Your Cheapskates Club Newsletter 24:19
In This Newsletter
1. Cath's Corner
2. From the Tip Store - Fortnightly Menu; MOO Bulk Yoghurt, It's Easy; Food wasted = Less Fun
3. This Week's Winning Tip - Saving Money on Electricity for Water Tank Pump Use
4. Share Your Tips
5. On the Menu - Lamb Fritters
6. The $300 a Month Food Challenge - Affording a Roast
7. Cheapskates Buzz - Cheapskaters are talking in the Forum and on Cath's blog
8. The Cheapskates Club Show - Live on You Tube Tuesdays & Thursdays
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,It is wet, windy and cold as I'm typing this. Well it is June! And I, for one, am very grateful for the rain (our water storage is just 48% right now). I can hear the water barrels filling up, and the garden is perking up before my eyes. Gotta love free water.
On Tuesday night's show I challenged everyone to eating from their pantry and having just $20 for groceries for the week. There were lots of questions - perhaps looking for loopholes to get out of the challenge! The challenge is simple: for the next week, you are going to feed yourself and your family with the food you have in the house, and, if you need anything, it has to come from the $20 grocery budget. You can buy whatever you like with the $20, but once it's gone, that's it. You are broke, no more money to buy groceries.
I'll be posting each day how I do, what we eat, and what I buy (if anything). Are you going to join us? If you've already shopped for the week, great. If you haven't, just jump in and use up what you already have. And if you need ideas, you can download the Bare Bones Groceries e-book here.
Happy Cheapskating,
Cath
2. From The Tip Store
Fortnightly MenuApproximate $ Savings: $25 per fortnight.
We make up a list of meals each fortnight before going shopping, check to see what we already have in the pantry and fridge/freezer, then make up our shopping list based on what we still need. I make sure meals with "fresh" veggies are scheduled for the first week and meals using pasta, rice, frozen or canned veggies for the second. This means there's no quick trip to get fresh veggies or fruit half way through the fortnight, saving both money and time and also waste (veggies and fruit just won't wait till next week to be cooked or eaten!). The kids' lunches and snacks are worked out the same way, fresh first followed by canned, packet or homemade later.
Contributed by Susan Zelley
MOO Bulk Yoghurt, It's Easy
My family of eight goes through HEAPS of yoghurt. Being thrifty I bought an Easiyo maker but it only made 1 litre at a time and someone was always missing out!!! So I scoured the op shops and bought a few more of the containers and found that three of the Easiyo containers fit into our smallest eski. I half fill one container with cold water, mix in the yoghurt powder and top it up with more cold. water. Then I split it with the other 2 containers so all 3 are evenly filled and then fill up the rest with milk. Give them a good shake and pop them in the eski and pour over a kettle full of boiling water, put the lid on and leave overnight. In the morning 3 litres of yoghurt! Now nobody misses out :)
Contributed by Sharon Marriott
Food Wasted = Less Holiday Fun Approximate $ Savings:$50.00 + a month
In our family of three adults I have been monitoring the amount of food that has been wasted over the past two months. I estimate according to the price and weight how much the waste has cost us, tally it up and let DH and Dad know much we have wasted, this amount is then taken out of our allocated holiday money, it is amazing how by doing this, that it has made us all aware of portion sizes, eating leftovers and correctly storing food e.g. chips or biscuits so they don't go stale. This has made us all work together because less money for holiday = less money for fun.
Contributed by Donna W.
Add a Tip
3. This Week's Winning Tip
This week's winning tip is from Lorna, and while it is pouring rain while I'm typing this, Victoria is in the midst of a serious drought, with Melbourne water storage down to 48%. While Lorna has focussed her tip on saving power, being conscious of how much power she is using, she's also saving water - something we all need to be aware of (even when it's pouring rain!).
Lorna has won a one year Platinum Cheapskates Club membership for submitting her winning tip.
Saving Money on Electricity for Water Tank Pump Use
Here is a tip we use to save money on our electric rainwater tank pump going on and off all day if we want drinks or to wash our hands.
We fill up a 25 litre water jerry can or water jug with the tap once a day to use for drink water and rinse water to save our electric rainwater tank pump switching on and off all day using expensive electricity.
