Your Cheapskates Club Newsletter 04:17
In this newsletter
1. Cath's Corner
2. In the Tip Store - Enjoy Your Flavoured Coffee on a Budget; Know the Pilot for Cheap Flights; Free Patty Pans
3. You'll Fall in Love with Aldi Workshops - Limited places available
4. Share Your Tips
5. On the Menu - Easiest Ever Lamingtons
6. The $300 a Month Food Challenge with Wendy -
7. Cheapskates Buzz - Cheapskaters are talking in the Forum and on Cath's blog
8. Member's Featured Blog - My Life Trimester begins - Retirement
9. Last Week's Question - I need a solution to smelly pants
10. This Week's Question - How do I shift mould permanently?
11. Ask Cath
12. Join the Cheapskates Club
13. Frequently Asked Questions
14. Contact Details
1. Cath's Corner
Hello Cheapskaters,
Happy Australia Day!
I'm spending the day with my family, enjoying a barbecue lunch (and hopefully leftovers for tea) on this last holiday before we all get back to our regular work routines for 2017.
Enjoy your newsletter, it's full of great ideas to save you money, time and energy again this week.
Happy Cheapskating,
Cath
PS: Love our site? We love referrals! Send a note to your favourite newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV stations, friends and relatives, and tell them about us!
2. From The Tip Store
Enjoy Your Flavoured Coffee on a Budget
My husband loves the instant flavoured coffees but they get quite expensive - the bottles of instant flavoured coffee tell you to use 3 heaped teaspoons per cup - but that makes it a very expensive coffee - we discovered if you add 1 normal sized teaspoon of the flavoured coffee to 1 teaspoon of regular instant coffee you get a lovely full flavoured coffee with the extra flavouring - This stretches the bottle of flavoured instant coffee 300%.
Contributed by Lisa Johnson
Know the Pilot for Cheap Flights
Sign up to "I know the Pilot", they will send you a notification as soon as an airline has sales. There is also an app you can download so you don't miss a flight. Two weeks ago, I bought a flight from Perth to Queensland $49!!!
Contributed by Jessica Dunn
Free Patty Pans
Many of us buy or receive the shortbread or butter biscuits that come in the tin. The biscuits sit in paper patty pans. Keep the patty pans to use for your next batch of cupcakes or even for art and craft activities. At 4 cents per patty pan this is a saving of 80 cents per tin of biscuits.
Contributed by Fiona Holloway
There are currently more than 12,000 great tips in the Tip Store
3. You'll fall in love with aldi workshops
Join me in Perth or Adelaide in February at these very special Cheapskates Workshops where I will share the secrets to getting the very best from Aldi and to slashing thousands of dollars off your grocery budget every year!
I'll be sharing my shopping list, how I shop at Aldi, my favourite Aldi products and the secrets to shopping at Aldi that will slash your grocery budget, leaving more cash in your purse to spend on the things you enjoy.
These three exciting workshops which will take place in store - yes, you'll be learning as you shop and we'll have the store to ourselves!
Workshop 1 - Alid Harrisdale - Sold out!
Workshop 2 - Aldi Mandurah - 6 places left!
Workshop 3 - Aldi West Lakes - 9 places left!
"We learnt lots from the first one...if you live in Adelaide and want to learn to shop better than please attend...it is well worth it." Mumof2
"The SA one was so helpful to me and has saved us a fortune." Annabel Smith
Click here for more information and to book your spot
4. Submit your tip
The Cheapskate's Club website is over 3,000 pages of money saving hints, tips and ideas. Let's get together and make the Cheapskates Club Australia's largest online hint, tip and idea library. Share your favourite money saving, time saving or energy saving hint and be in the running to win a one-year membership to The Cheapskate Club. We publish a Winning Tip each Thursday, so enter your great money, time or energy saving idea now.
Share your favourite hint or tip that saves money, time and energy and be in the running to win a one-year subscription to The Cheapskate Journal.
Remember, you have to be in it to win it!
Submit your tip
5. On the Menu
Easiest Ever Lamingtons
Lamingtons are my favourite cake and you can't get a more Australian cake than the lamington. My problem is that to make them the traditional way takes too long. When I want a lamington I want it now, I don't want to have to make a plain cake, wait a day (because fresh cake doesn't cut or coat nicely), then go through the dipping process.
