Showing posts with label budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budget. Show all posts

07 May 2012

Feed me for a fortnight

Since I put the challenge out to my friend Jane to use up her pantry stock I thought I would challenge myself too.
This fortnight I am going to try and live from the pantry and freezer.  Other than buying fresh fruit/veg and bread I will not live on pasta and tuna plan with what ingredients I have.  I have ordered half a lamb that will be delivered in a couple of weeks so I do need to create some more space in the freezer for it and this is the ideal way to refresh supplies and use up older meals and meat we have.

So I will start planning and share the next fortnight plan with you as usual.


06 May 2012

Those awesome cookie pinatas

A friend pinned these and as soon as I saw them I was in love.  They are so colourful and fun and I figured they would make a unique party bag filler.   I got the tutorial from here but I despite having close to 40 cookie cutter ( yes I know) I didn't have a donkey so settled for a large heart.
I didn't use the recipe on the above site but did follow the construction pretty much as they did it.
The recipe I prefer is from allrecipes and I have found over the time that using a cheap plain flour works best (not a strong flour!) and stick the dough in the fridge!!
You will find you want to just get on with it but it will hold together much better when it is really cold.  I cut my slices into one inch thickness then in half and rolled them until I could fit the heart cutter on them.
Don't try and cut before baking or they will bake to different sizes and not match up when it comes to putting the pinata together.
With the left over dough I cut out the star cookies.

Have fun, these are really easy just a bit time consuming.













05 May 2012

Budget birthday bash

Five days before Nienna's eight birthday she asked if she could have a party, despite it being off party year and off pay week.  Since it was due to the fact that she has made two new friends through Girl Guides I gave in and agreed we could do a small afternoon tea.
We had already invited her best friend for the day so we ended up with a total of four girls and set the day for today.  It was a raging success and due to being dead broke economically challenged this week I think I did pretty well.  All up I spent $25.  This does not include the value of materials/food I had in the house, just the cost of extras I had to buy.

As a rule I always steer clear of those plastic gift bags and fillers for parties.  They are ugly, plastic, expensive, plastic and well I think you get the idea.  I like to use either paper bags decorated or similar.  Due to pinterest I have been finding lots of nifty things and particularly liked the idea of the newspaper carry bag.  I found this linked tutorial and had a go.  I think they came up really well.


Next were the fillers. I made some little flower brooches using scrap yarn and the i-cord method, added a choc frog, a small bead bracelet I got at the CWA market for $1 and a sugar cookie pinata.
More than enough for take home.  They also had a pen/pad gift from the pass the parcel game.




As we had done birthday cake twice already for the week I went with cupcakes and first party activity was for the girls to decorate them.  They loved it and it saved me a job!



I set the table up all fancy, with water glasses, wine glasses with frozen strawberries for the sugar free fizz and my nanna's table linen.                              
                                                                   High tea for four!



fairy bread pinwheels, marbled sugar cookies (left over from pinata dough), nutella sangers, deep dish cookie pie, mini scones, fruit plate and mini sausage rolls.


20 October 2009

Debt free, cashed up and hopefully laughing


I have joined this site. I bought the book a few weeks ago and devoured it (well not literally) and finally got around to joining tonight. Thoroughly recommend it, there are heaps of resources behind the door! I am taking a pay cut as I have reduced my hours by 2hrs per day. I want to continue to save $600 a month so I am looking at better ways to utilise my money as I know I am shocking and waste soooooo much. I will keep you posted on how I am going.