Keeper of our Home

Jan. 1, 2010

Meal plan for January.

Breakfast:

Oatmeal 6/7 days..

Cold cereal and stewed fruit.

Lunches:

Sandwiches, salad toppings, pb, leftovers.

Dinners:

homemade pizza and salad 4x

breakfast for dinner/pancakes 4x

stir fry4x ( egg based) with veggies from the garden

soup4x

mac and cheese homemade 2x

tuna casserole 2x

potato, vege and meat ( casserole) 4x

rice and beans 2x

chilli 2x

pineapple chicken 1x

curried chicken 1x

Grocery budget for January is $350. I did my main shop for the month yesterday, and spent $272, leaves me $78. I need to buy some flour 20kg for $20, and then the rest is for some eggs, milk and a few veggies which we won't have in the garden. I'll buy some bananas if I can get them at a good price. We will be eating our stewed freezer and canned fruit ( apples and pears) mainly as fruit is quite expensive at the moment. Our grape vine will be ready soon so that will help especially in February. We are enjoying lots of yummy strawberries out of the garden also.

This morning I dug up some beets and cooked them to freeze- should make 2 meals for us. My little dd age 3 helped me wash the stalks and leaves which we chopped up finely to use in chilli, soups or casseroles. We bagged them up in 8 bags for the freezer. We then made a big pot of chicken soup which is simmering on the stove for dinner tonight. I used the broth I made from the chickens we had on Christmas day, added 2 onions, a carrot,, chives and silver beet ( Swiss chard)all finely chopped.The chives and silver beet were from the garden.Better go and stir that soup!

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Dec. 25, 2009

Sorting Left-overs, Garden and Kitchen Work.

Last night after our Christmas dinner I put all the chicken bones in the crock pot, added water, a dash of vinegar, and cooked on low all night to make broth.

This morning in the kitchen I :

- bagged 2 meals woth of chicken left-overs to make into curried chicken or pinepple chicken, and put in the freezer.

- bagged another smaller bag of chicken to use in soup later, put in the freezer.

- strained the chicken broth, picked off any further chicken meat, and split into two containers for the freezer.

- sliced the leftover ham, set aside some for lunch and dinner today, and then bagged the rest into 3 bags for the freezer for future meals.

-wrapped the ham bone, and put in the freezer to use later in soup.

- went through the leftover desserts, and sorted out what we will have for dessert tonight.

In the garden:

-I picked 750gr of fresh green beans, cooked them up for the freezer in one meal size bag of 500gr and a smaller 250gr bag for stir fry.

- picked and cooked rhubarb, and made 500gr of stewed rhubarb for the freezer.

- picked 3 large beets, cut and cooked up- this made a meal for us to go in the freezer also.

- picked a large zuchinni which is in the fridge to use in a day or two.

For dinner tonight we will have:

- leftover ham

- I will slice and fry the leftover roast potatoes.

- sald left from yesterday

-sliced tomatoes

-fresh bread.

and for dessert; leftover pavalova, fruit salad, jelly and ice cream.

All in all a good mornings work, and many extra meals will be made from the leftovers in due course.

Now...to put my feet up!

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Dec. 22, 2009

Just put $50 in my pocket.

Yesterday I bought 3 boxes of squishy tomatoes for $11. I estimated about 15 plus kgs worth. I stewed them all up, by first washing them lightly, then whizzing them up in the kitchen whizz and cooking them up in my large stock pots with a little salt. Once boiled I cooked the pots for 2-3 hours. I now have about the value of 60 tins of tomatoes stewed.Most of it has gone in the freezer in small containers, and the rest in jars- they look so pretty.

To buy 60 cans of tomatoes ( bugdet brand) $1 per tin = $60.

I spend $11 on tomatoes and saved about $50!

Next week if they have more I'll buy some, and do this again and maybe I can stew up enough for the year this way...providing I have enough freezer space!.

• Comments (1) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Dec. 11, 2009

Dinner Menu.

