1st Day of School Ends With Barramundi

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for all your visits and lovely comments.

Dolly was sooooo excited this morning going to big school. She squealed with excitement at seeing all her old friends. One of her favourite BOYS who she's in LOVE with came running up yelling out her name. Once they were together to shy to hug, he asked her boldly "Did You Miss Me?" She went coy and didn't answer - so me - the big embarrassing mama that I am, said "She sure did, everyday and she still LOVES you!" Dolly quickly hid herself under my shirt. Oh sweet young crushes at the love weary age of 4!

After work I arrived home to cooked Barramundi Fish baked in the oven with limes and basil (Freshly caught on Sunday). When I tasted it, it was very sweet. We then realised the Rambling Expat had also added mandarins in error instead of just limes. Creative gourmet style :-)  We ate well. Once the large baked fish was cool I pulled it all apart to save all the left over flesh. I hate the sticky icky job of picking it apart, bone by bone, skin and scales, however the end result is lovely versatile fish flesh ready to be used in various meals.

Barramundi - We all love it in our home.

What do you do with left over fish? Any interesting, easy to make, inexpensive meals to recommend?

Glue, Glue, All Types of Glue

Everyone is fast asleep and I spent some time alone fixing and creating with glue.

Dolly has a musical instrument that has been sitting on the table for 2 years!!! Yes, 2 years with the intention of fixing it. It took only 10 minutes. A bit of craft glue and elastic bands and the job was done. Why does it take me so long to get these things done...

I prepared Dolly's lunch box (vegemite sandwich, 1 plum with lime, 1 nectarine with lime, 2 crackers and veggie sticks) and decided to go cute. I used paper glue to stick a small image from a vintage book onto a scrap piece of paper. I also stuck on a butterfly (I used my shape cutter) and wrote a little note. Popped it into a snap lock bag (that I will reuse) with a little chocolate egg amongst the healthy stuff. Dolly will be so excited to find this surprise on her 1st day of big school tomorrow.

For Dolly's 5th birthday Party I have completed another gift for the pass-the-parcel. I purchased a gold belt from the op shop (thrift/charity store) $1, cut off the metal bit that goes in the belt holes and craft glued to form a circle that will fit a 5 year old head perfectly. I then glued a broken brooch from when I was 15 (a good year-1985) and 2 beads to create the precious jewels. Now it's a Prince crown for one of our boy guests.

And ONE LAST PROJECT FOR DOLLY TONIGHT... Dolly carefully wrote a lovely letter for the fairies living in our garden and left it on the table overnight in a sealed envelope. If forgot she did this. She was very disapointed this morning. I explained that it had rained so heavily the fairies could not come as their wings would have been hurt. Tonight I drew flowers, cut them out, wrote a note and glued them together. Tomorrow morning she will find her letter gone and in it's place a fairy flower letter.

Glue is useful and allows you to be frugally creative by fixing stuff and making stuff with items inexpensively obtained. I encourage you to take a couple hours to fix and make stuff. It's a gratifying feeling and entertaining too. Where is The Rambling Expat in all this? He's in bed on his stomach with a pinched nerve in his back. Must have been all that fishing ;-)

Are you glueing anything?

Keep Me Rich, Keep Me In Butter

The Rambling Expat went curvet fishing so Dolly and I played with cream.

Dolly LOVES butter but HATES cream, so I showed her how to make beautiful rich butter in 15 minutes with half a small pot of full cream and 2 marbles.

Mmmmm - Who Ate The Butter!? Half Gone In A Flash.

We placed 2 clean marbles in half a pot of cream (plastic pot). And then we shook vigorously, counting for fun and taking turns when our arms were tired.

The cream got whipped and then it changed colour and separated. We emptied the buttermilk out and shook again. Emptied more buttermilk and rinsed our butter with water. We spooned it into our smallest Pyrex bowl and gently folded in a little grinded rock salt. We then placed it in the fridge to harden.

We've had it on toast, we've had it on potato. It is delicious and a great way to use up cream purchased at bargain prices. Also it's a fun and fascinating activity for children.

Are you ready to make some butter just for fun? Go on have a go and spread it thick!!!

Rubbish Diving

I dived my hands into the recycling bin at my mums unit block and then our unit block. What do you think of that? I thought it was a bit eww as I felt squeamish, however worth the 5 minute effort.

