My Abundant Life: This Week's Frugal Tasks 7th February 2015

Now that my girls are back into the school routine I have a little extra time up my sleeve. The house stays tidy longer and I can get the house work finished by mid morning as I'm not vacuuming around the family or waiting for the dirty washing to be collected. This gave me a chance to bake bread again, to do more sewing and to do some de cluttering.

Here's this week's frugal task list -

* Diluted a bottle of white vinegar by 50 %. I had an empty bottle so I poured half into it and topped it up with water. It's great for cleaning but not suitable for cooking.

* Made seasoned bread crumbs from scratch. Some were used to make KFC drumsticks.

* Made a muesli bar slice. I would have taken a photo but it was a little over baked. Still yummy though.

* Saved the shower warm up water and poured it into my watering can and used it to water the fruit trees.

* Baked four loaves of wholemeal bread.

* Gratefully received two plum puddings. I'll give one to a family member and the other one was portioned into single serves and frozen. Darren is the only one in our house who really enjoys plum pudding.

* Made a children's Christmas apron and chef's cap as a present for Christmas this year. The material panel was on clearance after Christmas a year ago for $1.

* Saved some large glass jars. I'm going to use them as presents by picking a bunch of flowers from the garden. I'll tie twine around the flowers and place them in the jar. The jar will be decorated with a wide strip of wrapping paper and a ribbon. I've seen these on The Prudent Homemaker's blog and they look lovely. Cost is zero. I'll post a picture when I make them up.

* Picked strawberries, raspberries, beans, tomatoes, zucchinis and corn from the vegetable garden.

* Darren used some of our compost on the veggie garden.

* For some reason we didn't use as much milk this week and I had almost three litres to use with one day left on the expiry date So I made creamed rice to use up about two litres. We had it for dessert two nights running. I had it for lunch two days and Jessica was in heaven eating it for breakfast.

* Gratefully accepted some free sandwiches.

* Found some older face washers and hand towels in the linen cupboard to replace the tired ones I was using in the kitchen. The really old kitchen ones were moved on to the laundry as mop up cloths. I never buy kitchen sponges or wipe up cloths. I use the slightly old and faded face washers instead. It's great as I can change them over at the end of the day and throw them in the wash.

* Baked a triple batch of chocolate choc chip muffins. A few were eaten fresh and the rest were frozen for lunch boxes.

* Bought chicken fillets a $6.99 kg from Tasman Meat. Bought Pineocleen and Pantene shampoo and conditioner at half price from Coles..

* Dried all the washing clothes horses and the line.

* Kept the heater off all week and only used the evap. cooling for a couple of hours.
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