This week I've been keeping busy on a wide variety of tasks. Life is never dull or mundane when money, time and energy can be saved in so many ways.
Here's what I've been up to -
* Bought 2 metal trays from Savers for $5.19 in total. The plan is to use them on my coffee table and dining table. They were a creamy color that looked yellow in spots so I spray painted them with white Rustoleum paint I already had on hand. For just a few minutes of work they came up looking fabulous.
* Saved a cereal bag and cut it up into squares to use as go between when freezing crumpets and hamburger patties.
* Baked lots of ANZAC biscuits for this week's morning / afternoon tea treats. The dough came from the freezer from when I last made a bulk batch of dough a few months ago.
* Picked some daisy greenery ( leaves ) from the garden to add to my dining table display. There are not many flowers in the garden at the moment due to the cold weather. The greenery is truly appreciated.
* Turned the heater down to 19 degrees Celsius or turned it off all together when the sun was shining. It has been a cold Winter so far so a few hours without the heater on feels like a major achievement.
* I have been watching a YouTube channel called White Cottage Company. Mary likes to make old, op shop, antique and everyday items look like new by painting them ( amongst her many talents ). I was inspired to do a mini makeover of our home which included a frame with wedding pictures and calligraphy in it. The frame was a dark timber which now doesn't go with our home colors and the mat and photos were faded. A quick spray paint of the frame and mat with white Rustoleum and photocopying the photos, it came up looking fabulous and oh so ' on trend '.
* Wrote out a menu plan for the next 5 weeks. I've added soup, eggs on toast and fried rice as cheap meals to keep our costs down.
* Dried most of the washing on the line ( in Winter ). Only a few things were finished off in the dryer.
* I filled the thermos with boiling water in the morning to use for cuppas during the day. This saves me boiling the kettle twice.
* Picked more lemons from our tree and juiced the ones I picked over a week ago. Leaving them for a couple of weeks relaxes the lemons and you get more juice from them.
* Pruned the plum tree in the hope we get more fruit next Summer. I also put snail bait out around the veggie seedlings and fed them all with Seasol.
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| New tray for the coffee table |
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| New tray and greenery for the dining table |
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| Renovated frame and insert |
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| More lemons from our tree. |
The trays look fabulous Wendy
ReplyDeleteI love how you make do and upgrade. This week I was blessed with lemons at $1.40 a kilo. I plan to make some lemon curd and some salted lemons. Our local butcher has closed so I checked out a wholesale butcher. I found clothing heavily reduced and have put it away for my granddaughter. I needed a knitting book and every time I buy this book it is borrowed and never returned. I shopped around and saved $12. It was more expensive in Spotlight. I dug out yarn form my stash and have to knit like crazy as the baby is due soon.
ReplyDeleteI do wish my mother wasn't feeling the cold so much. It is 12 degrees in Brisbane as I write this and she has two units running at 24.
Gos bless and stay safe.
I really like your trays and photo frame. Very pretty. My biggest savings this week have been on food - fresh produce from the garden, gifts from kind neighbours and free food from our local food pantry, which aims to reduce food going to land-fill by offering it to the community. It is Summer here in the UK. The main rooms of our house get sunshine in the morning and in the evening, which helps to stop over-heating. We also close curtains and open doors and windows as necessary to get air circulating. Our temperatures are nothing compared to yours, but they are more than enough for a wuss, like me!
ReplyDeleteOh wow, your new trays are lovely. I will have to check out her YouTube channel.
ReplyDeleteI love watching Mary also! I just recently discovered her.
ReplyDeleteThe trays are beautiful . You are so good at seeing the possibilities in things.
ReplyDeleteYour trays turned out so pretty, Wendy. The greenery does look pretty. We are still using lemon ice cubes we froze last summer ;) Good idea about letting them "relax".
ReplyDeleteMary in San Diego
Good morning Wendy, so cold down here had to pop the hot water bottle under my knee rug watching Le Tour the other night.Our central heating is one that blows from the ceiling down,whoever thought that was a sensible idea??? It's old noisy and not cosy but replacing it is not in the budget,so we're always layered up in winter.Lots of lemons here also freezing the juice, making your slice recipe and sharing with neighbours. Have a lovely week.
ReplyDeleteYour lemons are beautiful. We get a lot of lemons, but typically not at this time of year. We're spending a lot of time in our garden, and have plenty growing at the moment.
ReplyDeleteLast night I made zucchini fritters for dinner, which were delicious & plenty as a standalone meal, with salad.
We also used a few grocery coupons, but the biggest one was selling our vacation house. We're putting all of the proceeds onto our mortgage. It will get us really close to paying off our house, which is super exciting.
Hi Wendy I’m just trying commenting as GOOGLE ACCOUNT as I’ve written before and lost it.
ReplyDeleteHopefully this works and I’ll write a comment if it does. Lorraine W
Hi Wendy, yeh it worked. So happy to be able to comment.
ReplyDeleteYour trays are gorgeous, what a bargain and great upcycling job.
Your lemons are like sunshine! I planted 2 lemon trees, same variety about 2 metres apart, in our new veggie garden last year. One has about 15 lemons on it and the other 2 tiny green ones. I think the lemons are nearly ready to harvest. Last winter was when we started our veggie garden so it’s been a wonderful learning curve.
I am still eating silverbeet and celery from it. I used the last of the chokos and ate my first cauliflower for this year. Just delicious, you can taste such a difference to the store bought. I’ve also had heaps of broccoli and using our 21 Jap pumpkins I grew! It’s been so exciting to see what we’ve grown ourselves and I’ve tried to use all the produce- dehydrated lots and froze zucchini. It’s a huge money saver.
I’m trying to reduce our food waste by using what’s in the fridge and not constantly buying more fruit and vege before we’ve eaten the older stock. I made homemade pizza last night using puff pastry and bits and pieces for toppings, made pies out of leftover beef crockpot and an easy meal of fried egg and chips in the air fryer. I even cook the potato and sweet potato peels in the air fryer- just like chips. Delicious! My air fryer is worth its weight in good. I use it nearly every day.
I have made my own GF red lentil wraps which are so easy and quick to cook and very tasty. They are also so cheap to make as I used one cup of lentils and this amount makes 6 big wraps. I freeze them and use as needed. Like you, I layer mine with cut up cereal bag between each one.
I made the best fudgey choc slice with icing and a banana cake using old bananas kept in the freezer for when we had visitors.
Our washing is dried in the sun and wind and brought in before it gets damp then aired off in front of the heater on a clothes rack. Works a treat.
All our scraps are eaten either by our chooks or guinea pigs or put in the compost. We don’t have a lot so always hard to share around.
I made 9 jars of my Tomato Relish last week. I used tomatoes I froze whole when we had lots I’d grown last summer. It turned out so good, jars of ruby red goodness.
I sit here with a blanket round my legs, it’s so cold today. But I am so grateful we have no mice on the farm, thanks to freezing temperatures and a bit of rain.
Take care all, best wishes, Lorraine 💁♀️