
We went to a school fete where you could fill a bag for $1 at the white elephant stall - teens got some fabulous finds including bags, shorts and tops.
At the fete as we were leaving you could take plants from the plant stall that hadn't been sold - we took a raspberry plant (excited about that!), a yellow daisy, a red geranium and a succulent. All have been planted in our garden except the succulent which came in a gorgeous old glass container - we have decided to use this and add some other succulents from our garden for a Christmas gift for a relative(Annabel style).Grateful for all your ideas, ladies.
Teens attended a birthday and we shopped from the gift shelf. Car pooled with another family.
Gratefully received an enormous amount of toilet paper, tissues, cleaning products and tinned goods from a neighbour who is moving away.
Also gratefully received some McCains frozen dinners from same neighbour. These fed us for 2 nights - teens were very excited about those. They actually tasted pretty good.
Repaired a bag which holds a camping chair. Sewed a button on a shirt.
Made a baby gift from a patterned piece of polar fleece I had on hand into a blanket.
Picked a bunch of silverbeet as a thankyou gift.
Gratefully received some as new bras from a friend which my teens sorted through and will wear.
Donated a pile of books and toys to the op shop. While I was there bought some smallish jars for 5c each with the intention to make some relish as gifts for teachers and friends.
Made your delicious tuna pasta bake with added silverbeet which fed us 2 nights.
While shopping at Woolies I picked up some chicken fillets that had been reduced and due to expire the following day. The employee doing the reductions walked past and I asked if they could be further reduced please and she said of course! Saved an extra $2 by asking.
Used a fuel docket, saving $2 on a tank of petrol.
Used pre shower water on the garden or in the washing machine when it was raining.
Signed up to the Road to Bethlehem website so we remember to book tickets - we have attended the past 10 years or so.
Thanks for all your ideas and inspiration,
Marie.
Maries, you were abundantly blessed this week. God is good and always takes care of us.
DeleteI'm glad you enjoyed the pasta bake. It's a family favourite here.
Thankyou for sharing your list with everyone xoxo
Hi Wendy,
ReplyDeleteYour bags and Hydrangeas look beautiful. Might have to get a Hydrangea cutting from you.
I had a great MOO week this week and did the usual which has become second nature.
I made: 4 x loaves of bread, Choc chip bickies, lunchbox muffins, caster sugar and yogurt.
Some of the meals I made this week , I had leftovers for the freezer or I doubled the amount for a second meal.
I made a card for my nephew's birthday and made a cake to take to his house. I attended a carers lunch which was all for free as I am a carer. I pulled some card making paper out of some mags I got for free at the card making day. Kept 4 cereal boxes for my price book and kept the bags for freezing things. Rejigged the budget a little, brought a packet of brads for 0.50c, found a shower timer in a drawer to put into boys shower and found some of my boys books from when they were little like: Little golden books Thomas and Beatrix Potter to use in my card making.
DH fixed a leaky tap, picked Silverbeet and strawberries and started going thru DS2's booklist for next year as he starts secondary school. My older son has some books and I might be able to get some thru a friend secondhand or online. I bit the bullet yesterday and went to Tasman meats and bought Mince for $6.99 p/kg as I didn't have any left and picked up some other meat while I was there, so expensive!!!! WOW!! how meat prices have risen so quickly.
I Mooed room deo spray, Miracle spray (double strength), Washing powder and refilled the dish washing liquid.
So a good week, lets hope this week is just as good, xxx
Maureen
Sounds like you kept yourself busy Maureen. Yes meat is expensive everywhere but Tasman is a little cheaper.
DeleteI'm going through Megan's booklist too. Hopefully Jessica can pass a few books down. I'm going to try and sell some through facebook.
Love your blog so much. We also live a very frugal lifestyle and its just great to see another family that do.
ReplyDeleteThankyou Mel. There are quite a few of us living the simple yet abundant lifestyle. Do you have a blog ?
DeleteThanks so much for your reply Wendy :) I sure do. My blog is http://thriftyfrugalfun.blogspot.com.au/
ReplyDelete