So this easy cheat on traditional lamingtons is perfect. You can have fresh lamingtons on the table in around 30 minutes, perfect if you have a sudden craving or unexpected visitors (or your kids tell you as they are going to bed that they need to take something to share for a class party the next day).
This recipe relies on a bought sponge. You can buy a double layer plain sponge at the supermarket. I buy the block sponge when it is on markdown and stash it in the freezer until I need to use it.
Having it frozen helps speed up the making process too - frozen cake is easier to cut into squares and the icing sets faster. Of course, you don't need to use the cake frozen, it's just that if it is in the freezer you don't need to thaw it.
Easiest Ever Lamingtons
Ingredients:
1 packet block sponge cake (double layer)
2 cups icing sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
¼ cup milk
¼ cup boiling water
2-½ cups coconut
Method:
Cut the sponge cake into 7cm x 5cm (approximately) rectangles. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a medium bowl. Add the milk and boiling water and stir until smooth. Pour the coconut into a small bowl. Use a fork to individually dip the cakes into the chocolate icing then turn them over. Don't leave them in the icing too long or they'll go soggy - just dip, cover and turn. When covered with icing remove with the fork and place them in the coconut. Turn the cakes over until they are covered in coconut. Place the lamingtons on a cake rack until the icing is set.
Here's an old tip for coating your cakes with the icing. If you have a Tupperware Pick-a-Deli (the beetroot/pickle container) put the icing into the container and then use the strainer to dip the cakes. Just put one on the strainer, lower it into the icing, lift it out, let it drain for a couple of seconds and then tip the cake into the coconut. Saves messing about with forks and getting drips everywhere. There are other similar containers around, if you have one that will hold your icing and your cake use it.
This week we will be eating:
Sunday: Roast Chicken
Monday: Tomato & Onion Quiche, salad
Tuesday: Tortellini in tomato sauce
Wednesday: Butter chicken, rice, naan
Thursday: Australia Day BBQ
Friday: Hamburgers
Saturday: Fish, wedges, salad
In the fruit bowl: Grapes, watermelon
In the cake tin: Fruit mince tarts, banana bread
There are over 1,500 other great money saving meal ideas in the Recipe File.
6. The $300 a Month Food Challenge
How I Write My Shopping List
Do you shop with a list? If you don't you should. Without a list, you don't have a hope of sticking to your grocery budget and getting all the groceries you need at the same time. No matter how good your memory is you will forget to pick up something, forget your best price or be in the middle of baking or cooking and realise you don't have a vital ingredient because you didn't have a list!
I found many years ago that I tended to buy the same grocery items over and over, there was very little change in what I bought. It was a real eye-opener for me, and it was the beginning of my perpetual shopping lists and the beginning of real money savings.
Each month after shopping day I run off a copy and stick it to the pantry door. As things are used up they are circled on the list. When I'm getting ready for shopping day I take the list, do a quick stocktake and add anything else I need to buy. It is a perpetual shopping list.
You may find that you buy different grocery items in summer to those you purchase in winter. I just made two master lists – one for summer, another for winter so I have a summer list and a winter list. My summer list has things like beetroot, pineapple and coleslaw dressing down for every shop. On the winter list, they are down for every second shop. The winter list has soup mix and kidney beans on every list. The soup mix is only on every fourth summer list as we don’t eat much soup in summer.
I love my perpetual shopping lists. Everything I regularly buy is already on the list – I just need to tick the things we need and away I go! No more spending time standing in the kitchen wondering if I’ve forgotten to put anything on the list. And no more getting home, only to realise that I forgot to buy half the things I need for dinner next week.
There are groceries I buy weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly and yearly and the list is broken down into those categories. It sounds complicated but it's not - the sections are just listed in order down the page, with the groceries underneath.
Weekly: usually bought on a Thursday when I take Mum to do her shopping
Fortnightly: bought Monday morning
Monthly: bought first Monday of the month
Quarterly: bought first Monday of the Month
Yearly: sometime in the week between Christmas and New Year when everyone is home to help - it's a big one!
