All the veggie seedlings are still alive and I'm praying it stays that way. Sometimes too much water can drown baby seedlings. The silverbeet plants from last season keep providing for us. We are blessed.
Here's our frugal tasks for the week -
* I gave Megan a haircut.
* Baked and sold lots of blueberry and white chocolate muffins to a cleaning client. She was thrilled to have so many goodies in her freezer for morning teas and for when the grandchildren come over.
* Gratefully received lots of bread bags. These has been de crumbed, aired out and put away to use as bathroom bin liners. I know lots of people are on a plastic free July challenge but I've just prevented these bags from going straight to landfill after one use.
* Gratefully received a large tub of margarine, gift bags ( to decorate ), biscuits and dairy items from a day of card making with my friends.
* We all topped up our cars with petrol at $1.28 per litre just as it was going up to $1.62 per litre.
* I've picked up another cleaning job ( starting next week ).
* Made a big batch of sausage rolls using sausage mince from the freezer bought at $1.99 kg a while ago. Some sausage rolls were given to Megan, some were eaten for a lunch and the rest went into the freezer. I bulked out the sausage mince with dried bread crumbs and a couple of finely grated carrots ( bought a couple of weeks ago on special )
* Picked silverbeet to use for a couple of dinners.
* Gratefully received a box of donuts leftover from Jessica's job. We were able to bless others with donuts too.
* Received a $20 voucher from The Good Guys store. I used it to get a hairdryer for free. I don't need one right now so it will be a backup for when my current one dies.
* We had two super cheap meals this week- Last Sunday we all had leftover meals from the freezer. On Monday I made a potato bake which ended up as the main meal one night and the main side dish to go with sausages the next night .
* Diluted the dishwashing detergent by 50%.
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| Blueberry muffins |
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| Sausage rolls |
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| One of the cards I made last Saturday |
I had made a plan of cheap meals and lost it. However, doing so has helped me because I am working hard at using up. We have had leftovers twice this week. We have also eaten vegetarian twice. This cuts costs.
ReplyDeleteWell done Suzan. I put my meal plans on the fridge
DeleteSo pleased you picked up another cleaning job. Not sure when your going to fit it in though Wendy! You are an amazing lady, a wonderful encourager, and I look forward to reading your blog.Blessings from Robyne S.A
ReplyDeleteThankyou Robyne. I'm so happy that more work has come my way. Maybe I'll get Darren and Jess to do more cooking to help out.
DeleteWe had so many leftover and extra groceries from when the kids were here (back on July 6-10) that I still have on had to buy the "essentials" aka cherry tomatoes & baby cucumbers and a few household items. This weekend we will not buy any either as we are going on vacation starting next Wed. through Saturday. We'll just keep eating up what we have in the pantry & freezer & fridge.
ReplyDeleteFrugal ways this week: Used leftover grilled burgers from freezer to make spaghetti sauce. All other ingredients were pantry stash. Added carrots to the sauce to extend and use up some that were a little limp. Made this in the instant pot (electric pressure cooker) to save on heating up the house too much. I made a double batch of both sauce and a whole box of pasta to have extras for the Farmer's work lunches. Froze 3 of those.
Took advantage of 40% & 50% off online sales and bought some clothes for cooler months for me. Jeans & sweater and necklaces. Also got a summer top with coupon & reward codes for under $5US. I don't buy clothes in the mall but maybe once a year. I rely on great deals like this online.
Used coupons for cheap meal out when we were out late delivering cattle to the sale barn. $5-$6 for each of us. Not the best deal but better than hangry people at 9 p.m.
Last frugal thing: chopped up the last of the chicken strips from the kids' visit and packaged in 2 cup portions & froze as ingredients for future meals.
have a great weekend!
Kay you are doing a great job of using up the food.
DeleteLove all those money saving ways. I would also love to learn how to make sausage rolls.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big fan of carrots. We do get them and they go into soups at this time of year. I will be grating one up later to go into a zucchini slice. In summer we mostly use them in salads. Bluey loves them cooked with honey.
ReplyDeleteWendy so glad you were able to work all week and picked up another cleaning job as well :) and were able to sell some blueberry muffins too. Your baking looks beautiful and good pick up on the filling up on fuel at such a low cost.
ReplyDeleteThis is what we accomplished last week.
Finances -
- Listed 10 items on a free listing promotion on eBay saving $16.50 on usual prices.
- Paid an extra $175 payment off our mortgage.
- Notified the company we purchased our new 20 tonne log splitter off that the item is faulty and spewing out hydraulic fluid and asked for a refund.
In the kitchen and home -
- Cooked all meals and bread from scratch.
- Damp dusted the whole home to get rid of the drought dust and it now sparkles.
In the gardens -
- With excess soil removed from the grape yard enclosure by a friend with a tractor who put the soil over our back fence we back filled areas where erosion had happened from previous creek flooding. We have spread 2/3 of the soil out and have a third to finish it. There was a lot of soil.
- Connected the water from the garden tap through 19 mm pvc pipe reducing to 13 mm pvc piping to the 13 mm drip irrigation frames in the 10 garden beds. We reused more connectors being t-pieces and elbows from our previous gardens as we forgot to buy more.
