Our Frugal Lifestyle

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Passionate about eco-frugality. I used to party hard, clubbing my way from pay-packet to pay-packet. Never getting ahead, just getting by. Then came our much wanted baby with no savings in the bank - only an old car. Changes were made to our lifestyle and we didn't turn back. In the past 6yrs we purchased a flat, found employment, lived below our means, built an emergency fund, purchased a reliable car and saw the financial benefits of our frugal lifestyle. Our only debt is our mortgage. Our aim is to manage our cash flow wisely, pay off our home quickly and eventually work for pleasure, not necessity. Join us on our journey, share insights, tips and tricks to help us and others to get ahead while having a good time.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Neighbour Bond Clean

My gorgeous neighbours work as cleaners. They spend many hard hours cleaning other peoples mess. But instead of taking a cut from working for a company they created their own business. No longer does the middle man take the bulk of the payment.

Every once in a while they do what is called a Bond Clean. This occurs when people move out of the unit or house and the empty home is cleaned thoroughly before being rented out again or goes up for sale on the real-estate market.

Sometimes when they do these Bond Cleans, tenants have left many good useable items behind. And recently I was on the receiving end of those goods. My neighbours brought home all the food items that were sealed and unused. They kept the items they would use in their Thai cooking but gave me everything the felt they wouldn't use and I was excited to accept such a useful and money saving gift.

All the food will allow me to save on my grocery budget on items that I regularly purchase such as tinned tomatoes, tomato sauce (ketchup) and jam (jelly). The other stuff is a bonus that I will find ways to use up.


Look At All The Goods I Received!!! Including Dishes, Containers And Gift Boxes.

I have found people are generous when they know you are open to accepting hand me downs and unwanted items either food or other goods. As I have said in my previous post it's been a challenging week for my family. Acts of kindness and the feeling of community in my block of flats is a wonderful experience that I know is rare indeed.

By the way! I did a babysitting stint over the weekend. I saw an add for babysitting not far from my home for after 8pm. I answered the add and was booked for the job. My daughter usually sleeps by 7pm, so I knew this would not affect my time with her. I babysat for 6 hours and the child slept the whole time. I took a DVD from home and book to entertain myself during the 6 hours. I earned a nice $70 which I have put towards my daughters dance classes. This will pay for nearly 10 classes.

Happy to accept useful gifts and happy to earn a little extra for those out of school activities.

Stephanie @ Frugal Down Under

4 comments:

  1. Your neighbours have the same job as me, cleaning rentals and properties that are to be sold. My hubby comes along and helps too and yes we have found quite a bit of good stuff left behind. I work for a local real estate in town, and they ring when I am required. It gets really busy this time of year, can have up to three houses a week...a good little money earner.(my business is called Outback Cleaning Service)

    That was an easy job of babysitting, not too hard at all, I could handle that myself.

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  2. The Bond Cleaning is a hard job. They come home exhausted. And in the tropical and outback heat... double hard.

    Babysitting on the other hand - not too hard. It was a late night, but I'm often a night owl anyway.

    I enjoy finding extra little income earners that don't impact on my time with Dolly and bring in few extra dollars for all those things in life that need to be purchased such as dance classes.

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  3. Bond cleaning is truly a hard job and I guess I'm right if I say there's no easy job, it's just depends on what we are used to do.

    We do Bond Cleaners Brisbane.

    At first task its difficult but as years go by, we are getting used to it and we even perfected the service in way that we satisfy our clients with no back jobs.

    By the way, I appreciate your practicality in finding that babysitting job. Thumbs up for you!

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  4. Karly
    It looks like pretty hard work - especially in hot weather. I looked at your Bond Cleaning ad $55 per room seems cheap for a bond room scrub. Thank you for popping by and commenting :)

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Thanks for commenting - I love getting feedback, sharing experiences and learning from you.