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Your Cheapskates Club Newsletter 15:20

In This Newsletter
1. Cath's Corner
2. From the Tip Store 
3. Stay at Home, Shop at Home Pantry Challenge
4. Share Your Tips 
5. On the Menu - Cream Cheese Patties
6. The $300 a Month Food Challenge
7. Cheapskates Buzz - Cheapskaters are talking in the Forum and on Cath's blog
8. The Cheapskates Club Show
9. Ask A Question - Have a question? Ask it here
10. Join the Cheapskates Club
11. Frequently Asked Questions
12. Contact Details


1. Cath's Corner
Hello Cheapskaters,How's the second week of self-isolation at home going? We are all still well, and staying home, and slowly getting used to a new daily routine. We are all learning to be flexible in how we work, and to consider each other's needs between 9am - 5pm. It is interesting, that's for sure. 

Every day I thank God for the urge to keep the pantry full. It has meant that going out isn't necessary. It has meant we are eating normally. And it has meant that I've been able to skip on some basic groceries that are just too expensive at the moment.

It's never to late to build your pantry. You can start small, adding a little each time you shop. This email came in this week, and I love it.

"About two months ago, sometime in February, I was having my morning devotion. After praying, I felt the urge to clean my emails. I came across our Cheapskate 2017 article about preparedness. Cath said ... if anything happens, is your family ready... do you have at least 6 months supply of food to sustain your family? I prayed and told myself, "no I am not ready at all".  We do not usually have pantries because for one, I do not feel the need of it. The grocery store is just two blocks away... no need to prepare. However after reading the article, it kept me thinking. So I said maybe I should just buy for few days and months . After work, I would drop by the grocery store and started buying. Suddenly our government declared an Enhanced Community Quarantine and all ports were closed. People panicked and long lines can be seen outside the grocery stores. Me... yes you guessed it... my cabinet turned pantry was ready with canned goods, I have sacks of grains, my new freezer is full of meat.. laundry supplies.. check... disinfectant...check.. toilet paper.... check ready. No need to fight , no need to line up for hours, no need to panic. Thank God we are ready and staying home to self quarantine and I have to thank you Cath for Cheapskates, from the bottom of my heart... salamat po! Thank you!" Joy, Philippines


Happy Easter everyone, and remember to stay home and stay healthy!

Cath


2. From The Tip Store
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Slippersox
This pattern only costs around $3.00 or under to make, very easy and quick; I have made 100s over the years.

Materials:
24ply yarn - 3 x 8ply together
7mm needles or round about

Cast on 41 stitches
1st row: knit 15 purl 1, knit 9 ,purl 1, knit 15
2nd row: knit all stitches
Rep last 2rows 7 times

Cast off 7 stitches next 2 rows
Next row: Knit 8 purl 1 knit 9, purl 1, knit 8
Knit next row
Repeat last 2 rows 7times

Knit 5 knit 2 tog to end
Knit row
Knit 4 knit 2 tog to end
Knit row
Continue until knit 1 knit 2 tog has been done
Knit row
8 stitches left
Break of yarn with a long thread. Take wool through the stitches on the needle, pull tight and sew up.
Make one more.
Contributed by Anne Gray


MOO Strawberry Vinegar​
I once had a really lovely green salad topped with strawberry vinegar and cracked black pepper. I asked my friend about the vinegar and was amazed to find it cost $19.95 for a one litre bottle! So in the interests of saving.....
I bought two cheap punnets for $2.00 each and a 2 litre bottle of white wine vinegar for $2.50. (You can even make your own white wine vinegar, I think).Then I washed the strawberries, no need to hull them, and put them to soak in the vinegar for 18 days. You can do it in 14 days but I wanted a good strong flavour and colour. The vinegar turned red, I strained and used the strawberries in my pickled collection, and I finished the vinegar by adding sugar syrup. This was 1 cup of sugar, and 1 cup of water boiled till dissolved. Add the syrup to taste. I like mine with only a little. Serve on fresh salads with cracked black pepper or even add to some Asian dressings for something different.
Contributed by Janie-Lee McRobert


How to Stop Cut Avocados Going Brown​
I am so excited, I  just found a 100% positive way to stop a cut avo going brown.  Simply cover it with water. The water will not affect the avocado in any way whatsoever, (even that wonderful guacamole dip comes out as fresh as when it was first made the next day). This tip truly works!
Contributed by Marina Skapin
​

Add a Tip

3. Stay At Home Shop At Home Pantry Challenge
Think about the food in your fridge, the groceries in your pantry, the toiletries in your bathroom cupboard, even the clothes and shoes in your wardrobe.

