My Frugal Tasks 4/9/16

Frugal Father's Day gifts.

This week has been a super busy one in my house! My eldest son turned 15, it was also my stepsons girlfriend's birthday and then of course Fathers Day. Mr 10 has been really sick with tonsillitis so in between baking cakes and making gifts I've been snuggling on the couch with him.

Financially this week has been a great one. We found out due to an interest change our mortgage payments have gone down and thanks to buying things on sale, I saved over $200 on my sons birthday gifts. We set a budget of $100 for the kids birthdays, which when they are younger can buy a lot but teens, not so much! We gave him some cologne, a brand name jacket and a jumper which he was super happy with. It was so great to find all of those items on sale!
Thanks to in sourcing, this week we have saved over $800! I don't participate in the Vicky Challenge every week, but when I do I am always amazed at the savings.

So here are my frugal tasks for this week:

-Baked Mr 15's birthday cake. As requested it was a caramel cake. I made caramel icing, salted caramel sauce and some toffee shards to go on top. We have a tradition where the birthday person gets to choose what they want for dinner. He chose chicken, bacon and salad wraps with chips. These were really yummy and cost under $20 including drinks to make for the 5 of us. If we went out to eat this would have cost more than $100!

-Used my homemade bunting and decorations from our 'party box' to decorate the table for Mr 15. These get reused for everyone's birthdays! His gifts were wrapped with silver paper I bought in the post Christmas sales.

-Made another batch of garlic aioli and a jar of hot chocolate mix.

-Picked more kale, silverbeet and oranges from the garden and gave some to a friend who visited and also my parents in law.

-For my stepsons girlfriends birthday, I made a Harry Potter wand and hubby made a box for it to fit into. I also made her a chocolate frog in a box. We had most of the items on hand to make these, and I only had to buy the ribbon.  She is a huge Harry Potter fan and loved these!

-Used $22 worth of Chemist Warehouse vouchers I earned from completing online surveys. This meant our vitamins and prescriptions were free this week.

-Made hubby some chocolates and caramel nut popcorn for Fathers Day. We also gave him a toolbox which I bought ages ago from Kmart and stashed it away. The original price was $20, I paid only $1! He was so happy with this gift! Mr 10 made him a keyring at a Bunnings kids craft session and the teens both bought him chocolates.

-Cooked hubby a Fathers Day breakfast of bacon and eggs, clearly my boys miss bacon! I defrosted some orange juice we had to go with this too and also made spaghetti bolognaise and a chocolate cake  for dinner.

-Did the regular stuff like after boiling the kettle, storing the hot water in a thermos, hung clothes outside to dry and used my carpet sweeper and broom instead of vacuuming.

How was your week?

Mr 15 and the requested caramel cake.

Harry Potter wand, box and chocolate frog.

Cooked breakfast for Father's Day

My Frugal Tasks 24/8/16

Salad greens from our garden.

Another week has gone by so fast. I really want to focus on getting the rest of my gifts made ready for Christmas!

-I made some lip balms with items I already had. I bought the ingredients and tubes a while ago with my last candle supply order and forgot I had them! These are now in the gift cupboard.

-Thursday was beautiful and sunny here and I was in a cleaning mood. I cleaned our upholstered dining chairs and put them in the sun to dry, vacuumed, mopped and dusted the chandeliers. The house feels so tidy now!

-While a potato bake for dinner was in the oven cooking I also baked some muesli.

-Cleaned out my fridge and food cupboards. I found a packet of yoghurt mix in the back and made that up in my yoghurt maker.

-Made up another big container of kale salad for the fridge.

- I baked some red kidney bean chocolate cupcakes with some leftover kidney beans I had in the freezer and Mr 10 and I made meringues.

-Sold and couple of items on Gumtree and made $20.

-Collected the rainwater in buckets and tubs.

-On Friday night  I made a 'fakeaway' dinner of fish and chips. The fish was on sale for $5.50 a kilo and I bought frozen chips for $1.89. I also bought a bottle of lemonade for 65c .A yummy dinner for 5 people for $7.95. The last time we ate fish and chips out at a well known seafood eatery it cost us over $100!

-Had a movie night with Mr 10 and watched a couple of DVD's from our collection.

