Feather your nest Friday, 28 July, 2017.

The weeks go too fast! Or maybe there are just not enough days in a week?  I am glad to take a moment to look back and appreciate things or else it is likely to go by in a blur!

This week I had a shopping day and continued on my "further afield" experiment.  I went south again to where my friend lives and had a lovely lunch with Hilde.  So it was a combined day of op shopping (thrift stores) grocery shopping and social.  It was so much fun!  I went back to the shops that I saved so much at last time.  And Hilde took me to her supermarket and her butcher.   From this trip I found two more places to go and I am thinking of doing this trip once a month.
I took a lot of notes and found one place that has bulk meat is about half the price overall even compared to Aldi.  Since Aldi meat is much cheaper than the main supermarkets here this is a big savings.  
This all has really proven that where I live supermarkets are the expensive way to shop!  I never would have dreamed this would be the case!

We also went op shopping!   I got two sets of cups, saucers and plates with roses!  They are Queen Anne and a series called American Beauty!  I couldn't believe my luck!

I paid $5 each set. 

This alone made my day!  Except my day was made over and over!

I also found three huge jars.  I paid $3 each for these.

Two  of these are quite old and are french...

There is only one thing better than jars!  Vintage jars! So happy with these!

Hilde gave me more lemons!  I stopped her at one bagful as I still have lemons from the trip before!

I came home with a lot of fruit and vegetables for the week.  I am making soup, baby food and of course just using veggies in our usual meals.

I also found a beautiful book of birds for my card making. It has over 100 pictures that are quite large...

My next card making session will be bird themed.  I was really thrilled with this find.

I got two more hair colours for 99c each! 

During the week I cooked a tray of chicken drumsticks as they were on special and Andy had these for lunches.

I made a double batch of spaghetti sauce and some of this is for meals, some to give the girls for the weekend and some to freeze.

I cut parsley and oregano from the garden to go with this too.  

Chloe has been up from the farm.  She came to dinner and I am sending her home tomorrow with two lots of spaghetti sauce,  focaccia breads (they are rising now) and a lemon cake. 

Mum sent me lavender from the farm...

This went on the table for dinner and I am using one of my rose tablecloths I made from the sheets I had found.  (You can see in some of the above photos)  I love these tablecloths!

I made yoghurt.  It is years since I did this. I followed Cath's recipe MOO Yoghurt.  This is so so easy.  I am going to do this a couple of times a week now.  It gives you a lot of savings as you can use this in place of sour cream on potatoes and in enchiladas etc if you leave it plain.   A lot of my cake recipes use yoghurt.  The cake I am making this afternoon (Yoghurt lemon cake) will use up two cups as I will make two cakes. I never make one cake!  

I made the first lot plain. Over the weekend I am going to try my favourite which is vanilla bean.  I should mention... I didn't yet have a large thermos.  So I used a jar and placed it in my small crockpot.  I only ran the crockpot twice for a short time. I wrapped a towel around it to keep the heat in, turned it off and left it all day.  It worked just fine!  I started it off with boiling water as well and poured the water 3/4 the way up the jar.  I also had a lid on my jar.  So I will just keep doing it this way. 

Last week I got a $70 Coles voucher in the mail.  Mainly I earned that using these coupons and I had a new set for the next few months.

I sat and cut them out and put them in my diary according to the weeks and dates. Then I remember to use them each week.   

I also used my $70 voucher.  I got everything on special including a hair conditioner I like which was on a clearance for 75c each (usually almost $5) so I slightly more than doubled my money and had over $140 of goods for my pantry.  Free!  I also got rice, tinned fruit, coffee, tea, powdered milk and heaps more. 

Chloe also gave me some essential oils. I am trying to learn more about how to use them and last night I used the lavender blend and slept like a log! 

I made a few cards and packaged up some more gift tags to give as gifts.

For my Vicky Challenge I wrote in $601.  Being the end of the month it included doing my own hair. 

So it was a good week!  

How did you build up your home, save and get ahead?  I hope it was a really good week for you. 

I am off to make cakes, use some lemons and deliver food!  

Andy is flat out working and will be all weekend. So I will get on with cooking, present making etc.  I rang the insurance company as I am tired of waiting.... they say we have two more weeks or so and hopefully we will have the money to put down new floors. I will be glad of that! xxx