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?

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!

How to run a thrifty freezer

If you are looking at purchasing a deep freeze, you may be worried about the potential increase in your power bill.

I was lucky enough to be given a chest freezer for my birthday a couple of years ago by my in-laws. An odd gift you might think, but a real godsend for a thrifty mama. My in-laws know me well :)

We have not noticed any appreciable increase in our power bill but we don't actually track it down to the last cent as it is fairly low normally. Our cooking, heating and water are on gas so that helps keep the power bill down. The gas bill in winter, on the other hand, needs closer attention. Oh, the bliss of a long, hot shower during a cold Melbourne winter!

Anyway, you want to make your freezer run as efficiently as possible.

The way to do that is to keep it full.

If it's not full of food, fill up some large plastic bottles with water and store them in the freezer too. As well as helping it run efficiently, the giant iceblocks help keep things cold if there is a black out and your power is off for any length of time.

Ice, ice baby...da da da da da daa da....ice, ice baby...

Ok, I'm oooolllldddd!.....and so are you if you now have this tune running through your head heheh...

Bake from scratch - yet another frugal kitchen tip

When you're in the grocery store, a great way to save some $$ is to avoid the biscuit/cookie/cracker aisle. Apart from the fact that most of the products in there will have colours, flavours and preservatives on their ingredient list...and do you really want your kids/significant other/yourself eating that... it is also costing you money. And the packaging is doing nothing for the environment either. My suggestion - get baking.



It will save you some cash and hopefully do your health just a little bit of good too. Buy large bags of the basic ingredients - flour, white sugar, brown sugar, rolled oats, baking soda. Make your own baking powder as needed, buy large blocks of butter, stock up on things like chocolate chips when they're on sale. Buy generic brand items.

If you have a freezer, and most of us do, make a double portion of cookie dough and freeze half. I try to do my baking over a couple of days every few weeks. I'll make Anzac biscuits, choc chip cookies, maybe ginger bread cookies in various shapes, cheesy crackers and banana muffins.



Those are the staples in our house and they all freeze well post baking stage, and most of them pre-baking stage also.

It can take a while to get into the swing of baking your own snacks, but it's well worth the time and effort. I'll put up a few of my own basic recipes over the next week or so to give you somewhere to start.

Your budget, and your health will thank you for it!

Make your own baking powder - another frugal kitchen tip

Baking powder is an important ingredient in many cakes, cookies, and other baked products. Have you ever run out at that crucial moment? Well, did you know you can make your own baking powder? Apart from the rumor that commercial baking powder has some form of aluminium in it, being able to make your own means you have it on hand whenever you need it and, you know what's in it.


Baking Powder

2 teaspoons of cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda

Mix and use immediately.



If you want to store it, add a teaspoon of corn starch/cornflour and mix well. This absorbs moisture and stops it reacting before you need it to. (I have never tried storing it, but this is the advice I was given)

These ingredients are available in the supermarket by the baking products. Easy!

Run out of eggs? - a frugal kitchen tip

Just something while I think of it......

Have you ever started baking, then realised you have run out of eggs, and your recipe calls for at least a couple of them? Well I discovered, by being in this exact situation, that pureed fruit can actually be substituted for egg. I've done it a couple of times, once in muffins; I needed two eggs so instead put in about a two-egg-amount of pureed mixed fruits. And again recently in choc chip cookies; I was making a double batch and needed four eggs, whoops, should have checked first. I only had two, so put in an equal amount of pureed peaches. Can't tell the difference. Both mixtures held together well and there was no taste difference in the end result.

Keep this in mind if you're in the kitchen a lot, saves you having to do an emergency run to the store. It's saved me a few times!