Dinner Menu for next week:

Monday: Homemade Mac and cheese, steamed cauliflower.

Tuesday: Chicken and vegetable soup, fresh bread.

Wednesday: Mashed potatoes, sweet and sour sausage caeerole, carrot salad.

Thursday: Homemade pizza, spinach salad.

Friday: Brown rice, stir fry.

Saturday: Leftovers, pancakes.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Dec. 10, 2009

Warm Summer Days.

We have been blessed with beautiful, warm summer days this week. Each day my washing line has ben full of clothes, nappies, sheets, towels and the like flapping in the breeze. The washing has smelled soo good this week when brought in from outside!

This morning I made up a big pot of chicken soup, and this evening after dinner divided the remaining soup into two three litre containers for the freezer. This will do us for two more meals quite nicely.It's always a bonus when you have some extra for the freezer!

I finished off the Christmas shopping today, and wrapped up the last of the small gifts and laid them under the tree. It's lovely to get that all done, nice and early and organised!

My poor dh has had a busy day today with a dear elderly lady who died in our congreagtion today. It was expected, but even so ...sad. We know and draw great comfort from the fact that she is with the Lord forever. We have a wedding tomorrow which dh is leading, so he has some very busy days ahead of him. I'll be praying that the Lord will bless him with extra strength and wisdom as he marries a young couple tomorrow with much joy and happiness, and as he comforts the family and leads the funeral of this dear lady who passed on to glory today.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Dec. 6, 2009

Kitchen Musings

Hmmm I can smell the chilli cooking on low in the crock pot- this should make two meals for us, so I will freeze on to use later this month.

I went in the garden this morning and picked a huge amount of silver beet, washed it, cooked it up and made two veggie dished for us. I'll use one tomorrow with dinner, and you guessed right the other will go in the freezer. I also picked the rhubarb and made 3 cups of stewed rhubarb to go over our yoghurt- the children love it and it's high in calcium- an added bonus

Dh trimmed the grape vines this morning, so in a couple of months we will be enjoying yummy, juicy grapes again.

Better go and check the strawberry plants, hopefully I will get a small basket full!

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Dec. 5, 2009

Our dinner menu for this week.

Sunday: Tomato and veggie soup, boiled eggs, bread, ice cream for dessert.

Monday: chilli ( made with mince, kidney beans, lentils tomatoes etc), brown rice, cauliflower

Tuesday: Mashed potatoes, tuna sauce, silver beet.,

Wednesday: Homemade pizzas, spinach salad.

Thursday: Chicken soup and fresh bread.

Friday: Pancakes.

Saturday: Italian mince and sausage casserole, brown rice, salad.

Sunday: Left-over chicken soup ( frozen from Thursday night), fried eggs on toast.

We'll have homemade yoghurt for dessert Monday through to Friday with home made stewed fruit. Saturday night will be our special dessert night served with ice cream.The spinach and silver beet will be from our graden, and hopefully we will pick lots more strawberries this week to enjoy also.

• Comments (3) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Dec. 1, 2009

Final BIG grocery shop for the year.

My December grocery goal is $600-$650 for a family of 8. Children's ages 20,18,17,13,6 and 3 . I decided to do a BIG shop today, and buy the bulk of what we need and just 'top up' weekly for milk, fruit, veggies etc.The total came to $507 which I was pretty happy with considering I bought all the goodies for Christmas dinner. I bought a good sized ham for $35, ( was $9 per kg).I bought 5 chickens also, which will go a long way. I plan to cook most of them in the crock pot, and use the meat for several meals.

Our garden is doing well and we have lots of spinach and silver beet growing ready to use. The lettuces are popping up, and the zuchinni plants are growing quickly. We have picked so many LARGE juicy strawberries, and have really enjoyed them- thank you Lord. The bean plants are doing very well and I hope to freeze up to 25-30kgs this summer.We have been enjoying the rhubarb, and we are watching the tomato plants grow quickly also.The pear tree is heavy with little pears, and the grape vines have really 'taken off' these past few weeks. The baby beets are nearly ready to be picked and the pumpkin plants are coming along nicely also. This will all help to keep the veggie bill down each week!