Before each shopping day I check the list, do a very quick stocktake of the pantry, fridge and freezer to make sure nothing has been missed and off I head to Aldi and Coles (for the things Aldi doesn't stock) then to the greengrocer (if it's a fortnightly shop) and butcher (if it's time for a meat shop) and home.
When I hit the supermarket, greengrocer or butcher I don't dawdle. I have my list and I get through it as quickly as I can. I'm in and I'm out. Shopping in sections like this saves me a lot of time, at least 3 hours a month. It doesn't take any longer to toss three or four of each item into the trolley than it does one. It does take about 5 minutes longer to get through the checkout. The biggest time saving is in the travelling and parking and checking out - it's done once a month and then that's it - no more supermarket for 4 weeks.
This is how I shop.
And this is how I keep the grocery bill for my family of five to $75 a week, $320 a month or $3,840 a year.
The $300 a Month Food Challenge
The Post that Started it All
7. Cheapskates Buzz
Most popular forum posts this week
Who's up for a Freezer Challenge?
http://www.cheapskatesclub.com.au/memberforum/showthread.php?3496-Who-s-up-for-a-freezer-challenge
Removing Mould - Bathroom Ceiling
http://www.cheapskatesclub.com.au/memberforum/showthread.php?3495-Removing-mould-bathroom-ceiling
How much did you Spend on Sending the Kids Back to School?
http://www.cheapskatesclub.com.au/memberforum/showthread.php?1822-How-much-did-you-spend-on-sending-the-kids-back-to-school
Most popular blog posts this week
7 Simple Ideas to Plan Children’s Birthday Parties on a Budget
http://www.debtfreecashedupandlaughing.com.au/2011/10/7-simple-ideas-to-plan-childrens.html
On a Cold and Wet Thursday
http://www.debtfreecashedupandlaughing.com.au/2014/07/on-cold-and-wet-thursday.html
Hypothetical: A Transport Strike Stops Deliveries
http://www.debtfreecashedupandlaughing.com.au/2013/10/hypothetical-transport-strike-stops.html
8. Members Featured blog
Platinum Cheapskates Club members have their very own Cheapskating blogs, and they are wonderful and inspirational and encouraging and even funny. This week's featured blog is written by echidnatow.
My Life Trimester begins - Retirement
Thanks everyone for your warm welcome and support. I love, love reading what everyone else is up to.
Firstly, I finished minimalising my wardrobe - over two days. I counted 38 pairs of pants (work pants, jeans, 3/4 pants and shorts), all squashed in, together with a multitude of summer and winter tops.
End result was 15 pants and only the tops that I actually love and wear. I've transferred a small amount of clothes into my spare room, as I couldn't decide if I loved them or not. If I haven't used them in 6 months, they're gone. When I travel, I always take some older clothes with me (clean and neat but I would be arrested by the Fashion Police if seen!) - this includes old underwear (sorry, if that's too much info). At the end of the trip, the clothes (not the undies) are left in the hotel room (with a note as 'Throw away') so they may be of use to someone else. This leaves more room in my return baggage for shopping.
I then halved my stash of handbags/purses. I'm waiting for my granddaughters to sort through them. I had a realisation that, the underused (some brand new) bags are mainly brown - I will never buy another brown bag - my favourites are black or multi-coloured.
Onto my shoes - also halved but mainly thrown out as they were at the end of their lives. I could easily see how I was short a pair of good sandals. I bought a new pair, at half price, yesterday and thought it was justified.
My wardrobe is now half full, looks and feels great.
Lastly, I went into work yesterday and finalised my resignation paperwork. I was nervous and relieved, at the same time. Today really does commence my retirement - although I seem to be working just as hard every day, just not in paid employment (and without air-conditioning!).
Now to think about an edible garden............
Login to read more Cheapskates Club Member blogs
9. Last Week's Question
Last week's question was from Audrey writes
"Hello, I recently bought two pairs of jeans at a good price. However, they have a terrible smell to them. The lady at the shop said it was just a coating on the denim and would disappear with washing. I have washed them over and over (around 5 times) but the smell is still there. It makes them unwearable but I would love to be able to get rid of the smell and wear them as they are a wonderful fit and very comfy. Please, can anyone help me?
