The Vicky Challenge, Week 3.

This week I was walking past my local grocery store that sells a lot of homemade meals such as pies, individual serves of lasagne or whole trays, pavlovas, cakes, biscuits etc. It is all lovely and sells like hot cakes. You have to place orders to ensure you can pick up most things. So I went and noted some prices. Interesting! Very interesting!

I also did this in a gourmet cheese shop/deil near us. They have "hand crafted" jams, chutneys etc. so I noted the price of those too. Basically it all costs a fortune! I am going to gather a bit more information and do a post on this. I would say most of us way underestimate what we just saved when we bake a birthday cake, a quiche or whatever it is we just made!

It is really interesting to note these things and an eye opener. I remember last year Chloe and I saw hand knitted scarves in a boutique and they were almost $300! We both fired up on knitting scarves after that!

Looking in the shops gives me so many ideas ... what to make, presentation ideas, what is popular and "in fashion" and the apparent retail value. For both gift making and saving money all this is helpful.

So this last week my savings for The Vicky Challenge include:

We picked about 5 more kilos of peaches = $17.50

I made a double sized Use it up Fruit Cake to use some of the last peaches.

We used some for desert, it went in a packed picnic and I froze over twenty portions for lunch boxes. I am counting $20 for this.

I froze eight Peach Crumbles and we ate one.

Given one small crumble in the supermarket is $8 I am going to say this is worth $60.

Also I froze eight batches of stewed peaches. 

One of these will act as a cold pack in the eski when we go on holidays and also be a desert to take. 

If these were canned they would cost me about $30.

I gave myself two hair conditioning treatments. Summer got to my hair it seems! These are $30 each locally so I am counting $60.

This week I had purchases at IKEA. We are adding some shelving to the kitchen. Before I left I printed out a voucher I get emailed to me as I joined an IKEA promotion. This saved me $50!

Andy rang the insurance company and queried so increases to our bill. This call took him 15 minutes or so. This saved $246. Good money for 15 minutes! I notice most of these kinds of calls pay off. They are just painful to make but usually they are big money savers!

I packed the fishing trip picnic including ham and salad rolls, the cake and other goodies. I count $50 each time I sent them a days worth of food and treats.

Also I packed all work lunches for the week and that is $100 saving.

And I did some more painting. Not a whole room or anything but doors, door frames and some skirting boards... I will count $100. (Also it is looking really nice and fresh!)

So actually the week is better than I thought! That is funny as even though I wrote most of this down I thought it was a bit boring. But now I look at it and think it was a pretty good week and it added up to $731..50. That is way more than I thought. Actually each week has been way more than I would have guess if you had asked me last year.

I haven't counted cleaning, using house water on the garden (too hard to calculate) and many other usual things we just do!

I did spend a fair bit of time in the kitchen and every evening peeled and chopped peaches. But it is worth it. I have a lot of food put away and I got some more painting done!

And I still have about twenty fresh peaches in the fridge. 

Next week we will be into February! We can tally up our first months savings! mmm the mere thought of this makes me want to make this week a good one! Maybe I will do a lot of painting!? 

How did your week go? I hope you are amazed at the savings and encouraged to see them. Proverbs says that the wise woman looks "well to the ways of her household" and other translations says "she carefully watches everything in her household and suffers nothing from laziness".  This is similar to the verses about building up your home. Both mean all kinds of things from atmosphere to meals on the table but how we spend our money and how far we make it go are all part of it. You are looking well to the ways of your household when you consider your savings and efforts! 

Have a great week! See you on Wednesday for the Christmas Challenge and start getting photos ready! xxx