Are there any items that haven't been used up? If so, think about the money you have sitting there, tied up in things you aren't using.
​

Picture
There's a William Morris quote "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

Well, I'm going to paraphrase for the Cheapskates version. "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, and then use it up."

Start with the food in your house. What’s in the fridge? What's at the back of the pantry? What can you make with the food buried at the bottom of the freezer?

Make it a challenge to use the cans that are in your pantry and the meat in your freezer. Don’t buy any more food, even if it's on sale, unless you have nothing else in the house that will substitute. Use up what you actually have.

Learn how to turn those tins of tuna into a casserole or tuna patties, or our family favourite - Tuna Surprise. Add the baked beans to tacos, or lasagne, or spag bol. That tin of passionfruit pulp left from Christmas? Stir it into plain yoghurt. Limp veggies? Grate them and add them to pancake batter to make fritters, or to stock to make veggie soup. Use your imagination, check the Recipe File and ask for ideas in the forum, and you'll find plenty of ways to use it up.

When you have the food under control, take a look at the bathroom cupboard. How many half used bottles of shampoo and conditioner are there? What about body wash? Those little slivers of soap no one will use? How many bottles have you collected from motels over the years? Do you have a pile of shower caps and a collection of sewing kits just sitting there collecting dust and taking up space? Now is the time to think about using them, or donating them or even, if they're too old and cruddy, tossing them.

Shampoo can be used as a general cleaner. Use it on the showerscreen, it cuts through soap scum in a swipe. It will leave the bath and basin shiny. Use it to clean the toilet and leave it smelling sweet.

Conditioner makes a great replacement for wool wash for jumpers and cardigans. It's also great for washing doonas and pillows.

Those mini toiletries can be donated, as long as they're unopened.

Are you a crafter? Then you're sure to have paper or card stock or fabric or paint that needs to be used up. Check out Carol's forum thread The Stash 2018 for ideas on how to use up your craft stash.

The Use It Up challenge isn't about spending less, but you will. It's about being mindful of what we've spent our money on, and how we use it (or don't), and how much that really costs us. It's about thinking before we buy something new (do we already have something that will do the job) or before we throw something out (why haven't we used it up? What other purpose could we find for it?).

Take the challenge, use up those things you've already spent good money on, and then take the money you haven't spent, and save it.

How much do you think you'll be able to use up and how much money could you save during the Use It Up challenge?


4. Share Your Tips
Are you shut down? Working from home? Learning to home school the kids? Ready to take up the challenge and share your best use up the pantry tip? We're all in the same boat, staying home with limited options for grocery shopping, so join the fun, share your tip and be in the running to win a Cheapskates Club membership!

Enter your pantry challenge tip here  
​

5. On The Menu

One of my most requested recipes, cream cheese patties are so tasty hot or cold. They freeze and thaw well too.

Cream Cheese Patties
Ingredients:
250g cream cheese
1 cup rice
1 large onion, grated
1 large carrot, grated
1 zucchini, grated
1 egg
1/2 tsp mixed herbs
Olive oil for frying
Shake'n'Bake
1/2 cup milk

Method:
Cook the rice in boiling salted water for 12 minutes. Dice cream cheese into 2 centimetre cubes (this makes it easier to melt). Drain rice. Add remaining ingredients, except Shake'n'Bake, milk and olive oil, to the hot rice, stirring to melt the cream cheese.  Take 1/4 cup of mixture, shape into a patty. Dip in milk then in Shake'n'Bake to coat. Let the patties rest in the fridge for 30 minutes before frying in hot oil until golden brown on both sides. Can be served hot or cold.

These patties feature on my meal plan at least twice a month during the spring and summer seasons and around once a month during the cooler weather. We like them hot or cold, but personally I think they are at their best cold, straight from the fridge. Yum!

Next week we will be eating:
 
Sunday: Roast Chicken

Monday: Cream Cheese Patties, salad

Tuesday: Creamy Chicken Pasta Bake

Wednesday: Sausage Casserole, veggies, mash

Thursday: MOO Pizza

Friday: BBQ, salads

Saturday: Freezer Meals

In the fruit bowl: limes, bananas


There are over 1,700 budget and family friendly recipes in the Cheapskates Club Recipe File, all contributed by your fellow Cheapskates, so you know they're good.

Add A Recipe

Recipe File Index

6. The $300 A Month Food Challenge
Where I Store Things

People look at me like I'm a mad woman when I tell them I shop once a year with a monthly top-up and I have been asked over and over where I store it all (last week when we did the monthly grocery shop we had two trolleys!). I can tell you that a year's worth of food isn't really that much.

Because I shop once a year and have a stockpile of groceries, most grocery items are kept in the kitchen pantry or on the store shelves in the laundry until they are needed in the kitchen. In the pantry I keep the things we use everyday – cereals, spreads, baking supplies, oil and so on.

