My Frugal Tasks 31/05/20

There was a big storm which hit the west coast earlier this week. Thankfully our area was not affected, though many homes just 30 minutes from here lost power and were damaged. It has not gone unoticed to me how lucky we are and I am so grateful for our blessings in life. Mr 18 has flown back to Newman for work and the house is very quiet without him! The weather here has been cold and wet all week. Why is it that when the weather is cold all I want to snuggle up with a blanket, cup of tea and a book?! That has been my reward for the afternoons when my housework is done.

I've also had time to think about things I can do to improve my living areas, but do this cheaply. I would like a buffet to go in the dining room. We have an inherited liquor cabinet there currently, but it takes up alot of space and is a bit damaged. I've been looking on Gumtree for a secondhand one, thinking I could get one for $50 or maybe even free? I was surprised to see that solid wood ones go for $200-1000! Then I priced  new which are around $500-$1500 and that's for a flatpack! My budget is around $75, so for now I'll keep looking. I moved a picture and some ornaments around and put them in my hallway and am happy with how this looks. I also took down the light fitting and plan on finding a new one. Sometimes I think just moving things around is all you need to do for a refresh.

-Washed the clothes in the evening so they could dry in front of the heater.

 -Found a wine rack, a couple of hand towels and a vintage candle holder at an op-shop.

-Made some breadcrumbs using leftover bread.

-Picked up some free bread, fruit and vegetables from the community centre.

-Grated zucchinis for the freezer.

-Baked a banana cake to use up some bananas and leftover cream cheese icing.

-Cooked a pot of pumpkin soup to use up some of our homegrown butternut pumpkins.

-Cooked homemade veg pizzas for dinner.

-Went through my old TAFE schoolwork and shredded the stuff I no longer need. This was used to fill up our raised garden beds. Some notebooks still had blank paper in them so I can reuse these. Other paper which didn't contain personal or professional information, I cut up to use for shopping lists or note paper.

-Listed some items for free on Gumtree and sold a chair for $30.

-Baked a chocolate pudding using leftover 

bread rolls! I'll share the recipe shortly.

Quick and easy naan bread recipe

This is a super easy 2 ingredient recipe which results in the softest, yummiest naan ever! Plus it is a great way to use up yoghurt which is close to or even past its best before date. I haven't tried it yet, but think you could use this dough for scrolls, pizza etc as well. Please let me know if you decide to try it!

2 cups self-raising flour

1 cup natural or Greek yoghurt

Herbs or salt and pepper if you like, I add half a tsp of garlic powder

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and when combined, turn out on to a floured surface. Knead for 5 minutes or so, until it all comes together. 

I knead mine for longer as I find kneading therapeutic! Divide into 8 portions and roll each one out to a long oval shape. 

Heat a frying pan up with a splash of oil (I use garlic infused) and cook the bread on each side until golden and puffy. 

I serve with a curry and rice.

My Frugal Tasks 24/5/20

This week has been a busy one with getting jobs done around the house. I started some painting and did the master bedroom and games room window sills and some large cupboard doors with an undercoat as it is wood. I still need to paint them in a white high gloss but this will have to wait until next pay! Hubby cleaned out the gutters and we trimmed some bushes and trees as we have a green waste coming up. Now the front garden is tidy and we need to work on the backyard. 

A friends mum is moving into a retirement village and is downgrading her furniture so Mr 18 got a queen size bed. She also gave us a computer chair which is now in Mr 14's room and is better than the one we had. I made some lemon butter and a lemon slice to say thank you. 

Our neighbours love a bargain and have gotten so many great things on Gumtree for cheap or free. They found a pool cover and roller which is a bit too big for our pool, but hubby says he can trim it to fit. This was free, they used their 4WD to pick it up so we gave them $20 for petrol money. Which is a bargan considering the last time i looked these were around $800 for our large pool. We also went with them to a free op shop! This is run out of a familiy's garage. Everything there is free if you have a concession card. We were all so excited about this! Hubby got a couple of board and card games, I got some bowls, 3 tier stand, cardigans, a white quilt cover and knitted throw rug. I was looking at chunky knitted blankets just like this and couldnt believe my luck. Then I was now able to give my bedroom a mini makeover! The family also gave us some takeaway containers of fresh pea and ham soup as hubby helped with a few things while he was waiting for me. This was great as I was too tired to cook when we got home.

I've now started to keep an eye out for things we might need for some future renovations and picked up some free large tiles in a white marble colour. This will be perfect for the bathroom.

Last week I mentioned that things had pretty much gone back to normal here. Well, I was wrong. Thankfully in WA we haven't had any new cases for a while and I'm the first to admit that I lead a fairly sheltered life here! So when I went to Kmart to have a look at some new curtains, I was surprised to see they were sold out of every style. In fact, loads of shelves in the home section were empty. I even tried online and yup, everything I wanted was out of stock. I found some online at Spotlight for only a couple of dollars extra. Here are some of the other things I did:

-Went to a friends house for homemade curry and took some homemade naan bread. 