Cash for Cans our 1st Loot.

In my town, marked cans and bottles will be exchangeable for cash. 10 cents per item to be exact. I told Dolly we can earn some extra pocket money getting our neighbours beer bottles and soft drink cans (we will ask them to save them for us, to prevent future diving). Our block of 6 flats overfill the recycling bin each week. We have 8 people who drink a minimum of 1 beer per night. We can easily collect $5.60 to $11.20 a week and split it between us.

At $5.60 x 52 weeks = That's a minimum of $291.00 a year or $145 each. Not too shabby for a 4 year old.

The best part is this will give us a money project together where we can make a little cash, look at the coins and discuss their history/worth/possibilities, plan goals, talk about recycling & ecology, discuss work choices, look at banking & interest, count and use math skills. (If any one can recommend an excellent website or fun book teaching younger children about money please let me know.) I think this will be an interesting project for us.

Oh... and my 5 minutes hand diving... I pulled out 37 bottles and cans just on the top of the bins. There were many more lower down. That's $3.70 to start us off. Pretty cool I think. What do you think? Would you do it? What if they were given to you by neighbours? Would you bother exchanging them? Many people can't be bothered and that is where I think Dolly will reap in the rewards.

Update: One of our neighbours gave us 11 bottles today and will keep all his beer bottle for us. Yeah! So that's 37+11=48 $4.80 head start.

Kitchen Cook Up

Hi Everyone,

Hope you all had great frugal fun day. As for me it was a long day... I returned to work, after 4 weeks of recreation leave. It was hard getting my brain focused on the job. I can't believe 2011 went by so quickly and my 4 weeks off went even quicker. I didn't do all the jobs on my To Do List. I actually hardly did any of them at all as I dashed from one activity to another for Dolly's enjoyment or experimented daily with procrastination.

Last night was a hive of activity in our home. Dolly, The Rambling Expat and I cooked as a family. We made potato and bacon frittatas for dinner. We've never made these before but wanted to see if Dolly would like them in her school lunchbox. While Dolly cracked the eggs and stirred, The Rambling Expat and myself chopped and grated to keep her bowl topped up with all the needed ingredients. Once in the oven Dolly and her Papa got onto to the business of playing.

While they played I chopped up left over choice pieces of chicken from the previous nights dinner. I added chopped tomato, cucumber and a dash of mayonnaise, salt, pepper. Mixed and stored in the fridge for the next days lunchtime sandwiches.

Lunch Prep

I placed the left over chicken bits and carcase in my slow cooker with water, ungrated potato ends from the frittata making, celery tops, 1 spring onion, 1 brown onion and a dash of salt/pepper. After 6 hours it was ready to be divided. Half went into a pyrex dish as stock to cook rice this week, the over half in another dish to be eaten as chicken/veggie soup.

Slow Cooking Stock and Soup.

Stock and Soup

Playing over, table set and the frittatas were sampled. They were a hit with the three of us. Unfortunately we used muffin baking trays which I did not grease beforehand so the frittatas stuck, causing angst in getting them out and Oh the drama of cleaning the trays. However as we made double quantity, half of the mixture was placed in a glass pyrex dish and into the oven. These slid out beautifully, no waste and cleaning was a breeze. So I think we will stick to using our pyrex dishes in the future.

Dolly's Dinner, Sampled and Loved. She ate it all!

I Love My Pyrex. Easy Cooking, Storing and Cleaning

2 hours of cooking and cleaning has resulted in 4 dinners and 1 lunch for us three. 2 frittata dinners (just add salad), 1 chicken soup dinner (just add carrot and beans), 1 chicken lunch filling (just add bread) and 1 chicken flavoured rice meal (just add rice).

One happy frugal productive evening :-)

How about you? Any additional cooking lately? Have you been bulking? Cooking any new meals?

Liebster Awards

I've been tardy on this lovely gift from The Frugal Graduate and Ozzie Thrift Mumma. Both have given me Liebster Awards.


Liebster is German and translates to "dearest,"favourite" and "beloved. By giving this award to a blogger you are telling them they write a beloved and favourite blog.


Blogging, reading blogs and using the comments as communication gives me a feeling of community. I don't want to bore people around me with talk about money all the time or how I work around things to save my pennies. People would think I'm obsessed - I am ;-) Having the blogging community with a similar interest allows me to vent, share, focus on topics I'm interested in, with like minded people. It keeps me accountable and encourages me to keep going with my savings when I want to blow it all on chocolate and takeaway.

