Frugal kitchen tip - stretch your dishwasher powder.

My sis, The Slightly Mad Quilt Lady put me on to this one:

Dilute your commercial dish washing powder with baking soda (soda bicarbonate).

Isn't that simple?

Sis dilutes it by half while it's in the bottle, I just put less regular stuff in the machine's dispenser and top it off with baking soda.

Green and thrifty, can't get better than that, huh?

Squiggly squirmy, luverly wormies

Living in a small house on a smaaaallllll piece of land like we do, means we have not much room for a traditional compost bin. Nor an ongoing need for one.

However, recently I have decided to make more of a concerted effort to grow some of our own vegetables and fruits. Now, unless I want to be buying bags of compost and cow poop on a regular basis (which I have done in the past), I need a way of feeding my crops.

Enter....vermiculture. Or worm farming as it is otherwise known.

Perfect for our small property and gardening needs, no smell, and helps cut down on the amount of rubbish our family sends to landfill.

Knowing that I could buy a worm farm and worms from my local council cheaper than I could at our garden centre or hardware chain, I packed up the kids last week and we traipsed off to our local council rooms.

It's now set up in a dim corner of our front yard and is already producing 'worm juice'.....actually worm pee but I know my 5 year old would have nothing to do with it if I called it that.

After a couple of days, it occurred to me in a duh moment that I could quite possibly have made my own worm farm from materials I had laying around the place. And the internet tells me that is correct, I could have.
Not sure where my brain was that day.

Oh well.

Here is a great link that explains how to make a worm farm at home:

How to make a worm farm

You'll need compost worms, red wrigglers or the like, as regular earthworms will not survive in your worm farm. These are easily available in boxes of 1000 from hardware stores and garden centres. Or maybe online if you can't find them round your area.

Give them all your kitchen scraps, except meat, dairy, citrus, onion and anything with lots of sugar. They will get through it faster if you chop it up small, although it does feel rather odd to be hand chopping all my kitchen scraps with my wormies comfort in mind.

As well as worm pee which is apparently liquid gold for your plants, after a few months you will also have a tray of castings that you can add to your garden or your plant pots.
This is my plan for feeding my baby blueberry trees, my lemon tree that looks like it might produce for the first time in just about forever, my new feijoa tree and my baby spinach plants. All the above are in pots except for the lemon tree.

I'm wondering now what else I can add to my garden menagerie......plant wise that is, as hubby won't let me torment the neighbours by turning the rest of our front yard into a chicken run. He may have a point, the unit behind ours is for sale, not sure prospective buyers would appreciate a chicken pen as our combined street frontage.

Maybe a goat.....?

Watch this space:

No shampoo! Or, Another revelation.

I decided this week I would try out a method of hair washing I had heard about a number of times recently.

This method involves no shampoo, only baking soda, water and apple cider vinegar.

If it were to work, I would be able to cut my $20 bottle(s!) of shampoo out of the shopping budget, AND, I would stop lacing my scalp with a mixture of Sodium laurel sulphate, Methlyparaben and Ethylparaben, to name but a few of the less desirable ingredients.

I'm a bit particular about my hair, it's dark, longish and wavyish and I like it.
(Ok, this is an old photo, this lil guy is 5 now, but my hair is largely the same.
Umm, just more grey.)

Usually, I like it.

But not right now because I'm sporting a REALLY BAD HAIRCUT which I detailed here.

However, a really bad haircut combined with nasty looking greasy hair would be much worse, so I decided the time is right to try this new method, as I am not working outside the home. Mostly.

The worst that would happen is the lifeguards at the pool would reel back in horror and the other mums in the playground would keep their distance.

So try it I did.

And it works!

My hair is just as it should be, apart from the bad haircut of course.

It's not greasy, or too dry, or heaven forbid, smelling of vinegar.

And a big positive, my scalp is much less itchy than it has been lately, I have a feeling all the nasties in my expensive shampoo where drying out and irritating my scalp.

Here's what to do if you would like to try it:

Wet your hair. Duh.

Make a thickish paste of baking soda with a bit of water.

Massage the paste onto your scalp.

Rinse it off well.

Mix about 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar with 3/4's cup of water. More or less.

Rinse your scalp and the length of your hair with this.

Rinse with water. Or not. I did.

Dry as normal.

How easy, and cheap, and environmentally friendly is that???

I love it!

