My workload outside of the home has increased over the last few months. There are days I can't do anything thrifty and other days I can get 5 frugal tasks done in 1 hour. However your week pans out, trying to be thrifty is better than not being thrifty at all.
Here's my frugal list for the week -
* Picked some lemons off our tree. Our tree hasn't been well for a couple of years so any lemons we get is a big blessing. I'll be juicing them shortly.
* Froze leftover roast beef in gravy for another couple of meals. Freezing it in gravy helps to prevent it drying out.
* Bought craft tape on Ebay because it's much cheaper than retail.
* Gratefully received bread bags which we recycle for all sorts of things around the home.
* Baked four loaves of wholemeal bread with extra goodness.
* Made pita chips for snacks.
* Ate freezer meals ( leftovers ) two nights this week. I'm desperately trying to make room in my freezer for meat specials.
* Saved water from the shower, washing machine and kitchen sink to reuse around the home for plants, soaking dishes and to wash clothes.
* Added another $10 worth of points to our Flybuys card.
* Fed the compost bin with kitchen scraps. Shortly we'll be able to empty a bin onto the veggie garden.
* Saved the tissue paper from shoes boxes Jessica was throwing out.
* Fed handfuls of weeds to the chickens.
* Bought a jumper from Savers for $6 and good quality jeans for $12. I also found a Royal Albert cup, saucer and plate for $24.99. It retails in Myer for up to $150. I'm being a good girl and putting it away for Darren to give me for my birthday in October.
* Dried most of the clothes over the heating vents. Stuck to the 2 light rule, opened curtains when the Sun was shining and kept the heater off as much as possible.
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| My op shop find |
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| In the garden |
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| Pita chips. |
Days do ebb and flow don't they, times that are busy and times that are quieter. I make the most of days I spend at home to get things done. This week:
ReplyDelete* used up some freezer meals as feeling unwell and not wanting to cook much
* happily received half dozen eggs which went into homemade icecream and omelettes
* baked choc-chip cookies from dough I had frozen in freezer
* picked kale and spring onion from garden and dug up some little baby potatoes too
* made up a small gift for friend from my present box
* op-shopped 2x jeans for our trip to Canberra coming up (It's cold down there!)
* saved 15% on accomodation in Canberra by booking online
* took my mobile phone in for repair (under warranty)
* finished sewing up skirt from remnants I bought at community centre haberdashery (total cost was under $15)
* found a little pink bolero cardigan that goes with above skirt at op-shop. Cost $7 and looks new.
All in all, although feeling under the weather, was a good week. Hope you have a lovely weekend, Wendy. Meg:)
We all need to come up with something other than bread bags as they are not environmentally friendly and defeat the purpose of green bags for shopping and buying no packaging stuff etc etc.
ReplyDeleteI agree but I'd much rather save them from going to landfill straight away and reuse them over and over again. I rescue quite a few from a café before they go into the bin. Would you rather I do nothing and turn a bling eye ?
DeleteI agree Wendy!
DeleteAndrea.
Hi everyone, Liz here, love the cup Wendy, so pretty! Another quiet week here, my eldest son goes back to Perth tomorrow as his annual leave has finished, he's happy to go back to work as he loves his job as a TV camera man/editor! So not a lot to add this week -
ReplyDeleteOnly one trip to town to deliver a bed I donated to the local high school for there Drama performance, and stayed away from the shops!
Gratefully received a bag of avocado's from my neighbours orchard.
Did spend some money online buying Christmas presents, but found cheaply on ebay and free shipping. I already had this money saved for Christmas!
I was refunded $23.95 from a online dvd company for a dvd I ordered last September for DS birthday and never received as it was out of stock. Took 3 emails to resolve it but they paid it eventually!
Incorporated home grown lamb, pumpkin, broccoli, eggs, grated zuchinni from the freezer and bottled tomatoes in my meals this past week, saving quite a bit of money.
Gathered a load of firewood off the farm and collected lots of rain water this week.
Added to my coin jar with coins I found in the car, but not enough to take to the bank yet.