Thank you to my followers and readers for the support you give me. Seeing the comment box filling up, followers increasing and stats going right out of the roof is very exciting (currently 200 to 250 hits a day). More people to vent to....  I'm now passing on the beacon to 5 Blogs with less then 200 followers. So hard to pick 5 it's stressful! But here we go:

1. Practical Parsimony because she writes as it is and cracks me up.

2. Saving for Travel because she's regular and encouraging to everyone.

3. The Rambling Expat simply he's my man. (I do not collect lures or obsess about fishing)

4. Money in the Garage, he's cheeky and has a great storytelling skill.

5. I Love to Op Shop, A newbie Blog but I see potential. Potential for me spending more at the oppie.... Now that's a bad bad thing.

These are the Liebster Rules:

1.Say thanks to the amazing blogger who awarded your liebster and link back to their blog
2. Choose 5 fantastic blogs and leave a comment on their blog letting them know.
 (They must have under 200 followers)
3. Post the award on your blog. (Right click on the award image and save it to your hard-drive and then upload it to your blog).
4. Enjoy your Liebster award
5. And best of all – have fun and spread the leib!


(I am unable to right click as I have no mouse on my ibook so don't know how to add image - sorry rules broken)

Talking About Money

I've been saving money and reading the frugal literature and blogs. But with the want of a house in the next 2 years we need to start getting our head around mortgages and the best solutions for us. It's scary when you were brought up with none of this knowledge or financial education. It's a whole different language and an intimidating one at that.

When we purchased our unit in 2007 it was the scariest step to take. Once done it wasn't so scary and I wondered why we had taken so many years to gather the courage to save and buy. Now with 4 years of water under the bridge I have that scary feeling again.

Lucky for me when I went to the op shop to gather party trinkets I was able to take a whole pile of FREE Mortgage and Property magazines from 2008 to 2011.They will help us to understand the language and get our head around the best solution in buying a house with our own yard.

Free Magazines To Read and Release

Tonight we went to FREE bedtime story time at one of the public libraries. While Dolly had milk and biscuits, I borrowed books on bread making, decluttering, self sufficiency, sewing, parenting and a Money magazine.

Learning How To Use My Money To My Best Advantage.

I have been reading the magazine and have learnt so much already in just a couple of hours. I hope to build up my confidence, start looking a real estate, talk money/loans and be a savvy buyer when the time comes.

Are you confident talking real estate and big money deals?

Spent A Little Credit

Remember when I took FREE books to the 2nd hand bookshop for shop credit? Well I went in and spent $20 of my credit. That leaves me a huge $40 still available to spend.

I'm building up my bookshelf with resources for simple living, frugal living and eco living. In the process, I'm removing books that I know I wont read again or are too frivolous to have access to space. In their place I am placing cooking, gardening, crafting, DIY, self sufficiency and other must have books that will cover my new obsession and lifestyle choice.

So what did I buy? Two new books on food preparation. The 1st is an easy to read book on preserving foods "A Year In a Bottle". The other is "Slow Cooker" both by Sally Wise. Both excellent resources to make use of my garden produce and teach me new skills in using my slow cooker to it's full potential.

A Year in a Bottle - Sally Wise

Slow Cooker - Sally Wise

Those living in Darwin and wanting to know where the bookshop is located; the book shop is in the Darwin City Mall (next to the Red Cross Op Shop). There is another 2nd hand bookshop in Nightcliff Shopping Centre called Gordon's Book Exchange - I've heard he also gives good book credit.

All these small steps to improve my life and make in more wholesome is making me very happy. I've also been decluttering and taking 1 bag to the op shop most days. Now if only I could stick to one kind of sleep pattern and be less chaotic...

What about you, any eco-frugal wins lately? Sleep pattern all over the place? Chaotic?

Op Shopping (Thrifting) for Party Goodies

As many of my readers already know I am preparing for my 4 year olds move into big girl-hood as she reaches 5! We are currently preparing for her party which is in 6 weeks time. I know... I'm getting in early... being organised and early on this one means having time to search for great items at prices I can afford. And it also allows me time to make things such as her invites, party bags, decorations and also turn to op shop shops (thrift stores/charity shops) and Freecycle for items I may want.