Today when shopping I managed to buy 2 large cauliflowers for 50c each- what a find!

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Nov. 14, 2008

Hello Again!

It's been a number of months since my last blog entry- oh, dear!

We are heading into summer now, a glorious time of the year. Our summer veggie garden is all planted out with beans, beetroot, cucumbers, tomatoes, spinach, lettuces, silver beet, zucchini, rhubarb, pumpkins, strawberries, grapes...I think that's it! Yum- we enjoyed some baby spinach fresh from our garden combined with some lettuce for our salad for tonight's dinner, with our homemade mac and cheese.

I managed to keep the cost of the dinner to just over $5, not counting dessert though! We had a yummy rhubarb crumble with ice cream and our tummies were very full after that!

Cost breakdown:

Pasta, $1.50
White sauce $1
Cheese $1
Bacon .80
onion .15
spices and sunflower seeds .20
lettuce .25
spinach- free from garden

$4.90

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 30, 2008

Price of flour keeps going up.

I went grocery shopping today and also stopped off at the supermarket that I usually buy flour from ( Countdown). I'm glad that I stocked up a few months back now! Since Dec the 5kg bags of white flour have gone up from $4.50 to $5.49. The wholemeal 1.5 kg was $1.49 in Dec and is now $1.89.

I bought enough flour ( both white and wholemeal) to last us until the end of this year. I bought it in Feb and paid $4.89 for 5kg white and $1.69 for the wholemeal. So far I have made a saving of about $55 and if it keeps going up it will be more!

The flour I buy is a plain brand called HOMEBRAND- it's actually from Australia. I remember buying it when we lived there. It is by far the cheapest around. I do all my other shopping at Pak and Save and their cheapest flour ( Pams brand) is $6.30 for 5kg!

I bought 15 large peppers today for $6. I sliced them all up finely and popped them in the freezer to use on our homemade pizzas. I thought I'd stock up now before the peppers become $1 per pepper or more! Next year I plan to grow them in our vegetable garden.

• Comments (3) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 29, 2008

Extra Freezing.

Yesterday, a kind friend from our church brought over some beans, tomatoes and a very LARGE bunch of silver beet ( a little like spinach).I cooked up the beans for dinner that night to go with our pasta meal. The silver beet I washed, cut up and cooked. I then split it up into 3 large meal sizes for us, one to use later this week which I popped in the fridge, and the other two went in the freezer.

Earlier in the day dd15 and I peeled apples to make apple sauce. We made 6 litres worth. I popped 4 litres in the freezer and 2 litres in the fridge to use this week. My aim is to make about 5-6 litres of apple sauce each week, freezing 4 of the 6 litres while I can buy seconds from the orchard. Last year the apple season lasted well into September.

Today I picked all of the last tomatoes of their vines as the nights are getting colder here. I have popped them all on a large sheet of newspaper in our music to ripen up. I still have a lot of tomatoes in the fridge to use. I think that with the tomatoes that I picked today we will still have enough tomatoes for another month. So we have been blessed with free tomatoes for 5 months! I also have 70 cans worth of stewed tomatoes in the freezer to use until next January. Thank you Lord for our wonderful summer garden!

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 25, 2008

Tidying and Sorting.

After a lovely long morning walk, and lunch my dd15 and I spent some time tidying and sorting through her drawers and craft supplies. We tidied so well that we ended up with a free drawer! I also decluttered the upstairs bathroom cupboards and worked with ds11 on his drawers also. All in all a good job done! I always love the feeling of satisfaction after jobs like these.

We had some afternoon tea outside in the glorious sunshine and then I took in all the washing from the outside line. The younger children and I spent some time in the vegetable garden tidying it up. We took out all the dead bean plants and I push- hoed the soil.I'll have to spend another hour or two next week to complete the job. Before dinner I folded all the washing and put all the clean smelling clothes away.

