Easy, frugal, bread, onion and tomato bake

This is such an easy and economical dish and had the added bonus of using up some ingredients that might be past their best.

There is no need to be exact with quantities either, it's that sort of dish.

I started with some thick slices of homemade bread that was slightly stale and buttered each slice lightly. Cut into cubes.

I chopped 1/2 a red onion.

I chopped roughly 10 tomatoes that were getting a bit old but still perfectly useable.

All this goes into a bowl together and drizzled with some olive oil. Sprinkle with garlic salt if desired and season with pepper.

I tipped all this into a baking dish and sprinkled with a little parmesan, then grated tasty cheese.

Pop into a hot oven (about 180 degrees C or 350 F) until golden brown on top.

Serve!

Natural homemade deodorant

I wrote this recipe on my blog years ago as part of another post but it's hard to find and people are constantly asking me for the recipe.

1/4 cup bicarb soda (baking soda)
1/4 cup cornflour
4 tablespoons organic virgin cold pressed coconut oil 
10 drops essential oil (optional)

Mix all ingredients together until creamy. If the oil is solid it can be melted with heat to combine with the dry ingredients more readily. After your daily shower, just rub about a choc dot sized amount of paste onto the armpit area. In hot weather, your deodorant will melt unless kept in a cool spot, I keep mine at the bottom of the cupboard in the ensuite which is a very cool room so mine only melts on really hot days. If it does melt, it won't affect the quality, just give it a stir and pop it in the fridge until solid again.

The Simple Life

It's quite a popular topic nowadays, the "simple life" and how to obtain it. Do some people spend so much time pursuing this so called simplicity and their ideal of what that is that they miss the point entirely? 

Is the simple life about living the dream or living the reality? The dream for me is a country property and earning a good income through a  handmade business. The reality is suburbia, traffic, very little time to devote to a business of any kind and a very limited budget. But that's not the point, right? 

The point is, what can I do right now to live the simple life given my circumstances? 

I was pondering the simple life and what simplicity means to me. It occurred to me that one of the most rewarding parts of simple living is that you can take very little and turn it into something 
special.

Home made bread for example. Usually 4 ingredients. Inexpensive, ordinary ingredients. Add time, love, technique and you have something awesome.

Weaving is another example. With threads and a loom I can make the most beautiful variety of things.

Soap making? Once again, very few ingredients. A bit of time and attention and you have a whole batch of creamy, natural soap for your family.

That property in the country may or may not ever happen, in the meantime I will try to be grateful for all I have and all I can do. And if it does happen, I guess I'll be well prepared :)

Healthful Toasted Muesli

I know, I know, there are thousands of recipes for toasted muesli (or granola) on the internet. But I've been fiddling around to try and make a healthy, not too oily, but not too dry recipe.

And I've hit on something pretty darn good! There is the base recipe, but then you can add to that according to what you have at the time. This batch was timed to coincide with a visit to a Lebanese nut shop, so we had a lot of extra delights to put in.

Base recipe

5 cups rolled oats

1/4 cup honey

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup shredded coconut

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 egg white, lightly beaten (optional)

1/2 cup sultanas

Preheat oven to 170 degrees (C). Mix all dry ingredients in a tray with sides so it doesn't spill. A roasting tray is ideal. Warm the honey until runny and mix in olive oil and vanilla. Pour evenly over dry mix. Mix thoroughly. Now pour over the egg white and mix thoroughly. Place tray in the oven and set the timer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, take out the tray, turn the ingredients and return to the oven. Repeat until the muesli has baked for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and stir in the sultanas.

Add ins (examples of)

1/2 cup chopped peanuts

1/4 cup chopped almonds

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1/4 cup chopped macadamias

1/4 cup chopped cashews

1/4 cup pistachios 

1 cup LSA mix

Chopped dried fruit eg. apricots, peach, paw paw, apple, dates, cranberries

Rules for add ins

*For seeds and nuts, add these in at the dry mix stage. 

*For dried fruit add ins, mix in when the muesli has finished baking.

Allow the muesli to cool before placing it in an airtight container. Serve with milk or use as a delicious topping on stewed fruit and yoghurt. Also makes a delightful gift when placed in an attractive jar :)

Debt free habits

I love being debt free. I really do. I also love to help and inspire others to become debt free or at least to change their financial situation for the better. 