I'm aiming for a $80 party which will included food, decorations, crafts, pass-the-parcel and goodies. However I don't want the usual prominent stuff from the party area of Coles. And If I do get some of that stuff, I want it to be second hand and maybe upcycled.

This being my last week of the holidays, I popped in to my local op shop (only 5 minute walk from my home) to search for toys or trinkets for pass-the-parcel. I spent a whopping $22 from my $80 budget, but I did well. Take a look...

Op Shop Finds

I purchased 2 candle calabra's to decorate the table for $3 each, quality glass bead necklaces, bracelets and other lovelies for pass-the-parcel. Flower, sandalwood fan and 1 necklace are Dolly's, as part of her costume.

Here are close ups of the great items.

Quality Trinkets for Party Favours

Silver - Yes silver! With tiny animal charms.

Pretty in Pink Glass Beads.

Zebra Beads to Die For. 5 Of Them. I'm Dancing The Happy Dance.

Heavy Glass, Stone and Silver Beads.

Mini Guitar - We Have a Couple of Boys Invited. 

I am upcycling some items and re-threading beads.

The elastic on the zebra bracelet was damaged, it was also too big for small wrists. The Glass, stone and silver beaded bracelet was also far to big for little girls. I cut them and turned them into 4 bracelets fit for Queens with a few additions of spare beads from home.

2 Bracelets Re-threaded to Perfection.

As for the guitar, I made it a bit more fancy to be fit for a royal king. I just need to layer a little more gold glitter and maybe some ribbon.

Royal Music.

If you have any party ideas - let me know...

Have you been op shopping, thrifting, charity shopping?

Library Bag

With the new school year commencing soon, I wanted something homemade and special for for my sweet 4 year old...

So a couple weeks ago when I saw a pretty piece of green fabric with small flowers for $2 at the Op Shop, I knew I wanted to make her a library bag. I held off buying the fabric knowing it would be marked down. I returned the following week and purchased it for $1 at half price. I also had a piece of dot fabric from a $1 dress purchased in 2010. I still have plenty of this fabric, it's a strong cotton that can be used for many future projects. You you may see it again and again. And lastly I have Hello Kitty fabric at home which was purchased new in 2005. I put these all together and sewed my Dolly a new School Library Bag.

(In Australia it's often required by primary schools that students have a library bag to transfer borrowed school library books from school to home and back again. This aids in keeping them together and protected from further wear and tear.)

New School Library Bag - Dolly LOVES it.

The library bag has cost me less then $1.50 to make. Inexpensive compared to the themed library bags on sale at the shopping centres. Also by making the bag myself I have opted out of buying more new stuff, used items already at home and purchased 1 small piece of fabric, second hand.

It's the time that is takes me to sew that is frustrating. I understand that the more I practice the better and faster I will become, but being impatient and busy means I want faster now! I thought about attending sewing classes to gain much needed skills but have decided to teach myself as best as I can with books and You Tube as a free alternative. I can't afford paying for hobby classes at this point in my life.

I found the instructions for the library bag in Kelly Doust's book, The Crafty Kid (borrowed from the library of course). It was a little tricky for me understanding some of the instructions however as I made errors I had great light bulb moments, unpicked and tried again. Kelly Doust doesn't get you too just sew, she makes you to do French Seams so the finish is beautiful and polished. Fortunately my 4 year old will be forgiving of my beginners messy stitches. But now I'm working on a Birthday gift library bag, and this one will need to look polished.

Do you sew? If yes.. how did you learn? Do you attend any "hobby" classes?

Random Tibbits

Hi Everyone,

I have a few random things I want to show you and chat about.

The Swap-O-Matic Vending Machine...
Have you seen it? I love all things cool and kitchy. Well click this link and take a look! Or this link for a little demonstration video. I love it!! And want one right here in my city! I could see this in the local libraries and cool arty shops.

Super Cheap Haircut.
So my fringe was touching the middle of my nose and I was feeling blah about my hair. But wanting to not spend time or money at the hairdressers I grabbed my small sewing scissors and snipped snipped away in less then 5 minutes. It's a bit crooked, but I like quirky so now I'm quirky.
By the way, if you live in Darwin I noticed the hairdressers in Karama Shopping Centre are looking for models for creative haircuts. So if your feeling groovy give them a call and see if you can get a FREE cut.

