My Abundant Life: This Week's Frugal Tasks

This week's frugal list will be a short one. I've been sick all week with laryngfitis. I've had to cancel all my cleaning jobs and a day of filming for tv ( hoping to do it next week ). As lousy as I feel I'm trying to stay positive. I rarely get sick and haven't had a cold in over 18 months. Both my girls have been home all week and have been helping out with the cookng and cleaning.

Here are the few things we've managed to do -

* Baked a big batch of peanut butter choc chip biscuits with dough from the freezer.

* Used less water with the washing machine. I haven't done as many loads but we have still saved the rinse water for each next load.

* Gratefully received turkish breads from a friend at church. For tea on Sunday night we used some of them to make pizza with chicken Jessica bought home from work and cheese we also received from a friend. The meal was very yummy and almost free. The rest of the turkish breads were frozen for future use.

* Megan made chicken noodle soup from scratch using homemade chicken stock from the freezer. She only used a recipe to get ideas from then made it her own way. It was so yummy and for about an hour I felt a little better.

* Picked more beans and strawberries.

* Dried the washing on the line and clothes horses ( when it rained ).

* We purchased our first ever Christmas ham. We've never been able to afford one before but this year I had a little extra money in the food slush fund. Tasman Meats have Bertocci hams for $6.99 kg. I picked half a ham with no bone. We'll be slicing it thinly and freezing as much as we can. Darren spoke to the butcher and found out that they last five days in the fridge once opened but can be frozen.

* Cooked all meals from scratch. It can be tempting to get takeaway when the cook is sick. So far we've avoided the temptation. We have plenty of food in the house so we may as well use it.

* Continued to collect eggs each day. Four out of five chickens are moulting to some degree so we feel blessed to still get between 2 - 4 eggs each day.

* Purchased beef ribs for $3.99 kg from Tasman Meats. This is a great price and Darren will enjoy them when we have bbqs.

* Bought legs of lamb for $6.99 kg from Tasman Meats. They have all been frozen and we now have enough to ration them out for special occasions over the next twelve months.

* Megan picked five small bunches of flowers from the garden to cheer me up.