The funny thing is, many years ago I worked there for two years until just before Jessica was born. I loved Chadstone then, now my tastes ( and budget ) have changed. This week my heart was steering me in the direction of Kmart, The Reject Shop, Target and Daiso. My kinda stores for my budget.
Here's my frugal list for this week
* Baked four loaves of wholemeal bread with extra goodness. I used recycled bread bags to store them in the freezer.
* Refilled the dishwashing liquid bottle and diluted it by 1/3.
* Refilled all my herb and spice jars with bulk packets I purchased from Hindustan Imports in Dandenong. By doing this I save a small fortune each year. I also made a list of what I'm running low on so when I'm near the store next, I can buy the items
* Gratefully received a few department store gift bags from a friend. This weekend I'll be redecorating them so they can be reused. I think it's been a few years since I bought wrapping paper for birthday presents.
* Gratefully received lots of muffins leftover from Jessica's work. We had so many that I took some to a cleaning client's home for them to enjoy too.
* Picked silverbeet, rosemary and a couple of bunches of roses to take to Megan's place when we went over for dinner. She really enjoyed the flowers which I arranged in a couple of jam jars.
* Baked and sold lots of raspberry and white chocolate muffins to a long time cleaning client. She's also put in an order for mini quiches and chocolate muffins for next time.
* Jessica did another declutter of her bedroom. I was able to take quite a few items to Savers and received a discount stamp. With that stamp I was able to purchase Christmas decorations and baby clothes for Megan at 15% off.
* Saved the shower warm up water to pour into the washing machine. Saved water from our drink bottles into a bucket in the kitchen. This was used to soak saucepans and rinse out the sink.
* Jessica and I ate from the freezer ( leftovers ) for dinner when Darren was out at night.
* Picked a bunch of roses for Jessica's bedside table.
* Replenished my dishwashing stockpile with bottles on a half price sale in Coles.
* Picked lettuce from our garden to make a salad for dinner. I also picked silverbeet for three meals.
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| Garden goodies for Megan |
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| Iceberg roses with a hint of pink. |
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| Bargain present buy. $3 a plate |
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| Plate teamed with a candle from Spotlight. |
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| Lightly cooking the silverbeet. |
I love the roses and that plate!! I am enjoying following Aussie Bargain Shoppers. With fuel and electricity going so high basically everything is going up. Being a really good shopper is more important than ever. I am far enough ahead now I only ever buy anything on pretty major specials (or free!) and then try and make it go a mile as you do. What a bonus to get all those muffins! Have a lovely weekend Wendy!xxx
ReplyDeleteAnnabel, I'd love to have a pantry like you do at your new home. All the stockpiling I could do.
DeleteI'm hoping lots of people post their bargain finds in the facebook group so we can all save lots of money.
Hi Wendy, that is such a cute plate. Where did you get it? Melbourne shopping is great! I'm hoping to find some presents that are budget friendly for Christmas. Have a long very week. Rachel :)
ReplyDeleteHi Rachel. I bought the plate from The Reject Shop last Monday. They have other items in the range.
DeleteThanks Wendy. I see that plate has a small platter for $5. So pretty and budget friendly. My kind of gift. I didn't mean to write "have a long very week" I meant have a lovely week. Auto correct wasn't correct :)
DeleteHi Wendy and I love your roses they are beautiful and I am sure you daughter would have loved them. Good to hear also that you were able to get some good specials during the week as well to replenish stocks :).
ReplyDeleteOur savings added up to $4673.94 - $6673.94 last week :).
Here is what we accomplished last week -
Earnings -
- DH earned $210 doing odd gardening jobs.
- I earned $64.50 from the sale of dried thyme and English lavender picked from the gardens and a handmade 5 layer cotton eye mask.
House purchase savings and finances -
- Good news is the current owners of the property we are settling on in December have agreed to spray the fence lines, outdoor structures for termites and the outside house stumps and agreed also to spray the inside and outside of the home for pests, fix a leaking pipe under the home and replace a broken window and hire a surveyor to peg the property boundaries saving us between $4500 - $6500 if we had to do it ourselves. Fortunately the house has no termites and the owners agreed to this as we had it as a condition on our offer to purchase that we had to be happy with the building and pest inspection results for the sale to go through.
- Saved another $20 on our roadside assistance membership by changing our 3rd party over to the same firm and the cost was the same as the previous 3rd party insurer we used to go with.
Purchases -
- We changed our third party insurer over to RACQ from our previous 3rd party insurer saving $20 per year on our roadside assist membership. It was the same price but just added extra savings to our budget.
- Using a RACQ gift card we purchased 4 x 4pt surge protector power boards, some electric cord clips, 2 padlocks, 2 DVD's for a treat, USB to mini USB charging cable and 10 x 20 cm pots with saucers from BigW saving with our 5% off and specials $14 on usual prices. These will go in our new home as we have heard there are power surges out there.