Vegetable net sponges - useful trash

I was about to throw out the netting from round a large bag of oranges today when I suddenly thought back to this post over at Penniless Parenting.

The idea is to use something you already have to make something you need, rather than going out and buying something completely new.

In this case it was making a scrubbing sponge out of the netting from fruit and vegetable bags.

Because I shop at the farmer's market, most fruits and veggies are loose, ready to be bagged up in your own bags. Hope you remembered to bring 'em, 'cos they do not come supplied (usually).

Except for the oranges.

And they are GOOD oranges so I don't mind.

Mmmmmmmm....

Especially now that I have a use for the netting.

I straightened it out, then tied it in a knot, then in a knot again.

Viola, a new kitchen scrubber!

It's now sitting in the cupboard awaiting the demise of my current one.

Now the kids are in bed and it's time to play!

Homemade chicken nuggets - yum yum yum!

Do your kids love chicken nuggets? Do YOU like them too? 

Well if you'd like to see what's in a McD's chicken nugget, have a look at this post on cheeseslave.com.

Not something you really want to feed your family is it, but there are times when you want something fast-foodish and tasty that you can whip up in an instant.

Try out this recipe, it's pretty simple though not quite instantaneous, but it can be frozen in advance.

Chicken nuggets

(or strips or bites or whatever you want to call them)

• Slice 3 chicken breast fillets into 1cm or 1/2 inch thick strips. Now you can either leave them long or cut them into shorter pieces, I tend to leave them long.

• Marinate them in yoghurt or kefir for a couple of hours. 

• Prepare a plate of breadcrumbs (homemade from the dry ends of the loaves work a treat).

• Add some salt and pepper to the crumbs, and a pinch of paprika. You could actually use any combination of spices you like. Mix.

• Roll each strip in the bread crumbs, then lay them out on a greased tray.

• Bake in a pre-heated oven at about 200c/400F for approximately 20 minutes.  

Dipping sauce

(I am not a fan of sweet sauces, but I imagine if you are, a sweet chilli sauce would work well with these.)

This is the sauce I made: 

• sour cream
• milk
• garlic
• spring onion
• salt and pepper

• Chop the garlic and spring onions very small - DON'T use too much garlic, raw garlic is pretty strong.

• Mix everything together with just enough milk to get the sauce to a consistency you like.

Notes: 

I bake these rather than fry them because if I do fry them I tend to leave the breadcrumb coating stuck to the bottom of the pan...

And the oil spits, which I really don't like.

You could probably use other cuts of chicken successfully.

You can dredge the strips in flour rather than crumbs, but my family prefer the crunch the crumbs give.

If you want to prep these in advance, freeze them individually on a tray while they're still uncooked.

Then bag them up in usable portions.

And if you can, use pastured chicken, like these happy gals below.

Happy eating!

What I love is....

the way stained (even after soaking) white/pale kid's clothes look after pegging them out in bright sun for a few hours.

Clean again!

Another reason to line dry your clothes. Hehe, the white ones anyway!


(PS that is the only way I can get spag bol sauce out of their clothes)

Make the most of seasonal produce

I am LOVING my local farmers market at the moment, they are open every Sunday and I am there every Sunday. Even last Sunday when it rained nearly all the night before and continued till after lunch.

Though the market was pretty quiet that day....I am curious; where do regular market goers go if they don't make it to the market? The thought of having to buy my produce at the supermarket or run round the local (non-organic) fruit stores and butchers was enough to spur me on. The market always comes out on top for freshness, quality and price.

Strawberries are in season right now, and the strawb sellers at the market are always busy. The kids and I buy some fresh berries, then every week they've had them (counting four so far) I buy a 3-4 kilo box of seconds/water-damaged/jam making strawberries. The seller sells these in big commercial yoghurt tubs for very cheap; tall square white plastic tubs with fitting lids. (These are now holding all my bulk oats, flours and rapadura.)

At home I go through them, wash, pick out any icky ones, cut off stems and soft spots, chop and spread them on trays for freezing. Once frozen, I scoop them into freezer bags and then I can pull out frozen strawbs whenever I need them.



We don't eat jam, but these are great in smoothies, made into sorbet, pureed for home made icy poles and I'm planning on trying to make some sort of pie filling....maybe apple and strawberry?

So, visit your local farmers market, see what's in season and well priced, and put some of it up for winter. Or just for when that particular fruit is no longer in season.

Strawberries in winter for us, yum!