Water preservation -
- Saved grey water from our washing machine to water spider plants, canna and calla lilies in the ornamental flower gardens and star jasmine.
- Saved our hand washing water to water hedges around the outside of the home.
- Saved shower warm up water to fill drink bottles with and to damp dust the house with.
- Used grey water pumped from our grey water tank to water the lawns with to hopefully green up the grass around the outside of the home. We also used some of the water to water the mulberry and fruit trees.
Hope everyone had a wonderful week :).
Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).
Wendy, I love carrots but I can't grow them! I snack on carrot sticks, add them to salads for lunches and grate them into pasta sauce. This week, petrol came down up here in Qld so:
ReplyDelete* filled up after price came down from $1.60s to $1.32per L.
* used spring onion, parsley, silverbeet and spinach from garden - impossible pie and chopped into omelettes and added to pasta sauce
* picked a small bunch of snow peas, from two plants I have in pots, to add to stir fry. picked few beans to add in too.
* used up over-ripe bananas in a banana bread. Froze slices.
* Had serves of spaghetti bolognese and lasagne from freezer for dinner two nights
* Planted cherry tomato seedlings in pots
* Made all meals, lunches and snacks here at home. We take our own water bottles wherever we go so that's always a saving.
* Picked lavender from our garden to bring inside. Free flowers for our table.
* Borrowed more books and a DVD from local library.
I really enjoy reading what you and other people do for savings, Wendy. I always pick up great ideas. Thanks! Meg:)
Congratulations on the new cleaning work. I grate carrots into lasagne sauce along with some zucchini as when younger the children didn’t like to eat vegetables, now my daughters do the same with their children.
ReplyDeleteWe saved $30.15 on our supermarket shop, almond milk, Heinz tomato soup, peanut butter and plum rose canned ham were all on half price or better. Such a help when trying to get the store cupboard full.
My daughter gave me a bag of lemons and then another bag from my brother in law arrived, lemon butter is on the go this afternoon, I’ll do some preserved in salt, juice some and use some of the peel with vinegar for cleaning and then might get the dehydrator out and try some dried for fruit cakes, it’ll be an adventure 🤞
Lulu
Delighted that more work has come your way Wendy. You are such a hard worker and an example to us all.
ReplyDeleteWith your encouraging posts I have sliced my budget quite hard and it seems to be working. Thank you for all your tips and ideas.
This week I was able to pick up reduced chicken fillets close on 4 kg at half price. All frozen immediately and my freezer filling up well.
I look forward to your posts so much.
God bless you and your family.
Well done on getting a new cleaning job it will make a big difference. Finding it hard to save a dollar with prices going up on everything.
ReplyDelete1) Made a black forest cake instead of buying one saved me heaps.
2 Made a batch of blueberry muffins and froze them.
3 Mums 90 and enjoys her bikkies. Had $15 in unused gift cards that needed to be spent so bought 10 packets on sale at coles this week.
4 Mum is of the old school and likes some of her food cooked in dripping. So currently cooking meals a day ahead and skimming the cold fat off the top of stews and soups and putting in the dripping container. Shes none the wiser and less i have to buy.
5 Mum likes the big bag of liquirice from coles $4 I buy it and before i give it to her i shake the bag really hard. When i fill her lolly jar there are heaps of pink and blue sprinkles in the bottom of the bag. I use the sprinkles to decorate cup cakes when i make them.
5 Once a fortnight i pick up a dozen rolls for work they pay. I buy the poppy seed rolls give the bags a good shake causes a lot of the seeds to fall off and take the empty bags home. Sift the seeds from the crumbs every now and them i make a lemon and poppyseed cake. Bonus is i get stamps on my Bakers Delight card so a free item every few weeks.
6 Opened a tin of pineapple in juice and used the juice to make some breakfast juice with some fruit i needed to use up. juiced apples mandarines and oranges it was lovely for a change.
7 Bought some half price reduced milked. So made rice pudding and bread and butter puddings and froze in individual serves.
8 Saved all the crusts i cut off mums sandwiches and made into bread crumbs.
Every cent is being saved I really want to be out of debt by Christmas.
Love to all please stay warm in this freezing weather. Leanne.
Congrats on landing the new cleaning job. As for us:
ReplyDelete-Sold a few items on eBay
-Returned a couple of things I didn't need
-Found $11 in spare change
-Made meals at home
-Completed a small work task in order to get a free photo book credit. I'm in the process of making photo books for all of our print photos
-Bought gift cards that we need for travel, earning $10 in credit at Rite Aid
Anytime I make burger patties, sausage rolls etc I bulk them out with a tin or two of chickpeas. I'm very lazy I place mince, chickpeas, egg bread crumbs etc in the food processor to combine it all. With a large family of 6 to feed, I do this to make the mince I buy go further as like to buy the low-fat mince which is always a bit more in price.
ReplyDeleteWould you explain how to make sausage rolls? (I looked in your recipe section -- no dice.) I read about these in British and Australian stuff...but have no idea how to make them.
ReplyDeleteI would also like the sausage roll recipe please
ReplyDelete