-Saved some wrapping paper and gift bags from my birthday presents to reuse.

-Cooked our homegrown pumpkin and made a batch of pumpkin scones. These were the absolute best scones I've ever made! 

-Got some free yoghurt, fruit and vegetables from the community centre.

-Boiled some pears and put in a dish with muesli on top. This was like a cheat pear crumble! It was yummy with some homemade custard.

-I had egg whites left over from making the lemon butter so I used them to make a family sized chocolate mousse.

-Baked some pita bread in the oven and used them instead of corn chips in nachos. 

-Got all my washing done and dried outside before the weekend rain. 

My Frugal Tasks 17/5

The last couple of weeks have been fairly busy! With my 41st Birthday and Mother's Day in the same week. Both were celebrated at home with dinner made by hubby and the kids. Mr 18 is home from his FIFO job, so its been lovely to have everyone home and note muscles to help out in the garden! Things are mostly back to normal here with supermarkets having stock again. I haven't needed to go out and buy much because I've been using my stockpile. I hope everyone is doing well. 

-Baked an apple cake to use up some apples.

-Picked up some free salad bags, avocado's, tomatoes, green beans, snow peas, zucchinis, capsicum, ginger, hummus, yoghurt and bread from the community centre. I am so grateful for this, as it helps our family immensely! It is donated by Aldi as everything is close to the use-by-date and would normally end up in the bin.

-The 1kg of green beans needed to be used up fast so hubby and I blanched, flash froze and bagged them up for later use.

-I sorted the fridge and chopped some older capsicums for the freezer. We use this on vegetable pizzas and in cooking.

-Made a 1kg of brown sugar for the pantry.

-While the oven was on I cooked 3 zucchinis. This was bagged and frozen to use later in a vegetable lasagna.

-Peeled, finely sliced and dried out the ginger to use as a tea. Dried or fresh ginger with hot water is has many health benefits. The rest of my family refuse to call it "tea" and instead believe it should be "hot ginger water"!

-Made breadcrumbs from some stale bread.

-Cooked a batch of tomato sauce to use with pasta and on pizza.

-Made pizza for dinner with flatbread for bases.

-Went to Spotlight to buy some elastic for mending and found some Easter discounts. I got ribbon and bunny ear headbands for 10c each and a wreath for $1.

-A local op-shop has reopened and Mr 14 picked out an Angora jumper for $8, hubby bought a wooden puzzle and a board game for $5 and I found some ball mason jars for 50c each.

-Gave away some pumpkins to friends.

My Frugal Tasks 3/5/20

Late post! My internet wouldnt let me post this last night so it's a day late. This week has gone really fast for me. We did some grocery shopping at Foodbank. It has all changed now due to Covid-19. It used to be that you would go in, pick what you want and pay 20c a kilo for fruit and vegetables and $1.25 a kg for general groceries. Now, everything is prebagged. There is grocery, meat, toiletry, snack and fruits and veg packs all at different prices. The fruit and veg packs are the best at $5 as you also get free bread, eggs and dairy! I got feta, brie cheese, milk, yoghurt, flavoured milk, dessert pots, drinking yoghurt and dip. I was stoked! The individual dessert pots are normally $2.50 each at Aldi. I would never pay that price! 

I also managed to pay some extra on our mortgage. My original goal was to have it paid off by the time I was 40. Well my birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I'll be 41! I have been focusing on getting our savings accounts built back up after an unexpected $400 plumbing bill. However, I am determined to pay this mortgage off and finally be debt free. Here are some of the things I did to save money this week.

-Did grocery shopping at the Foodbank and spent $11 on groceries (pictured above.) We also bought a $15 meat pack.

-Sorted out the fridge and made a pasta sauce with some soft tomatoes and capsicum. I also baked eggplant and zucchini for while the oven was on. With our home grown pumpkin, this was all used to make a vegetable lasagna.

-Cooked some less than fresh spinach and rocket to put in a frittata for dinner.

-Baked a no sugar banana slice to use up some over ripe bananas. 

-We harvested our butternut pumpkins and there are 25 of them! Pretty good for a volunteer plant which came from our compost. 

-Gave away some pumpkins to a neighbour and a friend who visited.

-Washed the clothes and hung them out to dry in the sun.

-Had to get my laptop repaired and saved $20 by ringing around and getting quotes.

-Turned some leftover mashed potato into patties for lunch. I just added some spring onion, herbs, leftover corn and cheese. 

-Made a large tray of butterscotch and date pudding for dessert. This lasted a few days.

-Gratefully received some cereal from a neighbour and powdered milk, beer and sugar-free chocolate from a friend.