I have plenty of other posts here filed under frugal living but here are a few more thoughts and recommendations:

Stop spending so much on what you can't see.  
Electricity, gas, and water may be essentials of daily life, but because we don't really see what we're spending until we're hit with the nasty bill, it's easy to let this area slip. Longer showers, leaving the heating or cooling on longer than is necessary, not bothering to make an effort to water save - all these things can end up costing hundreds of dollars more than you need to every year.

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Have a plan. 
Write it down. Know what you want your finances to look like and what you need to do to achieve it. Make it realistic and achievable. Then stick to it.

De clutter. 
This is a very valuable activity - not only does it make your home tidier and more spacious, it also shows you how much you spend on what you don't need. Once you have seriously decluttered, make a commitment to not buy rubbish you don't need!

Change your mindset. 
You don't have to give expensive birthday gifts, you don't have to have the best or the latest, you don't need every gadget. If you are not prepared to simply stop buying, at least change the way you buy. Give handmade gifts instead or buy at sales. 

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Set yourself apart. 
You don't have to keep up with anyone or prove yourself through the things you buy. Sure, the guy who drives past in his shiny red Ferrari looks impressive, but he should be pitied, can you imagine the level of his debt? Just because you're a woman doesn't mean you need lots of shoes or handbags or the latest fashion. Set your own standards and forget the rest.

Reality check. 
The end. You can't take stuff with you when you die. 

You may be gone, but your debt carries on. Who is going to pay off your credit card in the event of your death? How big is your mortgage and who will that fall to when you're gone? You are responsible for your spending but the consequences of your debt can affect others in a major way.

Home made peanut butter

We go through plenty of peanut butter here and our youngest daughter in particular is mad about it on toast for breakfast. She is also a huge Nutella devotee.

I had heard that peanut butter is really easy to make and I don't know why I've never tried, but yesterday I was gripped with the thought this was something I needed to do!

I'm glad I did! It is different to store bought peanut butter (it tastes more nutty, more natural, more REAL!) 

Why don't you try it too? Here is how I made it:

* 500g roasted, salted peanuts 

1 teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons of honey

 ** 2 tablespoons of peanut oil

Place your nuts in a food processor. Blend until they are coarsely ground. At this point, if you want chunky peanut butter (like I did) take about 1/3 of the ground nuts out and set aside.

Add the salt and honey. Continue to blend until your mix is smooth or starts to look like a paste. Times really vary depending on your food processor, but it's generally a couple of minutes to get to the paste stage. Now, drizzle your oil in and blend until it's a smooth paste. Add your coarse nuts back in and mix through. Put your paste into a jar or sealed container. Drizzle a little more oil over the top as a seal.

I've been told that in needs to be kept in the fridge - I'm not sure if this is totally necessary, I think I will experiment by leaving some out to see how it goes.

* If you want to use peanuts from the shell or raw peanuts you can roast them yourself. Then just follow the steps from the beginning.

** If you find your paste is dry try adjusting the oil amount.

Isn't that simple? Next up I want to try doing Nutella and almond butter would be fun too. Let me know if you give it a go!

Frugal February in the kitchen

The months of December through to March are our most challenging financially. Christmas, followed by holidays, plus bills and insurance mean that we really have to pull in the reigns and make an extra effort to save money. I thought I would share with you a few of the thrifty things I've been doing in the kitchen. 

Last month I set myself a water challenge. It's Summer here in Australia and we're using a lot of water on the garden (we have a tank for the garden, but without rain there is no tank water). 

*Place a container in the sink and use the water from rinsing fruit, vegetables and eggs on the garden.

* Run water into a jug while waiting for hot water - I get heaps of water this way, which either goes into our purification jug or onto the garden.

*Halve the amount of water you normally wash up with. There is no need to fill the sink with hot water to do the dishes! I've been really surprised by how little I can use for this purpose. This goes for floor washing too - you don't need that much (not that I wash my floors all that often, ahem..)

Next up is the use of appliances and utilities (gas, electricity) in the kitchen.