Beside each sink we also have a soft drink bottle full of water for rinsing hands and cleaning benches and the like and wash our hands during the day in a bucket with a small amount of water from our water jug each day and rinse with the soft drink bottle water. This also saves on water costs too with valuable water going down the sink each time you wash your hands.
Our electricity bill is under $280 a quarter and our rainwater tank pump runs on tariff 31 costing 17.43 c per kilowatt hour used and we also have a grey water pump as well. Not sure how much it saves but over the course of a year I would imagine quite a lot with how many times two people get a drink, wash their hands or want to rinse dishes or clean kitchen benches.
Congratulations, Lorna, we hope you enjoy your Cheapskates Club membership.
The Cheapskate's Club website is thousands of pages of money saving hints, tips and ideas. There are over 12,000 tips to save you money, time and energy; 1,700 budget and family friendly recipes, hundreds of printable tip sheets and ebooks.
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.
4. Share Your Tips
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!
Share Your Tip
5. On The Menu
Getting the most from a roast (sorry about the rhyming) makes them affordable, even on a tight budget. But you need to be a little creative with how you stretch them, especially when you get down to just a little meat left. Fritters are a tasty and easy way to use a very little meat to make a complete main dish, and everyone will love them.
Lamb Fritters
Ingredients:
Left over lamb roast – diced
1 large onion, grated
1 egg
1 tbsp mint sauce
1 cup SR flour
1 cup milk
oil for shallow frying
Method:
Mix all the ingredients together, stirring well to remove lumps. Drop spoonfuls into hot oil and fry until brown on the bottom. Turn and cook until golden brown. Drain on absorbent paper.
This week we will be eating:
Sunday: Roast Lamb
Monday: Lamb fritters, salad
Tuesday: Spag Bol, salad, garlic bread
Wednesday: Chicken pies, vegetables
Thursday: MOO Pizza
Friday: Curried chicken & noodles
Saturday: Hamburgers
In the fruit bowl: bananas
In the cake tin: Sultana cake, Choc Chip Oat Slice
There are over 1,600 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
Affording a Roast
This is what we'll be eating next week. The lamb is in the freezer, I'll take it out tomorrow and put it in the fridge to thaw. Then on Sunday, Wayne will put it on the barbecue and it will slow cook until tea time.
We'll eat our roast lamb with baked veggies for dinner, I'll put another meal's worth in gravy and freeze it for our next roast lamb dinner and then the leftovers will be used to make lamb fritters for Monday night's dinner.
Once that's done, the bone will go into the slow cooker with some celery leaves, carrots and onions to make soup stock. It will cook all night, and in the morning I'll strain it and put it in the fridge to cool.
I LOVE getting more than one meal from a roast - it makes them very affordable. And easy - cook once, eat three or four times. That's my kind of cooking, especially when the days are as busy as mine are for next week.
I do this with chicken and beef too. We eat the roast on the day it's cooked, with lots of lovely veggies: potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, zucchini, squash, peas, beans, corn and lashings of delicious MOO gravy.
Then I put aside enough meat for another roast dinner, cover it with gravy and freeze it.
The leftovers make pies, or tacos, or enchiladas, or cottage pie or fritters.
And the bones go into the slow cooker to make stock for soup.
When you pay $15 for a leg of lamb and get just one meal from it, then it's an expensive meal.
If you can get two meals from it, the cost per meal drops to just $7.50 per meal -still over my $5 per meal limit.
Using all the meat, every last shred, to make a third meal brings the cost down to $5 per meal, and right on my cost per meal limit.
And then going one step further, and making stock and soup from the bones, makes the roast really affordable, and brings the cost per meal down to $3.75 - well under the $5 per meal limit.
The $300 a Month Food Challenge Forum
The Post that Started it All
7. Cheapskates Buzz
From The Article Archive
Building Your Emergency Fund
Does the $300 a Month Shopping Plan Still Work?
Meal Stretchers
This Week's Hot Forum Topics
How to put a $2.00 coin to work
Ok guys...bare bones grocery challenge time
Take a spring onion, two eggs and a piece of cheese......