-Picked up 2 free loaves of bread and crackers from the op-shop. I also found a beautiful soft pink baby blanket, like new for $1. I was so pleased! A friend of mine is pregnant and doesnt know the sex of the baby so I've decided if I can find some lovely cheap items at the op shop I will have a girl and boy gift ready!

-Made another batch of hot chocolate mix.

I hope you have had a wonderful week. xx

Potato bake with a crunchy topping.

Potato bake with salad for dinner.

Lovely soft $1 baby blanket from the op shop.

Homemade meringues.

Lip balm labelled ready for gifting.

My Frugal Tasks 21/08/16

Melting moments biscuits.

Sorry this is a day late. I did loads of baking this week and this is a big way that I got ahead and saved money.  Its been quiet here and I've spent any free time cooking, reading and crafting. The electrician came out and fixed the power issue. He only charged us $77 which was such a blessing! Here are other things I did:

-I baked some Chinese custard tarts and they turned out lovely. The pastry wasn't quite as flaky or buttery but the filling was pretty spot on. At my local bakery it is $18 for a dozen! I made 18 of them and had all the ingredients on hand. I also had enough pastry to make 6 cheese and onion quiches and 4 apple tarts which was dessert during the week with custard. Baking my own cakes and treats like this saves us so much money.

-We also had an afternoon of baking on Wednesday. We made brownies, melting moment biscuits, a mars bar slice and another lamb and vegetable pie. I was wanting to freeze the pie for later but we are only running one freezer and don't have the room. That was also the last of the meat! I won't be buying anymore unless it is a special occasion.

-Sweet tooth Mr 14 made some more homemade marshmallows.

-We had hubby's Aunt and cousin over for afternoon tea, so hubby made a choc ripple cake. I also gave them some kale, silverbeet and oranges from our garden.

-My dandelion oil was ready, so I made 6 jars of healing balm and 1 which was calendula and dandelion. I found some free printable labels, glued them on and put some clear adhesive over the top.

-I sold some furniture and made $70. This pretty much paid for the electrical work.

-Our neighbour gave us a pet basket with a cushion inside for our cats to sleep in as her cat doesn't like it.

-I got a head start on a couple of homemade gifts for a birthday coming up next month, I can't share too much just yet! Also used gifts from the gift cupboard for a 16th birthday party Mr 14 went to on the weekend.

-Drove Mr 10 to his theatre group and waiting in the green room reading a book. He has this twice a week and staying there save me petrol!

-Only turned the heater on for a couple of hours in the evenings and put washing on airers underneath to help it dry.

-Used the thermos to store hot water for drinks after boiling the kettle.

-The teens and I went to see The Suicide Squad at the movies. We saved money by purchasing snacks from the supermarket rather than at the movie theatre.

-Because we have so much kale growing we made a big batch of salad for Mr 14 to take to school most days last week. Normally he doesn't like to take food and will spend his own money  at a nearby lunch bar, so this is progress!

-Had a movie night at home with Mr 10.

-Picked up 3 loaves of bread, Turkish rolls and ciabatta from the op shop.

-Made bean, rice and cheese burritos one night for dinner and made pizzas the next with the leftover flat bread.

-Mr 10 and I helped out at our local animal shelter yesterday.

Hope you have had a great week. x

Jars of dandelion salve.

Mr 10 at the animal shelter.

Kale, carrot and broccoli flower salad.

Lamb pie, Annabel style!

Chinese custard tarts.

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.

My Frugal Tasks 7/8/16

The bargain bed.

-I have been pricing new beds for the teenagers.  I ended up finding a double bed base and mattress for Miss 17 from Gumtree for $30. We had to hire a ute to pick it up and also petrol so with this included the bed was $90. Coincidentally the lady we bought it from had done volunteer work with my husband years ago and she kindly included and foam underlay, wool underlay, double bed sheet set, quilt, quilt cover and pillows. These would have cost around $200 to buy brand new. I also found the bed base is being sold at Super A Mart for $189 plus $150 for a mattress! We got $539 worth of goods for $90. We could have saved more if we didn't have to hire the ute. Never underestimate the savings of buying second hand!

-Made some more butter blend.

