My Frugal Tasks 15/3/20

I'm glad I managed to get some things done earlier in the wee as by Thursday, Mr 13 and I had come down sick.  The last few days have been spent catching up as I slept most of Friday and although I tried to listen to a lecture and write notes, I was just too sick. Miss 21 has now come down with it.

I managed to stock up on some essentials like long-life milk, oil, panadol, rice, pasta, soap, dish liquid, washing soda, laundry soap, vinegar, panadol and ibuprofen. Though I had to go to Coles and Aldi to be able to get everything.Oh, and I managed to get toilet paper! I'm glad there are finally limits in place as I think this makes it fairer for everyone and should have been done earlier. When I was in Coles I was chatting to another lady while we were both putting long-life milk in our trolleys. I heard a man say to his wife "look at that, people are buying trays at a time! It's not the end of the world". Now I had 10 cartons and the lady had about 24, but she had small children with her. There was still loads left and we were hardly wiping the shelves clean so his comment really bothered me! 

I think the Coronavirus situation is only going to get worse because of people panicking, I'm not worried but I am listening to my intuition and am preparing as much as I can. We also went to Kmart and bought a gas cooker for $20 and some butane bottles which were $4 for a pack of 3. This seems quite cheap to me. 

Here's this weeks list of tasks

-Went through my fabric stash and started making some face masks for when we travel overseas later in the year. Proper masks are now unavailable so these will have to do! 

-Picked up some free bread, hot cross buns, pikelets, bananas, zucchini, kale and capsicum from the community centre. I've put the buns in the freezer for Easter, hubby grated the zucchini and diced the capsicum which was also frozen to use later. I sliced and dehydrated the good parts of the bananas, the rest was frozen for smoothies or cake. I also dehydrated the kale and chopped and froze the stalks for my next batch of dog food.

-Made a big potato and spinach bake for dinner and put half in the freezer for another meal.

-Hubby bought 2 meat packs for $30 from the Foodbank truck. This really helps us get ahead with meat.

-Baked another banana and blueberry cake for the week.

-Thinly sliced and baked some sourdough, these are great to use as "crackers."

-I also shopped around online and placed an order for the cheapest vitamins. I bought selenium, vitamin D, elderberries and vitamin C. 

I hope you are all well and I'd love to find out how you got ahead this week? Xx

Sugar-free Banana and Blueberry Muffins

For the last 6 months or so I've been on a health kick, aiming to feel better, have more energy and lose some weight. So far I've lost 16kg by cutting back on processed foods and using portion control.

This is a recipe I created one afternoon when I felt like a sweet treat with my cup of tea! I have also added substitutes for some of the ingredients. This recipe can also be baked in a cake tin and cut into 16 slices as it is quite filling

3 mashed bananas

1/2 c of fresh or frozen blueberries
2 TBS coconut oil

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1 beaten egg

2 pouches (160g each) of YoPro blueberry flavoured yoghurt

1 and a 1/2 c of PowerCakes protein-enriched flour

Mash the bananas with the egg, vanilla, and cinnamon. Add the yoghurt and mix well then stir through the flour and blueberries.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for around 20-25 minutes or until cooked. 

These need to be kept in the fridge and eaten within a couple of days. They also freeze well.

Substitutes- 

I used frozen bananas as I had some in my freezer. You could use a different yoghurt instead, whatever you have just make sure to use the same quantity. In place of the PowerCakes flour, you could use any self-rasing flour-like wholemeal, gluten-free etc.

My Frugal Tasks 8/3/20

This week has been interesting to say the least. With the coronavirus spreading, many in the world are panicking and have been bulk buying toilet paper, hand sanitizer, disinfectant, soap and long life milk. It was my shopping day on Friday and I normally shop for the fortnight. It was a shock to see these items sold out in all of the 3 shops we went to. 

People are panicking. I am relieved I've been stockpiling for a couple of years and have enough food and cleaning products to keep my family fed and healthy in an emergency. However, hubby and I also realised there are some gaps and we aim to look at how to improve this. 

At home we have a volunteer butternut pumpkin vine growing. It has taken over the veggie garden! 

Some ways I got ahead this week were:

-Picked the last of the grapes and gave some to friends.

-Baked some sugar-free banana and blueberry muffins for snacks.

-Updated my food inventory and "shopped" from my freezer and pantry to save money groceries.

-Meal planned for the next fortnight. 

-Received half a fruit cake, gingerbread and lovely plants from a friend.

-Bought a yellow egg dish from an op-shop for $2. This will look nice on display with Easter coming up.

-I also bought a 10kg bag of potatoes which was on sale for $2.99 and there was also magic erasers at 2 boxes for $3. These are great for cleaning the glass shower door and are large so I cut them in half! 

How was your week?

My Frugal Tasks 1/3/20

This week was the first week of starting university. I am studying full time for my Bachelor of Psychology and Counselling, which will take 3 years to complete. I never thought this would be possible for me and I'm excited and nervous about the prospect. 

I am doing my degree through Edith Cowan University which offer online study as campus is quite a distance from where I live, so this is the option I took and I only go in to sit my exams twice a year. I completed my certificates in an online format so I kind of know what to expect and how to be disciplined with a study schedule. Plus I don't have to spend time and money travelling and have more time and energy to reach my frugal goals. This week I also installed a free app called Olio which is for food sharing and helps prevent food waste which is something I'm very passionate about! The way it works is you list an unwanted item and someone in your area can message you if they would like to pick it up. I got some cold tea infusion tea bags from a fellow Olio'er and I gave away a box of T2 flavoured tea. Normally I give things I don't want to friends or neighbours but occasionally I have something obscure I know they wouldn't use so from now on I'll list it on Olio. Plus its a great way to meet like-minded frugal peeps in your community! This week I managed quite a few frugal tasks:

-Picked up some Twinnings rose lemonade flavoured tea bags from Olio.

