It was wonderful to get out in the garden a couple of times this week. Thankfully the sun was shining during these times although it was windy. Spring is just around the corner and I can almost taste the tomatoes we'll be growing.
Here's how we saved money this week -
* Darren and Luka dug up 1.5 kilos of potatoes from our garden. Luka was thrilled to be outside with his Poppy digging in the dirt and watching the worms wriggle away.
* Filled up the thermos each morning with boiled water from the kettle. We fill the kettle to the full mark, boil then make our breakfast cuppas. The rest of the water goes straight into the thermos.
* A family member helped us out with some computer work. As a thankyou I was able to give him a gift bag of homemade / handmade goodies ( jam, dish cloth etc ).
* Filled up the foaming hand wash pumps with diluted shower gel.
* Picked another 3 heads of broccoli and a few florets from our garden.
* Collected 4 eggs from our chicken.
* Found a cheese board with cutting wire from the op shop for $3.20. This will be used to cut soap accurately
* Made a double meal of tuna pasta bake and got more serves than what I usually do. Normally I get 4 - 5 serves from a single meal so a double would give me 8 - 10. This time I got 12 and a tiny lunch serve. I did add a couple of large grated carrots and shredded spinach from our garden. Combining that with portion control must have given me more. I was a bit like Jesus feeding the loaves and fishes to the thousands. I did cook 2 serves for dinner that night and the rest went into the freezer
* I did my monthly shop this week and used the 10% off offer and $20 I had on the Everyday Rewards card at Woolworths. This effectively gave me a leg of lamb for about $10 ( bought ahead for Father's Day ).
* Gratefully received lemons and some vegetables from a couple of people.
* Darren filled up our cars with petrol at $1.48 a litre using a couple of apps to get this great price.
* Charged up electronics, a shaver and handheld vacuum on the weekend when the sun was shining to make the most of cheaper electricity and the solar panels.
* Darren planted quite a few sprouting potatoes in the garden.
LINKS -
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| Gifted lemons |
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| Cheese cutting board for cutting soap |
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| Father's Day treat |
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| Sprouting potatoes ready to plant. |
Thank you for sharing Wendy. You continue to inspire us all.
ReplyDeleteSpring is nearly here and hopefully fruit and veggies will reduce in price. Your garden produce would be saving you a lot of money. At our local Aldi, Broccoli is $9.99kg and I had to buy 2 tomatoes yesterday for $10.99kg. Now more than ever I am getting creative with what we already have. Some cheaper meals we like are fried rice with lots of pasta bake, curries, bolognaise/lasgagne, homemade pies and pizza.
All these have lots of veggies added and usually give us a few lunches to take to work/school
Have a lovely week :) Rachel
Hi Rachel. I saw broccoli a couple of weeks ago for $11.99 kg.
DeleteHi Wendy
ReplyDeleteJust wondering if you could share how you plant your potatoes and care for them. I'm hoping to get a small veggie patch up and running this year but I'm not confident with potatoes after past failures
I've posted a link above with photos of how we grow potatoes.
DeleteHi Wendy.
ReplyDeleteWhat would you recommend to do with excess lemons please? I have given a lot away already. I’d like to freeze some juice but when I tried freezing it in ice cube containers then transferring them into ziplock bags they all stuck together. The lemon juice doesn’t seem to freeze very well. Any ideas? Thanks. 😊
I zest then juice excess lemons. I also get the zest and juice ready and freeze to make 50 / 50 cordial for Summer
DeleteOnce again I am amazed at how you stretch your budget.
ReplyDeleteWe noticed that petrol was on the way up and bought at $1.51 instead of $190 plus. YesterdayI made a batch of spaghetti sauce and used up so many vegetables that were needing to be used. This has given us three meals of spaghetti Bol, 12 serves of lasagna and bag of spaghetti sauce that will give us four serves to freeze. I used three bananas to make a cake instead of freezing them. I have used some of the stores I made in the past. I made a list for shopping but mum came with me and an awful lot of extras found their way into the trolley. Every meal but two have been at home. I would like to reduce that but mum really enjoys her sushi with her great granddaughter/my granddaughter. Mum has also spent weeks in hospital in July and early August. She loves to eat out. Some gifts were found for the sushi granddaughter. These were so cheap.
Have a wonderful week.
Hi Suzan. I'm glad you got petrol at the cheap price.
DeleteCould you encourage your Mum to write a shopping list for herself before you go shopping with her ?
Hi Wendy,,I too fill up our thermos for our weekend hot drinks John planted bok choy,celery,and potatoes and carrots broccoli I took a large frozen chicken I bought a few weeks back out of the freezer to cook up in the next day or 2 when they were cheap &that night I heard on the news chicken is going up in price your leg of lamb was a good price ,&what a good idea with the cheese board
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful weekend x
Melissa, the veggies you've planted will save you quite a bit of money.
DeleteHi Wendy,
ReplyDeletegreat ideas as usual. Does the water in the thermos stay hot enough to make a cuppa in the afternoon? I might look for one next time I'm op shopping.
Our hens save us money every week when we do our shopping and I sell some eggs when we have too many. With the current egg shortage and restrictions we haven't had to worry about trying to source eggs.
We also have lettuces and other leafy greens growing so haven't had to buy them at the eye watering prices they are selling for atm in Adelaide or go without.
Thank you for adding the links to recipes etc in your posts. It has been very easy and handy to refer to them. I recently cleaned our very noisy kettle following your instructions and not only do we have a clean kettle but a much quieter one too.
Cheers, Maria.
Maria, the water in the thermos is still reasonable hot by mid afternoon. We mostly use the water for morning cuppas.
DeleteWhen we had 4 chickens we sold excess eggs too.
I'm looking forward to Spring too, Wendy. It's a lovely time of year to be outside in the garden. Digging up homegrown potatoes is such good fun, isn't it?! I feel like my frugal list was all about cooking this week:
ReplyDelete* made a big tray of lasagne with 250g mince, lentils, grated veg etc. Made 9serves which we have with extra veg. Froze portions.
* made big pan of chicken stir fry with noodles. Used frozen veg . Leftovers for two work lunches.
* made large bowl of rice salad and used celery and spring onion from garden. Work lunch for coming week.
* picked silverbeet, kale, herbs, spinach and made a quiche. Used some feta up in this too.
* got large bag of pears 1/2pce $2.50 and used grated in pancakes and muffins
* Got raw cashews for 1/2pce. We snack on these but I also put some aside for stir fries and salads too.
* made individual apricot danish pastries for dessert using puff pastry, homemade custard, tin apricot halves, icing. Very easy and much cheaper than buying at bakery.
* Baked multiple things while oven on to save electricity.
Have a lovely week!
Meg
Meg, both Darren and i love digging up the potatoes. Luka had such a ball helping us too.
DeleteThe sound of your rice salad has me looking forward to warmer weather when I make it.
Wendy when do you plant them in the ground what month? Thanks
ReplyDeleteI've planted them almost all year round. I live in Melbourne.
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