*If steaming vegetables, boil until steaming is underway, turn off the gas and keep the lid on. I find this is enough to steam the veggies without having to use another 5 - 10 minutes of gas.

*The oven can also be turned off early. When I make bread, I turn off the oven 5 minutes before the bread is done and let it sit with the door closed. It stays hot enough to cook and it saves 5 minutes of cooking time. Add that up over a year and it would be a lot of time!

*Bake your own bread. I've been doing this for a long time and it saves us a lot of money. The whole family prefers homemade loaves too. I bake 4 at a time to get the most out of the oven.

*Think about the appliance before you use it. Is it really necessary to plug into the electricity if you can do it by hand? For example, we sweep hard floors instead of vacuuming, our cooking ingredients are often mixed by hand and all our dishes are done in the sink with no dishwasher.

I'd love to hear your frugal tips for February too!

Hand woven dish cloths

Over the weekend I wove some dish cloths with some beautiful Australian 10ply cotton that I rainbow dyed. I've been wanting to try out waffle weave and thought that kitchen cloths would be perfect.

All of these were woven on the same warp on my rigid heddle loom. Did you know you can do that? Warp once, weave many, much easier! Just leave a gap of 5 - 6 inches between each cloth, towel or whatever item you're weaving. I hemstitched each one on the loom and left a short fringe at each end.

They sold like hot cakes with an order for more and I'm not surprised. If you've never tried a handmade cotton kitchen cloth (either woven, knitted or crocheted) you really should, they are far superior to any commercial cloth. I use mine as a multi purpose kitchen cloth for wiping and washing. They last a long time and can be thrown in the wash and line dried. My next order is for re-usable baby wipes - another great idea.

These are some other cloths I wove last year in plain weave so the baby wipes will be similar - fairly thin and very soft for baby skin.

The next thing for me to look at is tea towels. I really wasn't happy with my last lot - I think the cotton was too thick, I need specific weaving cotton. 

If you're interested in trying waffle weave on your own rigid heddle, there is a great pattern sequence HERE, look specifically in the comments section for the sequence.

You need one pick up stick but it's very easy to master.

Specifications for my cloths: 

10 ply cotton (warp & weft)

7.5 dpi

60cm rigid heddle loom

Hemstitched on loom.

Wet finished, laid flat to dry.

Linking up with Creative Friday on Natural Suburbia.

3 ways to save money today - Volume 8

1. Don't buy cereal.
I've noticed a real drive by cereal companies for us to mimic American culture in our pursuit for cereal. It's really expensive, usually unhealthy and really unnecessary! The only type of cereal I buy on a regular basis is Vita Brits, which I find affordable, nutritious and tasty. Occasionally I buy cereal for the kids for a birthday or treat, but I find the novelty wears off pretty quickly anyway.
Oats are fantastic. If you buy a generic brand they are cheap and really versatile. I've been making my own muesli, toasted and natural for years.
There are so many alternatives to cereal that are healthier and will cost a fraction of the price. Get googling and find some new, simple breakfast dishes.

2. Make your own bread.
Commercial bread is increasing in price constantly. Yes, you can still buy a cheap white loaf for around a dollar but I find these akin to eating fluff, not nice.
It's not hard to make bread. It's a time investment but once you get into a routine it's very do-able. I'd like to say that I fully supply our family with home made bread but I'm not quite there yet. I'm happy to say that most of the time there is homemade bread in the pantry or freezer.
I have quite a few bread recipes right here on my blog:

Apple and Walnut bread
Wholemeal, rye and linseed bread
Spelt, honey and Linseed bread
Honey and Oat bread
My basic bread
My Everyday bread recipe

3. Make your own toilet spray.
We pay a lot of money for the privilege of spraying chemicals around in our home and it's not at all necessary! A small spray bottle, some water and some essential oil that you like the scent of, and you're done. Experiment with quantities of oil to water to get the ratio that suits you. A good essential oil can be a bit of an investment in terms of dollars, but when you consider how long one bottle will last you it's much cheaper than buying a chemical laden spray.

Back to basics, frugality revisited.

Christmas, interstate holidays and unfortunately timed car repairs and insurance bills have left things a little tight for us of late. Very little is being saved and the bills and expenses just keep rolling in. 

