Tightwad Kitty's $$$ Stretching Blog

Busy week this week I went to the Gold Coast and went up to 78 floor of Q1 building at Surfers Paradise it’s World Tallest Residential tower it’s 322.5 M high 526 Apartments 12660 sq m
You have to pay to go up in it too! After we went another Apartment complex and had lunch at one of restaurant there. I had corn beef and vegetables for a change. This must be my month this year for dining out. I am up to number three and still another few to go. I will need to cut back next month on eating out it can get a bit expensive.

I have been busy making vegetable garden beds, on my lawn. I have just finished doing mixing soil today. I will be planting some vegetable seedling & seeds on Tuesday as I will be going to my son place to work on his garden.

Weekly Main Meals Menu

Sunday ~ Mother’s Day Dinner at a Chinese Restaurant
Monday ~ Curried Sausage & Vegetables
Tuesday ~ leftovers
Wednesday ~ Omelet with salad
Thursday ~ Grilled Sausages with Onions & Grilled Tomato
Friday ~ Pasta with Tuna & Tomato Sauce
Saturday ~ Apricot Chicken with Rice

I had visitors here, number of day trips to the country and little time to get on here. Now things are back to routine so I will be able to post more.

With the price of gas now, I did drive my own car doing over 500 km while they were here. I did go to a country town and found some canning bottles for under 30c each, I will have to buy lids and seal when I do get around to using them. I will find time to review my chutney bottles and get new lids and seals as I haven’t use them for along while.

Starting a new vegetable garden here, one of my visitors did dig the beds for me, now I am waiting a few weeks to let the mulch kill some of the weeds that may be in the lawn area that is now vegetable garden. I was looking up the seed companies online as I wish to void hybrid seeds where possible. I will be going organic with this garden. I do know that planting times are very important around here as we are sub tropics here. So I have made a list of what will grow here all year around, fall & winter, spring & summer. These lists will help when planting out and when. Some vegetables I will never eat so will not be buying them. So far I have spent around $100 on garden soil mixtures and edging bricks. Will be spending about $35 on seeds but these will be for next three years of planting.

Weekly Main Meals Menu

Sunday ~ Roast Chicken & Vegetables
Monday ~ Omelet with salad
Tuesday ~ Grilled Steak & Onions, Mashed Potatoes with Baked Beans
Wednesday ~ Leftovers night
Thursday ~ Grilled Sausages with Onions & Grilled Tomato
Friday ~ Salmon Patties with Vegetables
Saturday ~ Pasta with Tuna & Tomato Sauce

First off DF-M gives me some ripe tomatoes which I made some pasta sauce with, then another friend bought some breast of chicken and chicken wings about a 1 kg of each. This morning DF-D came over when I was out but arrived back just in time to get 5 kg box a frozen fish and 4 Chicken Maryland frozen. I think, I will have enough for a few weeks now. So you can see I will be using a lot of chicken in the coming weeks. That’s over $50 worth of food for free. Mind you some of it is a birthday gift.

I just found a tip on using frozen fish which I will try with my bootie. You can retain the taste of fish in frozen fish, if after freezing; the fish is left to thaw in a bowl or container of cow’s milk. Just pour enough milk to cover the fish and allow it to sit until it defrosts. In our climate that’s in the refrigerator. I do poach most of my fish in enough water to cover, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 8 peppercorns and whole red chili or a stick of lemon grass. My cats do love this as much as I do. I have lemon grass and chili growing the garden here.

Weekly Main Meals Menu

Sunday ~ Teriyaki Beef & Noodles
Monday ~ Apricot Chicken with Rice
Tuesday ~ Teriyaki Chicken Wings & Fried Rice
Wednesday ~ Pasta with Tuna & Tomato Sauce
Thursday ~ Satay Chicken & Rice
Friday ~ Beer Battered Fish & Vegetables
Saturday Grilled Steak & Onions, Mashed Potatoes with Baked Beans

Gone shopping or bought something 30 times

Travel to the city by bus 5 times

Drove my car only 16 times

Had food bought or had for free away from home 8 times

And had 35 No Spending Days since the last count.