-Went to Kmart to buy a diary for uni which they didn't have so instead bought a calendar style planner and new highlighters for $5. I also found some clearance items. A unicorn ornament for 70c, 3 pack of rainbow foil balloons 70c and contact for 50c. I'll put these in our party box.

-On Wednesday night while cooking dinner, I also made a spinach and chorizo fritatta as I needed to use up some not so fresh spinach. We had this for dinner on Thursday night and I also made a banana and choc chip slice from some over ripe bananas. 

-Bought a second hand psychology textbook from Gumtree for $60. This was a bargain because it sells new for $130.

-I cleaned out the fridge and used up some grape tomatoes, capsicum red wine and mushrooms by making a pasta sauce. I cut the tomatoes and capsicum and baked in the oven with a drizzle of oil first and I think doing this really contributed to the sweet taste of the sauce.

-Got some free bread from our community centre.

-I also had some bread rolls which I cut and made into garlic bread. Mr 13 declared the pasta, homemade sauce and garlic bread "the best dinner ever!"

-Hubby cut up some kiwi fruits and bananas and put then in the food dehydrator.

-We packed sandwiches, coffee, water and snacks and went for a walk along the dam. 

Hope this week was a good one for you. 

My Frugal Tasks 23/2/20

The weather here has been really humid over the last week. I am looking forward to it hopefully cooling down soon! This week I got ahead by:

-Planned dinners for the fortnight based on what we had on hand and updated my food inventory list.

-Collected some free fruit, vegetables and bread from our local community centre.

-Did the grocery shopping at Aldi and picked up two extra packets of turkey mince which was on special for $3.99 a kilo.

-Went to Foodbank and got some apples, broccoli, high protein yoghurt, stir-fry sauce, party sausage rolls and protein enriched pancake mix.

-Picked around 10 kilos of grapes from our vine. We gave some to neighbours, friends and donated the rest to a local community centre. 

-Chopped and dried the chillies from our garden for later use.

-The suburb next to us had a verge collection so we picked up some Christmas ornaments, cushions, lamps and a single inflatable mattress.

-Sold a clothes rack on Gumtree for $20

-Kept the curling ribbon that was on some helium balloons that Mr 18's girlfriend had bought for him. I will use this for decorating our Christmas presents.

-Gratefully received a few food items from a friend.

-Made 2 chicken breasts stretch to feed 6 people by making chicken and vegetable pies. There was also enough to freeze for another meal.

My Frugal Tasks 17/2/2020

It has been a busy week here. I've been trying to get all the little annoying jobs around the house done before I start uni next week! If it's anything like TAFE, I'm expecting to be spending all of my time studying. Here is this week's list of frugal tasks.

-Did some grocery shopping at the Food bank. There wasn't much fresh fruit or vegetables but I did manage to stock up on some eggs, frozen veg, dog biscuits, flavoured milk, meat and a few other items. We pay $1.25 a kilo there, so often it is much cheaper than supermarkets.

-Cooked a large tray of vegetable lasagne and froze half for another meal.

-Made a large pot of pumpkin, lentil and spinach curry. This served 3 of us for dinner with rice, put some in the fridge for easy lunches and also froze some.

-Carpet swept the floor rather than vacuuming.

-We had a couple of really hot days where using the air conditioner was needed. To counteract this I set up regular payments through bpay to my power provider. By doing this hopefully my bill won't be too big!

-Picked more grapes from our vine.

-Valentine's Day was on Friday and I challenged hubby to do something nice for each other with what we had on hand. He set up the foot spa and gave me a foot massage afterwards. I thought about packing a picnic, but the weather was too hot. Instead I set up the bedroom with candles and gave him an aromatherapy back and shoulder massage. Later I put a bottle of sparkling moscato which I got for my birthday in the fridge and we drank that with dinner. Well hubby had a glass and I drank the rest! How was your gal/pal/valentines day? 

My Frugal Tasks 9/2/2020

Hi there,  I've decided to try and get back ino posting regularly on the blog. I'll start simply by aiming to post my frugal tasks for the week every Sunday. We have some savings goals and hopefully this will help to keep us on track! This week was an exciting one with verge collection in our area. Hubby and I went "shopping" and picked up some great things which I'll do a separate post about later. My frugal tasks for last week were: 

-Made a batch of laundry gel and stain remover.

-Picked chilli's and grapes from our garden. We have so many grapes I've been eating some every day and gave some away to neighbours and friends!

-Oven dried old bread to make breadcrumbs.

-Cooked some peaches to make a compote.

-Washed some of Hubby's sneakers and cleaned the rubber with a melamine sponge. These turned out almost like new

-Gratefully received some snacks, watermelon, stationary and razors from a friend who was having a clean out.

-Took advantage of the warm weather and washed all our bed lined and pillows.

-Did a freezer and pantry audit as well as a meal plan so no meat was needed to buy for this fortnight. I am trying to use up what I have and we will be eating equal amounts of meat as vegetarian meals.

-Managed to put some money in our savings accounts and extra on the mortgage.

I hope you've all had a good week!