I spent a bit of time having a sook about our own little economic downturn but when I got tired of feeling sorry for myself I decided to get over it and take on a frugal challenge. 

It's amazing that even when you live a frugal lifestyle you can always find little areas where money is not being used as wisely as it could. So, here are a few things I'm doing this month to make positive changes.

I've been making my own laundry gel for ages (great stuff!) and also my own cleaning spray (I add some lavender or tea tree essential oil to make cleaning more bearable!) for a few months.  As I've mentioned before, the recipes I use are from the excellent book "Saving Mum". 

Recently I found that I could make an excellent toilet spray simply by placing water and essential oils in an old spray bottle. I'd tried it in the past and wasn't thrilled with the results, but I've found that the essential oils needed to be stronger. I also make up a really small batch at a time (say about 100ml)  to keep it fresh.

For my 3 long haired girls I squirt a little hair conditioner into an old spray bottle, top it up with water and use it as a de-tangler. This morning I also made up a batch of dish liquid and will be trying that out. I'm nearly due to do a big batch of soap too. Sometimes I use my soap to wash the girl's hair.

After the hot and dry summer our garden has been re-planted with vegetables and the kids each have their own plot. Here are my husband's cos lettuces. I still can't work in the garden much because of my back issues but I live in hope that I'll be able to return soon.

I have been wanting to replace our large side gate for 9 years now (ever since we moved in) as it is broken and very difficult to open, not to mention old and unattractive. We never seem to have enough spare cash to complete this job! So, new tactics. We have a money jar in our bedroom as husband often chucks a handful of coins from his pockets in there when getting undressed. The coins are used for small shopping trips and the rest goes into our charity jar in the kitchen. I've placed a little box beside the bedroom jar and place the gold coins in the box, with the silver change going to the charity jar as before. Gold coins can add up quickly and I have $15 in my "replace side gate" box already. Who knows how long it will take to save the required amount but at least I feel better because I'm moving towards the goal :)

We found a way to do cheap and beautiful eggs for our table display. We dyed cheap supermarket cage eggs with egg dye, then used these super cool "Happy Wraps" to decorate with. I picked up the wraps and dye at a continental grocer very cheaply. They were so easy to make and look fantastic.

For Easter eggs my husband found a warehouse outlet that sells good brands (Red Tulip, Cadbury) eggs at heavily discounted prices. We also intend not to go overboard with chocolate for the kids as we tend to - they really don't need bucket loads!

There are plenty more things I'm doing to be more frugal at the moment, but this post is getting rather long, so maybe next time.

How about you? Feeling the pinch? Taking any positive steps to help?

Shaving cream marbling on paper

This has to be one of the easiest (and messiest!) ways for children to produce a unique art piece.

All you need is paper (160gsm is good), poster paints and shaving cream (the cheapest brand works fine).

Make a layer of shaving cream on a tray. Make dots or lines of paint. Swirl with a chopstick or similar. The more you swirl, the more intricate patterns you will get, however if you overdo it you might muddy your colours.

When you have a pattern you like, carefully place your paper on top and lightly press all over (lightly!) Peel the paper off and use a paint scraper of similar to scrape the excess shaving cream and paint off to re-use. Put you paper somewhere to dry.

Keep re-using the shaving cream, reapplying the paint if desired, until it's too coloured to use. Then have some messy fun with the leftovers! (Good for making hand or foot prints on paper too).

This is messy. The easiest wash up for hands is to stick them in a bucket of water outside (the hands, not the children). The trays and tools wash up in warm water.

Here are some of our masterpieces.

They can be framed and hung.

Or used as wrapping paper or even for the basis of another project (collage, background for a picture etc).

Making great compost

This time last year I was a complete flop at making compost. We have always had plenty of material to make compost with, but for some reason it just wasn't happening. I read about compost from a variety of sources and it seemed complicated. Then I got a Don Burke book from the library and after reading the section on compost something clicked. Since then, I've been making great compost and I'm happy to share what I know with you.

Here is some of my compost from the ready to use heap.

And this is what the working compost heap looks like - lets call it a work in progress!

