Take 5

I was so excited this morning to see an interview I did a few weeks ago published in this week's Take 5 magazine Budget Blitz. Please forgive the horrible photo, I'm not as stuffy as that picture makes me look, really!

Now the secret is out, everyone will know just why we started living the Cheapskates way. When I talk about living the Cheapskates way it is because in the beginning we had to and now we do from choice, we like being free to make the choices that suit us best. I have every intention of being a Cheapskate for the rest of my days.

We are into the fourth day of the school holidays and we still haven't been out or spent any of the holiday money I had put aside. The kids have been busy playing games or catching up on their DVD watching. Limiting the time spent on computer games and TV during term time sure does make them a lovely treat during holidays (and it saves us money too!). No doubt by the weekend they will be ready to get out and get active.

I was talking to Joseph Thomsen (ABC Goulbourn Murray) yesterday about how to keep the kids entertained during the holidays. We were both lamenting the hold technology has over our kids, although we were both happy to admit that it does have its advantages too. One of my favourite ways to keep the kids amused is to get them to prepare dinner. They have to menu plan and cook and serve the meal. And clean up of course, it's not a holiday for mum if she has to do the cleaning up too. We will have some interesting meals over the next week or so but at least I won't have to prepare them.

Another thing we have done this week is drag out the cards and play snap and I've been teaching Hannah to play solitaire. I'm finding that all those old fashioned amusements are coming back into favour as everyone looks for ways to stretch their budget. Keeping the kids amused doesn't have to be expensive and it's nice to know people can be Cheapskates without even realising it. Imagine how good they'll be when they do realise?

Our March grocery bill

Sometime during the first week of each month I spend some time going over our household accounts, bringing them up to date and making sure we are on budget and on track. I've just finished working on my grocery tracking for March. Our family food bill for March totalled $441.07, an average of $99.49 a week. I thought it would be more, we had lots of visitors over Easter and I did some stocking up on some particularly good meat markdowns I came across, as well as re-stocking some pantry staples.

Going over the spreadsheet I was really pleased to see that the bulk of the spending was on fruit and vegetables, meat and dairy, followed by the deli and only $16.24 on treats and snack food. Considering Easter was in March and we had 12 visitors staying for that weekend and that Wayne's father was in hospital, the treats and snack food spending is much less than I thought it would have been.

Having a stocked pantry and freezer really helped to keep the food bill down while we had so many visitors. Being able to prepare meals using food already on hand took away the temptation to eat out or order takeaway, something I'm sure I would have done if I had not been able to look on the menu plan and know that even with extra serves I could pretty much stick to the plan.

Now don't shake your head and think that you can't do this. If I can then you can too. Remember I didn't get to this stage the day I decided the Cheapskates way was the way for me and my family. It has taken quite a while to get here, one step at a time.

If you are just beginning start small. Next time you shop try cutting 10% off the total of the last bill i.e. if your last grocery bill was $100, try and get this bill down to $90. Now to do this you may need to be creative, or really look for sales and markdowns or perhaps change brands or even the way you prepare your meals (cook from scratch and leave the convenience jars and packets on the shelf). If you can cut 10% this shop, then try for another 10% next shop. Keep going until you really don't like what you're buying and eating and then move up a notch.

And to keep track of your grocery spending, download the spreadsheet from here and use it to track your grocery spending. I find that seeing what I've spend and where I've spent it really helps to keep me on budget.

And that's how I can feed my family of five for under $100 a week, even with the cost of groceries going up.

April Fools

Did you get caught with any April fool's pranks this year? I did, in a big way. My three not-so-little darlings (and that could be not-so-darling today) played the perfect trick on me. After years of living with worn out furniture in the family room we splashed out and bought a lovely, brand new loungesuite and it was delivered two weeks ago. Orders were issued re eating and drinking and the placing of feet on the new furniture and I had thought all was going well until I heard a quietly screeched "oh no" early this morning and flew out of bed only to see a cup of hot chocolate pooling nicely on the top of the sofa and three horrified faces staring at me.

That should have been the give-away, it's school holidays and there's no way known the boys would normally have been out of bed at 6.30am on a holiday. I behaved beautifully. In my typical cool, calm and collected manner I quietly suggested that someone might like to get a couple of towels and someone else may like to get a bucket of warm water and the dish detergent. Well I thought I had quietly and calmly made these suggestions until Wayne came racing out of the bathroom to see what was going on. The kids were rolling around laughing at me in my panic. Thank goodness they didn't have a video camera. The sight of me in my pj's having a panic attack at 6.30am would make for interesting viewing I'm sure.

Anyway they finally 'fessed up that they had made the whole mess out of pva glue and poster paint and that it was just a joke. I am positive that if I had been properly awake I would never have fallen for such a trick but they really did get a good laugh out of it. And now it's over I can see the funny side too.

Now to how they made the fake "mess":

Mix some pva glue with some brown poster paint until it's the colour of chocolate or coffee or tea. Then put a sheet of silicone paper on a flat tray, get an old coffee mug and pour the brown pva mixture around the cup, drizzle a little inside so it look's like it has tipped over and spilled. Put it somewhere safe for three days until it has dried. Carefully peel the paper off, and let it dry at least one more day. And now you have a very realistic looking accident to fool people with.

