The weather has been quite warm and humid over the last couple of weeks. During this time I try to find less strenuous jobs to do like decluttering, filling up cleaning spray bottles and tidying up a cupboard or two. At the end of the day I get great satisfaction knowing I've made my home cleaner, tidier and a little more thriftier.
Here's what we did this week around our home and garden -
* Scraped out some of the dirt from the chicken run and added it to a veggie garden bed. The soil level in the chicken run was getting too high. The dirt is a combination of grass, chicken poop and kitchen scraps that have composted down over a long period of time. I'll be letting this veggie bed rest for a while in case the added dirt is too strong for seedlings.
* Gratefully received a box of mixed lettuce. We gave lots to our chickens and the rest went into the compost bin.
* Sold a dishcloth to one of Jessica's friends.
* Gratefully received about 3 kilos of plums from my Dad. The weather was too hot to make them into jam so I frozen them for future use.
* Made two jars of pita chips using pita bread from the freezer.
* Gratefully received an ergonomic office chair and face masks from a friend. Darren is using the chair for his new job.
* Picked raspberries, a couple of lemons, beans, a zucchini and tomatoes from our garden.
* Dug up 13.3 kilos of potatoes from our veggie garden.
* Took up 3 pairs of jeans ( the legs were too long ). I also converted an old pair of jeans into shorts and added a decorative stitch to the edge of the shorts.
* Planted more bean and tomato seeds with the hope that they will grow and it's not too late for another crop. I've also sown lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprout seeds for Autumn planting.
* Made a quadruple batch of choc chip biscuit dough and a double batch of ANZAC biscuit dough. Some biscuits were baked to have with cups of tea and the rest of the dough was frozen for future baking.
* Gratefully received a tray of sausages that were leftover from a community meal. Darren cooked them on the bbq last night. Today I have both slow cookers going to make lots of sausage casserole. We will be having some for dinner tonight and the rest will be frozen into portions for 2 people.
* Darren and I tied up the raspberry plants growing a little wild behind one of our sheds. Now it's easier to pick the fruit without getting caught on the prickly canes.
* Darren fed the compost bins with kitchen scraps. He churns the contents quite often to help everything break down quickly.
* Picked up quite a few 500g trays of beef mince heavily reduced to $1.60 in Coles. Their regular price is $8. Each tray was divided in half and frozen. Each half ( 250g ) will feed 4 people or give us 2 meals. Such a blessing as I was getting low on beef mince.
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| Our raspberries are finally ripening |
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| World's smallest tomatoes - Tom Berries |
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| The beans are growing. |
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| The corn growing in leaps and bounds |
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| Our meat bargain. |
That is a lot of great achievements. That is a crazy amount of potatoes, so impressed.
ReplyDeleteThankyou. We haven't bought potatoes since last May / June
DeleteWow what a great deal on the mince. Our Coles store believes in markdowns of a few cents. I did buy several large bottles of cream not reduced but only 50 cents use by is the 23rd of Feb. Expecting an online delivery today so will see how many googs i can get. The cat food was an online special normally $11,50 down to buy 4 boxes for $30 i buy enough cat food for 2 months at a time as i dont drive and its easier to get delivered.
ReplyDelete# Did baking yesterday cup cakes, large cake and date loaf. Frozen in slices for mums morning tea.
# Made up small glass bottle drinks with water, cordial, herbal tea and pineapple juice as a flavouring. The glass bottles keep the drinks much cooler.
# Mum likes the rice cream that comes in very small tins $4 for 4. I made a batch of rice pudding and just fill her tin up she hasnt woke up its home made.
# Steam cleaned the carpets with our cleaner.
# Cooked up pear and peaches so they didnt go to waste.
# Eating from the freezer and trying to have enough leftovers to make toasted sandwiches the next day for lunch.
# Using long life milk in baking saving about 30 cents a cartoon.
# Giving mum boiled egg, egg salad or curried egg sandwiches for protein instead of buying ham Mum only eats the good ham so i save a fortune.
# Bagged up some clthes and goods to donate to savers.
# Gifted more hamper tea bags.
Blessed to have a job, great friends, food on the table and lovely warm weather. Stay safe have a wonderful weekend and Happy Saving. Leanne
Leanne, our Coles usually reduces by a few cents too. We now look at another Coles at 6pm when they clear things out.
DeleteLove your rice cream trick. Good one !!
Looks like you are going to be enjoying some lovely homegrown produce, Wendy. I'm hoping to grow greens like lettuce and perpetual spinach in the Autumn here. Over Summer we had cucumbers...LOTS of cucumbers!! Great deal on the mince; you must've been in the right place at the right time! We saved $ at our place this week:
ReplyDelete* followed meal plan and used up some freezer meals
* shopped specials after checking the catalogues
* applied 10% discount for this month on our Woolworths shop
* took packed lunch and water bottles to work
* hung washing out on the sunnier days we've had this week
* gratefully receiving more plants through our Buy Nothing Group
* wrapped a gift in lovely pink wrap I had saved from bunch of flowers I was given
* bought book for my son really at 1/2 price
* converted a dress into a skirt with elastic waist...I haven't worn dress for many
years but loved the fabric and now I'll get to wear it again!
* filled up car when fuel price came down to $1.60per L. That's cheapest I could
find and I used 4c discount off that to fill up.
Have a lovely week.
Meg
Meg, I save all the wrapping from flowers too. Love your skirt idea.
DeleteI broke a tooth this week so the money I was saving was soon gone. Dentistry is expensive even after health insurance rebates. I have confit some more cherry tomatoes. I convinced mum that we need to finish what is in the fruit and veg draw before buying more. I can't eat eggs due to allergies but I wish I could because it is a great way to save. This week almost every meal has been vegetarian so those savings add up. I filled the car at a lower price but my mother was horrified that the little car took $67 to fill. I made the last tank last three weeks. I am crafting from items I have to hand.
ReplyDeleteYou've got so much lovely produce! Still so much snow on the ground here, and the temperatures are still super cold, but we're one month closer to warmer temps. :)
ReplyDeleteI've had a lot of really great deals on grocery store produce lately. A local store has its 'Ugly But Still Good!' discount produce rack again, where everything is a dollar, so I've been grabbing from that (many pounds of Brussels sprouts, a big bag of fresh green beans, and two huge bags of mushrooms, which I'm chopping and putting in the dehydrator this afternoon). Along with sales on peppers the past few weeks (I just chopped what amounted to four freezer bags of green peppers and two of red), this has been a great week of produce for me. :)