My Frugal Tasks 10/7/16

Easy skirt I made.

It is the first week of the school holidays here. Because Mr 14 attends a community school, we tend to stick to the regular school term schedule even though we home educate. We've all been enjoying some time off, and sleep- ins! Except for Miss 17 who is working full time. This is what I've been up to this week:


-Took Mr 10 to a free kids yoga class at our local library.

-Cashed in some survey points for a $60 Chemist Warehouse voucher which will be used over the next few weeks to buy prescriptions and 6 free coffee vouchers for Coles Express. I also signed up for VoxPopMe and have started doing surveys for them also. You can read more about the survey companies I use here

-Baked a lemon cake using my  vegan vanilla cake recipe 
and added a few dollops of lemon butter before cooking. The result was a lovely, moist cake. I also made a chocolate vegan cake.

-Made a batch of golden paste for hubby to try. This is meant to be very good for inflammation and a cheap homemade alternative to turmeric tablets. You can read more about golden paste and get the recipe here.

-Hung the washing outside on days the sun was out. When it was raining, I put the washing on airers.

-Picked up some free rolls, oranges and mandarins from the op shop. I juiced up some of the oranges and also lemons.

-Made some lemon butter.

-Had a movie night with popcorn at home.

-Made myself a skirt with some material I bought on sale earlier this year. I am only a basic sewer but have made a few gathered skirts because they are just so easy!  Here are the instructions how to make a gathered skirt you could even add pockets if you like.

-Bought some smoke alarms for our house, I've been meaning to do this for years. We got 4 which cost us $40, but this is a small price to pay for safety and peace of mind.

-Did my first shop at our new Aldi. We didn't need much other than eggs and cheese, so I used the rest of the money to buy items for our stockpile. It came to $70,still under my $100 grocery budget, the rest of the money will go towards next fortnights groceries.

-Managed without using the heater for another week. Taking a hot shower, wearing extra layers of clothing and using quilts on the couch help keep warm. We have a split system for heating which costs a lot to run, so we only like use it when it gets really cold.

-I re wrote our budget because we have had an unexpected drop in income. It came as a shock and while I'd love to say I haven't been stressing out about it, that would be a lie. However, I am trying to be positive and remember we have managed through much worse financial situations than this before :)

-We've decided to hand wash the dishes rather than using the dishwasher, hopefully this will cut down on our power. Also we are trying to only have 2 lights on at any time and only the salt lamp on when watching TV in the evenings. 

-Here doctors surgeries only bulk bill patients under 16 during the week. This poses a problem if like my Miss 17 who needed a script, you need to start work early and don't finish until after the surgery opening hours. It would mean taking time off work to make an appointment. Until I remembered about the GP after hours service. This is a free service and thanks to this, she was able to have a doctor come out and give her the prescription.

-Picked some more kale and silverbeet from the garden and have been enjoying kale salad with most meals. We also gave some away to a friend. I also made my own salad dressing using  1/2 a cup of oil, 2 TBS kombucha vinegar, 2 TBS mustard, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp sugar. I store this in a bottle in the fridge. Simple, cheap and yummy!

-Spent most days at home just tidying and pottering around.

Free kids yoga class.

Golden paste almost done.

Hubby made a yummy vegie roast for dinner.

Coffee voucher for doing an online survey.

We now have Aldi in WA!