On Monday we had an extended family member move in with us to get their life back on track. We will be helping them with a budget and teaching them life skills.
We've had Luka stay with us a couple of times and he continues to bring great joy into our lives. He's a happy little man unless he's hungry. We hear lots of baby talk / gurgling from the loungeroom as he discovers his toes and the activity mat.
Here's what else we've been up to -
* Made up two bottles of diluted Dynamo laundry liquid.
* Baked four loaves of wholemeal bread with extra goodness.
* Mended a top where the seam had come apart
* Bought 5 x $2 tshirts for Darren from a clearance rack at Kmart. We cleared the rack of Darren's size.
* Megan picked up lots of sneakers in different sizes for Luka at $4 a pair from Kmart. Their original price was $20 a pair.. She'll be putting them away for future needs. Megan also picked up a few items of clothing for herself at heavily reduced prices.
* We had two unexpected visitors stay for dinner one night when we were finishing up the last of a pot of chunky chicken and veggie soup. I added enough water to make it stretch for the visitors. I find that homemade soup with soup mix in it really thickens up when refrigerated.
* Used the clothes horses over the ducted heating vents to dry our clothes.
* Picked rosemary from the garden to dry. I've placed it in a paper bag for protection from dust and hung it from a nail at the top of a bookcase. It should be ready to use in a few weeks. I've run out of rosemary completely and I'm determined to use what I have in the garden instead of buying more.
* Made potato cakes from leftover potato mash from dinner the night before. Jessica and I enjoyed the potato cakes for lunch the next day.
* Gratefully received two Summer dresses from Jessica when she was cleaning out her wardrobe.
* Tried out a new biscuit recipe. I doubled the ingredients and tweaked the recipe to make it my own. I've baked some of the biscuits and froze the rest of the dough.
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| Rosemary from the garden |
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| Potato cakes from leftover mash |
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| A new recipe for biscuits |
Hi Wendy and you are having a busy time of it at the moment. I am glad Jessica is okay but she will be sore for a while no doubt. If you or her have arnica cream in the home it will help to rub that on her to ease the muscle soreness for a few hours at a time but don't use it on any broken skin. We use Brauer's Arnica cream and it works well for pain and inflammation as it is completely plant based.
ReplyDeleteYou have got a lot accomplished for the week and I am glad you are able to teach some budgeting skills to your extended family. We must take a look at Kmart when we go to a large town near us to see if we can top up on some clothing at bargain prices as well.
Our savings last week added up to $154.68 :) .
Listings & extra income earned -
- I listed 34 items on a free listing promotion saving $56.10 on usual prices.
- Made $20 from the sale on eBay of dried rosemary and a handmade 5 layer cotton eye mask.
Groceries and purchases -
- Bought 4 more shelving units for the food storage room and curtain rods, holders and ends from a bonus pay I had.
- Saved $10.05 on buying staples from Woolworths on special.
- From IGA I purchased 4 x 6 pk bread rolls on clearance and 6 packets of potato chips on half price special saving $13.40 on usual prices.
- From Coles we purchased 8 tins of harvest long life vegetables and meat on special saving $12 on usual prices. This topped our food storage up by 6 more tins.
- Also from Coles I purchased 4 packets of bread improver and used my $10 flybuys dollars I downloaded to pay only 0.60c saving $10.
- Purchased an e-gift card for groceries from RACQ saving 5% or $13.13 on groceries giving me that amount of free groceries when I next shop.
In the home -
- Put together the 4 food storage shelving units in the food storage room.
- Organised the powdered milk, toilet paper, tinned harvest and spam onto different shelves for more room and to have it better organised.
Water preservation -
- Did the usual saving shower warm up water to fill drink bottles and for cleaning, used the grey water pumped from the grey water tank to water fruit trees and some of the lawns.
Preserving our wildlife -
- Hand fed a swamp wallaby that looked undernourished with leftover bread and apple cores. We think she is about 2 years old and she now lets us pat her although she is still startled if you move too quickly around her. DH can now pat her very briefly. Poor animals it is so dry with the drought that they are finding it hard to get nutritious food.
Have a great week ahead everyone :).
Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).
I’ve been a bit flat lately then two of the kids got sick so I git cleaning while I was off eor
ReplyDeleteI tidied the pantry checked the freezers and write a menu
I stewed up some sad pears made Bircher mueslie and about to make your lemon slice
I made meatballs using a tin of lentils to stretch the mix sprinkled over ridoni and pasata and baked it the kids loved it
I picked flowers for the bathroom and washed everyone’s sheets! Nothing nicer than a clean bed
Have a great week x
Csthy
I am becoming more and more determined to eat at home, eat from the pantry and freezers. I have had some success because I had more than $40 left over at the end of the fortnight. I am constantly holding mum back from buying more items. For example our body wash is on sale with and on bottle added to it but we have about five at home. We won't be needing any extra for a long long time. I don' think I can trim much more and now have to be vigilant about not letting anything slip past me. Today we managed to buy a bag of vegetables for $4. This included one eggplant, one red capsicum, a quarter of a pumpkin and two bunches of English spinach and four pack choi.
ReplyDeleteLove the look of those potato cakes! It's very satisfying to make another meal using leftovers....almost like getting it free!
ReplyDelete