We had yummy stir fry for dinner served over brown rice, with sliced tomatoes and a carrot salad on the side. After evening devotions we made pop corn and settled down to watch our weekly episode of Little House on the Prairie.

The little ones are now tucked up in their warm beds and two of the children are finishing up with the dinner dishes. I've just hung another load of washing on the indoor lines in the garage to dry over night and tomorrow, as rain is forecast.

Time now for a cuppa and bed soon.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 24, 2008

School Holidays

We are enjoying our school holidays at the moment, so a different routine.

Today after breakfast I took baby girl for our morning walk while the boys played with the lego. After morning tea I did a few extra cleaning jobs. I wiped the landing upstairs- walls and edges while my daughter cleaned the staircase. I then cleaned all the walls and door of the downstairs toilet. I'm up to date with my extra weekly cleaning jobs. I have a list with a job for each week to do.

After lunch while baby girl napped I drove to the orchard and bought our fruit for the week. I picked some more tomatoes from our garden and picked the last beans to dry and use for seed next season. There were still a few small zucchini also which I picked to use in tomorrow night's dinner.

I took baby girl for our afternoon walk and then went on a 1/2 hour bike ride with my son. It was fun. We had yummy chicken soup for dinner with fresh bread.

After the little ones were tucked up in their beds I wrapped a few presents for a 50th and 80th birthday and an engagement. Last week I bought 4 engagement presents for couples in our church.

Now for a cuppa and to put my feet up!

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 23, 2008

Great toothpaste special.

I walked to New World supermarket this morning and bought 30 tubes of toothpaste. It was a 2 tubes for $3 special. The price is usually $2.29 for one, so a saving of 79c per tube. So a total saving of $23.70!

On Monday when I did my usual two week grocery shop I bought lots of jam.( 16 large jars) The jars were 900gr for $2.89 and usually $3.69, a nice saving of 80c per jar. I saved $12.80!

Weetbix( breakfast cereal) was also on special for $3.99 for a 1 kg box. I bought 6 boxes for our Sunday breakfasts. This should last us until the end of the year. The standard price was $6.70! A saving of $16.20.

I also managed to buy some baby toothbrushes at New World this morning for 50c each. I stocked up on 10, as I usually only see small toothbrushes for $3-4!

Over the past 2-3 months I have bought quite a lot of specials ( stock) which will last us until the end of the year. I've subtracted my total grocery spendings to date for this year from our budgeted total. Then I divided this remaining amount over 34 weeks to work out how much I should be spending from now on for groceries.This helps to keep me on track!

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 22, 2008

Cloth nappies.

I thought I'd add a brief post about using cloth nappies. We have used cloth nappies with all of our children and it has been great.I started using cloth with our first daughter 18 years ago now! I haven't really changed the way I 'do" cloth- it's still the same - folding my own flat rectangular nappies , using pins and plastic pants ( covers). I still have some of the nappies I used with our first daughter! Over the years I have been given many cloth nappies from friends and family, so all in all I have only bought 3 dozen flat nappies and plastic pants!

If we had used disposable nappies for all our 6 children @ the average cost of $15 per week ( counting on the fact they use more when they are little) it would have cost us $750 per year per child. Each child would need nappies for 2.5 years ( our girls trained quicker, but I'll use 2.5 years as an average). So for each child this would be a cost of $1875 x 6 children = $11,250.

Saving $11,250 is great, but what about the cost of washing and drying ALL those cloth nappies? Generally whether we have 1 or 2 children using cloth I would wash 3 loads per week costing about 5c per load ( this is powder and water).We have always had a good stash of a nappies so 3 loads per week was and is enough. I just use 1- 2 level tablespoons of my regular washing powder( which I always buy on special), and wash on warm and rinse on cold. I'm not sure of the electricity costs though for the washing of the nappies, but it would be minor. I always line dry the nappies. In the summer outside on the clothes line, and in the winter on drying racks or my indoor lines. So no drier costs here at all. So maybe a cost of 20c per week, so $10 per year for washing. A cost of $150 to wash all those nappies from 6 children- still brings us in at a saving of $11,050.

