My Frugal Tasks 14/7/16

It has been really cold and rained here most of this week. I used this opportunity to catch up on some housework as well as some indoor jobs done. This helped keep me warm! Thank fully yesterday was a sunny day so I did heaps of washing.

We also had a few strange things happening with our power. Our upright freezer had started making a loud grinding noise so we decided to turn it off and transfer everything into our second freezer. I was pretty annoyed about this because this freezer was bought second hand last year. We rely on our 2 freezer alot for stocking up when items are cheap. Then the TV and lights in our games room were flickering, which made us worried because the same thing happened a few months ago just before our neighbours house caught on fire.

Yesterday morning the boys were watching TV in the front room because they were worried about using the other TV and we heard a loud bang and the power in half the house was out. Hubby checked the fuses- we have the old ceramic ones- and that wasn't the problem. So we have an electrician coming out on Monday. We have run extension leads so we can still keep our fridge and freezer running. Hopefully it doesn't cost too much to get fixed!

Here's this week's frugal tasks.

-Cleaned the oven with bicarb and vinegar and soaked the racks in the bath tub. They did clean up pretty well, but not perfect.

-Cleaned the shower and bathroom.

-Hung washing indoors on clothes airers. Only used the dryer for 30 minutes to finish off our sheets.

-Turned the heater on only in the evenings to warm the house up.

- Ran out of stain remover so made another batch.

-Found a free double bed mattress on Gumtree for Mr 14. Now I'm looking for a bed base.

-Mr 10 has is in another play and has rehersals at our local community theatre . Instead of dropping him off, I saved petrol by waiting there and took sewing to keep me busy.

-Tried Aldi teabags and we did not like them at all! I took them back for a full refund.

-Made vegetarian pizzas one night for dinner, with the free pizza bases we got last week.

-Lots of baking here! Mr 10 made a chocolate fudge self saucing pudding for dessert one night, we also baked a batch of gingerbread and a gingerbread Parthenon. I defrosted a loaf of banana bread that was in the freezer. Mr 14 made some homemade marshmallows, they turned out great and were really yummy. I'll share the recipe soon.

-Only ran the dishwasher a couple of times on big baking days.

-I still had $25 of grocery money left from last week so used it to buy some potatoes, onions, cabbage, capsicum, broccoli, carrots apples and bananas. I also stocked up on Bushells tea bags which were on sale at Coles this week.

-Got some more free crackers from the op shop.

-Made up more hot chocolate mix. With the cold weather we've been drinking quite a lot!

-Found some meat when cleaning out the freezer. Because this takes up a lot of room, we decided to defrost this in the fridge and cook it up to use over a few nights. I used up a few prok fillets we had and made steamed pork buns.

-Received some muesli bars, biscuits, chocolate and tomato relish from a lovely friend.

-Mr 14 made bread and jam at Youth Group.

Fruit and veg shopping.

Steamed pork buns.

Mr 10's gingerbread Parthenon.

Hot chocolate mix.

Bread and jam made by Mr 14.