Kate Crawford answered
I'm not sure if this will work on denim or not, but my mother always swore that by adding one cup of salt to the wash it would remove the BO scent that accumulated on her polyester work uniforms... they do put a lot more synthetic materials into denim these days. If nothing else salt will soften the denim making it feel like a comfy old favourite pair of jeans.
Emily Smith answered
Put your jeans in a plastic bag and pop them in the freezer for 24-48 hours. Denim experts and enthusiasts recommend using this method to remove any odours from denim rather than washing it often.
Lynette Stewart answered
I would put your jeans in a large plastic bag and sprinkle bicarbonate soda in the bag; be generous with the amount to make sure it goes all over the jeans and seal the back airtight. I would leave it sealed for a day then shake it to make sure they are covered in the powder and again leave on the third day empty the powder into the bin and wash the jeans with two cups of vinegar your usual way of washing the hang outside and hopefully the smell has gone another thing you could add Eucalyptus oil in the wash. I think it would be a try all you can and one is bound to work.
10. This Week's Question
Barbara writes
"Could you please help me to get rid of mould, particularly in the shower recess. We live on the mid north coast of NSW and have a very humid climate. Thank you very much.
Do you have the answer?
If you can help Barbara let us know. We'll enter your answer into our Tip of the Week competition, with a one-year membership to the Cheapskates Club as the prize too.
Send your answer
11. Ask Cath
We have lots of resources to help you as you live the Cheapskates way but if you didn't find the answer to your question in our extensive archives please just drop me a note with your question.
I read and answer all questions, either in an email to you, in my weekly newsletter, the monthly Journal or by creating blog posts and other resources to help you (and other Cheapskaters).
Ask Your Question
12. Join the Cheapskates Club
For just 10 cents a day you can join the Cheapskates Club and get exclusive access to the Cheapskate Journal, the monthly e-journal that shows you how to cut the costs of everyday living and still have fun.
Joining the Cheapskates Club gives you 24/7 access to the Members Centre with 1000's of money saving tips and articles.
Click here to join the Cheapskates Club today!
13. Frequently Asked Questions
How do I change my email address?
This one is easy. Members can update their email address or any other details by clicking on "Edit Profile" directly under their membership number after they have logged in to the Member's Centre. Subscribers to our free newsletter can use the Change Your Address form (under Customer Service in the menu) and fill it out. Once you've filled it in click the send button and we'll do the rest. Please remember to include your old email address so we can find it in the list as well as the new one.
How do I know when my membership should be renewed?
When you login to the Member's Centre you will be told how many days of membership you have left once you have 30 days left. Just click on the link to renew and your membership will just continue on, uninterrupted.
What will you do with my email address?
We never rent, trade or sell our email list to anyone for any reason whatsoever. You'll never get an unsolicited email from a stranger as a result of joining this list.
Read our privacy policy
How Did You Get on Our List?
You signed up to receive our Free Newsletter at our Cheapskates Club Web site or are a Platinum Cheapskates Club member
14. Contact Details
The Cheapskates Club -
Showing you how to live life
debt free, cashed up and laughing!
PO Box 5077 Studfield Vic 3152
www.cheapskatesclub.net
1. Cath's Corner
2. In the Tip Store - Enjoy Your Flavoured Coffee on a Budget; Know the Pilot for Cheap Flights; Free Patty Pans
3. You'll Fall in Love with Aldi Workshops - Limited places available
4. Share Your Tips
5. On the Menu - Easiest Ever Lamingtons
6. The $300 a Month Food Challenge with Wendy -
7. Cheapskates Buzz - Cheapskaters are talking in the Forum and on Cath's blog
8. Member's Featured Blog - My Life Trimester begins - Retirement
9. Last Week's Question - I need a solution to smelly pants
10. This Week's Question - How do I shift mould permanently?
11. Ask Cath
12. Join the Cheapskates Club
13. Frequently Asked Questions
14. Contact Details
1. Cath's Corner
Hello Cheapskaters,
Happy Australia Day!
I'm spending the day with my family, enjoying a barbecue lunch (and hopefully leftovers for tea) on this last holiday before we all get back to our regular work routines for 2017.
