Penny Pinching Sunday

Family Budget

A budget can be a hard thing to stick to and when you add more people to your family the expenses list gets even bigger. 

About a year ago my Husband and I were getting so sick of living week to week. Our savings account was decreasing while our debt was increasing.  One night while I was blubbering away like a baby my Other Half suggested we look at our budget again. So that night we put the little Monkey to bed a little earlier, cracked out a bottle of wine and sat down to have a look over the budget. Needless to say I did not like what I saw. 

First thing we noticed was that my budgeting skills were shocking!  In fact shocking is an understatement.  I had absolutely no budgeting skills and my Hubby was no better.  My budget plan was "worry about the bill when it gets here", and that was definitely getting us no where and it was not a good way to support a family on a single income.

So we got out a piece of paper and wrote down the amount of all our bills and then worked out how much they would cost weekly.  So obvious right?  Well apparently not to us :-D

What I found very helpful was the direct payment function on internet banking.  As far as I know most banks offer this option.  Once I set that up to pay all my bills for me and transfer the weekly bill fund installments into a separate account I didn't have to worry about a thing. And it goes to say that I don't have any blubbering nights anymore... Well not about money anyway :-p

This is the table that I made up so that I could track all our money. Having it all written down helps you figure out how much left over you have and makes it easier to see were you can cut down your expenses.   I have adjusted it a little to make it more versatile. Feel free to right click on it and 'save as' for personal use.

Tiffany.

French Toast in a Mug

Well its another rainy almost winter day here and once again I have a crazy toddler running around the house.   So today is a day I whip out another one of my 'fun things to do when your toddler is driving you crazy' activities. I found today's activity a few months ago on this fantastic blog and we all fell in love with it.

French Toast in a Mug

All you need for this recipe is:

2 mugs
2 slices of bread, cubed
1 egg
3 tablespoons of milk
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of sugar
A small dash of vanilla
2 small cubes of butter

All those ingredient are stables in our fridge and pantry so this gets eaten a fair bit.  It is such a lovely treat on a cold night.

Place a butter cube in each mug and zap in the microwave till it is melted. Once melted give it a good swish around the mug.  Place half of the bread cubes in each mug.  The bread can be anything that you have on hand.  I had just made some dinner rolls and a few of them were a little browner then I would like so I used them for this.

Crack the egg in a bowl and mix it together with the milk,sugar,cinnamon and vanilla.  Push the bread down with the back of a spoon so that it soaks up as much of the egg mixture as possible.

 Zap 1 mug at a time in the microwave for 1 minute. Then in 10 second bursts till there is no more runny egg. 

Give it a drizzle of honey and dig in.

So easy and SO yummy.    It is a huge hit with the little Monkey.

Sunday Penny Pinching Ideas - Haggle Those Bills

This week my Sunday Penny Pinching post has turned into a Monday Penny Pinching Post thanks to my sick little Monkey, Poor little fella.  So I will have to double the awesomeness of this post and show you how to save some serious money.

Haggle Those Bills

We all know that you can shave some pretty serious cash off of those pesky bills by cutting down the electricity used and those phone calls, but did you know that you might be able to haggle a better deal?

About a year ago know we got our electricity bill in the mail and you will never guess how much that bill was... $1100!!   Yup, I nearly had a heart attack when I read it and I could not understand how it had gotten that high.  I picked up the bill and had a look at the rate we were paying and then looked around and realised that it was a little bit higher then most other electrical providers.
 Next I called another provider and told them the rate I was paying and asked if they would offer me a better rate.  And they agreed to better the rate.  I then called the provider I was with and let them know that I would be changing my provider. When they asked why I told them the rate I was offered and you wont believe it, they bettered that rate.  I was in shock but the thought occurred to me that if it worked with them it might work with the others, and sure enough it did.

Well that went on for another few calls and I ended up with a great rate and if I paid my bill on time I would get 15% off my bill.

That (and some electricity saving) lovely people is how I brought the $1100 per quarter bill down to $300 per quarter.  Huge saving!!

I have since gone on to do the same thing with my credit card with the fees as well.

So give them a call, all they can say is no and you may make some huge savings yourself.  Think of all the new clothes you could buy with that extra money or (more sensibility but not nearly as fun) all the savings.

