12 February 2017

The Week that Was 12th February 2017

This last week has been a teary week for me. It's finally really hit me that Mum won't ever be going home, that she won't ever do all the "mum" things she's always done for me and with me, my entire life. And I'm sad. I'm sad for me and I'm sad for her too.
I haven't been straying too far, but I have been busy.

This week I've:

Picked figs from Mum's fig tree and made fig jam.

Made a birthday card for an extra special friend.

Donated DVDs that we no longer want to the nursing home.

Saved $45 on name labels for Mum's clothes by MOOing them with white bias tape and a laundry marker. It was hot on Wednesday so I sat in the family room, under the fan with the air conditioner on for a couple of hours and stitched them all in place.

Cooked all our meals from the pantry, fridge and freezer ingredients.

Bought four Christmas gifts for $2 each from the Post Office on clearance. They are vintage board games, and Myer sells them for up to $19.99 each!

Made a set  of cards and a matching box to send to Wayne's Aunty Elaine (of Elaine's Easy Pastry fame).

Made pita chips using pita bread from the freezer, garlic salt and oil and onion dip using MOO plain yoghurt, dried onion, a pinch of garlic salt and pepper for Tom's Super Bowl party on Monday. The boys all brought drinks and snacks to share (they even brought paper plates, cups and a roll of paper towel to use as serviettes).

Finished the printing for the Aldi workshops in Perth and Adelaide later this week.

Saved shower water, dried washing on the line or the clothes horses and all the other frugal habits I do without thinking about them each day.
 Wayne and I have been talking over the last couple of weeks and we've decided we'd like to do another big (for us anyway) trip next year, so we've chosen to go back to Cape York. That means of course that we'll be saving like crazy to make it possible, both in time and money. And that means I need to go back to when Disaster Struck and become extra frugal again. Here I was enjoying the last couple of months back on our normal income and we're voluntarily going back to last year's tight budget! I'll post the revived budget later in the week, although not much has changed.

What did you do to save money, time and energy this week?



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2 comments:

  1. Hi Cath, long time reader here! Have really enjoyed your blog and was a cheapskates club member last year. Great site! I was wondering how you did in 2016 on the really tight budget. If you ever gave an update I must have missed it. I see you had a few months of normal income now you are busy saving for a vacation ;). Thanks,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn't do specific posts about updates, just included tid bits in The Week that Was each week.

      We survived! And it wasn't hard, but we have done it before. I ran out of plain flour in November, that was the most distressing thing. Looking back I had baked a lot more than I would normally. I've adjusted my stockpile quantity for this year to give me an extra 10kg which should more than cover any extra baking.

      We finished the year with money in the electricity and gas accounts, I shifted $22 to the water account in December as I was watering the garden (the tank for the garden was empty). Our phone bills are static, as are our insurances. I did ring around for each of the cars and ended up staying where we are (Coles at the moment, but this could change) with a further $80 off (our insurances are already ridiculously low for the three cars so I was jumping for joy with this).

      We used all our medical account, but Medicare rebates put some of it back.

      And of course I spent all my mad money on craft materials, but I'm getting some of that back by selling some of my dishcloths, tea towels, cards and a couple of photo albums I did as special orders.

      We both had some money left in the clothing budget, so I've moved it across to this year. Both of us need winter clothes and I've started looking, although I've also gone through my fabric and patterns to see what I can make. Sitting at the sewing machine doesn't help my back, but if I do a little and have a break I should be able to get a few things made.

      We've been back on full pay since the beginning of the year, but we've kinda sorta almost stuck to our tight budget.

      And yes, we've decided we'd like to do another Cape York trip for next year, so as I mentioned, we are voluntarily sticking as much as possible to last year's budget, although I am trying to rebuild our stockpile at the same time so any extra money is going towards this.

      Delete

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