Replace nail biting with horsetail herbal capsules

A tried and true way to prevent nail biting is to take horsetail herb capsules. Nail biters seek silicone and this herb supplies it. I am a naughty nail biter from way back (and still do because I am hopeless at taking pills!). However I swear horsetail capsules work and my nails grow like wildfire whenever I remember to take them!

Many meals from one rolled roast

I have found a way to get maximum meals and value from one single rolled roast. I bought a rolled pork roast which was way too big for just the two of us. Not wanting to be living on leftovers all week, I decided to cut it in half before cooking it. As I was about to place the uncooked half in the freezer, I decided to cut it into thinner slices and use the meat as pork chops instead. This has worked well! I also plan to cut the rolled roast into chunks in future, to use for stir fry, sweet and sour pork and so on. Normally you could never get pork chops or stir fry for $7.99 a kilo! There's no reason why you couldn't use this method with other rolled roasts too.

Save money by ignoring pamphlets

People are constantly amazed when we tell them that we have managed to whittle down our weekly grocery bill to just $100 for our family of four. Our income may not be all that we would wish, but with a little dedication, we have made a huge difference.

For example, in recent months, we have saved $50 per week on our grocery bill, since we have started throwing away our supermarket circulars! For years, I eagerly awaited the arrival each Sunday of the supermarket 'junk' mail. I would plan our eating to a large extent on the weekly specials, and would stock up on a few of them, believing it was saving me money.

However, once I began throwing them away without even a glance, it had an unbelievable effect! Not only did it cut down on the clutter in the house, but amazingly my grocery bill plummeted. I now buy only what I need - as opposed to what the stores want me to buy - and the benefit is showing. By throwing out the junk mail alone, our weekly grocery shop reduced from $150 per week to around $100, saving $2,600 per year!

I still use a menu plan to help me stick to my budget, but now it is food of my choice, rather than being influenced by supermarket advertising. A typical weekly menu might look like:

Monday - Baked chicken and salad (whole chicken $2.50 from local butcher)
Tuesday - Fish and chips (fish $2.00 per pack at ALDI, I use potato gems or
chips about $2.00)
Wednesday - Pasta bake & salad
Thursday - Taco's
Friday - Baked beans (ALDI's are really cheap at around $0.40c for two cans)
Saturday - Chicken legs, pasta and salad (chicken legs $2.00 per kilo)
Sunday - Quiche & salad

I usually have all the meat I need already available, as I buy in bulk, so all I need to buy for the week are any other items to complete the meals. I buy salads and vegetables on alternate weeks - one week we have salad with everything, the next week I buy vegetables for all our meals. It may sound an unusual way of shopping, but this way there is no wastage; unlike when I used to buy both.

I don’t buy everything in bulk, but some items work out more economical, such as:
Bread - I buy bread from Coles after 6pm to take advantage of the markdowns - for example, $0.50c for a packet of bread rolls, or a loaf of bread.
Chickens - Patton’s, our local butcher have many great specials, including chickens for $2.50 each. I buy ten at a time and freeze them; they may not be huge, but plenty enough for a family meal, plus leftovers for sandwiches.
Fish - ALDI have oven bake fish for $2.00 per packet (the cheaper of the two
versions). They are like large fish fingers, and perfect for us. Combined
with the chips or potato gems, the whole meal for a family of four comes to $4.00.
This is a standard meal for us, and I make sure I buy plenty to last between ALDI visits. Ice cream - I wait for special offers so I can purchase five litres for $5.00 and buy in bulk.
It also pays to buy washing powder and toilet paper in bulk when on special, as they don't go off and you will always need them!

When I was planning my meals around the supermarket brochures, my shopping list was actually doubling - that was without any impulse buying as well! Another thing I also now do to cut down costs, is alternate a meat meal, with a non-meat meal. You will see from the menu plan above how we eat meat and vegetables one night, baked beans the next, or pasta bake and so on. We enjoy our meat, but find we can cope with every second meal being meat based, and it really keeps costs down.

We don’t eat cereal every day for breakfast, it works out too expensive - it’s actually more expensive to eat than steak! We have toast, eggs or grilled tomatoes. With the children, lunches are mainly sandwiches; the kids like their Vegemite, peanut butter and Nutella; the adults make use of any leftover meat. For school lunches, I dropped most of the expensive packaged goods (for example, Rollups) in favour of two sandwiches and a piece of fruit. They still have a lunchbox treat now and then, but it’s sometimes, not everyday.

One tip I have learned which has really helped me is that the family actually prefers me to cook from their range of ‘family favourites’, rather than consulting cookbooks or fancy magazines. If this is what they enjoy - stick to it and save yourself the time and money!

Crockpot party feeds the crowds in winter

I came up with a great low cost, low stress way to feed the crowds at my son's 21st birthday party. With the weather being chillier, the food needed to be warming and more robust than usual. I came up with the idea of a crockpot party! I am borrowing family members' and friends' crockpots and am filling them in the morning with different dishes, then I can 'forget' about them until the evening! When it's time for everyone to eat, I can then just plug them all into a power board and put them on the table. This is a triple whammy saver for me! It saves time as I don't have to spend all day in the kitchen and can get other things ready for the party instead. It saves money as I can use cheaper cuts of meat to achieve tender dishes and - as I don't have to use serving dishes, it even saves on washing up!