Happy saving.

Tiffany.

Butter in a Jar

Today I have a fun activity for the kids, even mummy and daddy will like this one :-)

I hate wet weather days (although it is good for the garden), my 2 year old is an out door fella. So when it is raining outside all hell breaks loose inside. I am always on the look out for some fun activities that we can do together and if he learns something in the process that is even better. Usually we stick to cooking. He is my little Junior Master chef in the making.

(My Monkeys first attempt at bread rolls, proud mummy moment!)

The other day I was doing  a little bit of web surfing for activities and recipes to add to my list and I found this wonderful activity on this site.  It has some great ideas, I have grabbed a lot of ideas from it.

Butter in a Jar

All you need for this activity is:

- Cream (thick cream not light)

- A jar with a lid

First make sure that you sterilise the jar well. I just pour boiling water into the jar. If you put a metal spoon in the jar first it will take a lot of the heat shock so the jar wont break. Leave that for a few minutes to do its thing and get the cream out of the fridge.

 Once the jar has been sitting for a few minutes pour the water out and give it a good dry with some paper towel. Half fill the jar with cream and screw that lid on tight.  Hand it over to your little monkey and tell them to shake away!   Seriously, that is all you do to get butter from the cream. So simple and fun.

 It took me about 7 minutes of shaking to get the butter but expect it to take a bit longer for your little monkey, and they might need a little help.   

 Shake, Shake, Shake

You will hear when it starts to change. The cream slosh sound will stop and when you open up the lid you will have whipped cream at this stage. Keep going. It will feel like nothing is happening and then all of a sudden you will hear that slosh again and the cream will become lumpy. Give it a good last few shakes and you will  have a lump of butter sloshing around in buttermilk. 

Pour out the buttermilk and place the butter in a bowl. Pour over cold water and give it a little massage until the water runs clean. You don't want any buttermilk in the butter or it will go off very quickly.   

 And what do you do with the buttermilk?  Make pancakes of course!  Here is our yummy pancake recipe.

1/4 cup castor sugar

1/4 teaspoon of baking soda

1 cup self raising flour

1 1/4 cup of buttermilk

1 egg

Mix it all together making sure there are no lumps then cook in a fry pan on a low heat.  We love to add blueberries, mashed banana (little mans favorite) or chocolate chips.  They are the fluffiest pancakes ever!

So on the next rainy day ( or any day :-p ) grab some cream and a jar and make yourself some butter and pancakes. So much fun!

 Yum yum

What is the favourite rainy day activity in your house? 

Tiffany.

Penny Pinching Sunday

Homemade Bread

On my last post, Penny Pinching Sunday - saving at a grocery store, I wrote about saving money by making some of the staple items yourself.  One of my favorite things to make is bread. It tastes so much better then store bought and there is something very therapeutic about kneading out that dough. 

Of course you can get a bread maker and do it that way, but if you don't want to go out and buy a new bread maker this is definitely the way to go. 

I have tried tonnes of bread recipes and this one is by far my favorite. It makes a very fluffy bread that never last very long in my house.  I found the recipe, along with many other fantastic recipes, on this fantastic blog.

High Rising Sandwich Bread

Ingredients

3 cups of all purpose flour

2 tablespoons of sugar

1/4 cups powdered milk

2 teaspoons instant yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons butter

1 cups hot but not boiling water (roughly)

1 large egg

Combine flour, sugar, powdered milk, instant yeast, salt, egg and butter in a large bowl. Add the water and mix until it is a rough (shaggy) mix. ( See that egg in there? That is an egg from my own back yard! Big thanks to these lovely chickens )

 Rest it for half and hour.

Place the dough onto a lightly floured bench and start kneading.  I took some pictured of the dough during the kneading process so you can see how it changes.  You are looking for a very soft and elastic dough ball. 

After about 4 minutes.

Almost there (about 7 minutes).

And your done!  Its now smooth to touch and when you pull it a little you can see it spring back.

Place the dough in a clean and lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise until doubled in size (roughly 1 1/2 hours).

  

Temperate does play a big part in how long it takes to rise.  My house gets very cold so I like to start pre-heating the oven to 180 degrees Celsius now and place the bowl on top of the stove to rise.