How embarrassment!

I noticed earlier in the week that Kmart had a 25% off sale on clothing so I took a quick look through the wardrobes and decided that the men of the family - all three of them really needed reasonably decent going out clothes. I had a look through our local op shops and found some jumpers and a couple of really nice shirts for the boys (total spend $16.20 for two dress shirts and four jumpers/windcheaters) but I didn't find a thing for Wayne and unfortunately he's the one who really needs some good clothes.

So, yesterday afternoon, armed with a list of what he needs in what colour and size, off I went to Kmart to have a look. It felt a little odd looking at jumpers and long sleeved shirts and long pants when it was topping 40 degrees outside but I do like to get a bargain and I was on a mission. I looked and compared and picked things up to compare against other things and finally decided on a jumper (down to $9.95) a t-shirt for $5.95 and two pairs of pants for $13.95 each and off I went to pay for them. Imagine my embarrassment when I opened my purse to pull out the $50 note I knew was in there only to find that it had vanished! I had no cash on me apart from about $5 in change and I'd left the cards at home on the desk where I'd been working during the morning. I apologised profusely to the woman on the checkout and she very kindly said it happened all the time (just not to me!) and not to worry, she'd get someone to put the things back. And I left.

Panic set in, with me thinking I'd lot the $50. A quick phone call to Wayne sorted that out. Apparently he'd taken it as he left for work and had sung out to me that he was taking it. I was in the shower at the time. With the water running and the door shut. It appears my super human hearing just didn't work as he called out from the other end of the house.

By this time it was getting late so off to school I went, ready to pick up my three happy cherubs. Two were happy. One was definitely not happy and quickly lost her cherub ranking. Apparently I had overwritten her homework on the memory stick and when she went to do her presentation it was only a lot of my notes. I did point out that it was my memory stick and was she sure she had used that one? Yes, she was sure. All the way home she was sure. Absolutely positive she told me in between the tears and the growling. All the way home I apologised and offered to help her re-do it and write a note for her, telling myself off for not checking what was on the stick before I used it. All this in the confined space of my car for 25 minutes on a really hot day.

We were home less than five minutes when she came out all smiles, oops, it seems she had picked up the wrong memory stick after all. I was off the hook. She wanted her cherub ranking re-instated, after all it was just a little mistake. This mother isn't that kind, I didn't let her off the hook so easily. After an apology and a little talk about getting all the facts before accusing someone I did reinstate her cherub ranking. After all she makes a great cup of coffee and folds the washing as she takes it off the line. And she gives great kisses and hugs. I don't even have to ask for.

But sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I'd stayed single and childless.

In the right spot at the right time

It's not often that I find myself at the supermarket just as they are doing the markdowns but I did this morning. It's a bit of the old "I'm just going to get a loaf of bread" and I walked out with 4 green bags of marked down chicken, steak, sausages, chops, schnitzels and mince. There's enough meat there to feed us for a month (about 6 weeks if we have fish and meatless meals occasionally) for the grand total of $86.78. What made it even more of a bargain was the gift cards I used to pay for it. I had five Coles gift cards that had to be used up within the next couple of months (you have to watch these cards, they do expire), all with about $10 on them so I used them to pay for the meat and I only had to hand over $31.30 in cash. The gift cards were freebies from a couple of surveys I completed so I was more than happy to use them to pay for the meat. And I'll confess that I had a lot of fun digging through the meat fridge looking for the markdowns and then working out if it was a good deal or not. My little handbag calculator had a real workout.

I've had an update on Nick's Challenge too. The website www.nickschallenge.com is up and running and businesses are already submitting their discounts so if you're a business or know of a business that wants to take up Nick's Challenge and help those in need please go to www.nickschallenge.com and register now. AND if you are a pensioner and looking for discounted goods and services, please go to the website to view the free discount listing.

I am so pleased too that the Cheapskates Club has taken up the challenge and from today we have a concession membership available all the time, not just as a special offer.

This heat is really getting me down. I must be getting old I think, anything over about 34 and I just lose all my energy. With days of 35,39 and 40 coming up I've been on a get cool crusade. There are some great ways to keep cool and to keep your house cool and comfortable in the Tip Store if you're in need of help. I've already trawled through them and put a few new strategies into place around here, including moving from the office into the family room. My office is at the front of the house and it gets the full mid-day sun and becomes unbearably hot, even with good insulation and fans. The family room on the other hand is smack bang in the middle of the house and so stays pleasantly cool all day. Thank goodness for laptops and extension leads is all I say.

Nick's challenge

I was so disappointed last week when I was invited to be a guest on Sunrise and had to decline (AJ had an appointment around the same time I would have been on air) because the topic was grocer Nick Duggan and the discount he is offering to pensioners who shop at his IGA supermarket in Maroochydore. As it turned out I was able to get in a plug for Nick this morning on The Morning Show, so I'm feeling much happier.

Nick owns a 24 hour IGA supermarket in Maroochydore and he has taken it upon himself to offer his pensioner customers a 10% discount on their groceries and it's available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Nick was distressed by just how tough some of members of his local community were finding it and even more distressed when Prime Minister Rudd admitted that there is indeed a problem expecting someone to live on $260 a week but that he didn't have any answers to offer.