Let’s see what next month’s will be

Today I found UHT Milk that was markdown with a few months still before best before date. I bought the 4 cartons there @ .50 each and being organic they were around $2.15 RRP each. There were some soy milk also but I did buy it as I’m not great lover of soy milk. I will keep some of this milk in stock so I have milk if we have a problem with our water supply at anytime. I can use about one carton per week normally so when they get to near use by date I work them into my normal week supply and replace with fresh supply. I bought my cat some more cat litter as I do need to stockpile more for them too! Prices are going up fast here, so it will be cushion against prices rises as well having more in the cupboards.

Weekly Main Meal Menu

Sunday ~ Roast Chicken & Vegetables
Monday ~ Stir Fry Beef with Rice
Tuesday ~ Beans & Rice with Vegetables
Wednesday ~ Apricot Chicken with rice
Thursday ~ Grilled Sausages with Onions & Grilled Tomato
Friday ~ Pasta with Tuna & Tomato Sauce
Saturday ~ Leftovers

I’m joining in on this event tonight; I will be turning off my lights, computer and TV between 8pm – 9pm local time.

A quite few places are joining in here including a large function with 3000 dining guests will be eating by candlelight as whole function will in darkness for that hour.

Many people have planned Earth Hour Parties by candlelight and one sport stadium is showing the Alan Gore movie while this is on. It should be an interesting to see how much power can be saved over all as this event is worldwide this time and not just Sydney this year.

Australia ready to switch off lights for Earth Hour

I have been shopping only twice since last week, still haven’t spent any money on Grocery. But I have spent $33.50 on books all used ones too! They are by an author that I am trying to read when I get some time to do so as they are in trilogy form, I need to get them all before I start to read most of them. I do have the first book but I don’t have any others in first trilogy but I do have the first book in the next trilogy, the other ones are from other trilogies that she has written. I am planning to buy new next two books of the first trilogy for Mother Day as I will ask for gift vouchers again this year. They do come in handy when you want something that is not a need but you would like to have it. As I am a slow reader I do need to buy these books as I’m still reading War & Peace after 32 years. I have seen the that movie a few times but with the book I get very bored in the war parts of the book and then stop for a few years then have another go. I may get there one day. Some books I can read in a few hours but others it takes years.

I did have lunch with my ex-coworkers again this week, and paid my visa so it’s back to Zero again.

The other thing I did spend money is getting prescriptions filled and packet of candy as the treat for the week not that I didn’t get any chocolate for Easter, I just a need to buy some non- chocolate candy too!

We may get some rain tonight so heres is hoping.

This week it’s time to charge the batteries in the smoke detectors, I have 3 of them so I went and bought a pack of 4 x 9 volt batteries @ $16.57 pack or if I wished to buy them in single packs @ $6.99 a pack it’s crazy but I’m saving money by buying four. As three of them would have cost $ 20.97 and I got four for $16.57 value of $27.96 saving $11.39 on the four. It’s the end of our day light savings in the Southern States, we don’t have it here. Fire dept recommends’ to change at beginning of the day light saving but as I did put new ones up at this time last year I’m doing at end of it each year, it still one year but at a different time of the year.

Weekly Main Meal Menu

Sunday ~ Grilled Sausages with Onions & Grilled Tomato
Monday ~ Apricot Chicken with rice
Tuesday ~ Pasta with Tuna & Tomato Sauce
Wednesday ~ Omelet with salad
Thursday ~ Leftovers night
Friday ~ Salmon Patties with Vegetables
Saturday ~ Steak with Onions & Grilled Tomato

