Gathering the Fragments 15/11/2020

I've just realised I skipped 6 weeks of blog posts.

I've been busy folks, and even the hour it takes to put a blog post together and get it uploaded has been an hour I haven't really had to spare.

But just because I don't post, doesn't mean I have stopped living the Cheapskates way. I've been busy gathering the fragments and building our pantry, creating a bigger veggie garden to feed us longer and for less, and gathering the fragments.

What did I gather this past week (I can't remember back for six weeks, after a while this lifestyle becomes habit and just happens)?

Silverbeet from the garden, to dehydrate.

A single serve of spag bol sauce to add to a tin of tomato soup to make tortellini for dinner. The tortellini was a half price mark down from the freezer. Wayne likes tortellini and ravioli as a change, and it was a quick and easy use it up meal.

Scraps of cardstock to make bookmarks.

The hard end of cheese that was grated into a white sauce to make cheese sauce. Don't throw the hard ends out, even if they look ugly and dried out and yellow - they are still good to use in cooking. I keep them in the freezer ready to grate into a sauce.

A jar of Decaf that was looking a little sad became the base of a bottle of Iced Coffee Syrup. Delicious and with the weather warming up, its nice to have a cold coffee in the afternoons.

Parsley that was starting to go to seed has been harvested and is hanging in the sunny kitchen window to dry.

Lavender from the garden is hanging in bunches to dry. The lavender was gorgeous this year, the first year it has really bloomed since it was planted. These are lavender plants I grew from strikes I took from my mother-in-laws garden three years ago and planted out. This year has been good for them, they have tripled in size and just looking at the side garden makes me smile.

It's been so long since I bought petrol or did a big grocery shop that I didn't have a discount voucher, but petrol was down to 112.9c, the cheapest it's been around here I think this year, so I filled all three cars (mine, Wayne's and Hannah's) up over a couple of days.  Not so much gathering the fragments as saving around $18 on my car alone, so well worth the effort.

All this adds up. Don't ever think that that one thing you do really isn't worth the effort. Saving lavender from the garden for instance means I don't need to buy it to use in the house. Picking parsley from the garden when it's plentiful and drying it (I just hang it in bunches in a sunny window) means I don't need to buy it. Taking five minutes to make a batch of washing powder and then another five minutes to make a batch of Miracle Spray saves over $100 a year! For 10 minutes of my time!

When you add up all the little savings you make each day, then each week, then each month, at the end of the year you have kept a lot of money in your bank account.

If you're not convinced, keep a record of the fragments you gather and how much money they keep in your bank account, and see just how valuable those little savings really are.