The ready to use heap. My husband and a friend made this with star pickets, old lattice, bamboo and black plastic. It's about 1.5 metres high and has an opening door at the front for easy access.

I find that compost performs better if it's contained rather than just a heap, but it's fine to start out with a heap if you need to.

This is my working pile - an old heavy duty plastic drum with holes drilled in the sides near to the bottom. I swap between the 2 heaps. So, when this blue one (my current "working" compost) is full enough I will leave it to sit and stop adding to it. By that time, the black heap will be all used up on the garden and ready to start working and being added to again.

So, here are my key elements to good compost:

* Balance ingredients. If you only put in kitchen scraps your heap won't be happy. Lets looks at what I have in my working pile at the moment. Kitchen scraps (veg peelings, tea leaves, coffee grounds, paper towel, shredded newspaper, grass clippings, leaves in Autumn (brilliant!) straw, garden soil and any organic matter. No meat or bread scraps unless you want some visitors of the rodent variety!)

*Moisture. This is important. I've discovered that my compost used to be too dry/too wet - I didn't have the balance right. It should be moist and if you get the right balance of ingredients it's easy to control the moisture content. If it's too wet, add a little dirt, straw or shredded newspaper. If it's too dry, water it or add more wet ingredients (leftover tea from the pot, more veg scraps).

*Cut up ingredients. All the veg scraps or garden cuttings should be chopped up to maximise the breaking down process. I used to put in huge chunks of old vegetables or big sticks thinking they would break down - it doesn't work. I only use the more fleshy garden cuttings, all woody cuttings go into our green council bin, which is taken away and mulched. If you have your own mulched you can do this yourself.

*Turn regularly. Also really important! I use a pitchfork and turn both composts every 2 days or so. You don't have to do it this often but at least once a week this should be done.

What have I left out? Any questions, ask away!

Beneficial beetroot

Easy to grow, highly nutritious and absolutely delicious - you haven't really lived until you've eaten a freshly harvested, home grown beetroot!

Beetroot are high in folic acid, fibre, manganese and potassium. That's just the root, the leaves are also edible (I think it would be a waste not to eat them!). The leaves are high in calcium, vitamins A and C and iron. They are also delicious! There are many other reported health benefits from beetroot consumption too.

Beetroot are easy to grow and take up little space in the garden as the leaves grow quite upright. They require minimal care and don't seem vulnerable to many garden pests, so it is simple to grow them organically as we do.  

You can even dye yarn with beetroot - not something I've tried, but if you were lucky enough to have a bumper crop....

How to eat them?

Roasted, steamed, boiled, raw (grated into salad etc), juiced!

I have a tray roasting right now in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper, so easy.

The leaves can be used like silverbeet or spinach. My favourite way to eat them is either tossed and chopped into a stirfry or steamed lightly and served with extra virgin olive oil, organic apple cider vinegar and salt and pepper.

3 ways to save money today - Volume 6

Today I'm focusing on grocery shopping and how to make more savings on your regular shop. This is all about thinking outside the square.

1. Shop around. Oh no, what a pain! I hear you say, but if you're serious about saving it can be done without too much trouble. For example, today I did a large shop at Coles - where I look for specials and clearances. Not many of the items I buy there are full price. Then I walked over to the Indian grocers in the same shopping complex, and instead of buying 1kg of natural yoghurt at Coles for $6+, I bought a 2kg bucket of good quality natural yoghurt for $6.  Indian or Asian grocers also have bulk spices at excellent prices.

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2. Share the burden. Following on from the first point, shopping for a family is much easier if the burden can be shared. Although I do the regular supermarket shop, my husband's work is in an area with many Asian fresh food markets and ethnic stores. Most of our fruit and vegetables come from these markets (he shops during his lunch break or when he gets a spare minute) at roughly half the cost of the supermarket! The added benefit of this is that the markets have a massive turnover and produce is so incredibly fresh that it puts the supermarket fruit & veg sections to shame.

