Saturday 14 September 2019

This Week's Frugal Tasks Saturday 14th September 2019

I'm back to the usual pace this week and feeling much better.  Thankyou for all the well wishes you sent.  I've started restocking the freezer with precooked meals ahead of the busy season at the end of the year. Most of my Christmas shopping is done and Megan finished her shopping this week too.

Here's what else I got up to this week -

*  Gratefully received extra cleaning work this week.  Infact,  it was decluttering and sorting out a client's linen cupboard,  doing some washing and shopping for her due to illness.

*  Wrote a menu plan for the next two weeks.

*  Fed the compost bins with lots of kitchen scraps and paper packaging.

*  Fed grass,  bread crusts and weeds to the chicken to supplement their usual feed.

*  Picked silverbeet as our green vegetable for a few meals.

*  Bulk cooked spag bol sauce and stretched it out with grated carrot and silverbeet.  It's been portioned into serves for 2 and 4.  Some will be used for an upcoming short holiday to Ballarat with family.

*  Made a trip to Hindustan Imports to stock up on herbs and spices.  They are much cheaper than supermarkets.

*  Dug into my glass jar collection and found 8 glass jars that matched and turned them into bulk herb jars for the pantry.

*  Picked more rosemary from the garden to dry.  The last bunch was blitzed in the coffee grinder to make rosemary powder.  I'll gradually filling up the jar.
 
*  This week's super cheap meals were fried rice and chunky chicken soup

*  Made a trip to Savers with Megan and Luka to update Luka's wardrobe.  We found lots of great clothes for him at bargain prices.

*  Made lots of mini sausage rolls and froze them for a small gathering I'm having soon.

*  Baked four loaves of wholemeal bread with extra goodness.

*  Baked a whole orange cake and divided the batter into different sized cake tins.  The smallest laf and mini cakes were frozen and one was iced and eaten during the week.

Orange cakes in different sizes

Mini sausage rolls

Fresh  bread and flowers.

What frugal tasks were on your list this week ?


8 comments:

  1. I have been on a decluttering binge. Lots of junk thrown out. I managed to fill the car before fuel went up but the tank is almost empty as I have been looking after my granddaughter three days this week. Her mother had a car accident so I have been helping with the gaps until the car is fixed.

    This month I am working on a very low spend month. I am not as low as some can go but I am getting there. Our food spend is lower than average. I swear the most costly item this fortnight has been the cats.

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  2. Wendy I bet your client was thrilled with her linen cupboard after you were finished! Love your cooking! I love a trip to the spice shop/importers... the equivalent in Adelaide is Giganni Brothers in Hindmarsh. It is an adventure and I love a stock up. The spring has really sprung here and I have been in the garden a lot getting things planted. I feel quite happy with how much has been done, a bi daily really adds up! xxx

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  3. Glad you are feeling much better, Wendy. You must be very organised to have your Xmas shopping done already. I need to get going on my gift list! At our place this week:
    * added some more items to my stockpile after looking at supermarket catalogues
    * bought two whole chickens on special; one for freezer and one to have for roast dinner and leftovers
    * made quick chocolate sauce to have with homemade ice-cream when my son invited a school friend over for dinner. Served this in fancy parfait glasses to make it a bit special.
    * made banana bread from overripe bananas and put leftover mashed pumpkin into some savoury muffins
    * picked last of silverbeet + some spring onion and parsley from my garden and made an impossible pie for dinner and lunches
    * borrowed a few books and a dvd from library
    * knitted a few more rows of a washcloth I started ages ago
    * bathwater has been put out on our very dry grass
    * line dried all washing, waited for days when smoke/dust cleared from our skies
    Have a lovely week, Wendy.
    Meg:)

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  4. How lovely! Well... I made an 8 egg batch of noodles and used part of the dough to make lasagna noodles, froze those, and dried the rest. I made two loaves of whole wheat bread with natural yeast and of course I always cook pretty much everything from scratch.

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  5. your bread looks lovely! using a recipe from a diff blog, I managed to make a cake with peaches and ground almonds in it - room for improvement but still delish. thx for your inspiration! 2 more punnets of peaches and 1 of plums to use now...

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  6. Wendy I am glad you are feeling better :). You got a lot accomplished and your baking looks divine and glad you got some extra cleaning work.

    Our Vicky challenge added up to $208.34 in savings last week :).

    Internet listings and sales.
    - Made about $25 from the sale of a 5 layer cotton eye mask and bread bag that I made.
    - Listed 10 items on a free listing promotion saving $16.50 on usual listing fees.

    Purchases -
    - From IGA on special I purchased 5.47 kg of rump steak for $9 kg and pork thin sausages for $3.95 kg saving $114.05 over purchasing them in Woolworths.
    - Also from IGA on special we purchased premium minced beef for $10 kg and 2 x 725 g packets of corn flakes for $3 ea saving $17.30 on usual prices.
    - At Aldi we purchased 6 x avocadoes, bananas, kiwi fruit and macadamia nuts saving $9.39 over purchasing them in other supermarkets.
    - In Kmart we purchased a pair of slippers on clearance for DH for $5, two pillows each and an electric kettle for backup supplies saving $51 over prices in other stores.

    In the gardens -
    - Planted one garden bed with capsicum, tomato and basil seeds and another bed with heirloom sweet corn and dwarf bean seeds.
    - We used our grey water pumped from the grey water tank to water fruit & berry trees and about 1/3 of our back lawn.
    - Used saved shower warm up water to fill hand washing water bottles and to clean the bathroom and toilets.
    - Reused house dusting water to water the shrubs in the gardens around the home.
    - Used some town water in a 4 lt ice cream container each day for the kangaroos and wallabies to drink as it is so dry.
    - Watered in the newly planted 3 vegetable garden beds with town water from the drip irrigation system.

    House maintenance -
    - We took out one kitchen cabinet in the kitchen so we have room to have our new 90 cm oven put in.
    - I swept behind it and DH scrubbed the walls and floor to clean it. The cabinet was sitting on the wooden floorboards so DH had to cut some ply we had to fill in the hole so we have a level area for the stove to be installed in. I still need to paint the walls and the side of the kitchen unit where the sink is.
    - DH put up a stainless steel bench we purchased beside the sink and then the new stove will go beside that.

    Hope everyone else had a wonderful week as well :).

    Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).

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  7. Hi Wendy,you gave me an idea about recycling ideas, so i have saved 2 milk containers to fill up with water to use around the garden and i have saved another to fill up with water and freeze for out trip down the beach later towards the end of this year.

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