My Abundant Life: This Week's Frugal Tasks 14th March 2015

I've had a very productive week with lots of great specials bought to fill my cupboards, baking and cooking completed as well as being wise with what we have. Here's what I got up to this week -

* Gratefully received some glass jars from my friend Leesa. Thank you so much. Those salsa jars are the perfect size for my relish and the lids are apple green in color ( my fav ).

* Gratefully received some sandwiches, and egg and bacon muffins

* Mended lots of socks. They had holes in the toe area so they were worth mending.

* Spent some time making birthday cards. I only have a few stamps and ink pads from many years ago. As card making can be an expensive hobby I've taken my lead from Annabel at The Bluebirds Are Nesting blog. She makes beautiful cards using pictures from magazines. Here's a link to her blog. athttp://thebluebirdsarenesting.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/feather-your-nest-friday-6th-march-2015.html

* Cut up three old socks to use as garden ties.

* Froze three single portions of leftover chicken curry. These will be written into the menu plan as a free meal.

* Picked a handful of raspberries each day and froze them.

* Dried the washing on the line for free. It looks like I've reduced my washing to 5 loads a week without compromising on cleanliness.

* Saved the shower warm up water. Some was poured into the washing machine and the rest was used to water my mango plants. They are looking quite healthy.

* Made up a batch of dried seasoned bread crumbs.

* Darren bought two litres of chocolate flavoured milk for 50 cents. It had one day left on it's use by. We don't normally by flavoured milk but this bargain was too good to refuse. Darren and the girls had a couple of glasses each to drink that day. Megan used the rest to make icypoles.

* Bought 10 kilos of chicken drumsticks at $1.98 kilo. Darren and I divided them up into 15 meal portions ( 4 drumsticks ) and froze them. We also have rain checks for another 15 kilos which we'll redeem throughout the next twelves months when we need them.

* Made two chocolate cakes at the same time. One is for us and the other is for morning tea at church on Sunday.

* Bought the supermarket bargains listed here Grocery Specials.

* Found three cushion inserts at Savers op shop for $2.99 each. A few cushions on our family room couch and Megan's bed were looking a bit flat. Spotlight sells the inserts for about $10 - $15 for the size I needed. I'd been waiting for a sale but Spotlight doesn't seem to reduce them often. I'd never even thought of looking at Savers, but there they were. Three near new ones just waiting for me.

* Cut and whizzed a few bars of soap in the food processor I added this to my bucket of powdered soap that I use to make laundry powder.

* Picked a bunch of roses from the bush in the chicken coop.