This Week's Frugal Tasks Saturday 22nd July 2023

 We've had a busy week of work,  helping my Mum with her garden,  rearranging the laundry for a couple of new purchases ( photos below ),  a trip to the football,  food shopping,  church,  hosting an afternoon tea,  general housework  a sleepover for the grandsons and running errands.

Here's how we managed to save money even when we had a crazy busy week - 

*  Dried most of the washing over the ducted heating vents.

*  I 'needed' to get another Lego mat for our grandsons to play with.  Sharing one just wasn't working.  After doing some online research,  Kmart seemed to have the cheapest price.  So I went to my local store but found they were completely out of stock.  As I was looking through the toy section,  I came across Kmart's brand of mats.  They were much cheaper at $13 for a pack of  5 compared to the Lego brand at $10 each.  The boys loved the different colors and they are compatible with the Lego bricks.

*  Darren and I went to the football last Saturday with Luka and his Dad Kurt.  We took all our snacks and water bottles and only bought lunch.  If the weather had been a bit warmer than the 12 degrees Celsius  that day,  we would have packed salad rolls for lunch.

*  I baked ANZAC biscuits and choc chip biscuits using homemade dough from the freezer.  We took some to the football,  some were for a family afternoon tea the next day and the rest were for our lunch boxes during the week.

*  I saved the shower warm up water and drink bottle water and Darren used it for the pot plants outside. 

*  I did my monthly grocery shop on Monday and used the 10% off Everyday Rewards offer to save extra money.

*  Our laying chicken got a bit excited about the sun and slightly warmer weather we've had lately.  Over the last week and a bit she's decided to lay again and we've collected 6 eggs.

*  I turned the heater down to 19 degrees Celsius most days and when the sun was shining through the windows I turned it off completely.

*  We had family over for dinner on Sunday and I cooked a 1/2 leg of lamb.  The next day I made a big pot of veggie soup and used the last of the lamb meat.  This soup gave us 14 serves and the dinner gave us 4 serves.  In total we got 18 serves / meals with the meat costing just over $12.  That's 66 cents for each meal that included meat.

*  Darren fed the compost bin every couple of days with kitchen scraps.

*  I fed bread crusts,  weeds,  leftover watermelon and veggies to the chickens.  No food is wasted in our home.  It all has a purpose.

*  Portioned out and froze any leftover gravy from the roast lamb dinner.

*  Recently we bought a new washer and dryer which we stacked on top of each other.  This means I no longer have the same spot to put the ironing.  I needed a basket to place it in,  then stack it at the very top of the dryer.  I was about to go out and buy a new one,  but remembered I had a wicker basket in my shed that I was trying to sell on Marketplace.  It was our cat's first bed when she came to us as a kitten.  Now it's been repurposed in the laundry.

*  I used a $20 Concierge Rewards voucher from The Good Guys store to get a 4.2 litre of Omo laundry detergent for $17 ( full price is $37 ).  This works out cheaper than any branded laundry liquid even on sale in the supermarkets. 

*  I dug up a few potatoes and the last carrot from our garden.

Our potato patch.

In the garden

  

In the garden.

Luka and Bryson watching the new washing machine

Entertainment.

Bryson is thrilled to 'help' Nanny.

Homemade biscuits.

Luka playing with the new mats

Compatible with Lego

The colors included.

I dug up our last carrot.

Are you on the look out for any great deals / discounts ?

How have you saved time,  money and energy this week ?