8. The Cheapskates Club Show
Join Cath and Hannah live Tuesdays and Thursdays on You Tube at 7.30pm AET
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
1. Cath's Corner
2. From the Tip Store - Fortnightly Menu; MOO Bulk Yoghurt, It's Easy; Food wasted = Less Fun
3. This Week's Winning Tip - Saving Money on Electricity for Water Tank Pump Use
4. Share Your Tips
5. On the Menu - Lamb Fritters
6. The $300 a Month Food Challenge - Affording a Roast
7. Cheapskates Buzz - Cheapskaters are talking in the Forum and on Cath's blog
8. The Cheapskates Club Show - Live on You Tube Tuesdays & Thursdays
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,It is wet, windy and cold as I'm typing this. Well it is June! And I, for one, am very grateful for the rain (our water storage is just 48% right now). I can hear the water barrels filling up, and the garden is perking up before my eyes. Gotta love free water.
On Tuesday night's show I challenged everyone to eating from their pantry and having just $20 for groceries for the week. There were lots of questions - perhaps looking for loopholes to get out of the challenge! The challenge is simple: for the next week, you are going to feed yourself and your family with the food you have in the house, and, if you need anything, it has to come from the $20 grocery budget. You can buy whatever you like with the $20, but once it's gone, that's it. You are broke, no more money to buy groceries.
I'll be posting each day how I do, what we eat, and what I buy (if anything). Are you going to join us? If you've already shopped for the week, great. If you haven't, just jump in and use up what you already have. And if you need ideas, you can download the Bare Bones Groceries e-book here.
Happy Cheapskating,
Cath
2. From The Tip Store
Fortnightly MenuApproximate $ Savings: $25 per fortnight.
We make up a list of meals each fortnight before going shopping, check to see what we already have in the pantry and fridge/freezer, then make up our shopping list based on what we still need. I make sure meals with "fresh" veggies are scheduled for the first week and meals using pasta, rice, frozen or canned veggies for the second. This means there's no quick trip to get fresh veggies or fruit half way through the fortnight, saving both money and time and also waste (veggies and fruit just won't wait till next week to be cooked or eaten!). The kids' lunches and snacks are worked out the same way, fresh first followed by canned, packet or homemade later.
Contributed by Susan Zelley
MOO Bulk Yoghurt, It's Easy
My family of eight goes through HEAPS of yoghurt. Being thrifty I bought an Easiyo maker but it only made 1 litre at a time and someone was always missing out!!! So I scoured the op shops and bought a few more of the containers and found that three of the Easiyo containers fit into our smallest eski. I half fill one container with cold water, mix in the yoghurt powder and top it up with more cold. water. Then I split it with the other 2 containers so all 3 are evenly filled and then fill up the rest with milk. Give them a good shake and pop them in the eski and pour over a kettle full of boiling water, put the lid on and leave overnight. In the morning 3 litres of yoghurt! Now nobody misses out :)
Contributed by Sharon Marriott
Food Wasted = Less Holiday Fun Approximate $ Savings:$50.00 + a month
In our family of three adults I have been monitoring the amount of food that has been wasted over the past two months. I estimate according to the price and weight how much the waste has cost us, tally it up and let DH and Dad know much we have wasted, this amount is then taken out of our allocated holiday money, it is amazing how by doing this, that it has made us all aware of portion sizes, eating leftovers and correctly storing food e.g. chips or biscuits so they don't go stale. This has made us all work together because less money for holiday = less money for fun.
Contributed by Donna W.
Add a Tip
3. This Week's Winning Tip
This week's winning tip is from Lorna, and while it is pouring rain while I'm typing this, Victoria is in the midst of a serious drought, with Melbourne water storage down to 48%. While Lorna has focussed her tip on saving power, being conscious of how much power she is using, she's also saving water - something we all need to be aware of (even when it's pouring rain!).
Lorna has won a one year Platinum Cheapskates Club membership for submitting her winning tip.
Saving Money on Electricity for Water Tank Pump Use
Here is a tip we use to save money on our electric rainwater tank pump going on and off all day if we want drinks or to wash our hands.
We fill up a 25 litre water jerry can or water jug with the tap once a day to use for drink water and rinse water to save our electric rainwater tank pump switching on and off all day using expensive electricity.
Beside each sink we also have a soft drink bottle full of water for rinsing hands and cleaning benches and the like and wash our hands during the day in a bucket with a small amount of water from our water jug each day and rinse with the soft drink bottle water. This also saves on water costs too with valuable water going down the sink each time you wash your hands.