- DH had been looking for load stabiliser bars for our trailer and found some on eBay for a fraction of the price we can buy them locally for saving $135.
Groceries -
- Did a small top up of dried baking goods using an discount e-voucher and taking advantage of specials saved another $44.94 off usual prices.
In the kitchen -
- Cooked all meals and bread from scratch.
- Blanched and froze broad beans picked from the gardens making 14 more double meals for the freezer.
Home organisation -
- We have now packed half the house into labelled boxes and this week concentrated on packing our medical supplies and food storage leaving out what we will use until we move.
- I damp dusted everything and DH vacuumed the rooms as we finished packing each room.
In the gardens -
- Weeded our sweet potato bed and put weeds in the bin.
- Chopped up half of our dried broad bean plants ready which we trench composted today along with the broad bean shells to save on room in the bin. Our lovely neighbour also allowed us to fill the room up in his bin with weeds from the gardens after all the rain made them grow profusely.
Hope everyone has had an equally good week :) .
Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).
That's such a great saving on spraying your new home. It's better to be safe than sorry. Are termites more widespread in Queensland ? I think they are only in certain parts of Melbourne from my understanding.
DeleteThank you Wendy :).
DeleteI am not sure whether Queensland is worse or not for termites. From my understanding they are fairly much found everywhere. I know there is also another type of termite as well in the same family called carpenter ants which are wide spread across Australia. These ants make nests in the wood of your home, burrow tunnels, and are equally as damaging as the termites too and if not treated you have to replace your wooden beams etc in your home.
Either way it is wise to have a pest controller check everyone's home once a year for either of these little beasties. The termites and family have the same body temperature as humans and the pest controllers have an infrared device they can check your home with to see if you have them whilst doing a normal pest inspection if you ask them. Obviously there is an extra cost involved.
I hope this arms yourself and others with knowledge of how to deal with termites and other members of their family.
Sewingcreations15 (Lorna)
Your iceberg roses are beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI planned meals and shopped for a months worth of groceries. It took 2 days but I’m hoping it will save time and money as the month goes on.
Well done for getting all your shopping done. I'm a once a month shopper and have been for almost 20 years. I only pop in to the supermarket for milk on the other weeks. It should save you some time and certainly money if you stick to the menu. But remember, menus are not set in stone and meals can be moved around.
DeleteI'd love to hear how you went when the month is over.
Thank you and I’ll let you know. I didn’t plan day by day menus, I just made a list of almost 20 entrees that we have the ingredients for. So far, I’ve just cooked what sounds good from the list and that’s what I plan to do all month. We also have plenty of baking, breakfast and snack options. Even with hosting Thanksgiving this month, I think we are pretty much covered.
DeleteYour roses are gorgeous, Wendy. I imagine they smell lovely too. I don't have any silverbeet growing in my garden now but I did buy a bunch last week and made an big impossible pie with it. That was enjoyed for dinner and several lunches along with salad. Other frugal things:
ReplyDelete* found fuel for $1.42per L which was cheapest price I could get.
* made a big quinoa salad with asparagus I bought from the odd-
bunch section of the supermarket. Also made potato salad too. Made a plain yoghurt dressing.
* happily received a dozen jam drops from my mum-in-law and froze them for snacks.
* defrosted a gingery caramel cake for afternoon teas.
* finished stitching motifs on some more cotton drawstring bags (for gift giving).
* gifted a handmade washcloth and bar of soap to a lovely friend.
* gave another lovely friend some flowers from my garden.
* emptied water bottles into pot plants on the verandah.
* bought watercolour paper for art lesson I taught this week from a discount shop.
* worked a relief teaching day for some extra $.
It's very hot up here in Sth East Qld this weekend so I have closed our heavy backed curtains against the hot sun. Our solar panels help offset the cost of air-con too. Have a lovely weekend, Wendy! Meg:)
I love your blog, you remind me that it’s the little things that really add up and of course to be grateful for all the blessings. Thank you Wendy x
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to reading your archives, I need all the tips I can get.
ReplyDeleteThe roses are beautiful.
ReplyDeleteWe bought our youngest daughter a new to us car to drive. Hubby negotiated it down $500. The rest of my list is here: https://mcoia.blogspot.com/2018/11/my-frugal-list-week-of-october-29-2018.html
Wendy and Rhonda how do you manage to keep your fruit and veggies fresh for a month if you only shop monthly? I'd love to do it but my veggies don't usually stay fresh longer than 2-3 weeks?
ReplyDeleteI do top up on veggies when needed. I also use veggie bags called FRESH & CRISP. They are in the cling wrap section in a box and help keep things fresh longer. I also have frozen veg as a back up when fresh is running low.
Delete