Hope everyone has a great week ahead, regards Liz
That tea and saucer set is gorgeous! Such an amazing find! Jen xx
ReplyDeleteWendy, if you venture over my way at all, feel free to call in for some lemons. I have a ridiculous amount!!
ReplyDeleteWorking outside the home makes being frugal hard at times.
ReplyDeleteI try to be organised as there is no point earning extra money to pay off the mortgage and help the kids if I spend it on take away.
Meal planning, packing school bags the night before, baking and freezing school snacks, ironing for the week on sunday all help....my problem is when I get home late from sport and I get behind with the clean washing.
As a teacher I cook extra in the holidays and freeze. Also I have a few meals I pop in the oven before I rush to sport so it "cooks itself"
Any ideas you or your readers have would be great!
Cathy
Hi Cathy, you sound like you are already doing a great job. We are a family of 4 and are busy some school nights too. I like to do "doubles" If I cook a Sunday night roast I plate up 8 plates. I put the left over 4 plates in the fridge so on a Wednesday night all we do is put them in the microwave. This creates a double meal. I meal plan 2 of these doubles into a week so I have 2 nights free of cooking. Saves my sanity. We eat healthy and don't have to order takeaway. Yay! All the best. Rachel :)
DeleteGreat Idea we could eat or freeze
DeleteI have to increase the volume I cook 3 of my four are boys with lots of sport...they fight over left overs for lunch boxes!
Thank you
Cathy
The last of the 135 pounds of ripe tomatoes I was given last Saturday our now on my basement shelves in the form of home canned quarts of diced tomatoes (29) and pints of tomato sauce (13)! The parts that were too ripe and the cores of the tomatoes were turned into farm fresh eggs courtesy of our hens! Lol! So nothing was wasted!
ReplyDeleteI did more brick walkway laying and have now used over 75% of the 500+ free bricks we got on Freecycle a couple months ago! That makes me happy for 2 reasons- first, I don’t have stacks of bricks just sitting along my fence line and second, I have 2 really nice walkways that will no longer need mowing and will keep my toes from getting muddy when it’s wet outside!
We continue to get between 3-1/2 and 4 dozen eggs a week and have a routine where I hard boil a dozen each week in my Instant Pot for snacking!
I volunteered to make an autumn table runner for a long serving table for an event we’re hosting in October, so I found a free online pattern and went to my fabric stash and voila! All I need to do now is quilt and bind it!! Here’s a link to the photo. The fabric you see beyond the black border is the wrong side of the backing that is also one of the fabrics in the runner top and will serve as the binding fabric. https://pin.it/d7xqz6pnx7zswz
We weeded around the wide perimeter of the fire pit and besides saving the cost of hiring someone to do it, it looks so wonderful AND we got some good exercise!
I continue to declutter and that is such a savings because, I can keep better track of what I actually have , it’s less work and space to clean and I’m not going out and buying duplicates!
I am doing your Use-it -Up challenge around the house and in the kitchen! We had a rotisserie chicken in the fridge that I shredded up using my mixer, some leftover salsa verde in a jar in the fridge and some chunks of pepper jack cheese from the fridge that I shredded and turned into Salsa Verde Chicken burritos for dinner one night this week that even made enough for a couple brown bag lunches afterwards! The family rated it as a “repeater” which means they loved it and would be happy to see it on the menu again! Plus, it cleared 3 things out of the fridge that might have stayed in the back and died!! Lol!
Doing a lot of DIY projects inside and outside that take only time and use materials we already have! The time component we have learned to break down into little 15-60 minute increments so that it progresses but we don’t have to wait until we have half a day or more to work on it!! Amazing the results that brings!
I have stayed out of the stores which saves me a lot!
So, lots of same old, same old savings things here but I’m happy that those have become second nature to us and we do so many of them automatically!
Thanks for your inspiration and motivation to us! It helps us move forward!
I collect English China and I love the trio you bought. Added to my stockpile with some specials this week. Bought mostly specials this week, I dont drive so once a month I get an online delivery from coles, wasn't very happy this week. Broken eggs, stale bread, tins of spaghetti so badly dented I doubt they would be safe to eat. I rang up and complained about paying for the bags. I had 2 bags with 10 tins of cat food in each so 4 kilos each bag. One bag contained 1 small bottle of soft drink, another 2 packets country cheese biscuits, another 2 cherry ripe bars and 1 packet country cheese, another 2 litres of milk, another 2 tubs of 2 minute noodles. At 15 cents I was annoyed at how many bags I had paid for.
