Keeper of our Home

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.

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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!

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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

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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!

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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!

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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!!

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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Apr. 16, 2008

Grocery Budgeting Part 5

Eating what is in season- this has really helped us stay within our grocery budget. At the moment we are eating pears and apples as they are in season. Kiwi fruit will be coming down in price soon, so we can start to enjoy that again. In the winter we eat a lot of cabbage. I make coleslaw, and enjoy frying finely chopped cabbage with some spices added like cumin and curry. I'm sure that we will be making pumpkin soup again soon too, as the pumpkins will be coming down in price too.

Do you try and eat what's in season? By taking advantage of this, you will be saving $$$ on your grocery bill. I try not to pay more than $2 per kg for fruit throughout the year, but when certain fruits are in season I can often buy them for $1 per kg or less.

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Apr. 15, 2008

Grocery Budgeting Part 4

What do you and your children drink during the day?

We aim to drink water during the day, except for a glass of juice with our breakfast. Hubby enjoys his cups of coffee, and I'll have a cup or two of tea. The children sometimes have a hot cup of milo( hot chocolate) in the evenings, especially with winter coming on now.

We only have fizzy drink ( soda) once per week. I buy one bottle to have on Sundays, and we don't all even have a glass as we're not that crazy on the taste.

Drinking water is not only good for you, it's good for the budget. I must try and get back to drinking my 8 glasses per day. I've been a little slack of late!

Cost for the week: $4 approx for coffee, tea, milo and lemonade. I haven't included the juice as that's past of our breakfast budget.

By cutting back on lemonade and sugary drinks you can see the savings in your weekly grocery bill. Multiply your savings by 52 weeks, and you might get quite a surprise!

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Apr. 14, 2008

Grocery Budgeting Part 3

Dinners: we have set menu nights:

Monday- Pasta night
Tuesday- Soup
Wednesday- homemade pizza night (and salad)
Thursday- Potato, meat and veggie night
Friday- Rice dish
Saturday- Soup
Sunday- egg night

We will have meat about 3xs per week which helps to keep costs lower, and is better for your health. According to the NZ Heart Foundation we should only eat red meat 2-3 x per week at the most.

We have homemade yoghurt for desserts 5 nights per week and in the weekends we make our own desserts and have ice cream with them usually.

I try to keep our dinner (and dessert) meals to $5-7 per time depending on the meat costs, but over the course of the week the cheaper meals will balance out the more expensive ones.

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Apr. 13, 2008

Grocery Budgeting Part 2

Yesterday we talked about breakfast and how to have a good, healthy but frugal breakfast.

Today we'll talk about lunch. We have very simple lunches and always the same, except for Sundays when we often have guests for lunch. So from Monday through to Saturday we eat our yummy homemade wholemeal bread. This costs us about $1 per loaf to make. We usually need 1 1/2 loaves per day and make extra if we need fresh bread to go with our dinner when we have soup. We enjoy eating fresh salad toppings on our bread each day: lettuce, cucumber, grated carrot, tomatoes, sprouts - whatever we have on hand, or growing in the garden. For the remainder of our sandwiches we have a selection of spreads- peanut butter, homey, jam, vegemite and cheese.

We would spend about $5 per week on bread coverings ( spreads) and $10-11 for the bread. Salad toppings vary as we have spent nothing of late due to our summer garden, but $2-3 would cover the week as I tend to buy what's in season so in the winter time we eat a lot of grated carrot for example.We would spend $7 on cheese as well for the week for sandwiches.

We drink water with our lunch each day.

On Sundays we often have soup, sandwiches, pizza (homemade), cake, pickets, scones-whatever we have baked.

Overall I think our lunches for the week would cost about $25.

So breakfast and lunch together come to about $37 per week.

Tomorrow we'll talk about dinners.

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Apr. 12, 2008

Rising food costs and keeping to one's budget Part1

Over the next few posts I aim to cover some ways we cope with the rising food costs and our budget.

I'll start with breakfast. The children and I all eat oatmeal for breakfast 6 days of the week. On Sundays the older children eat cold cereal and milk as a treat. I still like my hot bowl of oatmeal, so I have it on Sundays too, as well as my 4 yr old and baby daughter.

So from Mon- Sat we eat hot oatmeal. My daughter soaks 2 cups of oatmeal with 6-7 cups of water the night before and then just cooks it up in the morning. We add a little milk and brown sugar- yum! This costs us 5-7c per serving! ( depending on the price of the oatmeal)

We drink a glass of juice every morning also, and my hubby eats fruit for breakfast, which I buy from the orchard at the moment. We have stewed fruit on Sunday mornings with our breakfast. I have stewed up enough for a year and it's all in our freezer ready to use.I bought the fruit from the orchard for 40c per kg.