It was after this that he decided to lift the existing discount from 5% to 10%. It didn't take him long, overnight he had some banners and flyers explaining the deal printed and the staff alerted and the registers adjusted.

And now he is challenging all business owners to offer at least a 5% discount to pensioners. I'm always up for a discount so I've agreed to help Nick with his challenge. We are in the process of nutting out the finer details so watch this space. Good things are happening!

The fuel gauge in my car is stuck. On full. I thought I was doing so well, driving very carefully, smooth takeoffs and stops, checking the tyres, keeping the boot empty. I was so thrilled with myself for a couple of days last week. Then I realised the gauge hadn't moved at all. Not even a fraction of a centimetre. Ooops. I quickly pushed the trip metre and yes, I had travelled 308km. That gauge should have moved at least a little. So I'm not quite so smug right now. But the fuel economy has improved since I started this challenge, even with increase in petrol prices.

That 308km has been a fair bit of freeway and highway driving so the cruise control has come in handy. It does improve efficiency and certainly makes driving easier. If you have cruise, then use it. But only on the open highway or freeway please. I really don't think it's safe to use in city traffic, even in the middle of the day. There's only one day to go till I fill up again, I'll have to be sure and write all the figures down carefully. I can't wait until the end of the month to see just how much money and fuel has been saved.

The five year cycle

I've had to replace face washers, bath mats and towels recently. And the sheets for our bed are almost see-through in spots so they'll be next on the agenda. It can't possibly be five years since all the linen was replaced but if we've been married almost 20 years then the fourth round of the five year cycle is almost over so they are due.

The five year cycle was described to me by my sister-in-law just after we were married. She told me that every five years tea towels, bed linen, face washers, towels etc would need to be replaced because they just wear out. I scoffed at the time but five years later as I was cutting bath towels into hand towels I remembered what she had said. It’s true, I can't get any linen or manchester to last more than five years before it needs to be recycled into something else.

This week 15 face washers have been turned into dusters and laundry rags and 15 nice new face washers have replaced them in the bathrooms. This means of course that for the last four nights crochet has been the TV watching task of choice. A crocheted edge around the face washers looks pretty. It also extends the life of the flannel by preventing the edges from fraying and getting scraggy. A ball of crochet cotton costs around $3.50 and I can usually stretch it out to 6 or 7 flannels if I don't get too fancy and do lacy edges. I buy packs of 10 face washers for $5 on sale so they end up costing about 85 cents each and take about an hour each to do. They make good gifts for fetes and stalls too if you need an easy idea. And we have started our fifth five year cycle! Where does time go?

Wayne cooked the leg of lamb on the bbq tonight and it was superb. He's getting quite adventurous with his cooking. With this leg he cut slits into it and then pushed in slivers of garlic, rubbed it over with olive oil and lemon juice and then rubbed in rosemary. Then he basted it with lemon juice while it was cooking. The backyard smelled incredible while it was cooking and it tasted even better with the vegetables. It was a huge joint, over 2 kilos, so there is plenty left for lunches. The boys are off to a train exhibition at Sandown racecourse tomorrow and they requested lamb sandwiches for lunch so I've just put a loaf of bread in the bread maker for them. Fresh bread and cold roast lamb - costs almost nothing, compared to $8 for a hamburger from the kiosk. I kid you not, a hamburger is really $8 at this exhibition! Thankfully my Cheapskate family are more than happy to pack an esky with sandwiches, fruit and drinks from home and keep their hard earned money for more worthwhile purchases.

Those haggling skills have paid off

All that honing has paid off. We've lashed out and bought a new lounge suite - a brand new lounge suite. We did take a couple of afternoons and shopped around, going to anywhere that was advertising a sale and ending up at the clearance centres. The suite we decided on was at a clearance centre and was already discounted $500 (according to the price tag) because it was the end of that particular design. After a little haggling the price came down another $50 and they threw in the Scotchguard treatment and delivery (another $210). I think they were glad to get us out of the place. So sometime next week a brand, spanking new three piece lounge suite will be delivered. I'm kind of excited simply because we have only bought a couple of things new in the last 20 years - our bed, the lounge suite in the loungeroom and our new fridge. Everything else we own has been a gift, bought second hand, given to us second hand or scrounged from hard rubbish. Now the kids are older I'm seriously hoping that the risk of accidental spills and marks will be almost nil. I may have to instigate some new rules for the family room.

Next job is to list find a home for the sofas we have at the moment. Thinking of donating them to the Year 12 common room at school. They are sturdy and strong, just look untidy with the loose covers. I don't think teenagers are going to worry too much about how they look. I'll ask at school tomorrow and if the answer is yes Wayne can drop them off next week on his day off. I'm handing them on rather than sending them to the tip because I actually feel a little guilty at spending money on new furniture just because I don't like the look of what we have. I know I shouldn't feel guilty at moving something that doesn't make me smile on, it's just that I'm still in Essential Spending mode and struggling to spend any money at the moment. I dare say this moment will pass :)

At lunchtime today I met some Cheapskates Club members for a chat and 3 hours later I left, and the only reason I left then was to pick the kids up from school. Boy can those girls talk! We had an absolute blast getting to know each other and sharing ideas and best of all it didn't cost us anything. We all took our lunch and drinks and happily sat and gossiped and compared sandwich fillings. Thanks so much for your time Sandra and Debbie and for inviting me to have lunch with you both, I love that I can read your tips and forum messages and be able to put a face to them. If there are any members in Melbourne who'd like to get together just let me know, I'm always ready for a coffee and a natter as Keren knows too and I'd really like to meet every single one of you if I could.