-Bought 2 roll on deodorants for $3. These are for my stockpile, as well as some silicone cupcake moulds for $1. I will use these to make bath bombs and soap.

-Made a chocolate freckle slab with some cooking chocolate that needs to be used.

My Frugal Tasks

I havent been able to meal plan because my laptop is broken and this has all my food inventory and meal plans on there! It feels strange to me as I like knowing what Ill be cooking for dinner. Instead I've been making dinner based around what I have in the fridge that needs to be used which has been working out really well. I have done lots of cooking and gotten ahead with food because food is life!

-Picked up some free vegetables, eggs, potted parsley, basil, bacon and cake from the community centre. This was amazing! I dried some of the herbs and potted the rest of the plants in the garden.

-Made some pizzas for lunch using a tin of tomatoes, pita bread, red onion, bacon, mushrooms and cheese. The ingredients were free minus the tinned tomatoes and cheese.

-I cooked a roast pork for dinner along with roasted vegetables and extra butternut pumpkins which needed to be used.

-With the extra leftover roast pumpkin I made a large batch of pumpkin soup.

-The roast pork was stretched to make 3 meals for 4 people. The other meal I made was shredded pork and salad wraps. After this there was still a small amount of pork left so I added onion, garlic, cumin, paprika and some overripe tomatoes to a pot with some tomato paste, a tin of butter beans and the diced pork. This made enough for 4 bowls full with a side cornbread which I'd planned to make but I'd run out of cornmeal so made garlic flat bread instead.

-I cut the fat from the raw bacon and cooked it in a pan until crisp then poured the oil into a jar which I keep in the fridge. I do this with all excess meat fat and use it in place of oil when cooking onions etc. It adds a lovely flavour to the food and is free!

-Did heaps of washing on 

-Bleached and dyed my hair using supplies I buy in bulk.

-Received my neem oil in the mail from eBay, which was cheaper than buying at Bunnings. Neem is an effective natural insecticide and can be used topically when diluted correctly as well as made into a spray to use on fruit trees and vegetable plants. 

-I made a large tray of apple crumble cake with free apples that needed to be used up. It was stewed apples on the bottom, a vanilla cake batter poured over the top and then a mixture of flour, oats, butter and small bit of sugar sprinkled over the top and baked. This was delicious and I gave half to a neighbour.

-I bought some vodka on sale and made some more vanilla extract.

-I found some Easter items on clearance for 20c a pack.

-I made some luminaries for the courtyard using empty milk bottles. They look good and throw out a nice glow with tealight candles inside.

My Frugal Tasks 5/4/20

Sorry I didn't write a post for last week, I wasn't feeling up to it. Life is overwhelming right now for a lot of people with job losses and food insecurity due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Its strange to see children's playgrounds closed and shops empty. People all over the world are worried. In WA it has now been advised that children are to stay home from school and we should only leave home for work, essential groceries, doctors appointments or to exercise. It all feels very dystopian to me. 

I am just taking a day at a time and doing the best I can right now and trying to focus on the positive things I can do to make my family feel secure. Mr 14 is home now so I will be helping him with his schoolwork. I have deferred my studies until Semester 2, because its been hard for me to focus on my work and at this point in time I need to focus on home schooling.

I have been doing some craft which helps!  I am painting a vinyl dragon right now and will post a picture when it's done. I hope everyone is managing the best they can xx

-This week I gave a homemade mask to a friend who works as a driver and sold a couple to her colleagues.

-Hung the washing out to dry as the weather has been fine.

-Made a batch of butter blend.

-Set up a cleaning routine which I found on r/cleaning tips. My printer is broken so I wrote it out by hand and stuck it on the fridge.

-Early in the week I ran out of bread so made some dough and turned it into cheese and vegemite scrolls.

-Hubby went to the Foodbank truck and bought a $15 meat pack and there was also free bread! He got fruit bread and hot cross buns. I was so excited because we didn't have any.

- A local IGA was offering free 2-litre milk for concession cardholders so he picked up one for us and also took our neighbour to get one as well.

- Meal planned for the fortnight using what we have in the fridge, freezer and pantry.

-Did grocery shopping at the Foodbank. It was quite different as now they only let a few shoppers in at a time. Everyone has to wear gloves and the trolleys are all disinfected before use. It was quite surreal. We were able to buy some yoghurt, fruit, vegetables and pantry items. They were also giving away free apples and spearmint milk. We froze some milk and gave some to the neighbours. I put most of the apples in the fridge and also baked an apple cake. I'll have to go back there next week as I didn't realise until later that I was overcharged.

-Last week it was Mr 14's birthday! We had dinner at home and he requested honey chicken which he has had for the last few years in a row. Instead of a cake, he wanted a chocolate fondue with brownies, banana, strawberries and marshmallows.

- I made some cards as I was running low. They are pretty basic, but fun to make!