My Abundant Life: This Week's Frugal Tasks Saturday 26th November 2016

Our Christmas tree went up last Sunday. Most of the presents have been bought and wrapped. I just have a few bits and pieces to buy for our Christmas stockings.

Today is the day our church is blessing our community. Darren and his team have worked hard all year to raise the funds to buy the goodies for the Christmas hampers and to hire rides and cook a sausage sizzle. Another large charity and our own church have provided the toys to give away to the needy. We've spent lots of time over the last few weeks sorting toys, packing hampers and decorating our church.

Here's what else we got up to this week -

* I baked and sold lots and lots of blueberry and white choc muffins to a cleaning client. I also sold two dozen eggs to her.

* Picked one punnet's worth of strawberries from our garden. The snails and other bugs have had a feast too so I've spread out the pet friendly snail bait and netted the two patches.

* Changed our doonas ( duvet ) over from Winter ones to Summer lightweight ones. This is frugal because we won't be putting the cooling on for getting too hot.

* Went to a second hand stamp and card making equipment sale. I purchased one set of stamps and some books. I also picked up some freebie catalogues to get card making ideas from.

* Used a Spotlight gift card to buy a butterfly punch at 30% off. This is used lots in card making.

* Saved lots of shower water and poured it into the washing machine. Saved all the washing machine rinse water for each next load.

* Sold a five items in my Etsy shop and mailed them off.

* Started another cleaning job this week. I'm feeling blessed that the work is starting to come back.

* Megan found a few items of Summer clothing at Savers and used a 15% discount stamp.

* Picked silverbeet to put in a spag bol meal to stretch it out. I also grated some carrot.

* Darren fed the chickens a silverbeet plant that was going to seed.

* Refilled all the cleaning spray bottles around the house with Miracle Spray

* Poured the water bottles onto pot plants.

* Portioned a tomato paste jar into an ice cube tray and froze.

* Made a few decorated hand towels for my Etsy shop. I'd sold out of the first batch with people buying them as Christmas presents.

* Used the dry mop mid week to sweep our bamboo floors. So much easier than getting out the vacuum cleaner.

* Cooked and baked all meals and snacks for the family.

* Used the clothes horses most of the week to dry the washing. I did use the dryer for the towels when it was quite humid.

* Mended a top for Megan. She purchased a new top recently but later found the seam had a hole in it.

* Sold two school text books and one school blazer.

* Made chicken stock in the slow cooker then made a chunky chicken and veggie soup.

* Gratefully received some train magazines I can use in card making.