Bread goes into the little freezer over the fridge so it doesn't get squashed and bent out of shape. I keep pastry sheets, spices and stock cubes in there too.

The door of the fridge holds four bottles of milk, plus cream, sour cream and salad dressings. Eggs go on the top shelf of the fridge along with butter and cheeses. The top shelf also holds three Tupperware containers: one for beetroot, one for pineapple slices and one for pickled onions. I keep jams, mustards and pickles on the top shelf too.

The second shelf holds containers of sliced meat for lunches and leftovers. The third shelf has Tupperware containers holding fruit and vegetables, as do the crispers in the bottom.

Meat is packaged up in meal sizes and vacuum sealed then stored in the chest freezer. Frozen vegetables are kept in the basket in the chest freezer, along with a spare bottle of milk.

In my kitchen dry goods are put into the freezer, in the packaging, as soon as they enter the house. I do this to kill any weevils that may be in the foods. Once they come out of the freezer  (after at least seven days, usually longer if I don't need them in a hurry) they are either stacked in the store cupboard or used to top up a canister in the pantry.

I prefer to decant everything into labelled canisters, rather than keep open packets on the pantry shelf. Open packets are an invitation to bugs to have a party – at my cost. You don’t need to spend a lot of money on canisters. Coffee jars or formula tins are a uniform size and stack neatly and best of all because they are recycled they are free.  Ask friends and relatives to keep them for you to build your supply quickly. When a canister is empty, it is washed and dried and refilled from the stockpile and I make a note on the appropriate inventory, ready for making up my shopping list.

Toiletries are kept in the bathroom cupboards, in boxes or on trays that stack. The cardboard trays things are stacked in on the supermarket shelf are perfect and free, so use them if you can get them. Toilet paper is kept in the laundry and the shed.

Cleaning supplies are kept in the laundry or under the kitchen sink (dishwasher powder and dishwashing liquid). Vinegar, laundry soap, borax, washing soda and eucalyptus oil are kept in the laundry.

Storing a quantity of groceries isn't difficult. My kitchen isn't huge. In fact it is quite small. I don't have an abundance of cupboard space, I just use what I do have to its full advantage.

With a little creative thinking you can easily find room in your home for a once-a-month, or even once-a-year grocery shop.

My best advice, and last tip, is to make a note of where you store things. It will stop double-buying, frustration and things going off because you can't find them.


The $300 a Month Food Challenge Forum
 
The Post that Started it All


7. Cheapskates Buzz
From The Article Archive
Attitude Differences between Those with Debt and Those Without
Create MOO Mixes in 5 EasySteps
Painless Ways to Build an Emergency Fund


This Week's Hot Forum Topics
Today I'm Grateful For.....
Crazy Cake
Clutter to Cash Challenge


Most Popular Blog Posts This Week
MOO Honey Lemon Cough Syrup
Fruity Tea Cake
The No Power Challenge
​

8. The Cheapskates Club Show
Join Cath and Hannah live ​Tuesdays and Thursdays on You Tube at 7.30pm AET

Join us live on YouTube every Tuesday and Thursday and see how we are  living debt free, cashed up and laughing - and find out how you can too!


Show Schedule
Tuesday: Around the Kitchen Table - join Cath and Hannah for a cuppa and a chat around the kitchen table as they talk about living the Cheapskates way.

Thursday: Cheapskates in the Kitchen - want to know how to cook delicious, healthy and cheap meals? Watch Cath and Hannah as they create cheapskates style cuisine and share their favourite recipes.


Latest Shows 
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9. Ask A Question
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

10. Join The Cheapskates Club
For just $25 a year, 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!

11. Frequently Asked Questions
How do I change my email address?
This one is easy.  When you login to the Member's Centre just click on your name at the top of the page to go straight to your profile page where you can update your details, change your password and find your subscription details.

Not a Cheapskates Club member? Then please use the Changing Details form found here to update your email address.

How do I know when my membership should be renewed?
Memberships are active for one year from the date of joining. You will be sent a renewal reminder before your subscription is due to renew.  You can also find your membership expiry date on your profile page.


When you login to the Member's Centre just click on your name to go straight to your profile page where you can will find your join date and your expiry date.

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 I get on this list?
The only way you can get onto our newsletter mailing list is to subscribe yourself. You signed up to receive our Free Newsletter at our Cheapskates Club Web site or are a Platinum Cheapskates Club member.

12. Contact Cheapskates
The Cheapskates Club -
Showing you how to live life
debt free, cashed up and laughing!

PO Box 5077 Studfield Vic 3152

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