To be honest, I'm not sure where my week has gone. I worked a few days, have all my housework up to date and spent some time in the garden. I know I've been as thrifty as possible but maybe those tasks have become routine without really thinking about it.
Here is my smaller than usual list -
* Used a saved and recycled spray bottle to replace one I was using around our home for the cleaning spray I make up. I save all spray bottles we have and collect a few from cleaning jobs when the contents are used up. I just never know when I'll need a new one.
* Refilled my herb and spice jars from big packets I bought at Hindustan Imports at bargain prices.
* Darren picked one feijoa off the ground. We have two trees growing in our backyard. One was pruned last year so no fruit this year. The other tree gave us lots of little fruit last year. You can bet I savoured that one feijoa. I also picked silverbeet, lettuce, pears and raspberries from our garden.
* Baked three loaves of wholemeal bread with extra goodness. All crusts are saved in the freezer for when it's time to make dried bread crumbs.
* Made chunky chicken and veggie soup in the slow cooker while we were at church last Sunday. The soup was enough for two dinners and one lunch for the two of us. A super cheap meal.
* Saved water around the home when possible and used it to fill up the washing machine and watering cans outside.
* Donated a couple of bags of unwanted items to Savers. Gratefully received a 20% off discount coupon which I used straight away to buy some cutlery for Jessica. She was running low on forks. They just seem to magically disappear.
* Ate lots of leftover dinners from the freezer. This made it an easy week for meal prep.
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| One of our garden beds |
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| Darren and Luka feeding the chickens |
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| Luka and Bryson - our little sweethearts |
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| Poppy entertaining the boys |
Does Jessica hang out with river guides? LOL My son has always worked in the recreation industry and a river guide roomed with him for two summers. The roommate's friends, all whitewater guides, mostly lived out of their cars. All but two of my son's forks disappeared during those two summers, but never before or after. He probably should have tied down his can opener!
ReplyDeleteFunny. It seems to be the younger generation who loose cutlery.
DeleteMy ex lost most of a cutlery set in the first six weeks of our marriage. He didn't care.
DeleteI would love a nice cutlery set, but for now, I will deal with the functional set that I was given from my former office's canteen. Husband is West-African, and when he takes a hot lunch to work, he often takes a fork, too, and then loses it. Or, when a West-African friend cooks a meal for us to stock our freezer, she may add a fork or spoon of her own, so our cutlery tray is a mishmash.
DeleteOn that note: about twice a year, husband will ask a friend to cook some proper West-African dishes for him. He will take her shopping and pay for the food, and pay for preparing (or pay by updating her computer or similar). This works out really well; we always have nice West-African dishes in our freezer for hardly any money.
I am trying to stay out of the shops because we have so much at present. My daughter moved house and sent us all her tinned goods. My overfull pantry has had an explosion of stuff. Have been making soup and using it for one meal each day. Simple veg soups are wonderful. I found six tins of lentils reduced to $3 for the box at the supermarket so they came home even though we have a lot in stock.
ReplyDeleteI don't about your readers and you but I am concerned about the talk between our government and that of another country. So I feel the need to have some extra set aside.
God bless everyone.
Good morning Wendy, gorgeous photo of your darling boys, I have been revamping my herb garden this week. I use them often and they make my ordinary frugal meals into something special and can be expensive to buy. I have found lately my best money saving tip is to only grocery shop each fortnight, if desperate we always have some frozen or tinned fruit to make it to shopping day! Have a lovely week.
ReplyDeleteLove reading your blogs. Hope you can write some on gardening tips.
ReplyDeleteI have added up our food spends for April, and it came to a whopping €640! We receive €300 in meal vouchers from our employers every month, which should cover our monthly spends, and it used to, but with prices rising, and buying a little bit extra to combat lockdown fatigue, we managed to double our food expenditure. Insane! Husband and I have agreed to lower the foodbill again, and really restrain ourselves. So, tonight: meat free pumpkin-chickpea curry from a gifted butternut pumpkin and with cheap Aldi chickpeas.
ReplyDeleteHusband is leaving for a 10-week stay in his mother country on 22 May; I have started doubling meals and sauces and freezing them, so that my 2 daughters (10 and 12) and I have easy meals when he's gone. Normally, we would eat the second portion the next day or the day after.
Since I read you saving water and dumping into the washing machine, I've started doing that as well. And I will be saving it for watering the garden plants when it gets hot later this summer.
ReplyDelete