With the way the economies of the world these days, with shares, banking, peck oil & shortages of some food items. I do think it time for me to start stockpiling more food & other supplies. Things are only going to rise and almost never will come back down in price. My starting point is reviewing what I have already got stockpiled. Then filling the gaps first, using any old or nearly old stock replacing them with new items that I will use and can cook without power if there is a shortage in electricity here. I’m looking into different ways of cooking so I can cook if there is rationing of the power grid. I do believe that is may be happing some parts of the world now. Solar cooker, hay box, camp gas stove & BBQ non-gas one, two of these methods I have already have. Food lines can be used in my normal cooking until needed but keeping them to a peak level when each comes on special in they cycles. They are many places now on the internet telling you how much you need to store per person. As I am in a single household I will be only storing for two, mostly things that other people will not to want to make from scratch too! Dried & canned beans, dried & canned vegetables, mainly canned tomatoes, and other foodstuffs, oil & vinegars, spices & herbs, coffee & tea, water plus paper goods and good first aid kit enough for a few months at least. Torches & radio with batteries, to name a few things I’m thinking of. Another thing is the information of how to use these foodstuffs using these cooking methods and how to make things & repairs them to last longer.

Today I filed some of papers that I have been pulling out of my craft bedroom. I did find a very unusual one that was printed in January 1974, two days after the flood here when over 13000 homes went under. In it they are telling you how to save most of the things that we are told to get ride of now. Like carpets, books, furniture, clothes, save the plaster walls, how wash outside walls, how to get your car going etc. Back then I do know that so much was not make with glue and particle boards but more solid woods and brick. Our old house that was sold 3 years before this flood only needed a quick hose out and dry out then it was fine; the people living there had time to up most of their goods into the ceiling including the carpets as there were two large man holes build into that house and it was one of the last houses to go under at 35 feet above sea level. The house that we moved to then now is my home and is high on a ridge but the low areas near the river did get flood then. Funny what we kept.

Weekly Main Meal Menu

Sunday ~Beef Rissoles & Salad
Monday ~ Pasta with Tuna & Tomato Sauce
Tuesday ~ Stir Fry Chicken with Rice
Wednesday ~ Beans & Rice with Vegetables
Thursday ~ Steak with Onions & Grilled Tomato
Friday ~ Salmon Patties with Vegetables
Saturday ~ Omelet with salad

I had a very busy morning; first I spent 5 hours with my Italian DF-M, as she is elderly and wanted to make pasta today. So we were up at first light this morning making and rolling pasta for Easter. It was just the two of us do this today.

After having lunch I started working on an area in my workshop. I got to put some stuff away into they right place after I had finished the painting the other day. With that lot cleared it made way so that I could get to the area that I wished to clear out. I did half this area today which took about 2 hours so far. I needed to put some wood away that I would need to repair the outside of the house what was sitting the corner from my door project a year ago. If I ever get dry rot I will have matching boards to replace with and I do have the storage there.

1 large onion
2 tomatoes
1 potato cut into thin strips
1 carrot cut into thin strips
2 tsp. marmite or Vegemite
1 quart (1250 ml) of boiling water

Fry onion a golden brown, boil carrots and potatoes till tender.
Boil and strain tomatoes to remove skins and seeds, dissolve marmite in a little hot water
To these ingredients add 1 quarts boiling water.
Lets stand on stove and simmer gently for about 10 minutes before serving.
A delicious marmite broth can also be made by dissolving 1 teaspoon of marmite in 1 cup of boiling water.
1952 recipe

Vegemite

Marmite

Vegemite new add

Nine 1996 - 40 Years Of Television - Old Commercials

Self contained (without Stock)

2lbs (1kg) soup bones with a little meat on them (cut into small 3inch pieces)
(I did add a lamb chop that I had to the mixture.
2 quarts plus extra pint (5 litres) of cold water
¼ cup white vinegar
1 tsp. salt
3 sprig of parsley flat & 1 sprig of rosemary tided together with cotton trine. You can thyme or marjoram with parsley. (I just had parsley & rosemary in the garden.)
Boil for 5-10 minutes until boiling skimming the scrum off the top then simmer on low for 2½ hours.