ReplyDeleteFeeling cold I had 8 balls of coloured Fuzzy Flurry wool and I bought a bag of 10 balls at Savers for $4. I had so many scarves I had knitted so I sewed 2 together knitted the wool up in one large panel and sewed another 2 scarves onto the bottom. It made a large rug of good size to go on my bed and only cost me $4 extra for wool and gave purpose to 4 scarves that were otherwise taking space in my wardrobe. I cashed in some paypal cash from doing surveys and I made a donation to a horse rescue and bought some bales of hay for Australian farmers in need. I have enough in life so I'm glad the money helped others.
Life is good at the moment, counting down to my holiday. Hope everyone had a lovely weekend Leanne
Hi Wendy and you have done so well this week even though you have been so busy :) and I love that cup saucer and side plate they are just divine.
ReplyDeleteHere is how we saved money, time and resources this week -
Earnings -
- Sold 100 g of dried thyme and 25 g of dried rosemary picked and dried from the gardens and also capsicum seeds saved from the gardens in my internet shop making $27.92 less expenses.
Financial-
- Saved more money into our saving for our home deposit bank account bringing us to 27.03% of the way there.
- Listed 20 more handmade items and dried herbs from the gardens on eBay on a free listing promotion saving $33 on normal listing fees.
Firewood -
- Cut 1 cubic metre of ironbark hardwood firewood free from a friends property saving us $200 over purchasing it locally.
Purchases -
- After investigating the local hardware store on the price of leather gloves which we use a lot of here for gardening I found them much cheaper on eBay and purchased 12 pairs for DH and 12 pairs for myself saving $104.48. We will be right for gloves for a couple of years at a fraction of the price.
- As both of our chainsaws gave up the ghost we took them into the repair shop and they told us they were at the end of their lives and the repair bill would be over $1000 to repair them. I opted rather than to buy the name brand chainsaws to purchase MTM brand ones (a Chinese knock off of Stihl) saving $2289.90 and also purchased a spare chainsaw chain for each chainsaw too. This brand we have in other gardening equipment and found them if not equal but more reliable than the brand name ones.
- From the hardware store we purchased a pair of rain pants I saw on the shelf that were marked so I asked for a discount and they reduced them to $5 saving another $3.97. I am not worried about the marks on them as I will use them in the garden when it rains or out firewood cutting so they will only get dirty anyway :).
In the gardens -
- We separated thyme plant runners growing in the gardens with good root systems on them and planted them in places others had died saving $18 over buying them in the local nurseries.
- Picked 647 g of cherry tomatoes & 13 bunches of silver beet from the gardens which we froze or blanched and froze for food storage saving $58.47 over purchasing them in the local supermarkets.
- Harvested a huge amount of thyme from the gardens and currently have it drying to put up for sale in my internet shop.
All in all a good week in the mountain cottage :) and hope everyone else has had a good week too :).
Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).
I agree with you. Lots of little things every day make a difference. It only takes a few minutes to hang the laundry. Dumping water at the end of the day into my plants takes no time at all. Paying bills online verses mailing them out actually saves me time. But all 3 save me money. The rest of my week is here: https://mcoia.blogspot.com/2018/07/my-frugal-list-week-of-july-16-2018.html
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy,
ReplyDeleteYou have had a great week, I love the tea cup you found it is beautiful.
Was wondering if you were going to be posting your meal plans anytime soon or do you not really do that anymore? I am at home this year on Mat leave and my little girl has just started eating solids. I have been making my own purees and freezing as it saves money over buying the pouch food. She seems to be enjoying her veggies which is good. I just need some inspiration for meals for my fiancé and i. Also we are looking to plan our wedding for next year but everything is so expensive it makes me just want to forget about it but it would be nice to have a celebration with our family and friends. How are you budgeting for Jessicas wedding? Any tips?
Have a lovely week.
Samm