My Abundant Life: This Week's Frugal Tasks

This week has been a very frugal week. Summer fruits have reduced in price and I'm making the most of it by making jam. There's nothing like the taste of homemade jam.  With no artificial ingredients you can really taste the fruit. A jar of jam makes a great present either on it's own or combined with a bag homemade biscuits.

Here's my frugal list for the week -

* Saved the warm up water from the showers. This week we've had a bit of rain so the shower water was poured into the washing machine.

* Fed bread crusts to the chooks.

* Made one kilo of brown sugar.

* Made  11 1/2  jars of tomato relish. This was the first time I've made relish although I have tasted this recipe before and it's very yummy. Some of the jars will be sold to my cleaning client, some will be given as presents and the rest will be for us.

* Made one kilo of natural yoghurt. From this I made one kilo of vanilla yoghurt and froze 9   portions to use as a starter for more batches.

* Saved 12 bread bags from a couple of charity bbqs Darren organised. I've got so many of these bags I'm going to have to find another use for them other than scooping the kitty litter. I might try using them as bin liners in the bathrooms.

* Made 8 jars of strawberry and apple jam.

* Had the heater off all week nnd the cooling off for most of the week.

* Pushed up the retractable part of my Avon eyeliner to get another four weeks worth of use. So much of the eyeliner sits down below the plastic holder. I just pull it apart, pull it up and bend the holder so it doesn't slip down. Then I assemble it again.

* We had silverside for tea on Tuesday. I cooked it, cooled it and sliced it thinly to go with salad. There was enough leftovers for tea for all of us the next night.

* Made 10 jars of apricot jam with fruit bought on clearance at $1.49 kg.

* Made 9 1/2 jars of peach jam with fruit bought on clearance at $1 kg. The peaches and apricots were bought at about 9pm from my local fruit and veg shop. All stone fruit and cut fruit was 1/2 price. Bargain.

* Picked and froze strawberries from our garden. When I have enough I'll make some more jam.

* Picked and froze beans from our garden.

* Kept the curtains closed on the hot days. We didn't need to turn the cooling on until well after lunch.

* Our homemade takeaway food this week was hamburgers with wedges and pizza made on ciabatta bread. The rolls and bread were given to us. What a blessing !!! We are so grateful.