Thankfully dinner was organized before I left to meet the ladies. Potatoes were cooked and cooling in the fridge for potato salad, coleslaw just needed the dressing and the slice was made early this morning before the kitchen became too hot to bear so even though we were late home from school, I wasn't even tempted to order pizza or chips much to the kids' disgust.

It's time to retire the sofas

Our family room sofas have had it. They've had a hard life but it's really time to retire them. Not only have they stood up to the daily abuse handed out by three boisterous children (and at times various other kids) for 15 years but they were second hand when they were given to us. The covers have been washed and dried and washed and dried until they are now so faded the pattern is a different colour and the fabric is so thin it has begun to split.

This time last year I lashed out and bought two of those loose throw over covers from Target during a sale simply because they were getting me down they looked so old and horrible. The covers have been an ok stop gap but they are loose and so they always look messy (can you tell my perfectionism is showing here) and I spend all day straightening them up and begging the kids not to sit on them. Not a nice way for any of us to live so I looked into getting them recovered and it's going to cost more than it will to buy two new sofas!

So the options are:
getting them reupholstered
putting up with the slip covers
buying a new loungesuite or two new sofas

Keeping the slip covers is the cheapest option, then new sofas then re-upholstering. The constant straightening up will drive me nuts so now that Essential Spending month is over (how did you go by the way?) we are off to look at new furniture tomorrow. Brand new furniture! Although I have a couple of outlets to look at so it may well end up being a brand new discontinued/seconds/cancelled order :) Either way we are looking for a good deal so I've been honing my haggling skills this week :)

Today's bits and bobs

We didn’t tell Hannah what we'd done to her bedroom, just picked up one very tired girl and brought her home. She walked down the hall and went straight past her room without even a glance to tell the boys about her weekend. They were in on the surprise so in true brotherly fashion Tom told her to get away and have a shower because she smelled! I'm sure he was only trying to be helpful but obviously diplomacy is something he hasn't acquired yet. My little girl was not impressed, to say the very least, and stomped back down to her room. There was silence for a few seconds and then I was almost knocked over she flew at me so fast. Lots of hugs, kisses and thank you's later I just had to ask her if she liked it. Can you guess what she said? :)

It was the kid's swimming carnival today and normally it's an expensive day out because they buy their lunch from the pool kiosk. This morning I suggested that they take their lunch, snacks and drinks with them and I'd split the savings between then and put it into their bank accounts. They were all happy to do that and their bank balances have grown by $5 each. I was happy to do that because I'm sure it would have cost more than $5 each for the day.

Filled up with petrol on this morning, all figures dutifully recorded in the notebook. I was so annoyed with myself, I drove past one petrol station to go to my usual and when I put the nozzle in the hole I noticed that the fuel was 2c a litre more expensive. Same brand - Shell - just 2 kilometres further down the road. I mentioned it to the girl when I paid and let her know that next time if I get there and they are more expensive I will be turning around and going back to the other one.

I've noticed this happening with milk and bread too lately. We live about 2 minutes from a large Coles supermarket in one direction but it gets very busy so occasionally I'll go the other way, about 5 minutes drive, to another large Coles. Only difference is the second supermarket is always more expensive than the closer one. I noticed it with bread - 18c a loaf more expensive than the closer store, and with milk - 20c more expensive than the closer store. When I asked why the difference no one could tell me so I went to the Coles website and filled out a feedback form. I received an email to say that someone would call me but I'm still waiting. These two stores are only 3 kilometres apart so surely they're not going to tell me delivery charges are the reason!

We dropped Hannah at church on Friday night to go on a waterski camp with the youth club. She was so excited to be going I thought she was going to push me out the door. We only live about 5 minutes from the church and she didn't have to be there until 6pm but from 5.30 on she was asking if it was time to leave so I finally gave in and we left home at 5.40. We were the first ones there of course and then she had to sit and wait. Waiting can be agony for a 12 year old, especially one who can't wait to get together with her friends. After all it had been 2 1/2 hours since they'd seen each other!

I had to really think about letting her go on the camp. After all it wasn't an essential expense but we did have to pay for it. As it turned out she had some Christmas money left that she was happy to use and as they were all contributing to the food she only had to take a bottle of tomato sauce for a pasta dish. That was easy, it came out of the store cupboard and I'm pretty sure we had the cheapest contribution to the menu. The pasta sauce was bought on sale for just 99c/750ml bottle last year. I stocked up at that price and bought 4 cartons of the stuff. I make pasta sauce during summer when we have a glut of tomatoes but towards the end of each year we run out and we are back to the bought product so getting it on such a special was perfect timing.