-I baked Annabel's golden syrup pudding, a chocolate cake and a berry and apple crumble using apples from the freezer and the free berries from our neighbour.

-Made all meals at home from scratch.

-Picked some rosemary which was growing in a car park. This has been chopped and is drying out to be used later on.

-Its been really cold here so I turned the heater on in the evenings. I'm making the most of it by putting the clothes airers underneath it to dry the clothes.

-Started sewing an Autumn page in the quiet book I'm making.

-Used the carpet sweeper and broom instead of the vacuum cleaner.

-Washed dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher.

-Used up some frozen baby potatoes and cooked pumpkin I had in the freezer.

-Picked some oranges from our tree and used some for juicing. Also picked kale and silver beet.

- Picked up some free rolls and pizza bases from the op shop.

-Hubby and Mr 10 started building a frame out of free pallets for our blueberry bush. This will be enclosed with netting to keep the birds out.

-Made some face scrub for the teens.

-Went to a few op shops looking for double bed sheets

Golden syrup pudding with cream.

Free citrus fruit.

Free bread and crackers.

Apple and berry crumble with homemade custard.

Hubby and Mr 10 making the frame.

The tea towel from the op shop.

My Frugal Tasks- 31/7/16

Corn chowder and jalapeno sourdough for dinner.

This week has been an absolute roller coaster ride emotionally. Parenting teens can be really hard work! Mr 14 is currently grounded for lying, over a myriad of issues. Sleep has been minimal because he has been unhappy with his punishment and threatened to leave home.

Apparently, he thinks moving out of home is a good idea and had organised to couch surf at different friends houses. No amount of talking to him from hubby and I would change his mind and he had packed a bag on Friday morning. This absolutely broke my heart. My son and I were always so close and the fact he would do this felt like a slap in the face.

I ended up calling his school and spoke to the principal, who agreed he needs to just suck up his punishment and offered to talk to my son. This must have worked because he came home from school on Friday with apologies for his behaviour.

Some days I feel like we are dealing with a war and it will all be a miracle if we make it out of these teenage years without battle wounds.

Despite this, I kept myself busy around the house and got some things done:

-Used the carpet sweeper and broom on the floors instead of vacuuming.

-Made some garlic aioli. We had this with leftover mashed potato patties for dinner and use it in place of mayo.

-Baked bread and butter pudding with leftover hot cross buns from the freezer. Also a double batch of choc chip biscuits.

-Hubby told me we were out of shampoo so I improvised and went through my bathroom drawer full of samples. I poured all the shampoo samples into a jug, mixed well and topped up with a bit of water like it is mentioned by Mr Homemaker. I poured it back into the empty bottle and now have a "new" bottle of shampoo! I did the same with the conditioner samples and this led on to cleaning out the bathroom cupboards, drawers and even soaking and scrubbing the hairbrushes. I got a bit carried away! Then I checked my toiletries stockpile, which was where hubby had "looked" and I found 3 bottles!

-Gave Miss 17 a haircut.

-I started making my first quiet book pages. When finished, the book will be a gift. Hand sewing has really helped with my anxiety too. Its a win- win!

-Had a "camp out" in the lounge room with Mr 10. We watched movies, made pizza pockets for dinner and set up the inflatable mattresses and sleeping bags.

-Saved rain water for the vegie gardens.

-Picked more kale and silverbeet from the garden. We have so much this winter. Luckily we love kale and eat it with most meals.

-Printed out my $60 vouchers from doing surveys. These are for Chemist Warehouse and will be used to buy our medication and vitamins.

-Hubby picked up some free bread and crackers from the op shop.

Also the lovely Mimi at A Tray of Bliss posted a comment I wrote to her and what follows is  a wonderful post on making our days cosy, comfortable and creative. She also has some powerful advice on ways we can insource in our homes.

Hope you have had a great week. xx

Winter quiet book pages.

Homemade garlic aioli.

Using up some free samples.

Free bread and crackers.

Mashed potato patties, pumpkin and pan fried greens.

My Frugal Tasks 24/7/16

Homemade honeycomb.

It's been quite cold here, now we are right in the middle of winter. I'm grateful we still have cold but sunny days, to be able to dry the washing on the line and get a bit of vitamin D! Here's what I've been up to over the last week:


-Made a fresh batch of kombucha and bottled some of the vinegar to use in cooking and cleaning.