Cost for the week:

Oatmeal $2.60
Cold cereal 70c
Stewed fruit ( Sundays only) 20c
Brown sugar $1
Milk $2.50
Juice $4.50
Fruit for hubby each day 70c

Total: 12.20 approx divided by 7 days= $1.75 per breakfast.

$1.75 divided by 8 people= 21-22c per person for breakfast each day.

Now, if we didn't drink juice our breakfasts would be quite a lot cheaper, but we like our juice!

If we ate cold cereal and milk every morning I think our costs would be quite a lot higher. If we ate weetbix every morning we would need 1 1/2 large boxes @ about $7-8 and then 10 litres of milk $25. So just for cereal and milk it would cost us $32-33 alone. We would be closer to the $40 mark for our week's worth of breakfasts, so $5 per person per week as opposed to $1.50 per person per week.

By not eating cold cereal every day we save $20 per week which is quite a big saving.This amounts to $1,000 per year! This is one area that you could save some $$$ if you're trying to cut back and cope with the rising food costs. What would you do with that extra $1,000!!

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Apr. 11, 2008

Frugal Exercise.

Each day I try and walk for 1 hour. Usually I walk with baby girl in the push chair for 30 mins around 9am, and then again just before dinner time, about 4pm. She loves looking at the world going by and chatting away to me as I walk and push. It's great exercise, time well spent with my daughter and very frugal- no gym membership costs . A new pair of shoes is all you need to buy every now and then. I won't tell you how long I use my shoes for!!!

Well, I'm off to do some more frugal exercise. I plan to squeeze 30 mins of gardening in before lunch time while dd spends some time playing games with the younger two children. I've done 4yr old's school work for today, and all the marking is up to date.

Off for a date with my push hoe!

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Apr. 11, 2008

Busy Friday

I don't have much time to blog today, as I have a busy Friday planned!

I think we'll have my easy rice dish for dinner tonight. I picked a large zucchini from the garden yesterday, so I'll chop this up and fry lightly. Next I'll scramble 5-6 eggs, adding a little curry, cumin,tarragon, s and p. I'll add this to the zucchini and serve over brown rice- yum! This is so yummy- everyone enjoys this easy to prepare dinner.

Cost:

zucchini- free from garden
rice ( brown) 30c- my dh got a good special for 40c per kg for me!!!
eggs 23c each!! $1.15
spices 10c

Total: $1.55!

now why would you want to go to MacDonalds when you can eat like this at home?!

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Apr. 10, 2008

What did I do today?

I just spoke with a friend and she asked about my day. I struggled to remember what I had actually done, so now to retrace my steps!!

Got up, showered, dressed and made our bed
Breakfast
Hung a load of washing, set another load going
Morning walk with baby girl 30 mins
Morning tea- cut up a large plate of fruit for everyone to enjoy
Hung second large load of washing outside to dry
Spent an hour with my 4yr old on his 'school work'
Checked on the other children and marked school work completed so far
Made stew for dinner
Gardening 45 mins
Lunch prep
Lunch and clean up
Baby girl down for a nap
Marked more school work
Tidied up living areas
Quiet time
Rest
Folded all the laundry! Put it all away
Walked for 30 mins with baby girl in push chair
Picked veggies from garden and watered it
Dinner prep
Dinner and clean up
Little ones to bed
Made yoghurt and bread ready for tomorrow
Loaded washing machine
School planning for next week written up

A busy day really in the end!!

How was your day?

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Apr. 8, 2008

Stewing Tomatoes.

Well, I have been picking the last of our tomatoes from our summer garden.They are now cooking in a large pot on the stove. I hope to have about 9-10 tins/cans worth ( 400gr per tin) to freeze. This will make 70 tins that I have stewed and frozen. This is a saving of 65c per tin at the supermarket. Total savings $45.50!!!

Over the next week I'll keep picking the last green tomatoes that will hopefully ripen up a little, and stew them up. It should make another 10 tins or so. So 80 tins x 65c = $52.00!

Wow- I'm pleased with thew amount of tomatoes our vines produced. We have also been eating them fresh each day for lunch and in salads.

We have been saving about $5 on vegetables per week for the past 4 months, due to having our summer garden. A kind friend from church also has been giving us cucumbers each week also. I'm seeing how long I can last without buying any vegetables. We have also frozen beans, zucchini, beetroot and silver beet which we can start eating also.

So, roughly speaking we have saved about $80 on our food bill the past 4 months, and that doesn't include what we have stored up in the freezer still to use.

Do you garden and save on your grocery bill?

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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.