Feather your Nest Friday, 12 June 2015.

We had a short week as Monday was a public holiday for the Queen's Birthday. I always run short of time and Friday comes around so fast! But still it was a good week and we used the long weekend well.

There are always plenty of things to do on weekends. Some rest and relaxation and some doing things like gardening and jobs around the place. On Monday Andy built me a shelf for all my new jars. They are so nice I had the idea that displaying them would be lovely. On the reverse side of the kitchen island there is a ledge but nothing underneath that space. This has now become a shelf for a row of big jars. It looks great and Andy used all wood that was left over from our kitchen counter tops. So now I have a really long shelf and eleven giant jars on it already. There is room for ten more. So I am officially saving these jars! It was Mum's friend who gave them to me. I am hoping she will keep saving them and I will get ten more over the next few months. Now to make nice labels for them...

So that was our first savings this week as neither the jars or the shelf cost a cent yet produced a great amount of storage space for dry goods such as beans, pasta, rice etc.

Other ways we saved money include:

I made a giant slab of Winter Sunshine Cake because oranges were on a big special. This is so lovely. I made a baby cake for Chloe and put a rose from the garden on top and sent it around to her. She loved it!

The recipe for this cake is here.

I made baked apples in the crock pot. They were so good, rich and delicious.

Also made two huge baking trays of lasagne. We ate some for dinner that night then I let it all go cold and the next day sliced it up. It slices up so easily and neatly when cold.

I cut it into good sized serving sizes, wrap each one and bag these up. They go into the freezer for emergency easy meals. Doing it this way I got 14 single serves all up. This freezes and re heats so well it's wonderful. In busy times or sickness I bless the days I do things like this.

Made two batches of soup.
Mended a tiny hole in Andy's good jumper.
Made all the work lunches, all dinners and fed others too.
Froze stock I had made for more soup.
Found some good fruit and vegetable specials.
Used my health insurance to get new glasses.
Used Medicare to have total check on my eyes. This is free annually which is a great thing.
Dried all the washing in the sun, including sheets today as rain is coming!

I built up our home by adding to my pantry supplies, filling my jars, the shelf Andy built, the smell of lots of cooking and warm meals on cold nights! My trip to the wholesalers helped me add to my dry goods supplies and for very little money. That was a really worthwhile and fun thing to do. Sometimes just finding a new place that will help us save money in the future is a big thing that helps us build up our home. It's like learning a new skill... the potential savings might be huge. There are always new ways of doing things that we can add or learn!

How did you save money and build up your home this week? It is amazing how many things we do over a week! Overall I think a lot of little savings add up more than a couple of big ones. All the little things we do amount to great efforts.

I hope you had a good week! We are almost mid year! Can you believe that?
On Monday I have lots to add to the crock pot series. The crock pot has been on almost every day! xxx