Now cut up vegetable at the 2 hours mark.
Into chunky diced pieces I used 3 medium potatoes, 3 carrots, ½ medium yellow sweet potato, 1 medium onion, I would have used some celery if had any. I did put in some peas but found it’s best to add when reheating it.
1 cup red lentil washed
As for flavoring I did use 2 heap tablespoons of curry powder and 1 teaspoon celery salt.
1 tablespoon beef liquid stock concentrated as I need some more flavor when I tasted it.

At the 2½ hours stage, remove broth off the heat and remove the herbs and discard.
Sieve broth saving both liquid & diced meat pieces removing any left on the bones, removing the meat bones and discard.

Return broth, meat, chunky diced vegetable, lentils and flavoring to the stockpot bring to the boil, then simmer for another 30 minutes.

Serve about 3 soup ladles per person
It’s a watery liquid broth; I have it with toast & vegemite.
I froze it and I got approx 8 servings.

I did go and pay my power bill this week and did a little shopping too! Bought beef soup bones and made a Meat & Vegetable Broth (Soup) and I got 8serving, so I will have a few meals for lunch time. I just add 2 multigrain toast with butter and vegemite. I know that black stuff us Aussie love. I just have a little not a lot. I did find a soup recipe for marmite soup while I was looking for a recipe for the beef soup bones recipe. Not to many around now I had to go back to the 1950’s for the recipe. It’s not a fancy recipe but more like a recession recipe with very little meat in it. Post recipe soon.

I finished painting the door is done, it looks good too, it just needs my friend to come back and put it back up. It’s far too heavy for me to do and it’s to go on the top of flight of stairs too!

Weekly Main Meal Menu
Sunday ~Apricot Chicken with rice
Monday ~ Steak with Onions & Grilled Tomato
Tuesday ~ Omelet with salad
Wednesday ~ Leftovers night
Thursday ~ Chicken Schnitzel & Egg with Vegetables
Friday ~ Salmon Patties with Vegetables
Saturday ~ Kangaroo Steak with Mushroom Sauce & Vegetables

Facts about Kangaroos

Recipes and all you need to know about Kangaroo Meat

Today my handyman friend arrived and took off my back screen door that was showing signs of weather over 20 years needing new fly screen and painting, as it was full of rust which was surface rust only. After remove the rust and fixing the fly screen panel which is separate piece. I put the first coat of metal primer on today and over the next few days I will be putting on next two coats before my friend come back to put it back up as this door is very heavy and need more than one person to put it back in place.

No spending days this month:- 4

I went shopping this morning, for pet food, some groceries as well gas for the car. On Tuesdays it works out to be the cheapest day to fill up the cars. Not cheap but a lot cheaper than most other days of the week today I got it for 122.5c per litre that was with the 4c off discount shopper coupon that I had to, $35.11 not bad for 8 weeks between refills. A few days ago it was 137.9c I did go and have a snack at Hungry Jacks with my free coffee.

So I spend money today
Total Money spent today $87.27 (my cash outlay)
Savings $stretch $10.19

Today we had a ‘Wet Weekend’ for a one hour on odd & even house number system that we have. We could get our hoses out for just one hour this weekend. Some people didn’t use they hoses for this one time only in 18 months. For me it was a lot longer than that as I always started a lot earlier as when the next level was published not when it started and the first 3 levels were published together. So for first time in over 3 years I washed my house and window of dust and had time to wash my car also. I did get everything ready before hand and all I had to do at end of the time was dry the car down. We are still on 140 litres per day per person. I’m at below 90 litres per day so I’m well within my limit. Hopefully we may go to 170 litres per person when we go over 40% and we are at 39.5%.