Homemade spelt bread, thermomix or by hand

There's nothing much better than the smell of fresh bread and that's what we've been smelling round here lately as I've taken to making my own on a regular basis.

And it's soooo good! My mum used to make all the bread for a family of eight, so I don't know what's taken me so long to get round to the idea of making my own. I do have a bread machine, but I haven't used that in a long while, partly due to now having a thermomix. The thermomix doesn't actually cook the bread for you, but it certainly does all the rest of hard work. That said, it is pretty easy to make this bread by hand, but seeing as I have a thermomix, I'm gonna use it!

Actually, the reason I now like to make my own is because I have become so much more aware of exactly what is put into our food. And why spelt? I use spelt instead of wheat for it's nutritious benefits, as well as it's flavour and texture. Spelt can sometimes be found in supermarkets, however I buy it in 5kg bags over the net and it gets delivered, just what I like.

Spelt bread by hand

1 tablespoon dry yeast
2 cups warm water
3 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 teaspoons salt
5-6 cups spelt flour (any combo of brown or white)

• Mix yeast, water and honey in a large bowl and let it stand for 5-10 minutes.
• Stir in the butter, salt and 3 cups of flour.
• Add the remainng flour in small amounts until the dough becomes too stiff to stir, then turn out onto floured bench.
• Knead for about 6 minutes, but do not overwork the dough. Stop when it is smooth and elastic.
• Place in a bowl, cover and let it rise until doubled in size.
• Punch down the dough, and divide it between 2 smallish loaf pans.
• Cover and let it rise again.
• Heat oven to 175c (350f)
• Bake for 20 minutes or so, until it is brown on the top and smelling done. Mmm mmm!

Spelt bread in the thermomix
10 grams dry yeast
2 cups warm water
85 grams honey
75 grams butter
2 teaspoons salt
5-6 cups spelt flour (any combo of brown or white)

• Place chopped butter in TM bowl and melt on 90c, speed 3 for about 1 1/2 minutes.
• Add honey, warm water and yeast. Mix on speed 4 for 2 seconds then leave to sit for 5-10 minutes.
• Add salt and 3 cups of flour. Mix on speed 5 for 10 seconds.
• Add 2 more cups of flour, mixing on speed 5 for 10 seconds after each addition.
• Knead in TM for 2 minutes
• Place in a bowl, cover and let it rise until doubled in size.
• Punch down the dough, and divide it between 2 smallish loaf pans.
• Cover and let it rise again.
• Heat oven to 175c (350f)
• Bake for 20 minutes or so, until it is brown on the top and smelling done.

See? Couldn't be easier.

Funky looking cloth wipes

I made up these wipes for my four year old to use after he's pooped. We had him using those pre-moistened toilet wipes, but dang, they are expensive and he always used 4 or 5 to get the job done right. Plain old toilet paper never seemed to cut it with him.




These are leftover flannelette scraps, turned and top stitched. As far as laundering them, they go in with the cloth nappies, so no extra laundry and he's now quite happy to wipe himself, and I of course, don't care how many wipes he uses.

Have you heard of family cloth ?

I'm not quite willing to go there completely yet, but these cute little numbers are doing their part in bringing our grocery bill down.
And my four year old is fresh as a daisy. Well, as fresh as a four year old boy can be, anyway!

Save money and green up in the bathroom

Here are a few ways to save a little money in your bathroom and decrease your chemical load at the same time.

These are the things I do, though I know there are more, I just need to do a bit more research on the topic....

Face wash

• Use honey, it works well, is cheap and chemical free.
• Add oatmeal for a scrub.

Night time moisturizer

• I use vitamin E oil squeezed out of capsules, it moisturizers well and has no icky chemical smell.

Deodorant

• Use baking soda. Again, it's cheap and chemical free and works. I'd maybe not use it on a 40c day though :0)

Bath

• Use baking soda for a relaxing soak, it will leave your skin feeling silky smooth. Also a good soak for anyone who has the itchies.

Cleaning

• Baking soda come up trumps here too. It is an abrasive, so is great for removing soap scum from the shower and bath. Rub it on with an old kitchen scrubber pad (not steelo though!) and rinse off.

• Vinegar is another useful product, it can be used with baking soda or on it's own. Vinegar is great for cleaning glass, just use it as you would window cleaning fluid, it leaves it beautifully shiny. Also gives a lovely shine to the tap ware. Keep it in a spray bottle and use with a soft cloth on the mirrors, shower glass and taps.

