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Your Cheapskates Club Newseltter 06:18

In this Newsletter

1. Cath's Corner
2. In the Tip Store - Building Savings from a Car Payment; Together Everyone Achieves More; Refilling Detox Hands Free Container
3. Cheapskate's Winning Tip - Reusing Last Year's Wall Calendar
4. Share Your Tips
5. On the Menu - Tuna Mornay
6. The $300 a Month Food Challenge - The 10% Grocery Cut
7. Cheapskates Buzz - Cheapskaters are talking in the Forum and on Cath's blog
8. Member's Featured Blog - Introductions
9. This Week's Question - Is there a way to revamp my chairs?
10. Ask Cath
11. Join the Cheapskates Club
12. Frequently Asked Questions
13. Contact Details


1. Cath's Corner

Hello Cheapskaters,

So how was last week? Did you manage to stick to the no spending challenge (I know lots of you have, you've shared your triumphs with me).  I think the first week of this challenge is always the hardest - we need to train ourselves to stop and think before we buy anything. It's easiest to forget you're not spending during the first week, before you've developed the habit of not spending, so if you've managed to stay strong give yourself a pat on the back and smile when you see your bank balance.

If you are feeling particularly tempted to buy something you would if this wasn't No Spending Month, try this. Get out your phone and take a picture of it. Take two or three from different angles, and don't forget to include the price tag. Then move that amount from the spending plan category it would normally come from straight into your emergency fund. Then leave a message in the forum or on the Living the Cheapskates Way blog to share your triumph.

Have a great week everyone and enjoy not spending.


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

Building Savings from a Car Payment
When we were paying off our car we paid a bit extra and put in $2,000 from the sale of the old car; this took a whole year off our payments. When we finished paying off the car, we kept banking the money as we were used to not having it. After a year of doing this we now have $8000 in the bank.
Contributed by Sandra Miosge


Together Everyone Achieves More
My tip may not seem important, but I think that it's really important to be part of a group of like-minded people like the Cheapskates Club. We are all trying to save money by making our dollars stretch further. Sometimes it's two steps forward and one step backwards, but always it's about staying focused on the goal of getting ahead financially.

The support and encouragement from other members that have been in the tough times, as some now find themselves in, gives people hope and ideas when none appears obvious.

Budgeting and dieting starts with thinking and having your head in the right space. A New Year is an opportunity to reflect where you have come from and assess where you want to be and it's always good to have friends on the journey with you.
Contributed by Andrea Metcalf


Refilling Detox Hands Free Container
When my container was empty I asked my husband to drill a hole at the top of the container (you don't even have to take it out of the holder). Then, with a funnel, I refilled with the hand wash of my choice.... easy as that. I have put a decorative dot, which covers the hole, but it's not essential.
Contributed by Maria Pit


There are currently more than 12,000 great tips in the Tip Store

3. Cheapskates Winning Tip

This week's winning tip is from Cynthia Korff and her 10 year old daughter. They have won a one year Platinum Cheapskates Club membership for submitting a winning tip.

Re-using Last Year’s Wall Calendar

My 10 year old daughter actually created this tip in early January. She received a beautiful horse wall calendar the previous year and really wanted to use it again. She searched the internet and printed a 2018 calendar (month to a landscape A4 page) and then glued each month over the top of the 2017 months. She is now pleased that she can continue to flip the calendar each month and enjoy the pictures! Cost - x12 A4 pages printed at approx. 13 cents (depending on the printing cost of your printer). A saving of $20.00 on a new wall calendar! I think I have a Cheapskate in the making!

Congratulations Cynthia, I hope you and your daughter enjoy your Cheapskates Club membership.


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

Tuna Mornay 
Ingredients:
50g butter
60g plain flour
2 cups milk
Small tin tuna (in oil is better for this recipe)
60g cheese, grated
2 cups rice

Method:
Cook rice and drain. Make a sauce with the butter, flour and milk. Add flaked tuna and rice. Sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake in a moderate oven 15 - 20 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and golden.

Cost:
$2.67 to serve 6
$1.78 to serve 4
$0.45 per serve

This recipe was contributed by Carol, who wrote "This is so popular I serve it up at least once a week. Works just as well with pasta and if there is some puff pastry left in the freezer I cut one piece into strips which I fix to the edge of a moistened pie plate, moisten strips, then top with the other full sheet of puff pastry and bake - only if the oven is already being used for something else.  The beauty of children is they know what they like, and it has nothing to do with how expensive or how complicated the evening meal is. This is always a winner. Priced at a main stream supermarket this afternoon, prices can be bettered."

This recipe is from the $2 Dinner Recipe File

This week we will be eating:

Sunday: Roast Chicken

Monday: Tuna mornay with rice

Tuesday: Spaghetti Bolognese

Wednesday: Impossible Quiche, salads

Thursday: Moo Pizza

Friday: Fish cakes, chips, coleslaw

Saturday: Hamburgers

In the fruit bowl:  bananas, grapes

In the cake tin: Fruit cake

There are over 1,600 other great money saving meal ideas in the Recipe File.

6. The $300 a Month Food Challenge 

The 10% Grocery Cut

We all have to eat and during No Spending month I encourage you to eat from your pantry, fridge and freezer before buying more groceries, but no doubt there will be groceries you'll need to buy.

This week cut your grocery bill by 10% this week. If you normally spend $200 a week, this week you are only going to spend $180. Then you are going to move $20 (or whatever the amount is) straight to your emergency fund, or if it is fully funded - congratulations! - to your savings account.

