My Abundant Life: This Week's Frugal Tasks

I've been very busy organising presents this week. We've celebrated a couple of birthdays amoungst family and friends and it was great to have the presents wrapped and ready to give. As a child I was so excited to receive presents for Christmas and my birthday. Now as an adult the role has reversed and I love to be the giver. I think it's all the planning, the budgeting, the shopping, the making and the wrapping that builds up the excitement.

Here's my frugal list for the week -

* Made Cranberry Hootycreek biscuits to give as part of a present.

* Made 20 pumpkin scones using Jap pumpkin I bought for 69 cents a kilo.

* Cooked, drained and froze more pumpkin for future baking.

* Gave a couple of jars of homemade plum jam as presents.

* Saved the shower water to water the garden plants.

* Accepted some glass jars from my Mum and Dad. I can't wait until our fruit trees and bushes start producing. I'll be in jam heaven.

* Gratefully accepted 8 avocados from a friend at church. These are such a blessing to us as they are a luxury item for my family. Darren and Jessica are rationing them out and enjoying every mouthful.

* Darren saved $50 on my car insurance by checkng other company's prices. I'd been with the same company since 2008 as they had the best price each year. Now we've found a cheaper deal elsewhere.

* Wrapped most of the Christmas presents. I buy all year round as I see great bargains. I've even made a great start on next year's birthday and Christmas presents. I've also beaten my present budget YAY !!!

* Baked two trays of peanut butter choc chip biscuits while I had a choc self saucing pudding in the oven.

* Gratefully accepted spinach leaves and mixed lettuce from another friend at church. Jessica used some to make up a lovely salad for tea the other night.

* Bought Cadbury choc bits on sale at $2.09 from Coles. I used our flybuys money to pay for them ( so they were free ).

* Bought Vita Brits at half price from Woolworths for $2.29. They are cheaper than the Aldi brand which is the cheapest on the market. I bought 5 boxes.

* On Thursday night Darren, Jessica and I had a meal that cost us about 10 cents for the three of us. I'd cooked half a piece of silverside the night before. There was about 6 slices left over as some of us weren't very hungry. Megan was on an overnight camp the next night so we had the silverside with corn on the cob from our garden last year and silverbeet ( also picked from our garden ). A friend gave us a couple of jars of tomato relish so we had some of that. The only cost was 1/2 a cup of white rice. BONUS !!!

* Sold two dozen eggs and two dozen muffins to neighbour and a cleaning client.