Repurposing a schoolbag

My daughter loves schoolbags that come from a surf shop in Wodonga. It takes 1 1/2 hours to drive there. Last week my eldest daughter went with her Dad to take her beloved mandolin to be fixed. It had a manufacturing fault in the batch and needed a new thingo (haha) that keeps the strings up? Anyway it meant a drive. While there they got my middle daughter the one that likes schoolbags from the surf shop some other school supplies. However she knew funds had to stretch to agreed a sewing project we cooked up, she loves it really.

She has two of these school bags. The old one and the new one. We hadn't thrown the old one out since last spring, ie somewhere in 3rd or 4th term last year. The new one? had a broken zip. So the other ones zip went into the new bag. The remainder was made into a pencil case and my husband took some photos.











The money was put towards a drink bottle, and lunchbox for my eldest daughter to start uni and other things she needed like umbrella. We also had to keep some money for driving her to her new place where she is staying already, getting ready for the new uni life on the 13th. My two youngest daughters, the only kids still at home start school on Thursday, my husband starts tomorrow, though he is there now.

How to live a money-less life by Mark Boyle

Costco Opens in Canberra

Costco has been open in Canberra for about 8 days now from memory. My son has been over there twice. It is at the airport in the old DFO building from what I can gather. He got a card for membership, and with that my other son gets one for free because they live in the same household. So if I go visit I'll just bring my son with me to pay and I can pay him back. I wanted to see if they had any American things for my pantry. We were cooking from a blog a month or so ago and had to adapt recipes that had chipotle in them. My son went to David Jones in Sydney and found this for me.



I buy three dozen eggs each fortnight in my online fruit and vegetable order, that is kindly brought here 1 1/2 hours drive. So Costco having eggs for about $5 for 30 eggs sounds really good. I also used to buy cheese in 1kg packets from Murray Goulburn, Costco has 2lb packs which is handy. The yoghurt apparently is very very cheap. One of my online friends says her friend swears she saves heaps of money shopping there. My son wasn't going to get a membership until he researched the savings which he did I think.

I found another blog that has more pictures and here.

Cheap Soup Recipe

This recipe needs minimal vegetables, only red chillies and fresh coriander. Yes, yuk. But sometimes in just the right recipe it is nice. I haven't tried this yet. But as I am still after very cheap meals often, this is worth putting here to use later.

Don't freak out about the title (I did) it is just normal Australian soup mix.


Spiced Coriander, Lentil & Barley Soup

1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon ghee
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2 fresh small red thai chillies, chopped finely
1 1/4 cups (250g) soup mix
1 litre (4 cups) chicken stock
3 1/2 cups (875ml) water
1 cup coarsely chopped fresh coriander
1/3 cup (95g) greek-style yoghurt
1 tablespoon mango chutney

Dry-fry seeds in large saucepan, stirring, until fragrant. Using pestle ad mortar, crush seeds.

Melt ghee in same pan, cook crushed seeds, garlic, and chilli, stirring, 5 minutes.

Add soup mix, stock and the water to pan; bring to the boil. Reduce heat; simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, 1 hour. Cool 15 minutes.

Blend or process half the soup, in batches, until smooth. Return pureed soup to pan with unprocessed soup; stir over medium heat until hot. Remove from heat; stir in coriander.

Serve soup topped with yoghurt and chutney.

Serves 4.

p13 AWW Smart Food (Budget Recipes)

Edited to say: I really liked it. In the end we only had Italian soup mix, and my husband put in extra barley. We just had yoghurt to serve it with in the middle.

Review Recipes+ Magazine

When I went to Melbourne early this week, we stopped by my Mum's to drop off the girls as I was having surgery. On the way home Mum gave me a magazine stack including three copies of Recipes+. If the recipes are as good as the ones we usually use, these are a gold mine! They are similar to the recipes I used before our vegetarian super budget kick, which were budget already. Familiar ingredients are chorizo, chipolatas and different sausages. Also my favourite types of dishes, but different to the ones we already have, which I am getting sick of really because I like to find new exciting recipes with those ingredients, as they are a limited set of ingredients in some ways.

You can have a look at what it looks like here.

You all know I am very dependent on the Taste site and love it as well. I love the magazine too. But I find the recipes+ magazine better in that it is less offensive by the way of materialism. Also everything is very positive and doesn't favour any particular type of people. Very practical, helpful, and uplifting, and cute. The ads are even nice. As I said, they are not materialisic, they are for everyday things, not too many and entertaining in a nice way. Thank you recipes+ for brightening up my week. Only trouble is that when I take all my favourite recipes out, I may as well just put the whole magazine in the marbig, there won't be much left, or much room left in my marbig.