Crookedly Quirky and Free.

Bad Book Purchase Turned into a Win.
I purchased a 2nd hand book for $4 thinking it had a photograph The Rambling Expat had taken. It didn't. However it had eight, 55 cent postal stamps that I can use. Value $4.40, that's a 40 cent win. Book off to the op shop, stamps in my wallet. Yeah for small wins.

Not the Right Book.

Happy Discovery of Stamps.

Birthday Goodie Bags.
Dolly prepared her goodie bags for her birthday party. I was inspired by this Blog Post. We used a 50 cent Art op shop book we had lying around gathering dust and lunch bags from last years birthday party. I am trying to instill a love and knowledge of Art to Dolly. So she chose Art Nouveau pictures that looked like Princesses, Princes, Queens and Kings.

Working Hard

10 Bags Completed - Ready To Be Filled With Treats.

Tiny Frog.
As I blog tonight the rain is sprinkling it's much wanted moisture giving us some relief from the humid heat. I can hear frogs singing from every direction and I saw this tiny creature on the fly screen catching insects attracted by my light. I dashed out in the rain to take a photo of him on the window and as I did so, he jumped on my head. As I eased him off gently, I took a quick pic for you. So small and beautiful.

The Rambling Expat in the Background, Inside Out Of The Rain.

Exquisite.

Thanks for reading and if you're lucky enough to get a Swap-O-Matic near you let me know :-)

PS: My Rambling Expat has a Fishing Lure Giveaway if you enjoy fishing.

Frugal Card - Invite Making

Many of our friends are artists, musicians, stylists, photographers and so on. The Rambling Expat himself is creative and works in a creative field. As for myself I'm the wanna-be-artists with no talent or skills in any of the areas. A hanger-on of the creative types. However the past 2 years or so of taking steps to be eco-frugal has lead me to to be more creative as a solution to stop purchasing the same old rubbish on offer at the shops.

This past year has seen me making a pillow, a soft toy owl, collaged boxes, yo yo necklaces, pretty chocolate wrappings, earrings, magnets and now party invitations. It's been a fun ride.

Dolly's fifth birthday is coming up and we are preparing for the Princess and Knight themed party. This afternoon we spent a couple of hours at the library where Dolly read and played while I found inspiration in 3 amazing card books.

Library Books To Gather Ideas.

Pages That Inspired Me On My Invitation Making Journey.

For the party invitations I'm using mostly resources from home dating back from the past 10 years such as pencils, stamp, card stock. Images are from a 50 cents op shop book. I did purchase 3 new items out of my FUN budget. A fleur de lys hole punch $4, a gold permanent marker $3 and a box of 50 gold pins for $2. They were not needed, these were wants however they will all last for years. Each invitation is costing me roughly 10 cents to make. I have 2 created and 8 to go. I'm enjoying this and finding it so much fun.

Kitch, Vintage Feel, Princess Invitations.

Kitch Princess Invitations.

I like my cards and how they are so different to the regular shop bought invitations. Each one will have a message on the pretty back (not shown), inviting a child to the party stating it's a Royal Party for a Princess being held in the Royal Gardens and please wear your Royal Gowns and Suits for Cake and Fun.

Is frugality making you more creative? If it is, do you enjoy it, resent it or even dislike it?

The Simple Things

For breakfast toast with Rosella Jam homemade by my friend Kellie. Dolly and I enjoy this so much. Sweet with tang. I love the simple things. Local produce and homemade.

Have you received any lovely homemade goodies from friends lately?

Cooking From The Garden

If you can cook some or all of your meals from your garden then you are saving some pretty pennies. You don't need to eat fancy meals out of decadent recipe books each day. Gathering from your garden, looking at what you have at home and making do is extremely satisfying and enriching.

However recipe books may inspire you with new ideas on how to use your produce. This book from the UK I borrowed from the library has inspired me as it has ingredients that I can source locally and from my garden.

Do you follow recipe books or do you become an inventor/creator in your kitchen?

Bartering in the UK

John Durrant founder of UK based Bartering site Favabank commented on my Bartering Post. Since I have a high number of UK based readers I thought I should share his website with you. I'm all in favour of promoting sites I think are good for people.