Once it has risen place the dough onto a lightly floured bench and punch the dough down. 

Shape into a rectangle the same length as your bread pan then roll it up and place it in.

Place some more cling wrap over the pan.

 Only place the cling wrap over very lightly, if it is to tight it will stop the bread rising above the pan.  Place the pan back on top of the stove to rise until it has risen roughly 1-2 inches above the rim of the pan.

I had to use my larger bread pan with the pictures, so it doesn't rise above the pan in the photos.  Usually I will use my smaller size for this recipe but my toddler decided that was the perfect pan to make his play dough bread in (ha ha). 

Once it has finished rising place it in the pre heated oven and bake for 35-45 minutes.  You will know when it is done when you tap the bottom on the bread and it sounds hollow. 

And voila!  You have just made your own bread.  Know all you have to do is slice that end crust off, lather it in butter and enjoy!

I like to double that recipe and make two at a time. That way you always have one in the freezer to go.

How simple was that!  

Tiffany. 

Penny Pinching Sunday

Sunday is my new Penny Pinching day. So every Sunday I will post an idea, tips or even recipes on ways to Pinch those Pennies. 


My first Penny Pinching post is about the dreaded Supermarket.


I know as much as the next person that sticking to a budget at the grocery store can be very difficult.
Walking past all the specials and yummy food can be very tempting to stick in your trolley, especially when they are 'only $2'. But after the whole shop is done and your putting your groceries up on the conveyor belt and all your 'its only $2' shops start to add up do you realise that its not really 'only $2'.

A few months ago I was talking to my mum trying very hard to find out what I was doing wrong.  The amount of money going out far out weighed the amount that was coming in and we were far heading into trouble.  She asked me how much our bills were. All seemed fine there apart from out far to expensive car insurance.  So she asked how much I spent on food a week, my answer was any where from $250 to $300.  She nearly had a heart attack.  That's when I realised that not every one spent as much as we did on food.  So I was on a mission to bring down that amount by half.

And can you believe it, I did it!   I now spent roughly $100 a week on food, including baby formula, to feed a family of 4.


Here are some of the ways I learnt along the way to get and keep that amount down.

1. Never shop when your hungry.  It always pays to have something to eat at home before you go. It is a lot more easy to resist the yummy food when you have a full belly.

2. Make a shopping list.

3. Do a stock take of all the food in the house. You will be amazed at what is hiding at the back of your freezer or pantry and what meals you can make from it.

4. Shop for the sales. Grab all the Supermarket catalogue and have a look for the good sales. If you have a look in the Woolworths catalogue and they have chicken breasts for $6 a kilo stop in a grab some.

5. Don't over look the cheap grocery stores like Rite price and Aldi.  You can save yourself a fair bit of money by getting some of your things there. Of course be careful about what you buy, Rite price usually sells things that are past there used by date so make sure you give it a good look over. But for things like canned goods the are more then likely fine to eat.

6. Shop in bulk. One of the best investments towards culling the food bill I have made was my chest freezer.  Now when I see that $6 a kilo chicken at Woolworths and I can buy a few kilos and store them in the freezer.

7. Bring a snack for your kids. Grocery shopping can be a tedious task at the best of times and made worse by hungry kids.  When your 2 year old is screaming all over the place because he is seeing all the yummy foods instead of grabbing those crackers off the shelf for him, give him a bag of veggie sticks and cheese from your bag.

8.  Try to keep to one trip to the shops a week. If keep having to duck to the supermarket for more milk you will most likely walk out with more then just 1 litre of milk.  Less trips to the shop means less impulse buys.

9. Try to avoid buying the things you can make yourself cheaper. A few of favourite to make are, Bread, Jam, Yoghurt and treats like biscuits, cakes and muffins.  They will have to dedicate a few posts to those recipes. So simple and so yummy!

10. Reward yourself.  My favourite thing as a child was that all famous reward chart. You know the one, if your room is clean all week you get an ice-cream. It works wonders!  Keep all of your shopping dockets and at the end of the month have a look over them. If you have kept in your budget all month go treat yourself. It is alot easier to stick to the budget it you have something to look forward to. With all the saving I have made the last few months our family treat is an overseas holiday in June!

                                 Check it out!! That is a total cost I am very proud of.

 Tiffany.