Trying to spend less on food.

I have for a long time always planned a menu for 2 weeks and went shopping with a shopping list. I would put together the menu going by what was on special at the supermarkets. We have 4 supermarkets here all in the path of me driving into town and home again, so i don't have to make any special trips from store to store. We have Aldi and Coles in the same shopping center and on the way home i pass Foodworks and IGA.
Most of the food shopping is done at Aldi which is where i go first and then onto Coles. If the other 2 supermarkets have anything that catches my eye i also stop at them on the way home.
Last Tuesday when putting together the menu plan i challenged my self to shop for the month instead of every 2 weeks. I know that i will be having to pick up fresh fruit and veg and a few forgotten things in between shopping trips, but it will teach me what to buy more of, as monthly shopping is all new to me.

Firstly when it came to planning the new menu i put together a printable menu plan for the 4 weeks, which mine starts on the Wednesday. I did the menu plan in grid form with 7 days across and 4 rows long with each day of the week falling on top of the same day. I then put together a master shopping list using excel and put everything down on the list that we buy as a regular purchase, this will need some tweaking as i did forget a few items but as i remember them i have been updating the list.
I then went "shopping" in my own freezer and wrote down all of the meats i had in there to use as meals. I also went through the pantry to see what was there to use up and to also check what was needing to be replenished. I then sat down with my new printed menu and filled in all the meals. It was not has hard as i expected and with each day of the week on the chart being on top of the same weekday i was able to be sure i was not repeating the same meals to often. For example each Thursday is pasta night but each pasta dish is different to the week before. I had also put together a list of meal ideas in the past which i referred to when putting the menu together so to avoid mental blanks. We also have a takeaway night once a fortnight which is on Saturdays to give me a break from cooking.

So on Tuesday afternoon with shopping list and menu on my clip board i headed off to the supermarket. My normal fortnight shopping budget was around $250 which feeds 6 adults/teenagers and my 4 pet birds, chickens, ducks and 2 dogs, plus a top up in the second week of around $50 or so.

This is how it all went.

So far i have only been to Aldi and Coles, but i do have a couple of non-urgent things still left on the shopping list that i will pick up at the other 2 supermarkets in the next few days.
This is my shopping tally so far:
Aldi  $141.05
Coles $62.15

I am pretty happy with that. I did have a good amount of meat in the freezer as i had a couple of kilos of mince, 3 trays of sausage meat and 20 chicken breasts from a recent visit to a discount butchers called Tasmin Meats, which had cost me all up a total of $34.64
So the running total so far for all the shopping that i have done is for the month is $240.14 which is around the amount spent of a fortnights shop not adding in the top-up i would do in week 2.

I will keep updating and add in any further spending including the takeaway meals as i go until we see the final tally at the end of the 4 weeks.
Wish me luck! :)

Home Made Bread Machine Bread Mix

I make my on bread daily and to save me time each morning i make up my own bread mix ahead of time.
My bread mix is then stored in zip bags which i re-use for next time.
I have put a lot of trial and error into my bread mix and have now got to the point that i am happy to share it with you.

This is what i put into the mix.
4 Cups of cheap plain flour, i use 1 cup of wholemeal flour and 3 cups of white. You can use any plain flour you choose.
1 teasp of sugar
1 1/2 teasp of salt.
1 teasp of bread improver, available at the supermarket near the flour and yeast.
put these dry ingredients into the bag and store in the pantry
To make the bread mix up.
Put all dry ingredients into the bread machine and add:
1 tbsp of oil
2 teasp of dry yeast
1 3/4 cups of water at room temp.
During the mixing process just check that the ingredients have combined and that the dough is not to dry. It should have formed a nice looking ball that is not to sticky to the touch, If you find it a bit dry add a little more water, if its to sticky add a little more flour. Be sure to add these extras while the mixing process is still going.

Start your machine on either the dough setting to the full settings to make the loaf in the machine from start to finish.
I only make the dough in the bread machine so i can shape it my self into loaves or rolls. If you using the machine for dough the process will take aprox 1.5 hours, after the cycle has finished remove the dough and make loaves etc.
Let it rise again in a warm place until it doubles in size and bake in a moderate oven until golden brown.

A handy frugal hint...... homemade cake mix.

I thought i would share a handy and frugal hint today.

Make your own cake, cookie or bread mix and always have it on hand for when your short of time and need to bake something in a hurry.