Enjoy your newsletter, it's full of great ideas to save you money, time and energy again this week.
Happy Cheapskating,
Cath
PS: Love our site? We love referrals! Send a note to your favourite newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV stations, friends and relatives, and tell them about us!
2. From The Tip Store
Enjoy Your Flavoured Coffee on a Budget
My husband loves the instant flavoured coffees but they get quite expensive - the bottles of instant flavoured coffee tell you to use 3 heaped teaspoons per cup - but that makes it a very expensive coffee - we discovered if you add 1 normal sized teaspoon of the flavoured coffee to 1 teaspoon of regular instant coffee you get a lovely full flavoured coffee with the extra flavouring - This stretches the bottle of flavoured instant coffee 300%.
Contributed by Lisa Johnson
Know the Pilot for Cheap Flights
Sign up to "I know the Pilot", they will send you a notification as soon as an airline has sales. There is also an app you can download so you don't miss a flight. Two weeks ago, I bought a flight from Perth to Queensland $49!!!
Contributed by Jessica Dunn
Free Patty Pans
Many of us buy or receive the shortbread or butter biscuits that come in the tin. The biscuits sit in paper patty pans. Keep the patty pans to use for your next batch of cupcakes or even for art and craft activities. At 4 cents per patty pan this is a saving of 80 cents per tin of biscuits.
Contributed by Fiona Holloway
There are currently more than 12,000 great tips in the Tip Store
3. You'll fall in love with aldi workshops
Join me in Perth or Adelaide in February at these very special Cheapskates Workshops where I will share the secrets to getting the very best from Aldi and to slashing thousands of dollars off your grocery budget every year!
I'll be sharing my shopping list, how I shop at Aldi, my favourite Aldi products and the secrets to shopping at Aldi that will slash your grocery budget, leaving more cash in your purse to spend on the things you enjoy.
These three exciting workshops which will take place in store - yes, you'll be learning as you shop and we'll have the store to ourselves!
Workshop 1 - Alid Harrisdale - Sold out!
Workshop 2 - Aldi Mandurah - 6 places left!
Workshop 3 - Aldi West Lakes - 9 places left!
"We learnt lots from the first one...if you live in Adelaide and want to learn to shop better than please attend...it is well worth it." Mumof2
"The SA one was so helpful to me and has saved us a fortune." Annabel Smith
Click here for more information and to book your spot
4. Submit your tip
The Cheapskate's Club website is over 3,000 pages of money saving hints, tips and ideas. Let's get together and make the Cheapskates Club Australia's largest online hint, tip and idea library. Share your favourite money saving, time saving or energy saving hint and be in the running to win a one-year membership to The Cheapskate Club. We publish a Winning Tip each Thursday, so enter your great money, time or energy saving idea now.
Share your favourite hint or tip that saves money, time and energy and be in the running to win a one-year subscription to The Cheapskate Journal.
Remember, you have to be in it to win it!
Submit your tip
5. On the Menu
Easiest Ever Lamingtons
Lamingtons are my favourite cake and you can't get a more Australian cake than the lamington. My problem is that to make them the traditional way takes too long. When I want a lamington I want it now, I don't want to have to make a plain cake, wait a day (because fresh cake doesn't cut or coat nicely), then go through the dipping process.
So this easy cheat on traditional lamingtons is perfect. You can have fresh lamingtons on the table in around 30 minutes, perfect if you have a sudden craving or unexpected visitors (or your kids tell you as they are going to bed that they need to take something to share for a class party the next day).
This recipe relies on a bought sponge. You can buy a double layer plain sponge at the supermarket. I buy the block sponge when it is on markdown and stash it in the freezer until I need to use it.
Having it frozen helps speed up the making process too - frozen cake is easier to cut into squares and the icing sets faster. Of course, you don't need to use the cake frozen, it's just that if it is in the freezer you don't need to thaw it.