While the girl was away I had a lovely time in her room. I spent a couple of hours in there this morning, sorting out clothes, tidying books and toys and changing things around for her. I even washed the curtains and windows and wiped over all the woodwork. All in all the room had a really good "summer" clean (it's way to late to be called a spring clean) and it looked so nice and smelled so fresh. The best part was a little surprise I've had for her: an new quilt cover and valance with matching cushions and a gorgeous fluffy throw to go on the end of the bed. It's bright pink with purple and blue butterflies on it and has splashes of lime green to break it up. Very girly without being babyish - just right for a 12 year old who has started high school. Best of all was the price - $17.99 at a Target sale in January. I found it on the clearance shelf and couldn't find anything wrong with it and it's so cute I knew she'd love it.

I had to go looking for another lamp for the bedside table. The lamp that was there was apricot with an apricot shade and it looked wrong. I didn’t want to spend any money on a new lamp and it is still Essential Spending month so in the end I found some butterfly and flower stickers and stuck them all over the base. Then I used a piece of white sheeting and some pink crystal organza I found in the material stash to cover the lamp shade. I hot glued a length of beads around the top and bottom of the shade and it looks quite nice. Total cost absolutely nothing , everything I used was leftover from other projects. Gotta love free decorating.

I just know my girl is going to be so surprised and so excited to have a nice new bedroom and it's been so much fun doing it. Even Wayne likes the way it's turned out, even if he did huff and puff when I had him moving furniture around for me. I'll try to take some photos in the daylight and you can see just how pretty it's turned out.

We had a lovely piece of roast beef tonight, I know it's not what was on the menu, but I found it lurking at the bottom of the freezer and decided to cook it instead. I made a crust from plain flour, mustard, ground pepper and garlic and spread it over the meat. Then Wayne put it on the spit and cooked it over the bbq for me. The crust keeps the meat so moist and the mustard and garlic flavour it beautifully. Considering it was only a small piece of bolar it was delicious and there were no leftovers! Best of all was no cleaning up for me. Wayne and I have a deal, he cooks outside, he cleans up. If I cook inside then I clean up. I love barbecues, we have them all summer long and if I could figure out how to convince him that winter is the ideal time to be barbecuing then he'd be cooking outside all year round.

With all the roadworks going on around us at the moment the dust is just terrible and my poor car was looking particularly sad and uncared for this morning so I took the micro fibre glass cloth and a bucket of water and washed all the windows inside and out and the mirrors and it looks much better. It will be safer to drive too now I can see where I'm going. When I was finished I used the water to wipe down the sidelights at the front door and they're sparkly again too. Then it went onto the garden. It's still so dry it just disappeared. I sure wish some of that rain up north would find it's way down south.

Love is in the air

Happy Valentine's day!

We don’t do expensive Valentine's gifts at all, just something fun and a bit special so I surprised everyone with yummy pink pancakes this morning :) We had raspberry jam to have on them and Hannah took some of the leftovers to school to share at lunchtime. I also bought Wayne a packet of Chocolate Royals (they are his very favourite biscuit) and slipped them onto his bedside table as a surprise. I found a block of Lindt Coffee Intense under my pillow when I made the bed this morning. Neither gift was expensive, under $3 each, but worth so much more than that because we both thought about what the other really loved and went with that.

The kids were in stitches telling me about the school fundraiser. The Year 12 class were selling roses for $2.50 each to raise money for their end of year formal. Apparently kids were going crazy trying to decide who they'd buy a rose for or how many they'd need to buy. One group of girls cornered a poor, defenceless young man and demanded he buy them one each, which he did! Obviously he has more pocket money than my kids because not one of them bought one. As Hannah said, if she wanted to give anyone a rose she'd just take one from the garden because they are bigger and nicer than the ones from school and they're free.

Day to day happenings

The car was filled with petrol on Tuesday afternoon. I almost died of shock as I was watching the bowser tick over. Normally an expensive week for me would be between $75-$78. The bowser reached $75 and kept going. I was sure it was going to stop soon. $78. I just looked at it. $80. I started shaking my head. $82.37. A week's worth of groceries. Ouch. Mind you I've never bought petrol at 130.9 cents per litre before. I put off buying it until Wednesday morning in the hope that it would drop a little more. No such luck and I am glad I didn't wait because by the time I was on my way home it had jumped up again. All the figures have been entered into my little notebook so I can keep track of this challenge.

I have noticed that driving to keep the revs under 2000 seems slower but I'm still getting to where I want to be in around the same time. I've been laughing this week at the rev heads who sit at the traffic lights and creep forward every few seconds and then take off in a burst of speed, only to arrive at the next red light with me right behind them. Then they start the process all over again. The only thing they are gaining is a bigger petrol bill and a whole lot of stress. All that impatience can't be good for them.

I think I'm all pickled out at the moment. The store cupboard is full of zucchini pickles and pickled cucumbers and now the apple tree is starting to drop apples so it's time to stock the freezer with stewed apple for winter. Just the thought of homemade apple pies and yummy apple sponge is making me long for cold weather. And free fruit is always a good thing :)

With the weather cooling down a little we haven't been going through quite so much drink but the ginger beer is almost at an end and the lemonade is finished. I made some lemon barley water up the other day, mainly because it is quick and I had the lemons and pearl barley on hand. It's ages since I've made it and I had forgotten just how refreshing it is. And easy and cheap too.