Simply measure all your dry ingredients of your favorite cake, cookie or bread recipe etc and put them into a ziplock bags in the pantry and you will always have these mixes on hand. Saves buying expensive cake, cookie and bread mixes. With your homemade mix you will know what exactly has going into it too. No added preservatives and other nasty additives and with a basic mix they will end up being a lot cheaper too. To make them up just add the required wet ingredients and there you go.

I will share with you a basic cake mix recipe and explain how to use it.

Basic vanilla cake mix.
Dry ingredients:

2 cups sr flour
2/3 cup sugar

add these to a bag or container if your prefer.

Wet ingredients:

125g melted butter
2 large egg
1tsp vanilla
3/4 cup of milk.

To make the cake: simply combine all wet ingredients and add them to the dry mix and combine them well. Then just put it all into your greased cake tin or muffin pans and bake. You can also add other goodies to the dry mix if you like such as chocolate chips, sultanas or even some 2 tablespoons cocoa to make it chocolate (you may need to add a little more milk if you do).

If you have a favorite cookie or bread recipe that you make at home often, try making it into a dry mix to also keep in the pantry. If you come across a recipe that asks you to cream the butter and sugar together don't worry, just melt the butter into the wet ingredients when you make it and it will work out just fine.

Your only limited by your imagination when it comes to making up mixes for later use.

Please note: if your making bread mix do not add the yeast into it until your ready to use it. Yeast must be stored in the fridge.

Water tank update, vege garden and my ducks

Well it has been a while since my last blog but i have some exciting news. My water tank has been set up.

It will hold a 1000 LTRS of water when full. It does have some water in it now as you can see in the photo its a little dirty, but its only for the garden. In the future I will also be using it to fill the bath for my 2 ducks Mickey & Molly.

Molly in the front has a deformed beak, its called cross beak but it doesn't effect him at all he manages to gobble down his food without a problem. They are both grown up now and Mickey started laying eggs for me on Feb 1st. They are both Indian Runner Ducks and Molly is a crested, hence the tuft of top of his head. I will try to get more pics of them soon and do a blog about them in the future.

Going Green

Last Tuesday was very exciting for me as my solar power was installed. I purchased a 1.56kw inverter with 8 panels. At this stage of our life with 6 of us living under this roof this should generate on average about 1/4 of our daily power. Later in the year we will be down to 4 of us so then im sure our power usage will do down a lot more. I had a call today from the power company letting me know that the inspector had been out and had sent in the paper work for my solar system. The next step is that they have to send someone out to program my meter to be able to feed my power back into the grid. They also told me it could take a max of up to 40 business days to have this done. Its a long time to wait and i hope it doesn't take that long but im sure it will be worth waiting for.

My next venture in being more green to  have my water tank set up to the down pipe so i have have free water for my vege garden. Its in the process and will be done in the next few weeks.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog.
What i am going to aim to put into this blog, is a little about everything i do within my business and home life, including my new love of frugal living, growing, cooking, preserving and making do. I will also share some of my money saving tips with you as well as my favorite recipes. I am also a mother to 3 great kids and being able to work from home is a benefit to us all. We live in country Victoria in a very productive town called Bacchus Marsh which is know for producing lots of  types of fruits and well as many vegetable market gardens. I also grow our own veges, fruit and have my own chickens and ducks.

This blog will give everyone a chance get to know the real person behind my business The Rose Garden Boutique.
I first started selling online in March 2001 when i was first introduced to eBay by a lady that I had got to know over the internet from the US and its all grown from there. The Rose Garden Boutique has been operating as a full online business for just over 3 years and boy has it grown quickly from there. Prior to the internet I did a lot of work for Panda yarns working with designers to make their prototype designs and also making items to be photographed for their pattern books. I also made designer hats for a wool mill to be sold in the mills store, this i did when my children were babies.
I had first started the online business with the reborn doll market in mind, making clothing to fit these special dolls. In 2010 I started making hats again and found that there was a market for the hats to be for not only  dolls and babies but also for photographers as props. I then moved away from the dolls side of it and now work only with the babies and children accessories market and photo props.
I opened my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/therosegardenboutique late in 2010 and since have over 700 followers on my page, which has been a valuable tool to have promote my business and skills.


So i hope this has given you a bit of an in site into my world, skills and the beginning of The Rose Garden Boutique.