There is time involved with hanging the nappies out to dry, and folding them ready to use again- maybe a couple of hours out of my week each week.

I have been washing, drying and folding nappies for many, many years now. I will miss it when it all ends!!

• Comments (1) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 21, 2008

Grocery Budgeting Part 10

This will be the final post in this mini series on grocery budgeting.

Just a few final thoughts...

Here are a few other key things which can help keep your bill lower:

Menu plan

Make a grocery list and stick to it

Grow a vegetable garden

Use less - of cleaning products, washing powder etc than the instructions tell you to use

Avoid ready- made - cook and bake from scratch

Have a kitchen day once per week when you bake, cook extra, cook beans in bulk, cook chicken and shred, make extra meals for the freezer, preserving fruit.

I hope these posts have helped a little! Enjoy your budgeting and saving. make it a challenge, fun and see where it takes you!

• Comments (4) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 20, 2008

Grocery Budgeting Part 9

Baking- is it worth the time and the effort?

Today I made a batch of pikelets to have with our homemade bread for dinner.

Here's my recipe ( makes 30 large pikelets).

3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
5 cups flour
5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups milk

Beat eggs and sugar together until thick. add all other ingredients and mix well. Fry in a little butter- yum!

This would cost me less than $1.50 to make. With our homemade bread 1/2 loaf- a frugal meal of around $2.50-$3( including toppings- jam etc).

Each week I bake for our snacks during the week and it's still worth the effort even though butter has REALLY gone up in price. I can bake enough for our afternoon teas and suppers for about $3.50. This would cost me quite a lot more if I bought ready made biscuits and cakes.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 19, 2008

Grocery Budgeting Part 8

Stocking up on specials- is it worth t?

This year I have taken advantage of a few good specials and stocked up! A few months ago the coffee that I usually buy for my hubby was 1/2 price , @ only 99c per packet. The special was on at another supermarket from which I usually shop, but my older girls work there part-time.Each shift they worked they bought me 4 packets of coffee, as there was a limit of 4 at a time. I bought 25 packets in all which should last hubby ( and visitors) about a year. This was a saving of $25!

I usually buy a plain no name brand of rolled oats for $3 for 1.5kg. One day I was in the supermarket and they had Harraways rolled oats for $2.59 per packet. I used to always buy Harraways, but not since the price rose to $3.50 plus. I bought 50 packets- yes, 50! I had a few comments and questions. Was I cooking for a school camp??? This should last us close to a year and saves us $20. I have plenty of storage space, so storage isn't an issue. The last time I looked the Harraways rolled oats went up to over $4 per packet,so I'm happy with my special price!

Last year I got a great deal on flowing soap. Usually the refill bottles were about $3 I think. I bought 50 bottles for 99c each. We haven't used up our supply as yet! Savings $100!

Some people don't bother with specials and their savings. It is worth it to stock up when you can. Over a year you may save hundreds! Just with 3 items I have saved $145!

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 18, 2008

Grocery Budgeting Part 7

How I make our yoghurt.

We eat yoghurt 5 nights of the week as our dessert. I like to do this as it's high in calcium for the children, as we don't drink a lot of milk.

I use the easi yo sachet but not fully! I take 2 heaped tablespoons of the easi yo powder and add 1 1/2 cups of full milk powder( cost about $1.50). I prepare it in the usual way. When I mix up the set yoghurt for dessert I first take out several tablespoons, and set this aside to use as my starter for the next litre of yoghurt.

So the next time I make yoghurt I don't use the easi yo powder, but my 'starter'. I use a new starter each day from the set yoghurt.

This costs about $1.50 per litre- really just the cost of the milk powder ( which is very expensive at the moment). This is still far cheaper than buying ready made yoghurt. I think the cheapest would be about $4 for a litre. By making it this way I save at least $12.50 per week, a saving of $650 per year!