Currently it's in testing phase however it will be launched soon. So become a member, give it a run/test and when it launches start bartering for Fava points that you can spend on services and goods you need/want.

http://www.favabank.co.uk

I love the cashless economy where money stays in the small persons pocket and not lining the big corporations coffers. It helps with family budgets and getting over some of the struggles of unemployment many have been facing.

Thank you for the bartering comments on my last post. They were interesting and made me think of a few other ways I can barter with friends, family and strangers too. Keep on bartering and let me know your successes and fails too as we can all learn from each other.

Book Credit!

Remember the free books I gathered and talked about a few days ago here, (nine of them were in Italian) well when I went in to the second hand book shop in the CBD, I saw the Borneo book I wanted for $25. So I pulled out my bag and asked if I could gain store credit for my books. I was feeling shy and nervous as I have never done this before. I was encouraged with a smiling yes and I crossed my fingers I would get enough credit for the book I want.

Well, let me tell you.....

It was totally worth it! I was given $60 store credit!!!!!! I'm so thrilled as I now have $60 to spend at my leisure on books that I want. I left the Borneo book behind because the manager told me it was now a popular destination so I know that book will be on the shelves again and we are not going for another year.

Each great experience like this encourages me to step forward away from my comfort zone and ask, because an ask is rarely declined. And in this occurrence it surpassed my expectations. Another win on my eco frugal life.

Have you ever gained store credit for your books, clothes or anything else?

(By the way, I did go and pick up The Rambling Expat in the darkness of the night. I am happy that I pushed myself, it's nice for The Rambling Expat to have family greeting him instead of waiting in a long queue for a taxi and wasting money. For those who pop over to his blog from time to time he has a fishing lure GIVEAWAY if you enjoy fishing.)

Pizza and Taxis

The Rambling Expat is on holidays for 4 weeks. We celebrated with bought Pizza (I was too tired to do any kitchen work in this heat). The cheapest pizzas were $10.95 each and we wanted 2. I found this was much too expensive so I searched online and found a voucher for $6.95. Then I decided to look another 3 minutes to see if I could find a better deal to really squeeze my dollar. And yep, another voucher code was found within a few seconds at $5.95 each.

If you have internet access I encourage you to look at getting better deals. It's just there at your finger tips and doesn't take much effort. Instead of paying $21.90 we paid $11.90. Thats a $10 savings! Now lots of people can't be bothered but $10 in my pocket is gold!

We took our pizzas and bottle of cold tap water from home and watched the sunset over the sea next to a playground. Something for all of us and a very nice way to end the day...

...except The Rambling Expat had to be at the airport at 11:00pm for his 1:00am flight to Sydney. We were booking a taxi as waking our 4 year old seemed too mean. However after spending $$ on pizza I really didn't want us forking out another $20 in taxi to the airport and another $20 on the return. Mentally torn I chose to get Dolly up. I lifted Dolly out of bed, popped her into her car seat, drove the 20 minute round trip and popped her back into bed. She slept through the whole process! It only took 20 minutes and we saved ourselves $20. I asked Dolly about the airport trip, she doesn't remember a thing. Tonight I think we will be picking him up to save ourselves another $20.

Had this been 2 years ago.. Pizza at full price and taxis wouldn't have been a problem in our eyes as we had the cash. But we now prefer to save that hard earned cash and put it towards the future. That $50 we didn't spend will be able to work harder for us in online saving accounts and extra payments into mortgage.

I'm aiming for those good things in life! What about you?

Busy and Staying Frugal

H Everyone,

I didn't post yesterday as I have been so busy with Dolly during our holidays and today is another busy day. I am working hard to avoid temptations of money spending and still decluttering 1 to 5 items per day.

This is My Today:

7:45am - Gardening at our plot.
8:45am - Home - Dolly plays - I Blog.
9:30am - Quick showers and dress.
10:00am - Go to Kevin's Kids Disco (Free Event of Course)
12:30 - Inexpensive Lunch of sandwiches and fruit.
1:30pm - Head to town to see if I can exchange books I collected for free here and there (aiming for a Borneo travel book).
2:00pm - Post a cookbook (I no longer wanted) which I sold on Fishpond.
2:30 - Library - enjoy the cool aircond, browse books and magazines.
4:30 - Home - unwind, read a few bog posts, cook, eat a pasta dinner (last light was chicken satay with peanut sauce and veggies. Cost me $6 to make 11 generous satay. Cost at supermarket $1.50 each. Cost at Takeaway shop $3.00 each.)
7:30pm - Bed - Watch movie from a colleague's collection.