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3. Meat is so expensive. And don't even get me started on fish (I could write a whole other post about the terrible waste and inflated prices within the commercial fishing industry). Meat is generally cheaper and fresher from the butcher. There have been times we have had the opportunity to buy very affordable meat through buying a whole sheep slaughtered, cut up and packaged and then sharing the cost with someone else and dividing the meat between us.
We also at one time had our own cows that were kept at my husband's family farm and had some fabulous fresh and economical meat that way.
If you have a deep freeze, you can always ask a butcher whether there would be a discount for bulk meat.
It goes without saying that meat consumption on a budget comes down to the cuts you choose. We choose the cheapest cuts and cook accordingly, steak is a special treat.
We also have at least a few meat free days each week. Doing this allows us to afford organic free range chicken and pork (we refuse to eat caged animals pumped full of hormones or intensely farmed animals - in my opinion it's not natural and not what God intended by providing animals for our food).

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So what do you think? Could any of these points save you some money on regular grocery shopping? There are so many other points to make, but perhaps I'll save them for another post :)

3 ways to save money today - volume 5

1. Menstrual products
Perhaps not a topic that many want to discuss publicly, yet something that many (dare I say most?) women waste money on every single month. A couple of years ago I switched from tampons (cringe!) and commercial pads to menstrual cups and cloth pads. Wow, what a difference! The cloth pads I make myself and they are easy to wash, comfortable, customisable according to your flow needs and last a really long time. They don't go into landfill either.
If you've never tried or even heard of a menstrual cup (like me a couple of years ago) I recommend you start researching! At $40 - $70 each they might seem expensive but with proper care 1 cup can last years. If the idea of using one seems strange to you, might I suggest it is far less strange and much more hygienic and practical than a soggy old tampon. Sorry, I know that's gross, but that's exactly my point! Some brands of cup are DivaCup, The Keeper, Lunette and there is even an Australian made one called Juju.

2. Loyalty rewards
If you tend to frequent the same places for shopping, check out their loyalty reward programs. I do our grocery shopping predominantly at Coles, so I use the Flybuys program. Basically, I get points just for shopping at Coles and the points I convert into gift cards. It's really worth doing and costs nothing.


3. Eliminate use of dryer
It's a bit of extra work and organisation to live without a dryer, but unless you live in a very cold and wet climate, you can live without a dryer. And save lots of money in electricity :)

*Disclaimer - These posts are based on my own personal opinions. I do not receive any payment for these opinions and it is not my intention to promote any particular product.

If it's not useful or beautiful....

...get rid of it!

When we bought our first home 8 years ago it came with a dishwasher. No house I ever lived in up until this point had a functional dishwasher, so it was quite a novelty when we moved in. But it never really worked that well. I'd find myself re-washing many of the dishes and ended up only using it very occasionally. And in my present frugal state of mind I think a dishwasher uses far too much water.

Besides, our kitchen is small and space is a premium, so even though some people may think we have taken leave of our senses (hey, it's not the first time, I'm sure it won't be the last!) the dishwasher had to go!

Before

After

What a lot of space a dishwasher takes up! I made a little curtain with some bright and happy fabric and I now have a storage space for bins, the dustpan and whatever else I end up storing there.

Easy coconut rice pudding in the slow cooker

In my current enthusiasm for frugal living I've been making an extra effort to use up ingredients, either leftover in the fridge or pantry. Today's perusal of the fridge found a cup of coconut milk leftover from a previous meal, then a brief hunt in the pantry gave me a choice of 3 opened packets of arborio rice (why oh why?!!)

And so, this easy recipe was born!

Not the best photo, sorry about that.

5 handfuls of arborio rice

1/3 cup sugar (optional for sweetness)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon butter

250ml cup coconut milk

700ml milk

Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste

Sultanas (optional)

Place all ingredients except sultanas in the slow cooker, stir and turn on low. Check every half hour or so and give it a stir. If it seems to have absorbed a lot of liquid, stir in a little more milk at a time. I didn't need to do this, but it's possible your slow cooker is different to mine. Leave it cook, testing the rice for doneness (I think mine took about 2 hours). When it seems nearly done, add the sultanas.

Serve warm to hot with ice-cream.

So easy!