We used to have tinned fruit with our yoghurt every dessert, but I decided to make bulk apple sauce seeing that I could buy apples for 30-40c per kg from the local orchard ( seconds).Everyone loves the thick, chilled apple sauce on their yoghurt- it has become a hit in our family! This is great, as it saves me 5 tins of fruit each week @ 70-90c per tin. The apples sauce for the week would be about 60c, so a weekly saving of $3-4, a saving of $150-200 per year.

So by making our own yoghurt and fruit toppings this way we save up to $850 per year. So is it worth the extra effort of pealing all those apples and cooking them, preparing the yoghurt every night? Yes, it is! Many of these ways to save some $$$ does involve extra time investment. The children and I peel and cook up the apples together, and talk as we work- time well spent I say!

I need to start making apple sauce again as my supply is nearly finished for the year. I try and make over 50 litres over the winter months for the freezer which lasts us until the apples are cheap again.

On Saturday and Sunday evenings we have a homemade dessert usually served with ice cream. This would cost us more, about $3 per time...but it's yummy!! And for 8 people that's not even 40c each per serving.

What do you do to save $$ on desserts? Many of you would say- well, we don't have desserts. As I said earlier I think it's important for us to have the yoghurt as we don't have milk on cold cereal, or drink a lot of milk.From my research also yoghurt is better for you than cow's milk hence we don't drink it.

• Comments (1) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Apr. 17, 2008

Grocery Budgeting Part 6

Soup Making

You will have noticed that soup appears on our dinner menu 2x per week. This morning I made up a large pot 12 litres of chicken soup to split up in to meals for the freezer. I like to use chicken broth as my soup starter, and then add more ingredients after that.

When I cook up a chicken I save the bones and then transfer them to my crock pot, adding a little vinegar and cover right to the top with water. I leave it cooking on low overnight and this makes a yummy broth. This is usually enough broth to make 2 big lots of soup. I freeze the broth after it has cooled and been strained, and then bring it out when I need to make up soup again.

This morning's soup smelled good as it was simmering on the stove top. To the broth I added more water to reach the 12 litre mark, 2 packets of dry chicken noodle soup, extra noodles, finely chopped carrot, onion and celery, chicken stock powder, bay leaf, s and p, 2 cups shredded chicken meat. This should make enough for 6 meals for us, as this is a strong tasting soup which I can add a little more water to when split up.

I like to keep ready made soup in the freezer. It's so handy to have it there ready to use. The soup is cooling now, and later I'll divide it up and freeze to use over the next few weeks.

Other soups that I like to make are:

tomato
tomato and vegetable
pumpkin
split pea

These are our family favourite anyway! We like to use our home grown tomatoes for our soups as well, so that will explain why I have been busy stewing tomatoes of late for the freezer!

Most soups cost me about $2-3 to make and this makes 6 meals for us! So 40-50c per time! We like to eat freshly bakes scones or bread with our soups.This is one of our cheaper family dinners which helps to balance out the more expensive ones during the rest of the week.

Do you include soups as par of your dinner meal? It's well worth having one soup night per week. This would be about a $2 dinner for us ( not including dessert). I you count on spending $5-7 on your dinner meal, this will save you $5 per time. If you have a soup night once per week you'll save $5 per time x52 weeks=$260!! for the year.

I used to find soup making a lot of work, but now that I freeze broth and shredded cooked meat/chicken it makes it simple. It's well worth going to the extra effort and having these items ready in your freezer. If I had had to work from scratch today and make the broth, plus cook and shred the chicken I would not have done it! Setting aside some extra time in your kitchen work saves on other days. I usually try and do some of these extra things one day per week on my Kitchen Day- but I'll talk about that another time.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

I love being a stay at home mum with our six beautiful children from the Lord. Each day we strive to live faithfully for Him in thankfulness for His gift of full and free salvation.