Weekly Main Meal Menu

Sunday ~Apricot Chicken with rice
Monday ~ Steak with Onions & Grilled Tomato
Tuesday ~ Leftovers night
Wednesday ~ Curried Sausages with Rice
Thursday ~ Chicken Schnitzel & Egg with Vegetables
Friday ~ Salmon Patties with Vegetables
Saturday omelet with salad

I have been working on my craft room; it’s a room you can’t move around that much. As not much can be thrown away at this moment but if something can be thrown out it is. I have a bad habit of collecting up anything not in the right place and boxing it to go back later and putting it this room each time I have visitors. Some is papers that I need to read, jewelry, odd coins, books and projects that I was doing at that time being all mixed up together. Now I’m sorting each box out and putting away in the right area. Quick reading of the papers but trashing any that out date, I have found some very valuable items also.

Well I went out today and had lunch with my ex-coworkers at a new place for lunch costing $11 for roasted chicken and roasted vegetables roll and coffee. I did pay some bills while out. Also getting some printers ink for my new printer as I buy the color but refill the black one.

So I spend money today
Total Money spent today $728 (my cash outlay) (mostly bills)
Savings $stretch $23.00

No Spending Days so far this month : ~ 20

It’s has been what summer up to yesterday, we had a lot of rain and most temperatures were around 27-28C since last October when we had temperature around mid -30C. Today it got to 40.2C here on our last week-end of our summer. I had the air-com most of today. I will budget for it in my next power bill. It’s only the third time I have had on since last summer. We will have about another few weeks of high temperatures around 28 -34C. I always think our summer start around the 4th week in spring and goes all the way until mid- April. Something like 8 months summer and 6 weeks of autumn (fall) spring and almost no winter. It’s cold here if it’s raining and below 7C. We don’t have snow where I live, if we did most of us would freeze as we don’t have heating in our homes.

I might add that 40C plus was very rare around SE-Queensland and I can only remember about 30 days at this temperature almost all in the last 4 years, so Climate Charge I think is here now. Our normal hot summer days here are around 28-38C max. (37C = 100F)

No Spending Days so far this month :~ 16

Using the omelet marker for the first time, as I normally make fluffy omelet I made this but it did rise went flat when took them out the marker. As there was no booklet with it, I’m going by just trail & error. It was still eatable but good enough to serve visitors I would think. I will need to look around for the right mixer recipe. I got this one for free its value new $49.99, it was only used twice before.

No Spending Days so far this month :~ 13

When I bought the black leather handbag on Saturday for $2.00 value around $50.00 plus. It had some wear marks and a bit of white paint on it. Today I got out the Turp’s and clean off the paint and then using leather dye black painted the handbag so that I can now use it for a number year’s I hope. I clean up some old razors that I found in a box, I wonder if they are of any value to collectors. Now I am looking at what I got in my little boxes around the place.

Weekly Main Meal Menu

Sunday ~~ Chicken Schnitzel & Egg with Vegetables
Monday ~ Curried Sausages with Rice
Tuesday ~ Buttered Chicken with spiced rice
Wednesday ~ Lamb chop with mushrooms & Grilled Tomato
Thursday ~ Tuna Pasta with Salad
Friday ~~ Salmon Patties with Vegetables
Saturday ~ omelet with salad

No Spending Day

I had to go to the supermarket today. I bought fruit and vegetables that were much cheaper than buying at the supermarket with all this rain the farm are flooded in some places and the supermarket prices, apples and pears at 99c kg instead of $3.98 kg. Along with pet food stocking up on dry pet food as these were on special also my cats treats cat food was on special too! I also got a few bargains in chicken stock satchels for 20c each so I bought what was left. So if I shopped different place than where I did I would spent. Meat Lamb $2.30 marked down from $3.96

So I spend money today
Total Money spent today $43.09 (my cash outlay)
Savings $stretch $28.36

There is another monsoon low off Townsville this afternoon and will past Mackay tonight and come down this far south sometime tomorrow. Not good but it may good for us when it gets here, but will be mainly on the coast.
Our dams are now at 37.8% so when it gets to above 40%, we will off level 6. This may happen if rain gets into a catchment area. With another weather system coming from the west as well!

Queensland put on cyclone watch

Monsoon rains hit another town this one is at sea level. These heavy rains are not stopping either and if it head out to sea in this area it will be come a cyclone for sure as its right next to the Coral Sea.