Thomas is feeling very flush at the moment. He has been doing some surveys for an educational study and they sent him a $50 Coles gift voucher last week as a thank you. He's really excited because there are some wii games he's been hoping will come on sale and now he has an extra $50 he's hoping they'll come on sale and he won't need to add too much of his savings to buy them. All junk mail is being pored through at the moment in anticipation. He's so determined to get the best value for his dollar that he doesn’t mind waiting and Cheapskate that he is he's worked a deal with me where if they come on sale somewhere he can't use the gift card I'll give him the cash for the card.

Goal: cut petrol consumption by 7%

Still no spending in the Armstrong household. We didn't even get the Sunday paper this week and that is one thing I would have thought Wayne believed an absolute essential :) I will need petrol sometime this week so as today is Tuesday and petrol is cheap I'll fill up on my way to pick the kids up after school. I do need to get petrol. We only have the one car and as we live 11km from school and there's no public transport close by I have to fill it up to get the kids to and from school each day. I'm going to try an experiment and keep the revs under 2,000 and see if I do actually get more mileage from a tank of petrol. According to the experts I should increase fuel efficiency by at least 7% and that equates to around $7.22 on a tank or $375.65 a year (based on 80 litres/week @128.9c/litre). I can't wait to see if it really works.

I've gone back through the Tip Store and the Article Archive and read up on all the tips to save petrol. The boot has been emptied of everything bar the spare tyre and the jack. The tyres have been checked to make sure they are properly inflated. I've been practicing smooth take-offs and braking and anticipating the traffic ahead. All these things should help increase fuel efficiency. Now if only I could arrange to get the kids to school after peak hour the fuel used sitting in traffic would disappear.

Hannah has ruled up an old notebook for us to use to track petrol consumption, cost and savings. She has put a bulldog clip in the car to put the receipts on so they don't get lost and to keep track of any petrol discount vouchers we get. As this is going to be a low spend month we may do trolley crawl and see if we can find any lying around. That could be job to keep the boys busy while I'm getting essentials if they come with me.

So my goal for this week is to reduce petrol consumption by 7% and not spend any non-essential money.

Essential Spending February

Way, way back in 2002 it struck me that for most of December and January all I did was spend. There was Christmas to cover, umpteen birthdays (we have 14 birthdays in December/January) and then to top it all off the back to school costs. Two solid months of money just leaping out of my purse and bank account. While it was all budgeted for it sure did make our bank balance look poor.

I put a challenge in the Newsletter to make February a month of essential spending only. I knew Cheapskates would rise to the challenge. That very first Essential Spending February Cheapskaters shared their successes and so February became our annual essential spending only month. Since then it's grown and grown and now it's time to take control of our spending and saving with the 2008 Essential Spending February.

I will admit to doing some shopping yesterday after I picked the kids up from school in anticipation of not shopping for the next 29 days (it's a leap year!). I found chocolate on sale and as coffee and chocolate are my indulgences I kinda stocked up on a few blocks. Luckily I still had some flutter money left.

For this year's challenge I am hoping to only have to buy fresh milk, fruit and veg and then pay the phone bill. All the others have been paid and there isn't anything else that we should need that can't be found at home. I hope. Anyway today is the first day and so far so good. No spending, either essential or non-essential :)

You can join the challenge here, the more who join in the bigger the savings will be so just jump in, we'd love to have you.

I had a tear in my eye as I waved them off...

After eight glorious weeks of holiday school went back today. I had a tear in my eye as I waved the kids off this morning, they never even looked back!

It is Hannah's first day of high school and it was a most definite NO when I suggested I help her carry her backpack and the extra bag to her locker. Miss Independent didn't realise it was for my benefit and not hers. That I needed to hang on to my baby for just a few minutes longer because I know that when I pick her up at 3.20pm today she will have grown a little more and need her mum a little less. Don't worry, I was just as soppy when the boys started high school too.

I was amazed to see just how much all three had grown over the summer. Poor Thomas put on his school pants and I just burst out laughing. My tall, skinny boy was about 15cm taller than he was in December! He looked so comical with his lovely grey wool three-quarter pants. He didn't see the funny side at all. Thankfully there was enough of a hem to let them down. Did you know you can iron out a hem mark if you use an pressing cloth and white vinegar? Dampen the pressing cloth with the vinegar and then iron it dry over the hem mark. The crease should disappear like magic.

Left to my own devices for the day I'm going to finish off the February Journal and get it uploaded and then I'm going to look into specific savings accounts. Number One son is saving madly for a car and all related costs for when he turns 18. I've found a Bankwest account that pays 8% interest and yet still gives him access to his money if he needs it as long as deposits are between $50 and $500 a month. At the end of they year they transfer the balance to a nominated account. Sounds a bit like a Christmas club type of thing, only the year starts from when you open the account. At the moment this is my pick, for ease of setting up, use and a reasonable interest rate.

Mum has given me more zucchini too. There's only so many zucchini slices, pies, quiche and breads my lot will eat so it looks like pickles it will be for this lot. I like zucchini pickles, they are quick to make and have a nice tang to them. And with only a couple of ingredients they are very economical too.

That lot should keep me busy and out of mischief for the day.

I make no apologies

Yes Marion B., I do feed my kids gelatine sometimes. And yes, I do know what it's made from. I also sometimes feed them white rice, chocolate cake, saturated fats and if they are really sick and need them, antibiotics!