Menu Planning, $21 Challenge, Simple Savings

I have been finding menu planning videos on Youtube. I came across one by a lady associated with simple savings, which I have heard of before, and the $21 challenge. One video I watched mentioned the Destitute Gourmet recipes. I went there and found one of my own secrets, saving money by using sausages as a main meat ingredient in recipes. It is great because I found some recipes that I can use myself. I like collecting sausage recipes.

Quick and Easy Sausage Carbonara

Chunky Sausage Bean Bake

Simple Savings Youtube Channel

Stretching the Meat

I read a great post about how to stretch meat without the meat eater knowing. Very good advice. The blog is really great reading. A family in corporate Australia living the simple life.

Here is what we did recently to stretch the meat. We loved it, it was like a frajita in a lot of ways.

Why do we stretch meat in our family? This particular blade steak came to be in our freezer as my car was in the workshop I think. My husband was going down to the local shop after work and he got whatever meat was left that was OK for us to use, meaning not something we really wouldn't want. To have enough for our family he traditionally would have to buy two packets, which there probably wasn't at that time.

I recently read that the amount of meat a person needs each day is related to their weight. If you are 80k, you need 80g. You can find that article here. It is an article about budgeting.

Beef & Red Lentil Curry

Serves 6

400gm blade steak
80g (1/3 cup) korma (mild) or Indian curry paste
2 tsp light olive oil
1 brown onion, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1 1/2 cups red lentils
500ml water
400ml coconut milk
pita bread
2 beef stock cubes
greek yoghurt

Please beef and half the curry paste in a glass or ceramic bowl, and turn to coat. Heat half the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the beef and cook turning occasionally for 4-5 minutes or until brown.

Add remaining oil over medium-low heat, add onion, garlic and ginger and cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes or until the onions softens slightly. Stir in the remaining curry paste.

Add the lentils, stock, coconut milk and water to the pan. Bring to the boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 10 mintues. Return the beef to the pan and simmer for a further 8 minutes or until tender.

Serve as a wrap with yoghurt on top of meat.

This recipe has been adapted from here. There are variations that make prove just as adaptable.

Fortnightly Menu at last!

Thoughts on route to the meal plan:

Well it is Saturday and not all of the shopping has been done. I have some meat, so I will attempt a meal plan. It is so hot to sit and think, and very hard to choose things that don't need baking for example.

Very hot, this week, I don't think I have seen a week like it. I have decided to use some tuna because you don't have to fry it.

Now it is Monday and here is my plan, even though I did start eating some things already planned out on Thursday.

Thursday: Italian Vegetable Risotto (from Super Food Ideas February)
Friday: Mexi Potato Chicken Pots
Saturday: Sausages & Beans a combination of this recipe and this recipe.
Sunday: Chicken, Bacon & Spinach Spaghetti Bolognaise
Monday: Chicken, Pumpkin & Bean Curry
Tuesday: Spaghetti Bolognaise
Wednesday: Chow Mein with Rice
Thursday: Chili Con Carne
Friday: Sausage Stir-fry
Saturday: Taco Salad with Sour Cream Dressing
Sunday: Tuna Casserole
Monday: Tuna & Mushroom Pasta
Tuesday: Vegetable & Salami Risotto
Wednesday: Fettucine Carbonara

I seem to have extra, no wonder I was struggling.

Thursday: Sweet & Spicy Chicken Fried Rice
Friday: Polish Sausage Salad

The Simple Life & Opportunity Cost

Year 12 Economics, a long time ago. What is Opportunity Cost and how does it relate to simple living or living within your means.

Basically if you are living cash only, you can't think of opportunity cost. You have to let some things go. It is very hard to do, and I admit lately I haven't been doing it. Mostly because of the place in where I live. I would rather get things when I see them. Yes, it probably impacts my finances, yet I think I still let some things go, some opportunities. It impacts my finances the most when I am paying for car repairs as I am now, and did in the spring.

What is opportunity cost? Opportunity Cost is an economic term that refers to the advantages of the second best business alternative, which are forgone as a result of accepting the best alternative.

The costs of a missed opportunity.

What does that mean? Basically if you see a sale, you don't have the money and you have to buy it when you do have the money and the price has gone up.

That is how I remember it. What we seem to do as people is to convince ourselves that we have to buy it now.

In my case, it may not be there next week, or I may not be in that town again for 12 months.

Yesterday I saw two punnets of lavender bushes, twelve plants for a hedge I was advised to get for our property for selling purposes. I won't see these bushes again. Technically I shouldn't be spending any money because I need it for something else. There would be a cost to missing this opportunity as they were $10 for both punnets. I did buy them, but I didn't buy the fruit trees early this year that we had been advised to put in, I couldn't afford them.

Here is basically what the net says it is.

Interesting reading, very heavy. And another. This too is interesting. It says: Opportunity cost is what you have to give up to get something.