Easiest Ever Lamingtons
Ingredients:
1 packet block sponge cake (double layer)
2 cups icing sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
¼ cup milk
¼ cup boiling water
2-½ cups coconut
Method:
Cut the sponge cake into 7cm x 5cm (approximately) rectangles. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a medium bowl. Add the milk and boiling water and stir until smooth. Pour the coconut into a small bowl. Use a fork to individually dip the cakes into the chocolate icing then turn them over. Don't leave them in the icing too long or they'll go soggy - just dip, cover and turn. When covered with icing remove with the fork and place them in the coconut. Turn the cakes over until they are covered in coconut. Place the lamingtons on a cake rack until the icing is set.
Here's an old tip for coating your cakes with the icing. If you have a Tupperware Pick-a-Deli (the beetroot/pickle container) put the icing into the container and then use the strainer to dip the cakes. Just put one on the strainer, lower it into the icing, lift it out, let it drain for a couple of seconds and then tip the cake into the coconut. Saves messing about with forks and getting drips everywhere. There are other similar containers around, if you have one that will hold your icing and your cake use it.
This week we will be eating:
Sunday: Roast Chicken
Monday: Tomato & Onion Quiche, salad
Tuesday: Tortellini in tomato sauce
Wednesday: Butter chicken, rice, naan
Thursday: Australia Day BBQ
Friday: Hamburgers
Saturday: Fish, wedges, salad
In the fruit bowl: Grapes, watermelon
In the cake tin: Fruit mince tarts, banana bread
There are over 1,500 other great money saving meal ideas in the Recipe File.
6. The $300 a Month Food Challenge
How I Write My Shopping List
Do you shop with a list? If you don't you should. Without a list, you don't have a hope of sticking to your grocery budget and getting all the groceries you need at the same time. No matter how good your memory is you will forget to pick up something, forget your best price or be in the middle of baking or cooking and realise you don't have a vital ingredient because you didn't have a list!
I found many years ago that I tended to buy the same grocery items over and over, there was very little change in what I bought. It was a real eye-opener for me, and it was the beginning of my perpetual shopping lists and the beginning of real money savings.
Each month after shopping day I run off a copy and stick it to the pantry door. As things are used up they are circled on the list. When I'm getting ready for shopping day I take the list, do a quick stocktake and add anything else I need to buy. It is a perpetual shopping list.
You may find that you buy different grocery items in summer to those you purchase in winter. I just made two master lists – one for summer, another for winter so I have a summer list and a winter list. My summer list has things like beetroot, pineapple and coleslaw dressing down for every shop. On the winter list, they are down for every second shop. The winter list has soup mix and kidney beans on every list. The soup mix is only on every fourth summer list as we don’t eat much soup in summer.
I love my perpetual shopping lists. Everything I regularly buy is already on the list – I just need to tick the things we need and away I go! No more spending time standing in the kitchen wondering if I’ve forgotten to put anything on the list. And no more getting home, only to realise that I forgot to buy half the things I need for dinner next week.
There are groceries I buy weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly and yearly and the list is broken down into those categories. It sounds complicated but it's not - the sections are just listed in order down the page, with the groceries underneath.
Weekly: usually bought on a Thursday when I take Mum to do her shopping
Fortnightly: bought Monday morning
Monthly: bought first Monday of the month
Quarterly: bought first Monday of the Month
Yearly: sometime in the week between Christmas and New Year when everyone is home to help - it's a big one!
Before each shopping day I check the list, do a very quick stocktake of the pantry, fridge and freezer to make sure nothing has been missed and off I head to Aldi and Coles (for the things Aldi doesn't stock) then to the greengrocer (if it's a fortnightly shop) and butcher (if it's time for a meat shop) and home.
When I hit the supermarket, greengrocer or butcher I don't dawdle. I have my list and I get through it as quickly as I can. I'm in and I'm out. Shopping in sections like this saves me a lot of time, at least 3 hours a month. It doesn't take any longer to toss three or four of each item into the trolley than it does one. It does take about 5 minutes longer to get through the checkout. The biggest time saving is in the travelling and parking and checking out - it's done once a month and then that's it - no more supermarket for 4 weeks.
This is how I shop.
And this is how I keep the grocery bill for my family of five to $75 a week, $320 a month or $3,840 a year.