Soap

• Don't use it all the time, unless you are actually dirty as soap is very drying on the skin. If you use liquid soap at the sink, cut it with water. I use a mix about 70 soap/30 water, it still cleans grubby little fingers well and gives plenty of suds.
  

Cosmetics and moisturizers

• If you have a favourite brand that you must have, shop for it on Oztion or Ebay. Often you can get 2 or 3 items for the retail store price of 1.

Every little bit helps when you're trying to save, for me, doing the above has cut right down on what I spend on cleaners and also cut the amount I spend on products for myself. Spending less when I grocery shop is great and the bonus is having less chemicals in my home. Can't go past that.

Doing away with paper products

Paper products usually make up a portion of the grocery budget in every household. I'm talking about paper towels, paper napkins or serviettes, and tissues. Toilet paper is another one, but that is one paper product I'm willing to live with. The others, well, they're relatively easy to do without, you just need alternatives.

The alternatives are, of course, cloth.

Remember good, old fashioned cloth handkerchiefs? Well, for my kids I took a pair of old, soft flannelette pj pants that were beyond repair, cut them up into child size squares and hemmed the edges with a zigzag stitch. I made a big stack of them and they work a treat, absorbent and beautifully soft for little noses. And if they happen to go through the washing machine in a pocket, they will not cover all your clothes in lint, which is a huge bonus.

I just found a quick tutorial on making these, on Making Do With The Not So New.
Smart lady, she uses old flannel too. You must try these, they really are soo much better to use than paper!

What about napkins/serviettes? Cloth as well of course. Either hem up some fabric squares - a heavy cotton or a linen blend work well, or trawl garage sales for some beautiful old fashioned ones. Cloth napkins are classy looking and work well. A much greener alternative to paper ones.

Paper towels have a myriad of uses. Draining fried food, mopping up messes, and cleaning glass are just a few of them. All of these can be done with cloth alternatives, although you may want to keep one roll of paper towels on hand to deal with those really nasty ones, such as cat puke on the floor. For the rest, old tea towels or dish towels that have seen better days are perfect for kitchen use. I keep a few dedicated to the kitchen and for the rest, I have a ragbag with cut up old sheets and t-shirts that can be used for anything. And thrown out if they come into contact with anything too disgusting.


Ok, so see how much you can trim off your grocery budget by ditching the paper products. Off you go!

Gee, where to start?

There seems so much to this topic, I'm not sure where to begin. What got me on to the green and thrifty train? Well, after having my second baby, I got interested in modern cloth nappies, or cloth diapers as they are called in some parts. Everything went from there and I discovered that often, what is the thrifty or frugal option, is also the green option.
At the same time, I was looking for ways to make money from home, as I wasn't sure how mum working outside the home would go for us, with the two kids. As it turns out, it didn't work out particularly well, so I am certainly glad of all the research I have already done.

These are some areas where I've found it's easy to save money: Kids - toys, clothes, activities. The kitchen - cooking and grocery shopping. The laundry. House cleaning. Gift giving. The utility bills.

And ways to make money from home? The internet has opportunities, you just need to be aware of scams and the like.


Lets start with kids - Baby and kids market
Kids can be expensive, but they certainly don't need to be. Especially when they're younger....mine are 1 and 4, so beyond that will be a work in progress. Something I discovered that has helped me hugely in the cost of clothing my kids is baby and kids markets. These are held Australia wide and are jam packed with other parents trying to get rid of their children's outgrown and unneeded clothes, toys and equipment. $3 to get in, bring plenty of small change, bring your own cloth bag to stash your purchases in and try and leave the pram and kids at home.

If you're not close to any of these markets, what second hand avenues do you have available to you? Thrift stores, goodwill store, op shop, St Vinnies....get my drift? Consignment stores? Garage or yard sales? Ebay? Oztion? Craigslist? Another type of baby and kids market in my area is held several times a year at a local primary school, run by a Neighbourhood House.
It is really easy to get good quality, sometimes barely used, second hand kids clothes and equipment in this fashion.


And don't forget babies
My husband and I were lucky enough to be on the receiving end of a good friend divesting themselves of everything baby just when we needed it. That was a huge money saver, but if you are not that fortunate, the above sources mentioned are just perfect places to pick up baby gear too.
Oh, and don't forget the possibility of cloth nappies/cloth diapers. An upfront cost, but ultimately, good for your pocket, good for the environment and good for baby.
More on that topic coming up....