-Went for a drive and picked a heap of dandelion flowers which are now infusing in olive oil ready for another batch of healing balm. Mr 10 had a play at a nearby park which was on the way.

-Made 2 jars of dandelion balm and some dandelion massage oil from an older batch of the dandelion oil. 

-Used up some lemon juice and made 3 bottles of ginger beer. This is a recipe from an old cook book that doesn't require a ginger beer plant. If it works out well, I'll share it here.

-Did some cleaning work for a friend. She also gifted me with some empty passata bottles and lovely little fancy bottles, also a big slab of beeswax and some cider from their recent holiday.

-Baked a vanilla and apricot cake and Mr 10 baked a chocolate pudding for dessert.

-Hung the washing outside to dry.

-Started making some little felt finger puppets for a gift.

-Got some free pizza bases and rolls from the op shop. We made pizza for dinner on one night which only cost a few cents.

-Also got a large bag of lemons and oranges from the op shop. I juiced the oranges for drinking.

-Picked more silverbeet and rocket from the garden to use in cooking and salads.

-Saved rainwater for our vegie garden.

-Made some honeycomb for a Saturday night treat.

-Spent only $70 on groceries for the fortnight and as usual cooked all meals from scratch.

-Have managed another week without using the heated blanket instead of the heater to keep warm.

-Bought a cotton baby wrap from the op shop for $1.50, I will sew some felt embellishments on it and it will be a gift for a friend who is expecting.

-Mr 10 and I volunteered at our local animal shelter, then hubby packed us lunch and afternoon tea and we had a bushwalk/picnic.

Kale and cauliflower lasagne for dinner.

Dandelion massage oil and balm.

Homemade ginger beer.

Playing at the park.

Homemade pizza with caramelized onion.

Dandelion flowers.

My Frugal Tasks- 17/7/16

Homemade cupcakes, brownies and a pot of tea

-Ordered some vanilla beans from Ebay. These normally cost around $2.50 each at shops, I got mine for $1 a pod from Vanilla and Co. I also bought the cheapest bottle of vodka I could find and some small bottles from Kmart and made 3 bottles of vanilla extract.

-Took Mr 10 to some free school holiday activities. Our entertainment budget minimal so anything free is a bonus! This week he went to an art class, recycling activity, Lego workshop, made an emoji pillow and went on a snow slide.

-While Mr 10 and I were in the city for the snow slide, we had lunch at a cheap vegetarian cafe, stopped into Kakulas Bros and bought some TVP and  white pepper for the pantry and also piece of turkish delight each. We also visited the art gallery and bought some donuts. Total cost for the day was under $20. If you're in Perth, Kakulas is the cheapest place I've found for buying spices, legumes, dried fruit, herbal teas etc.We also picked some herbs and calendula flowers from the city's Urban Orchard.

-Picked more kale and silverbeet from our garden. We've been enjoying this as a salad with most meals.

-My stepson came over for a birthday dinner at our house. We made TVP bolognaise, garlic bread and vanilla cake.

-Shopped around for our home insurance which is due this month and by changing companies I saved $200.

-Did lots of washing and hung it out to dry on sunny days. It is forecast to rain all of next week so it was important I get it all done.

-Started making a solar oven using cardboard boxes, foil, newspaper and perspex. All items we already had. We get quite a lot of sun up by our pool so hopefully when it's finished we can cook some yummy food in it for free!

-Used up some meals from the freezer. We had pasta bake and pumpkin soup. There was also a night where we all ate different leftovers for dinner.

-Received some icpoles, icecream and a few bags of frozen mixed berries from our neighbours.

-Used the heated blanket to keep warm in the evenings.

-Baked some cupcakes and brownies with Mr 10 and had fancy afternoon tea at home.

-While at the library with Mr 10 I checked the discard pile and got 6 Australian Country magazines for free. If bought new, these would be worth over $40 worth.

Hope you have had a great week! x

In a few months the vanilla extract will be ready.

Mr 10 on the free snow slide

With his newspaper seedling pot.

And practicing his icing skills

Homemade brownies

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!