We also made a trip to Tasmania with Jessica, Megan and Jessica's boyfriend Eugene. I'll post more about that trip in next week's frugal task list. While we were away our garden continued to flourish in the heat with the help of our next door neighbour who came over each day to look after our chickens and to water our garden. When we came home I had 2 kilos of beans to pick and peaches ready to eat.
Here are the frugal tasks that I remember doing during the month of January -
* Gratefully received lots of bread bags. They will be used to wrap food for the freezer and to be used as bin liners.
* Made lots of gift tags using recycled Christmas cards.
* Baked wholemeal bread with extra goodness.
* Jessica helped me design labels to attach to bottles of handmade room sprays. This year I'll be giving some of these as gifts along with lots of other handmade gifts.
* Picked beans, raspberries and a few apricots and plums from our garden.
* Saved all the gift bags, ribbon, Christmas cards and gift tags to reuse next year. The gift tag fronts were cut off to be reused. The Christmas cards will be made into gift tags.
* Refilled the foaming hand soap pumps with diluted shower gel.
* Made up a bottle of diluted Dynamo laundry liquid.
* Made the most of the Boxing Day sales to pick up lots of presents for next year. I bought up on men's toiletry packs and aftershave.
* Kept the curtains closed as much as possible on the hot days.
* Saved the shower warm up water to keep our hydrangeas alive.
* Dried the washing on clothes horses and the line.
* Gratefully received two mangoes and two bags of shredded paper ( paper is for the chicken's nesting box )
* Used sausages left over from a bbq to make sausage casserole. I portioned it into single serve and froze for future dinners.
* Doubled the chocolate brownie recipe to make two. One was used for a dinner and the other was cut up and put in the freezer. Chocolate brownie defrosts really well and tastes like it just came out of the oven.
* Used electric fans on the warm but milder days to save on electricity.
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| Our first picking of beans |
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| Cucumbers galore |
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| Peaches |
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| Handmade Lavender room spray for a gift |
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| Lavender starting to bloom. |
Welcome back for the year. Those peaches look amazing, I bet they taste fantastic.
ReplyDeleteThe produce from your garden looks great, Wendy. Peaches...yum! I have been picking lots of beans from our garden too and making bean salads with them or just munching on them as they are. I have saved Christmas cards to make into gift tags too. I might do that this weekend. Meg:)
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy,
ReplyDeleteWow!!! Your garden is going well. Ours is producing but slowly which is still OK. Lots of water savings going on over January and thanks to all the rain the past two days, the tank are nearly full again which is great going into February.
Meal plan done for February and updating our budget for a no spend February.
Goals written out for 2018 now to put into action.
Card making a little each day also.
Planting seeds every week and trying to cut the electricity usage down.
Mooing here and there and trying to plan to make some homemade gifts.
Have a great week, xxx
Maureen
Those are great ways to save. Funny how your spring/summer is our/fall/winter. I would love some peaches right now.
ReplyDeleteSteps out of lurkdom :) to say glad to have you back Wendy.
ReplyDeleteDear Wendy, The room spray looks beautiful. You got the year off to a good start! I love the fruit this time of year and all the possibilities.
ReplyDeleteI did have some fantastic bargains in January. Often Jan. is the best month for me bargain wise. Also the best month for free produce... so it is busy. Also hot as you no doubt are aware!
But I think we got the year going well and Im really grateful.
Your holiday would have been wonderful! With love Annabel.xxx
Welcome back Wendy! Those room sprays look lovely. We've been picking lots of strawberries, corn, zucchini and our cucumbers are just about ready to pick. Have a great week.
ReplyDelete