The $300 a Month Food Challenge
The Post that Started it All
7. Cheapskates Buzz
Most popular forum posts this week
Who's up for a Freezer Challenge?
http://www.cheapskatesclub.com.au/memberforum/showthread.php?3496-Who-s-up-for-a-freezer-challenge
Removing Mould - Bathroom Ceiling
http://www.cheapskatesclub.com.au/memberforum/showthread.php?3495-Removing-mould-bathroom-ceiling
How much did you Spend on Sending the Kids Back to School?
http://www.cheapskatesclub.com.au/memberforum/showthread.php?1822-How-much-did-you-spend-on-sending-the-kids-back-to-school
Most popular blog posts this week
7 Simple Ideas to Plan Children’s Birthday Parties on a Budget
http://www.debtfreecashedupandlaughing.com.au/2011/10/7-simple-ideas-to-plan-childrens.html
On a Cold and Wet Thursday
http://www.debtfreecashedupandlaughing.com.au/2014/07/on-cold-and-wet-thursday.html
Hypothetical: A Transport Strike Stops Deliveries
http://www.debtfreecashedupandlaughing.com.au/2013/10/hypothetical-transport-strike-stops.html
8. Members Featured blog
Platinum Cheapskates Club members have their very own Cheapskating blogs, and they are wonderful and inspirational and encouraging and even funny. This week's featured blog is written by echidnatow.
My Life Trimester begins - Retirement
Thanks everyone for your warm welcome and support. I love, love reading what everyone else is up to.
Firstly, I finished minimalising my wardrobe - over two days. I counted 38 pairs of pants (work pants, jeans, 3/4 pants and shorts), all squashed in, together with a multitude of summer and winter tops.
End result was 15 pants and only the tops that I actually love and wear. I've transferred a small amount of clothes into my spare room, as I couldn't decide if I loved them or not. If I haven't used them in 6 months, they're gone. When I travel, I always take some older clothes with me (clean and neat but I would be arrested by the Fashion Police if seen!) - this includes old underwear (sorry, if that's too much info). At the end of the trip, the clothes (not the undies) are left in the hotel room (with a note as 'Throw away') so they may be of use to someone else. This leaves more room in my return baggage for shopping.
I then halved my stash of handbags/purses. I'm waiting for my granddaughters to sort through them. I had a realisation that, the underused (some brand new) bags are mainly brown - I will never buy another brown bag - my favourites are black or multi-coloured.
Onto my shoes - also halved but mainly thrown out as they were at the end of their lives. I could easily see how I was short a pair of good sandals. I bought a new pair, at half price, yesterday and thought it was justified.
My wardrobe is now half full, looks and feels great.
Lastly, I went into work yesterday and finalised my resignation paperwork. I was nervous and relieved, at the same time. Today really does commence my retirement - although I seem to be working just as hard every day, just not in paid employment (and without air-conditioning!).
Now to think about an edible garden............
Login to read more Cheapskates Club Member blogs
9. Last Week's Question
Last week's question was from Audrey writes
"Hello, I recently bought two pairs of jeans at a good price. However, they have a terrible smell to them. The lady at the shop said it was just a coating on the denim and would disappear with washing. I have washed them over and over (around 5 times) but the smell is still there. It makes them unwearable but I would love to be able to get rid of the smell and wear them as they are a wonderful fit and very comfy. Please, can anyone help me?
Kate Crawford answered
I'm not sure if this will work on denim or not, but my mother always swore that by adding one cup of salt to the wash it would remove the BO scent that accumulated on her polyester work uniforms... they do put a lot more synthetic materials into denim these days. If nothing else salt will soften the denim making it feel like a comfy old favourite pair of jeans.
Emily Smith answered
Put your jeans in a plastic bag and pop them in the freezer for 24-48 hours. Denim experts and enthusiasts recommend using this method to remove any odours from denim rather than washing it often.
Lynette Stewart answered
I would put your jeans in a large plastic bag and sprinkle bicarbonate soda in the bag; be generous with the amount to make sure it goes all over the jeans and seal the back airtight. I would leave it sealed for a day then shake it to make sure they are covered in the powder and again leave on the third day empty the powder into the bin and wash the jeans with two cups of vinegar your usual way of washing the hang outside and hopefully the smell has gone another thing you could add Eucalyptus oil in the wash. I think it would be a try all you can and one is bound to work.
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