What I don’t feed them is artificial colourings, preservatives that have been banned in other countries because they are known carcinogens, or greasy, salt and fat laden convenience meals and takeaway foods and a myriad of other things that are not good for them.

Gelatine is found in a variety of foods, from yoghurts, sour cream, some cream cheeses, marshmallows, jelly/jube type lollies through to tinned meats and soups, even sausages. While I try very hard to stick to a grocery budget, I don't compromise on the quality of the food that I serve to my family. If it's at all possible to make it myself I do. I am fussy about what my kids eat.

If you are wondering if there is a substitute for gelatine, yes there is. Agar Agar is derived from seaweed and you can get it from a health food shop. I use Agar too, depending on what I'm making.

So Marion B, I make no apologies for the occasional use of 3 teaspoons of gelatine in a dish that they absolutely love. There are many worse things I could be feeding them!

Homemade deli delicacies

There's a forum thread going at the moment about cheap deli meats and it made me stop and think about what I buy from the deli. Not much really: olives, feta, occasionally cocktail franks but not much else really because I can make most of our deli desires. Yes, I know it's unbelievable but I can and do and for the most part it doesn't take any longer than it does to take a number and stand in the crowd!
Most of you know that I had to learn to cook when Disaster Struck. I could cook a steak or sausages and veg of course but I wasn't a great cake, jam, pickle, pastry type of cook. I had to learn how to make these things and believe me I was blown away when I realised just how easy it was to put a piece of corned beef in the crockpot for a few hours and have sliced silverside for sandwiches for less than half the price of the deli silverside. Ditto with roast beef.
I buy a piece of beef or a largish chicken and roast it and then slice it with the electric knife once it's cold and use this for lunches, ditto with corned beef, especially if I can get it on sale.

You can smoke your own fish and chicken too and save a fortune on what you pay at the deli. It's another one of those things that is so easy I don't know why I haven't always been doing it.
You can make your own seasoned chicken loaf for about half the price/kg of the bought one and it's so much nicer and you know you've used real chicken in it. For ham lovers buy a leg or half leg and slice it yourself. Even taking into account the weight of the bone you are still paying about half the price of the pre-sliced or shaved stuff you can buy.
Make a brawn with your leftover meats and you can have it with salads or on sandwiches. It's another old fashioned meat but it's really easy to make. Trust me, homemade brawn is so much nicer than the stuff you buy from the deli, there really is no comparison.
The thing I've found with preparing these foods myself is that it doesn't take a long time and you don’t need to be a gourmet genius and it doesn't cost a fortune. I think that the last 40 years or so homemakers have been brainwashed into believing that cooking, baking and preserving are really hard and time consuming and require extra special skills and that it is easier and better for them to just buy what they need ready made. It's not.
If I can do it anyone can. I'll add the recipes and instructions to the Recipe File so you can try them out. I bet you'll be a convert too.
And as soon as I perfect homemade cocktail franks I'll let you know. That will be one less thing I will be buying from the deli and one more thing I can cross off my shopping list.

The week that was

I can't believe it's been over a week since I last posted. This week I've done two magazine interviews, one newspaper interview and two radio interviews! As well as tried to keep up with emails (I'm sorry if you're still waiting for a reply, I will get to you) and keeping the website working and keep my gorgeous family at least fed and with clean clothes.

If there is one thing I love doing it's talking abut the Cheapskates way of life. As a result of all the publicity the Cheapskates Club has lots and lots of new members (welcome everyone, I'll be in touch soon), proving our point: Australians are becoming more and more aware of the need to save money, time and energy to have a life and they are finding the benefits of living the Cheapskates way really does pay off. I'll shout it from the rooftops (or talk to more journalists) as long as the message gets out: you can be debt free, cashed up and laughing if you live the Cheapskates way!

Last week was quite busy and if I'd only stuck to the plan on Friday I would still have my beautiful Bendigo Pottery teapot! I reached into the cupboard Friday night to get the food cover out and because I was in a hurry I just gave it a gentle tug. Ok, well it wasn't quite a gently tug, I was in a hurry, and as it came tumbling out of the cupboard it pulled my beautiful teapot with it. Smashing, spout end down, onto the floor. I just stood there and stared at it. Wayne has it on his desk hopefully to glue it back together again. At least it will look nice with flowers in it, even if I can't use it.

If only I had stuck to the menu plan then I wouldn't have been in a hurry to grab the food cover and it would never have pulled the teapot out of the cupboard. I changed the menu plan because I just couldn't be bothered making fritters, peeling vegetables and then making a gravy. I wouldn't have been in a hurry if I had started to prepare dinner as soon as I changed the menu, instead of 20 minutes after dinner should have been on the table. The burgers were nice but I'm not sure they were worth my beautiful teapot.

Remember last week I told you about the laundry disaster? Well that leak under the laundry sink spread further than I originally thought.

I had two boxes of Duo under the sink, at the back under a roll of plastic bags. They were there for emergencies or when I was just to frazzled to whiz up some more detergent. Unfortunately they were soaked by the leak. I can tell you now that I was so annoyed with myself for putting them under there instead of in the store cupboard that I could have jumped with frustration. Just the thought of having to put two kilos of bought detergent in the rubbish bin was enough to annoy me, so much so that I left them sitting outside on the verandah.