Back to frugality

It's over a year since we paid off our mortgage and although we declared nothing would change for us financially I have felt recently that my former frugality has slipped in some areas. So, off to the library I went (costs nothing!) and borrowed some of my favourite frugal books to re-read. "Down to Earth" by Rhonda Hetzel is just a fantastically encouraging read and I've also found "Saving Mum" by Amy Pleydon and Tiana Johannis to be very helpful.

I'm making getting back to frugal living one of my top priorities and really thinking about what I do and how I do it. As a wife and mother always trying to improve my ways, I relish the challenge. So here are  the things I have done this week to reclaim a little frugality:

* Made laundry gel. I've used the recipe from "Saving Mum", and it seems to work well. The gloopiness makes it a little difficult to get out of the bottle so I may have to tweak it. It is extremely cheap to make and uses easily obtainable ingredients.

* Made cleaning spray. Recipe from the same book and once again, very easy to make and works well, even in the shower.

* Shorter showers. I admit my morning showers have become a bit of a luxury but water prices keep going up so our usage needs to go down. I'm trying to cut about 1 minute off each shower for a start and not stay in for any longer than necessary.

* No water down the drain. I've started running water from the kitchen hot tap into a big jug while waiting for it to warm up. I've been amazed to find that sometimes 2 litres of water has run before it warms up! By running the water into the jug I can then repurpose it somewhere else and it isn't wasted.

* Library overdue fees. Oh boy, I've become slack with this one. With 4 children each borrowing their own items ( and a Mum who is a bit of a library junkie too!) it's hard to keep track and before I know it, I'm racking up fines for something that should be free. I'm paying extra attention to this now by keeping all library items in one place and checking my account on the internet to make sure I either renew or return books before they become overdue.

* Bread, revisited. I'm doing my best to keep up our bread requirements, another area that had fallen to the wayside a little. I need to bake 2 loaves every second to third day, so it requires planning but I feel it is well worth the effort for both health and savings.

So that's my week of getting back to frugality and I pray that I have the time and energy to continue to build on what I've started. I'll keep sharing my thoughts so that perhaps we can all get inspired together and help each other to live frugally.

Making yoghurt with from a culture with an Easiyo

Some time ago I wrote this post about making your own yoghurt using store bought natural yoghurt. I do things a little differently these days by using a freeze dried yoghurt culture and an Easiyo maker. Here is what I do:

Measure out a litre of milk into the Easiyo inner container (the one on the left).

Heat the milk on the stove to 90 degrees (C), then let it cool to 45 degrees (C).

This is what the freeze dried culture looks like. A little lasts a long time as you use about 1/10th of a teaspoon per litre of milk. You can buy it from Cheeslinks. So, the next step is to whisk the culture into the warm milk.

Fill the Easiyo white container with hot water to the level recommended (you get full instructions with the maker when you buy it). Pop on the lid and let it sit for at least 8 hours, but for a nice firm set leave it longer, overnight is good. Take the yoghurt out and keeping it in the Easiyo container let it chill in the fridge.

*Variations: 

- I have successfully varied plain natural yoghurt by adding a tablespoon of honey and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. Add them in at the same time as the culture.

- Add a little vanilla extract with some honey or sugar for a sweeter vanilla flavour.

-After the yoghurt is set, add fruit of your choice.

-If you like a thick yoghurt, add 1-2 tablespoons of milk powder as the milk is heating.

- I also wrote this post on making your own yoghurt cheese or spread.

3 ways to save money today - volume 4

1. Become a library member.
It costs nothing but can save you thousands! Instead of buying magazines I borrow them. If I'm interested in a book I often "try it out" from the library to know whether it's worth buying. Some are real gems but most I'm glad I didn't shell out cash for. Oh, and don't let your items get overdue and undo all your good savings by having to pay late fees.

                                                                                            Image credit

2. Find free activities for the kids.
There are so many free places to take your kids, the list is endless. Once again, our library has many activities that are free. Check your local council for events. Ask people for recommendations. Search online. And if you decide on a day trip, pack food and water so you don't have to pay a fortune for unhealthy food.

3. Pay your mortgage fortnightly. You may have heard this before, but it really does save you more in the long run. When we had a mortgage I found it satisfying to know our debt was going down fortnightly rather than monthly too, plus it's not so much to pay all in one hit so you're not as likely to miss it.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway, which ends Friday!