Our electricity bill is under $280 a quarter and our rainwater tank pump runs on tariff 31 costing 17.43 c per kilowatt hour used and we also have a grey water pump as well. Not sure how much it saves but over the course of a year I would imagine quite a lot with how many times two people get a drink, wash their hands or want to rinse dishes or clean kitchen benches.
Congratulations, Lorna, we hope you enjoy your Cheapskates Club membership.
The Cheapskate's Club website is thousands of pages of money saving hints, tips and ideas. There are over 12,000 tips to save you money, time and energy; 1,700 budget and family friendly recipes, hundreds of printable tip sheets and ebooks.
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.
4. Share Your Tips
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!
Share Your Tip
5. On The Menu
Getting the most from a roast (sorry about the rhyming) makes them affordable, even on a tight budget. But you need to be a little creative with how you stretch them, especially when you get down to just a little meat left. Fritters are a tasty and easy way to use a very little meat to make a complete main dish, and everyone will love them.
Lamb Fritters
Ingredients:
Left over lamb roast – diced
1 large onion, grated
1 egg
1 tbsp mint sauce
1 cup SR flour
1 cup milk
oil for shallow frying
Method:
Mix all the ingredients together, stirring well to remove lumps. Drop spoonfuls into hot oil and fry until brown on the bottom. Turn and cook until golden brown. Drain on absorbent paper.
This week we will be eating:
Sunday: Roast Lamb
Monday: Lamb fritters, salad
Tuesday: Spag Bol, salad, garlic bread
Wednesday: Chicken pies, vegetables
Thursday: MOO Pizza
Friday: Curried chicken & noodles
Saturday: Hamburgers
In the fruit bowl: bananas
In the cake tin: Sultana cake, Choc Chip Oat Slice
There are over 1,600 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
Affording a Roast
This is what we'll be eating next week. The lamb is in the freezer, I'll take it out tomorrow and put it in the fridge to thaw. Then on Sunday, Wayne will put it on the barbecue and it will slow cook until tea time.
We'll eat our roast lamb with baked veggies for dinner, I'll put another meal's worth in gravy and freeze it for our next roast lamb dinner and then the leftovers will be used to make lamb fritters for Monday night's dinner.
Once that's done, the bone will go into the slow cooker with some celery leaves, carrots and onions to make soup stock. It will cook all night, and in the morning I'll strain it and put it in the fridge to cool.
I LOVE getting more than one meal from a roast - it makes them very affordable. And easy - cook once, eat three or four times. That's my kind of cooking, especially when the days are as busy as mine are for next week.
I do this with chicken and beef too. We eat the roast on the day it's cooked, with lots of lovely veggies: potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, zucchini, squash, peas, beans, corn and lashings of delicious MOO gravy.
Then I put aside enough meat for another roast dinner, cover it with gravy and freeze it.
The leftovers make pies, or tacos, or enchiladas, or cottage pie or fritters.
And the bones go into the slow cooker to make stock for soup.
When you pay $15 for a leg of lamb and get just one meal from it, then it's an expensive meal.
If you can get two meals from it, the cost per meal drops to just $7.50 per meal -still over my $5 per meal limit.
Using all the meat, every last shred, to make a third meal brings the cost down to $5 per meal, and right on my cost per meal limit.
And then going one step further, and making stock and soup from the bones, makes the roast really affordable, and brings the cost per meal down to $3.75 - well under the $5 per meal limit.
The $300 a Month Food Challenge Forum
The Post that Started it All
7. Cheapskates Buzz
From The Article Archive
Building Your Emergency Fund
Does the $300 a Month Shopping Plan Still Work?
Meal Stretchers
This Week's Hot Forum Topics
How to put a $2.00 coin to work
Ok guys...bare bones grocery challenge time
Take a spring onion, two eggs and a piece of cheese......
8. The Cheapskates Club Show
Join Cath and Hannah live Tuesdays and Thursdays on You Tube at 7.30pm AET
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
Coming Up
Thursday 13th June - Cheat's Fruit Cobbler - Dessert for 50 Cents!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 $36.50 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
Contact Cheapskates
Thursday 13th June - Cheat's Fruit Cobbler - Dessert for 50 Cents!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 $36.50 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
Contact Cheapskates