Here's how you do it:
Check what you have on hand before you go shopping (fridge, freezer, pantry) and only add what you really need rather than what you think you need to your shopping list.

Then shop for those things within your new grocery budget. If you come in with an even bigger saving, well done. And don't forget to put it into your emergency account.

To help you with your grocery cut, menu plan with what you have on hand. To help you with this, we have a gorgeous menu plan/shopping list combo, designed by one of our long time members, Catherine Allan, with the shopping list in the same order as our Grocery Tracking Spreadsheet. Click here to get a copy.


The $300 a Month Food Challenge

The Post that Started it All


7. Cheapskates Buzz

Most popular forum posts this week

The 2018 No Spending Month Challenge
http://www.cheapskatesclub.com.au/memberforum/showthread.php?3712-The-2018-No-Spending-Month-Challenge

Mason Jar Breakfast
http://www.cheapskatesclub.com.au/memberforum/showthread.php?3668-Mason-jar-breakfast

Great Books
http://www.cheapskatesclub.com.au/memberforum/showthread.php?890-great-books


Most popular blog posts this week

The Start of the Annual No Spend Challenge
http://www.debtfreecashedupandlaughing.com.au/2012/02/start-of-annual-no-spend-challenge.html

Just Making a Cuppa
http://www.debtfreecashedupandlaughing.com.au/2014/03/just-making-cuppa.html

Free Meals from the Freezer
http://www.debtfreecashedupandlaughing.com.au/2015/11/free-meals-from-freezer.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 Thalawest.

Introductions

Hi everyone! I've been reading the public posts for some time, I've just joined up properly and am trying to ease into some of the challenges.

My budget is only for myself, and I live in a student share house to keep my biggest expenses down. I enjoy MOOing, a lot of which I learned as a child (I'm one of seven and we were a single-income family, so there are many things that are automatic to me), but there is a lot more to learn and I love to gain the skills!

I am studying part-time (theology) and working part-time (child care), so keeping costs down is important, but time is short. Self-discipline is a difficult thing for me, especially when it comes to time management, so actually getting my budget to work is, well, a work-in-progress.

I do have a government study debt, but I view the government loan system as a fall-back plan, not my primary means of paying for my degree. Most likely I could put the whole degree on that system and never pay it back, since I'm unlikely to have a job that pays enough to reach the baseline for automatic repayments, but that doesn't seem honest to me, even if the government does like having people with theology degrees out in society. So, I asked my boyfriend for a loan to cover this semester's units and will do the same for next semester if I don't think I can cover it from my own work. (He'd have been happy to give me the money, but I will keep account of it anyway.) Those two debts are the only ones I now have, although that is because I'm renting.

Keeping things organised is something I seriously want to work on. I know I like things nicely organised, but it takes time, and not just a one-off! All too often I have to get to work, or it's late and I need my bed, or I'm exhausted because I went shopping on the way home from work (I hate shopping), and things get dumped in my room or elsewhere to be dealt with later. So, I want to make some kind of plan for when these things get tidied up.

Perhaps I shouldn't borrow trouble from tomorrow, but one big difficulty I foresee in the future is that while I consider cheapskating to be a goal or skill that I am always working to improve, my boyfriend is rather more of a spender. We're nowhere near shared finances yet, nor have we had a conversation about what that would look like, so there's plenty of time to deal with it, and he is very good at having serious conversations.

I have a small garden that I started shortly after moving into the share house, but I had no time for planting last spring so it's not doing much this year. I tried letting pumpkin seeds go in the compost instead of drying them during spring, but the plants are only a few feet long and not showing flowers of either type, so I don't think I'm going to get anything from them. I did catch some seeds to plant next spring, so my lettuces and kale will go around again. I may try planting them in autumn if I have a chance around assignments (both can be winter crops, right?) so I can stagger my harvests.

Looking forward to seeing how I go on some of the challenges! I'm doing the decluttering tally game, and since it's February, I'll have a go at no-spend month. 


Login to read more Cheapskates Club Member blogs

9. This Week's Question

Kate writes
"I bought four outdoor chairs a few years ago but, being constantly in the sun, the material has weakened and ripped so no longer usable. These chairs have a metal frame which is in perfect condition, so I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to recycle the frames to make new chairs or somehow change over the material that has torn? It would be a shame to take them to the tip if they could be made like new again and save me buying new chairs."

Do you have the answer?

If you have a suggestion or idea for Kate 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

10. 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


11. 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!

12. 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.

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


13. Contact Details

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  • Home
  • Join the Club!
    • Twenty Reasons to Join the Cheapskates Club
    • Gift Memberships
  • About Us
    • Cath's Story
    • Ask Cath
    • Glossary of Cheapskating Terms
  • Forum
    • Current Forum Discussions
    • How to Use the Member Forum
  • Inspiration
    • Getting Started
    • Handmade Christmas Central >
      • Handmade Christmas 2025 is about to start
    • 31 Days of MOO Index
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    • Back to Basics >
      • Back to Basics
      • Back to Basics Index
    • Housekeeping Routines
    • Budget Renovations
    • Saving Stories
  • SAVING REVOLUTION
    • 2025 Saving Revolution Index
    • Saving Revolution Resources
  • Recipes
    • Recipe File Index
    • Meal Plans
    • Add a Recipe
    • $300 a Month Food Challenge >
      • $300 a Month Food Challenge
      • The $300 a Month Food Challenge Forum
  • Newsletters
    • Newsletters 2025
  • Saving Money
    • Bill Paying System
    • Cheapskates Tip Store
    • Tip Sheets
    • Top Tip Competition
  • Contact
    • Changing Details
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