Thursday 10 March 2016

My Frugal Tasks 13/3/16


My desk area all tidied up.


I had a good tidy up this week. Reorganized my laundry which is prone to clutter, dusted our wood furniture and gave it all a polish with my homemade beeswax polish. I also rearranged some ornaments and wall hangings in our games room and Mr 9 tidied his home school shelves and set up our Autumn nature table. I gave our computer desk a clean up too and re potted an aloe plant to bring indoors and brighten the area up. I also cleaned and dusted our bedroom and changed the sheets.

In some ways I don't feel like I achieved much at all, but the house is really clean now! I every week I do the same jobs, like cooking every meal from scratch, eating from our pantry and freezer, hanging washing out on the line or on airers, so I only try to add the different tasks I do on here.

Some of this week's frugal tasks were:

- I was able to put a bigger additional payment towards our debt this week thanks to selling some items and using the vouchers I earned to put in my grocery envelope and using the cash on the mortgage instead.

-I put an empty bucket in the shower to catch the water. I have been using this to water our seedlings. I used to do this years ago but got slack! Thanks for the reminder Wendy.

-Did lots of baking. I made a banana cake, sultana tea cake, strawberry pudding, zucchini slice and 2 dozen chicken pies- one batch went straight into the freezer.

-Earned another $50 in supermarket vouchers from completing online surveys.

- Brewed and bottled some kombucha.

-Stitched some more Jack Skellington ornaments.

-Made great use of our leftovers. One night I cooked steamed potatoes with a cheese and broccoli sauce served with carrots. There was enough cheese sauce left to make a pasta bake the next night. I just added a small tin of tuna, rocket from the garden and some leftover peas. Yum.

-Cooked a big pot of lentil soup for dinner and froze half for another meal. I also put a couple of serves into ziplock bags for single serves. My best friends dad has recently had surgery and will be coming home soon. I will take some of the soup and individual serves of cake when I go and visit him.

-While we still had fresh fruit and frozen vegetables, we had run out of fresh veg. Most of my grocery money is now in vouchers thanks to doing surveys but I find supermarket produce to be heavily overpriced. I only had $10 in cash in my grocery envelope so went shopping at Spud Shed. With the goal of trying to get as much bang for my buck! I was able to buy 5 kg carrots for $2.99, 4 kg of potatoes for $1.99, 4 zucchinis for $2, 2 cucumbers for $2 and 2kg onions for 99c. Just under my $10 budget!

-Today I am catching the train with Mr 14 into the city, he has saved up some money from working and wants to buy a shirt. I will make a visit to Kakulas Bros, my favourite store in Northbridge for some spices and bulk goods.

Hope you have had a great week!


Banana cake, strawberry pudding and zucchini slice.




My $10 budget veg shop.





Kombucha bottled.




Mr 9 cutting carrots ready to be blanched and frozen.







Our Autumn nature shelf.






Chicken and vegetable pies with mashed potato and peas.



Lentil soup.

8 comments:

  1. You have been busy , the comment about being slack , sometimes I think we just lose focus on all the little things we do, we do save so much money in the long run but also take a lot of time. I think you do a great job , so remember to be kind to yourself too! I've never made a strawberry pudding sound delish xx b

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    1. Hi B, yes you are right there. Thank you, for the lovely words. The strawberry pudding was some frozen strawberries in a vanilla vegan cake batter- the recipe is in thrifty recipes tab. Then I spread a greased pie dish with some strawberry jam and topped with the batter. The kids loved it! I am trying to also have more time for self care. thanks for the reminder. Hope all is well with you and your family, have a great week. x

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  2. Hi Mel, I've been pouring through your past posts and feel so inspired. I am naturally frugal and 'minimal', and have been since a child. I often say "the less you have, the less you have to clean", but it does keep life simple. I chuckled when I read that you keep fly buys point for Xmas as so do I. I call them my Xmas club. Could you do a post on surveys. I registered with one, Valued Opinions, I think it was called. But I'm really balking at the amount of personal information that they ask for (I understand why they request it). Have you had any privacy issues? Can I ask which ones you registered with? Love the blog, Zoe

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    1. Hi Zoe, thanks for stopping by! It's wonderful that frugality and minimalism come naturally for you, what a gift. Yes, it can make life much easier. These are both something I wish I had of picked up in my 20's rather than my 30's! I like that you refer to your FlyBuys points as an Xmas Club. That's exactly what it's like! I am in the middle of doing a post on the survey companies I use, because I have had a lot of readers ask. I will try and post it later in the week. Valued Opinions are one I use also, I have never had any problems with privacy or scams. but I do have Ghostery installed on my computer. Have a great week and keep an eye out for my post on the surveys. x

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  3. Wow you are a busy girl. Very inspiring. Great list, keep up the good work. Lisa x

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