There those two boxes have sat for a week. We've had some really hot weather this week and the soap powder had dried to a solid lump so when I walked past it again this morning I had a brainwave and decided I'd just whiz it in the food processor and make soap powder again. Unfortunately the stuff had set harder than cement and not even dropping it on the floor broke it up enough to whiz. BUT the solid block was perfect for grating, on the finest side of the grater. The result: 10 minutes grating and 2 kilos of washing powder and $3.58 saved (I bought it on sale for $1.79/kg) and one happy Cheapskate.

On a much cheerier note the cool change arrived about noon Friday. We even had a few minutes of rain to damp down the dust and freshen up the grass. I raced around opening the curtains and blinds and winding windows out to let the breeze through. The weekend has been lovely and cool so it was a goo opportunity to catch up with some household chores I'd let slip during the heatwave. Now everything is spic and span again, the house looks lovely and that has really put a smile on my face.

Let's hope this week isn't quite as hectic.

Well that cool change was short lived….

The cool change I've been waiting for since Thursday hasn't arrived. I must be getting old because I really don't like this hot weather at all. I like cold days, where I can take a jumper off if I get too hot. I could apply that same thinking in reverse to manage hot weather but I'm not sure the neighbours could cope with me going topless in the heat.

Keeping the house cool enough to stay in has been a trial. Thank goodness we only have two north facing and two west facing windows, it really helps to keep the heat out. I've been getting up early every morning and closing the doors and windows and pulling the blinds and drapes shut to keep the sun out. The ceiling fans have been turned on early too to keep the cooler air circulating. Another thing that has helped has been closing the doors to rooms we aren't using. So bedroom, bathroom and laundry doors have been closed during the day and it's made a big difference to the temperature in the house. At night I've opened up all the windows and doors and kept the fans on until we've gone to bed and the house has cooled down beautifully, enough for us all to sleep.

There has been a musty odour in the laundry for a couple of days. At first I put it down to the pile of beach towels that never seemed to shrink so I put Hannah in charge of getting them all washed and onto the line. Still the odour lingered. I cleaned the inside of the washing machine with washing soda and vinegar. I wiped over the outside of the washing machine with white vinegar. I checked the freezer was still working (one of my greatest fears is that the freezer will die) and wiped it over too. I washed the floor with water and some eucalyptus oil. I could still smell that musty odour and it was really annoying me. This morning I bent down to get the container of washing powder out from under the trough and I found the cause of the musty smell.

Apparently the join from the washing machine hose to the drain wasn't quite water tight anymore. All the cleaning rags were damp and mildewy (yuk) and the cartons of laundry soap were a soggy mess. Luckily the ice cream container was away from the direct drip or I would be making washing gloop right now.

Thank goodness it was easily fixed. Wayne took his tool box and worked his magic with it. Well not really magic, he tightened the screw around the bracket that was holding it into the drain pipe and then wrapped it with waterproof plumbing tape. Problem solved and odour gone (I put the cleaning rags through a wash cycle with some vinegar and bi-carb).

The back to school frenzy has started, with flyers being dropped in the letterbox a couple of times a week. We've gone over the stationery lists and the flyers and there were only two things we needed to buy.

The first was a set of watercolour pencils. At Officeworks a set of 24 costs $19.95. Campion Books (an educational book shop) sells packs of 24 for $11.95. Our local $2 shop sells a pack of 36 for $6.00 so that's where we bought them, saving at least $5.95.

The other thing we need to buy is a scientific calculator. Again, Officeworks was the most expensive at $19.95. Kmart had a cheaper one at $16.95. Aldi has scientific calculators for $7 starting this coming Thursday so we'll get one of those and save $9.95. We'll spend some time this week re-vamping pencil cases, rulers and folders that we have and everyone will be set for the start of the school year. And I won't be battling the shops the week before school starts either.

There are some really cute school book labels available online. Hannah has been busy printing them out and using her new watercolour pencils to personalize them. She's also made some new labels for her pens and pencils too.

Today's Savings
I haven't been out in the car since Friday, so no petrol used for two days. In fact I haven't filled the car up since 11th December. I didn't believe it had been that long, I had to check the receipts to be sure. That's almost 4 weeks and I still have half a tank! That's $320 still in the fuel budget, just from walking to the shops and planning our trips. That's amazing.

I'm part of the January Grocery Challenge (it's in the Forum) and thoroughly enjoying it. This week so far I've only spent $16.65 of the grocery money, so a savings of $128.35 for the grocery budget.

We ran out of the orange cordial I made on Tuesday, it's been so hot. This morning I made some Magic Cordial instead of putting it on the shopping list. Saving of $1.69 on not buying cordial and using what we have at hand. And it's better for the kids too.

I found some carrots hiding in the back of the fridge so I washed them and cut them into straws and put them in the freezer. Have you noticed that carrots have been quite expensive lately?

Added 3 tsp gelatine and an extra 500ml water to the jelly to make 1 litre from 1 pack. Only saves about 30c but the jelly isn't as sweet and everyone can have a reasonable serve for dessert.

Took the shirts off the line as soon as they were dry and put them away immediately. No creases in them so no need to iron. Saving on electricity and my legs.

It's amazing how little things can save so much and without any extra effort involved.