Darren and I had planned on planting out most of our veggie seedlings this week. Due to the amount of rain and cold weather we've had, we needed to put these plans on hold for now. It looks like good weather is coming our way in the next few days and I'm itching to get outside again. So it ended up being a week of finishing craft projects for me and Darren pottered around outside under the deck and eaves tidying up where he could. Here are our frugal tasks for this week -
* Cooked homemade pizzas from scratch for our dinner one night. Darren ate his leftovers a couple of day later and I froze mine to eat at the end of the week.
* Knitted another 3 dish cloths using cotton I bought on clearance at Spotlight a couple of years ago. The white cotton was bought at Savers for just a few dollars a big bag ( lots of rolls in it ).
* Made another batch of butter using the free cream. I think I still have about 15 - 18 bottles of cream in the freezer to get through.
* Poured the last of my foaming face wash into the foaming hand wash bottle. It will do the same job.
* Made lots of greeting cards using up scraps I already had.
* Dried all the washing on the line.
* Made 11 jars of raspberry jam using fruit we'd grown and frozen last season. This is the last of our frozen raspberries so now I have room in the freezer for the current growing season.
* Picked snow peas, bok choy and lemons from our garden. The greens were put into a chop suey I cooked and it stretched the meal out. i was able to freeze 3 large serves.
* Wrote out a new menu plan for the next 2 weeks. I've added freezer meals and soup as our cheap or free meals to keep our costs down.
* Saved the washing machine water, shower warm up water and kitchen water when possible.
* Bought a new cat collar for Princess from NQR for $2. This is a saving of $6 - $8 on supermarket prices. It was the last one so I'll be keeping a look out for more.
* Darren used a chicken feed bag to grow potatoes in.
* Mended a cushion where the zip had broken. The zip is beyond repair so I just sewed the cushion opening up.
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| From our garden |
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| More knitted dish cloths |
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| Raspberry jam |
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| Handmade greeting cards |
Hanging tea towels I've been working on over the last few months.
How have you kept yourself busy this week ?
I have been working on a blanket to go to Oregon for a new family baby. I am using those big balls with long colour runs. I won't have many ends to darn in. I planted some herbs, tomato and strawberry seedlings. It is probably the wrong time as I love in Queensland but every little bit helps. Today I bought my granddaughter a dress and a t shirt in Coles for 50 cents each. I am trying to eat at home as much as possible and use every last bit of food that is in the house. I have been looking at long term food storage calculators and I have decided that most of these are very wrong for this household.
ReplyDeleteThe next few weeks will be expensive for me. Today is my eldest and youngest child's birthdays. I bought the boys present in February. Then my youngest is marrying on 15/11. My mother is insisting I have a new dress and I want to wear a dress I haven't worn for 2 1/2 years. I am just going to hold and try to stay calm throughout the wild ride.
On Monday I went four wheel driving with my son and they wanted to stop for a pub lunch. The prices were frightening. Nearly $40 for a steak. I could feed mum and I for days on that money. So even though our food bill has increased I feel little better about it all.
Hi Wendy. Lovely that you've had rain. We need some up here where things are really drying out. WE had 31C yesterday. I opened up all the windows and the french doors so cross breeze came through to keep things cooler. This week:
ReplyDelete* topped up cars with fuel at $1.03 per L which was quite saving on $1.45 earlier in week:)
* made banana bread with overripe bananas; used up last of tomato sauce in bottle to make a bbq marinade, orange juice from freezer in a cheesecake
* baked marinated chicken legs, served with homemade fried rice with a homemade baked cheesecake for dessert when we had friends come for dinner
* made family-size chicken and veg pie with very little chicken, lots of frozen veg and a creamy mustard sauce. Used up cream that had just reached its use by date for sauce. Froze 2 serves of this for future meal.
* mended two pairs of my son's shorts
* made some lavender room spray as per your instructions on blog - used an old spray bottle for it
* diverted wash machine rinse water out to lawn
* bought a set of K'nex (construction toy) off Gumtree - second hand and in excellent condition.
This weekend I have some sewing to do. Your hanging tea towels look great!
Meg:)
Dear Wendy, Your cards are gorgeous. Also love your dish cloths. It is so nice to have things to be stitching. I continue to admired your positive outlook in tough times. And you still encourage others! With love Annabel.xxx
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy,
ReplyDeleteyour frugal tasks this week are inspiring and I will definitely be using some of them.
I really like the idea of using the empty chicken feed bag to grow potatoes in.
Your tea towels are lovely. They look like beautiful strapless 60's inspired dresses.
Home made pizzas are so much nicer than any pizza bar or supermarket pizzas. I will put some on this week's menu.
We are going to buy a freezer soon to use for excess home grown fruit and vegies and also to store bulk bread flour. Can I ask what type of freezer you use? Is it a chest or upright freezer?
I would love the recipe for your raspberry jam. I have frozen mulberries in our freezer that I want to make into jam. Our mulberry tree usually produces two crops so I need to make room in our freezer for the next crop.
Thank you for sharing your frugal ideas Wendy.
Cheers, Maria.