This week's frugal list spans the last two weeks. We were so busy over Easter I didn't get a chance to post my list. Instead, I just kept adding to it.
We spent lots of time with our family over Easter. We enjoyed a church service on Friday and Sunday, a picnic in the park, Easter egg hunts, baking and the grandchildren had a splash in our kiddie pool.
There's how we saved money over the last couple of weeks -
* Gratefully received more supermarket paper bags from a friend. We've been using them to hold our kitchen / household rubbish. In 28 years of running a home, I've never bought bin liners.
* Our feijoa tree is now fruiting. Each day I check our backyard for fallen fruit on the ground. I then put the fruit on the kitchen windowsill for a few days to ripen.
* I picked a small handful of raspberries every couple of days. The season has now finished but I have a couple of kilos of fruit in the freezer for jam making and baking.
* I cleaned our kettle with citric acid.
* I purchased a few pairs of Summer sandals on clearance from Kmart for $6 and $12.
* I made up a bottle of diluted dishwashing liquid to clean our showers.
* Darren and I made hot cross buns. Each year we make 1 dozen each in a bake off to see whose looks and tastes the best. This I won. Last year it was a draw. While they are not cheaper than supermarket buns, they are cheaper than the bakery and far tastier..
* I made a big pot of chunky chicken and veg soup using homemade chicken stock and some of our potatoes ( plus other ingredients ). I portioned the soup out and got 16 serves for less than $2.
* The washing was dried on the line outside most of the time. On days when it was raining, I used clothes horses inside over our ducted heating vents.
* We've used our ducted heating on a few cold mornings. I've closed the vents in the two spare bedrooms and the main bathroom. I also make sure the laundry and spare toilet doors are closed. We don't heat unused areas of our home and this helps to keep costs down.
* Darren found trays of lamb offcuts in Coles for $7 a tray. I cooked the lamb overnight in the slow cooker with water, onion and rosemary. The next morning I drained the liquid and pulled the meat off the bones. This meat was used to make a Massaman curry. Usually I use beef for this dish but it was good to try the lamb. We got 8 portions of the curry from the slow cooker. Two were eaten that night with rice and the other 6 were put into the freezer.
* I used recycled gift bags for the grandchildren's Easter gifts. Megan gets a lot of gift bags from Luka and Bryson's birthdays each year. When she gets too many to reuse, she gives me some. Between the two of us, we don't need to buy gift bags at all. The boys Easter gifts this year were a Kmart T-shirt, a book I found at Savers ( 3 in the pack for $2.99 less 20% discount ), a bubble wand with solution ( 50c each ) and a chocolate bunny from Aldi. So I probably spent under $7 each and they got a bag of goodies.
LINKS -
Chunky Chicken and Veggie Soup
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| It's feijoa season |
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| Homemade hot cross buns |
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| Roses from my Mum's garden |
Your hot cross buns look beautiful Wendy! A lovely week! The roses your Mum grows are STUNNING!
ReplyDeleteSo enjoy following your blog.
ReplyDeleteWhat lovely Easter gifts for your grandchildren, Wendy. Bubble wands are such great fun for children! It is school holidays here and we are enjoying time at home.
ReplyDeleteI have done a lot of cooking!
* We hosted Easter meal for extended family. We baked crumbed chicken tenders and cut up simple salad to have in rolls. There were leftovers which we had for two lunches on following days.
* I cut up and baked trays of potato and sweet potato fries to go wirh the burgers. I froze leftovers.
* i made two lemon meringue pies using eggs from a friend's chickens, condensed milk I already had in my pantry and lemon juice. I bought two packets of Aldi biscuits and butter to make biscuit crumb tart shells. There were leftovers!
* made giant pasta bake and trays of roast veg to serve when my son had friends over. Several meals in freezer from leftovers.
* Baked a chocolate self saucing pudding for dessert after above meal. All pantry/fridge ingredients I already had. Leftovers of this too so in freezer for another day. Served with cream I had in fridge.
* Made cake mixture that uses blended tin pears (woolies brand, in my pantry, $2.10 per tin) and oil instead of butter. Doubled recipe. This made a cake and, after stirring in choc chips I already had, a tray of muffins as well. The tin pear puree makes for a moist cake, I halved sugar because I made simple icing for cake and choc chips added sweetness for muffins. Froze muffins for school when new term starts.
The oven has been full whenever I've turned it on lately but I feel that all this home cooking saves us a lot of money.
Have a lovely week.
Meg
I am not sure if you are receiving comments on your blog Wendy. I have tried several times to leave a comment and can’t. Enjoy your blog and saving hints. Carol.
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy, how do you control your raspberries? Mine want to escape their patch! Thanks, A
ReplyDelete