Saturday 25 January 2020

This Week's Frugal Tasks Saturday 25th January 2020

My frugal list is not very long this week.  I was out at cleaning jobs 4 days this week.  I pulled a few weeds out of the garden every time it stopped raining. One day I pottered around tidying things,  decluttering and sorting out our 2 abandoned bedrooms and generally getting ready for when our family moves back in.  I spent all day last Saturday with some of my closest friends doing what I love the most - drinking tea,  eating, talking and making a few cards.

Here's what else I got up to

*  Recycled some birthday cards given to me by a friend.  I cut them down to size,  matted and mounted them onto new blank cards.  Added a bit of bling where needed and they look great.  I also made gift tags from card making  scraps.

*  Found packs of 2 lamb shanks at 49% off bringing them down to about $7.50 a kilo.  There were 4 packs on the shelf so I bought the lot.  They have been frozen and will be rationed out over the next 12  months for special occasions instead of going out for dinner.

*  Menu planned for the next 2 weeks.  I'm concentrating on using what we already have in the freezer instead of buying more.  We need room in the freezer for tomatoes and beans that are growing in the garden.

*  Sold 2 dozen eggs to a friend

*  Picked lettuce and zucchini from the garden.

*  Refilled the shampoo and conditioner bottles by turning almost empty bottles upside down.  I also diluted the conditioner by 1/3

*  It was my turn to host the card making day last Saturday.  For morning tea I made a double batch of scones and served them with homemade peacharine / peach  jam.  The leftover scones were frozen and Darren and I have enjoyed a few during the week with a cuppa.

*  Picked a few raspberries every couple of days.  I'm working towards my next jam making session.

*  Made a large jar of dried seasoned bread crumbs from scratch.  I used the ends of loaves of bread,  whizzed,  dried and seasoned them.

*  Received a $20 store credit for the Good Guys.  I put this towards a George Foreman Grill for a  Christmas present which also happened to be on sale.  Normal price was $39 down to $29.  I only paid $9.  Bonus.  The store credits come every 3 months or so as part of a extended warranty scheme.
*  Cooked all meals from scratch.  At the moment it's just Darren and I at home.  We still cook for 4 - 6 people as that's what most recipes are.  We freeze all the leftovers into single serves.  This eliminates waste and I only have to cook a few times a week.

Unfortunately we didn't get much sunshine this week.  This is the reason why the photos are a bit dull.


Finished this card I started a couple of years ago

Megan's birthday Card - a new design

Recycled card

Recycled card.

Homemade - just divine.


How have you saved money this week ?

Do you cook extra quantities and freeze the leftovers ?

4 comments:

  1. I got two large legs for $10.50 a kilo I cut a piece of the end of both for making two curries. The legs will each do two meals still. I went to the shop near work and they had lamb chops on clearance so were under $7/kg. I went back the next day I noticed the ticket said chops were $13/kg but packs were marked at $17/kg. I grabbed a pack and they scanned wrong at the register so got close to 2 kg of chops free. I don't think I have bought lamb in almost a year, so I expect this will last use a little while as we alternate with other meat.

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  2. I am becoming quite good at freezing for another day. This week I cooked a lamb roast which did five meals for the tow of us. The bones will be boiled down so I have stock for the next lamb roast's gravy. To my surprise my tomato plants are looking good and are beginning to flower. Sadly my herbs continue to die almost as soon as I plant them. I am trying hard to convince mum that we have plenty of food and that when we run out of potato before this Thursday I frozen baked potato in the freezer. Multiply this by many foods. I did make bread this week but I didn't like the result.

    You always inspire me. Stay safe and well.

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  3. Hi Wendy,
    Your cards are beautiful. What a lovely way to spend an afternoon. The scones look delicious too.
    We had a frugal week. Cooked from scratch and kept to our grocery budget. We've had a couple of larger purchases, our washing machine finally broke down and my mobile phone died. I use my phone for business as well as our home phone. But we had emergency money to by a new older model phone and a washing machine that was on sale at $400 off. All paid with cash!
    Have a great week.
    Rachel :D

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  4. Wendy I am glad you were able to pick up discounted meats, spend quality times with friends and enjoy your lovely scones :).

    We too have had a lot of rain and not only are our 3 water tanks filled to the brim but so is the seasonal creek on our back boundary running :). So nice to see water in drought time and green grass again finally.

    Our Vicky challenge added up to $121.26 in savings last week.

    Gifts - We said yes to a friend who offered us 3 fig trees she had propagated as she had too many saving us $68.94 over purchasing them.

    Gift cards and supermarket purchase savings -
    - Bought a Wish e-gift card from RACQ for groceries saving 5% or $7.28 on usual prices.
    - Took advantage of a $15 off $160 purchase at Woolworths for groceries saving $15.
    - Saved a further $3.39 from buying specials when we ordered our groceries.

    Finances and listings -
    - Took advantage of a free listing promotion on eBay and listed 11 items saving $18.15 on usual listing fees.
    - Banked more money into our 3 month living expenses emergency
    fund bringing us up t 28.8% of the way there.

    Pantry stocking -
    - With the $22.28 in savings above we stocked our pantry for free with - 1 x bic 4 colour pen, 2 x 2lts of laundry liquid, 3 x 6 pack of scourer sponges, 1 x 80 pk of freezer bags, and 7 tins of mango slices.

    In the kitchen -
    - Cooked all meals and bread from scratch.

    Home deep cleaning -
    - Using excess rainwater saved in our tank swimming pool I damp dusted and deep cleaned the downstairs bathroom, rumpus room, upstairs bathroom, cleaned the outside of the double sliding glass doors and screen and another rumpus room window and cleaned siding down one side of the home that had mould growing on it from the last lot of heavy rains we had.

    In the gardens -
    - With potting mix and garden pots we had we repotted into larger pots 3 bonsai apple trees, a valencia orange and a mandarin tree.
    - We weeded the lettuce garden bed.
    - Picked both lettuce and cherry tomatoes for multiple meals saving $7.50 over buying them.
    - DH and I dug a trench around one mature mandarin, and two mulberry trees in the paddock and put the remaining wood chips back in to mulch it.

    Have a wonderful week ahead everyone :).

    Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).

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