Thankyou for your patience while I try to get back into regular blogging. Sometimes life gets in the way and last week it was a massive storm that hit Melbourne quite unexpectedly. We are fine and our home and garden didn't sustain any damage. Thankfully we didn't lose power either. It just flickered off for a second or two.
Unfortunately my Mum's power was out for almost 10 hours on a hot day. We ended up bringing her back to our place for the night to keep her safe and cool. We also made quite a few trips back and forth to Mum's place to rescue food, buy new food and to help pack and unpack Slowly, life is getting back to normal.
Here are some of the frugal tasks I completed over the last two weeks -
* Now that grapes are in season, reasonably cheap and quite delicious, I'm freezing them to eat later on in the year. This is a wonderful tip my Mum shared with me last year.
* I made apricot jam and raspberry jam using fruits from our garden and lemons from our tree.
* I continued decluttering and donated to our local Savers. I received a few 20% off discount coupons and used them to help purchase beautiful Christmas and birthday presents. It really is amazing what people get rid of. I've found new cup and saucer sets, crystal, reed diffusers, sewing kits, coffee mugs and craft items. Some of our drinking glasses were looking a bit ratty and I was able to pick up new ones even cheaper than Kmart and IKEA.
* Picked lots of rosemary from our garden and dried it in paper bags to avoid it getting dusty. I then put it in a coffee grinder to turn it into a powder. The powder sticks better to meats and vegetables when I roast them.
* I made a cushion cover for our rocking chair in the loungeroom.
* I replaced the elastic on two baby sun hats for our granddaughter Naomi. These are hats our girls wore when they were babies about 24 - 26 years ago. The hats now look brand new.
* Picked a handful of raspberries from our garden each day. I almost have enough in the freezer to make more jam.
* I picked lemons, silverbeet, carrots and beans from our garden and dug up over 5 kilos of free potatoes.
* Darren has been picking blackberries from a couple of locations near our home. He will be making his favourite jam very shortly.
* Made pita chips from cut up pita bread.
* I bulk cooked spag bol sauce. From 750 grams of beef mince, I made over 20 serves for dinner. Adding TVP, grated carrot and shredded silverbeet really helps to stretch the meat out and make it super cheap.
* I made cranberry hootycreek biscuits for Darren as part of his Valentines Day present. I've also made choc chip biscuits using dough I'd frozen earlier.
* We used our thermos to store boiling water for our morning cups of tea.
* I altered a couple of dresses for Megan that she purchased from Savers.
* I was given old Christmas cards from a cleaning client. I've upcycled them into new cards for next Christmas.
* We saved water from the kitchen to water our plants outside.
LINKS -
 |
| Upcycled Christmas cards |
 |
| Luka and Bryson's birthday cards. |
 |
| Making 2 cards from 1 |
 |
| Summer fun at Nanny and Poppy's |
 |
| Spag bol in bulk |
 |
| Freezing grapes |
Ten hours on a hot day is a long time especially for an older person.... I am glad you had power on and your Mum could come to your place. Lots of money saving activities Wendy. Water fun in the back yard is always a winner with kids! xxx
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy,the storms indeed were fierce but short ,and did a lot of damage around Melbourne your mum is lucky to have you to care for her , many may not have been so lucky,your cards are lovely and well made,I hope you share your blackberry jam recipe as we have some growing out front,john and I have been busy working and making rows of lavender here, we just keep adding🙂
ReplyDeleteHave a good weekend
Rows of lavender would be wonderful Mel.
DeleteI love your cards!! I will try freezing grapes while they are still affordable..
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy,
ReplyDeletethank you for sharing. Your garden produce is always inspiring.
Can I ask which coffee grinder you use for your rice flour. I’d like to make my own oat milk. At $3.20 a litre retail it is worth a try.
The blackouts up in QLD have been challenging as well. It has been a very humid summer. I’m glad your Mum is ok and everyone is getting back to normal.
Take care :) Rachel
I think it's the Breville coffee grinder. Its about $40 at The Good Guys.
DeleteIt looks like you have been very productive! I am interested in freezing grapes. How to you use them?
ReplyDeleteSorry- I meant to say, how do you use the frozen grapes?
ReplyDeleteI just eat them straight from the freezer. They were really good on a hot day. You could add them to fruit salads. I'm looking into making gummy bears with the grapes if I can get enough juice from them.
Delete