Here are some pictures.

Another town flooded

Here some pictures our nation making history on 13th February 2008.

All I can say it should have never happened, (Stolen Generations) taking away Aboriginal children from their family and to be never seen again with the governments (1910 -1970) making out they never did anything wrong.
Pictures of Sorry Day

If you would like to know more I have added more links here.

Sorry Day

Full text of Rudd's sorry speech

Went to a Garage (Yard) Sale I help there today I took a few boxes books and few other items also .

I had a great day spent $7.50, sold all my books for $10.00. I came home with $8.50 profit. But you should see what I got for my money about $400 worth on retail value alone, there were a some free stuff Leather handbag, 3 lunch bags, beauty bag, 2 shoe bags, heap of vintage jewelery including a watch which you can charge its faces 6 ways, many cookbooks, craft books, 2 milk bottles & 1 water bottles all glass for the fridge, Sunbeam Waffle Maker, Omelet Maker, and 12 silver plate napkin rings, 6 Brass Christmas Napkin Ring, 4 Brass Heart Napkin Rings and 6 Wine Glass Ring for Christmas also a lot other odd & ends.

So I spend money today
Total Money spent today $7.50 (my cash outlay)
Savings $stretch $400

I went to the city today. Visit to the Chiro and to pay my car insurance which is due next week. Went to Hungry Jack for lunch again, having burger, coffee and ice cream as the coffee was Free, so costing $2.40 only. I did buy some batteries that I need to replace. I went and bought some birthday gifts at chemist as they had them on for buy one get lowest price free, what you do when they do this, you buy both at same price so you getting at least 50% off. I got two toiletries gift boxes that were a great price $7.48 each so I only paid $7.48 for both.

So I spend money today
Total Money spent today $555.90 (my cash outlay)
Savings $stretch $9.93

It’s been so wet here lately that it was too wet to mow. We just had a window of three days to catch up on mowing the lawn around here. Nearly everyone got out they mowers or had they lawn mower service come and mow and tidy up they yards.

I did get my yard tidy, as I work long before the noise level can go up at 7 am and 8 am on weekend. I like to have my edges done long before these times. I still cut my edges with scissors which easy to do in short energy bursts.

It’s now raining again with two lows moving down the coast, again flooding around the place. I’m just watching it on the TV news now! 43 people had to be rescue off the coast, 37 on one yacht and 6 on the other, all are safe now.

My neighbor that owns the property that I got the first lot of free stuff came over and gave me a plastic bag with a lot of jewelry in it. I did take most of the jewelry the first lot too! There are some interesting pieces in it. The necklaces I may never wear so may send them to my niece, as she did this kind many years ago. Two or three pieces I do like and where were some sterling silver charms in the first lot and the charm bracelet has surface with this lot. I would sell some of this stuff later if I became short of money. Let’s say some of this stuff is of vintage kind. Some of this stuff was put up for sale at garage sale at one time but never sold that was five years ago.

No Spending Day :9

Well I did spend a little today; I had to go to the city.

Afterwards I checked out the supermarket for markdown goods while there and spent about $5.00 on clearance food lines, saving around $11.00 there.
I did drop into the op shop on the way home and bought some more books 3 cookbooks for 50c each saving around $30.00 here on Reg. Price.

I did go to Hungry Jack for Coffee (free) and had a burger & cone as well. Cost $2.40 saving $2.45 here.
Not bad but not good when you think about it, a little of no will power.

So I spend money today
Total Money spent today $8.90 (my cash outlay)
Savings $stretch $43.45

No Spending Days:- 8

Weekly Main Meal Menu

Sunday ~ Tuna Pasta with Salad
Monday ~ Leftovers night
Tuesday ~ Apricot Chicken with Rice
Wednesday ~ Omelet with Shredded Cheese and Salad
Thursday ~ Steak with Onions & Grilled Tomato
Friday ~ Salmon Patties with Vegetables
Saturday ~ Chicken Schnitzel & Egg with Vegetables