Free Books I Hope to Swap For A Book I Really Want.

So that is my busy frugal holiday day, penny pinching and fun :-)

Keep commenting and if your a lurker say "Hello" :-)  I hope to catch up with blog reading tonight.

Local Produce

I went to the Rapid Creek Markets, to see what people are harvesting at this time of year to gain ideas for my garden plot and also to purchase good local produce with low eco miles.

This is my purchased fruits which is coming out of my usual weekly $100 grocery budget.

Total Cost: $9.50

Limes: $2.00
Chinese Plums: $2.50
Mandarins: $2.00
Dragon Fruit: $3.00

Sorry for the poor pic - I used The Rambling Expats camera which I am not used to.

Have you been buying any local anything lately?

Frugalicious Lunch

The party is over, the gluttony of the festive season has ended, The Rambling Expat had his birthday and now there are no more excuses until Dolly's birthday at the end of February and that will need to come from the weekly groceries budget.

Penny pinching does not mean unhealthy bland foods for us if we keep gardening. I want to show you the delicious lunch we had which cost us 1 cup of Rice, 1 table spoon of Olive Oil and 3 cloves of Garlic, the rest came from the garden.

The photograph is not magazine beautiful but the meal was an explosive taste of delicious flavours and extremely moorish. When I finished weeding, pruning and planting, I filled my basket with with just enough produce to make lunch for 3.

I stir fried in a little olive oil:

• garlic (shop bought)
• lemongrass (my plot)
• ginger (communal plot)
• chili (communal plot)
• chocolate mint (my plot)
• snake beans (my plot)
• brazilian spinach (my plot)
• basil (my plot)
• eggplant (my plot)
• malabar spinach (communal plot as mine has died)
• sweet potato leaves (friends plot)

Served on a bed of rice. (My rice bag was shop bought).

For dessert we had pawpaw with lime. The pawpaw was from the communal plot and the lime I found on top of our green waste pile. I don't know who threw it there or where it came from as I don't think there is a lime tree in the botanical gardens. But it was in perfect condition so I took it. And happy I was to do so, as I love lime squeezed on rice, fruit, veggies and in a glass of water.

Lunch for 3 cost about 50 cents and was delicious. Cutting back on food costs means we can still have a great lifestyle, be healthy and save for the important things in life such as Dolly's future education, retirement, cutting back on work hours and a house.

Are you doing some penny pinching too?

Pay Cut = More Gardening

I'm on recreational leave from work (3 weeks to go), then I return for 2 weeks at my regular hours and then... finishing each day at 2:00pm. This will cut back my pay by $233 a week. That is a lot of money!

So I am tightening my belt and keeping my purse closed so that we can keep paying off our mortgage, keep saving for travel and save for the future too. This also means I need to garden more so I can cut back on my grocery shopping, declutter to put things on Ebay and have more organisation at home.

Everyday this week Dolly and I have attended to our plot for 1 hour, pruning, weeding and preparing our beds for more plants. We started growing food less then a year ago and learning as we go. It's been a great deal of fun and I'm becoming more confident with each day.

This is what we have growing at present:

Jerusalem Artichoke - tubers growing under the ground.

Rosella for the flowers - but also the leaves which are tangy (Dolly LOVES the leaves)

2 types of eggplants - this is my favourite.

Lemongrass - makes nice cold herbal drinks and used for fragrant cooking flavours.

A small ginger root I planted 6 months ago popping up :-)

1 very sad capsicum - I've had no luck so far.

Red Pawpaw - I planted these 8 months ago. one each of female and male - Male now fruiting.

Peanuts - These will be ready for harvesting in 4 months - can't wait!

Basil and new long lebanese eggplants.

Brazilian Spinach - A happy grower all year round.

Prolific Snake Beans - I don't like them as much as the other ones I had. Will plant seeds of others this week.

This is not the best season for growing as everything suffers in the tropical monsoonal heat. However people in Bali (same weather) certainly don't stop growing and eating at this time of year, so I am interested in knowing what my ex-couchsurfing hosts are growing so I can try and replicate their successes.

What are you growing or cutting back on this year?