Full strength DIY 'Dettol' spray for just 2c a bottle!

A little supermarket research led me to making a huge saving on keeping germs at bay! When my two young children had a gastro bug, I needed anti-bacterial spray to clean up and stop the spread of germs, which vinegar didn't touch. The cheapest anti-bacterial spray I could find was Dettol anti-bacterial spray which cost $4.20 for 500ml. On reading the active ingredients it said it contained Benzalkonium Chloride 0.095%. Then, I saw that a bottle of Coles brand disinfectant was $1.40 for two litres. I read the ingredients and saw Benzalkonium Chloride 1%. The instructions said to dilute it in a ratio of 1:20, or 30ml to 600ml water. So I bought that one, made up the solution and put it in an old spray bottle I already had. It worked just as well and cost just over 2c per spray bottle of prepared solution, compared to $4.20 for the Dettol spray! While Coles brand disinfectant says it can only be used on “floors, walls, bathroom and toilet areas”, not in kitchen areas like the Dettol spray, for me these were the only areas that I needed to disinfect and worked a treat!

Lock in fuel savings and make them last!

Our household has found a super easy way to make the most of cheap fuel prices. We watch the fuel cycles with the ACCC petrol price cycles website (https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/petrol-diesel-lpg/petrol-price-cycles). When it is getting to the lowest point of the cycle, as well as our vehicle, we also fill up five 20 litre fuel containers. If it is inconvenient to do so, we prepay and lock in the fuel price on both of our phones on the 7/11 app. This guarantees that locked price for seven days. We then use that fuel through the next 3-4 weeks (the length of the fuel cycle generally). It's like having our own petrol station at home!

Fuel containers cost around $20-$25 at BCF and the savings per cycle paid for each container. Now it's pure savings of $30 per cycle. Petrol works out around $520 per year less for us, for very little effort! At first, my husband was concerned that the fuel may not last (he is a qualified mechanic), but I showed him some tests BP had done on this matter, finding that six months later, the values were still the same. We notice zero difference in fuel consumption, km/L, or parts wearing out any faster.

Everyone we tell thinks this is an amazing idea, we find it strange that no one else seems to have thought of it!

Grandmotherly skill finds new purpose

A novel idea to help my Mum save on new ceiling fans has led to some fantastic and unexpected long-term savings! After being quoted a whopping $160 per unit (pensioner rate) to get ceiling fans installed, we took matters into our own hands and placed an advertisement on local notice boards. It read: 'Experienced licensed electrician required to install three ceiling fans. I would like to trade the costs by doing your washing and ironing for one month.’

Within a few days, Mum had received several enquiries and selected a nice, young single guy who needed a 'mother's touch' to some of his clothes - a lot of stain removal and buttons re-sewn. He installed the fans and dropped and picked the clothes up from her place on a weekly basis. To our surprise we learned he also had connections to plumbers and gardeners and she was soon able to have her bathroom wall retiled in exchange for scrubbing out an oven and re-organising a food pantry for a couple that were having a baby soon.

It didn’t stop there! Before long she was taking up hems, sewing on buttons and doing basic mending in exchange for garden maintenance and mowing lawns. These guys are ripping up old items from homes every day with their trades so these days they even search around to find her the cheapest - or even free - items if she needs them, as well as providing an oven door and dials on her heater for free. They often come across things that others could use but end up in the tip instead.

As a pensioner, Mum has time on her hands and is very experienced in household chores but has a limited income. This trade of skills and services means she can now carry out tasks within her ability and has made some fantastic friends. Her place looks amazing and is she even happy to do babysitting for the families. In turn they really appreciate having a cuddly grandmother figure around. She has a new purpose and a whole new social network too - in fact she looks 10 years younger!

From lows come great highs

Our story is a great example of how thinking outside the square has enabled us to get ahead, even through the toughest of trials. My husband is on a disability pension receiving $450 per fortnight and I work 20 hours per fortnight earning $397. I have chosen not to apply for Centrelink benefits due to the numerous requirements. Our uninsured home burnt down 10 years ago leaving us homeless (I went into premature labour and spent six weeks in hospital with complications so I had somewhere to stay but my partner lived in our car with our two dogs for this time). We were at the lowest point ever and could not imagine how we were going to survive. We were advised to go bankrupt, which we did but we were now unable to get finance (in hindsight an absolute blessing) to get another house.

We did what most people do and rented a house in the suburbs thinking this was it for us. After three years of this we decided to look elsewhere and found a house in 'woop woop' which was $6000 (pre-real estate boom). Using my first home owner grant we purchased our house and although it was two hours from anywhere good, it was ours outright. This in itself is a handy hint to look outside of the box - our 'woop woop' town had a doctor, a supermarket and a school so it was fine and we lived there happily for another three years. At this point the real estate boom happened and we sold our house for $48,000 and decided to look outside the box once again. We ended up 2000km away from home in a place two hours from Adelaide. We still live here happily and after four years the value of our property has gone from $35,000 to $95,000 (I swear getting our first home owner grant was like winning the lottery).

But we still couldn't save any money so two years ago I cancelled my fortnightly family tax benefit from Centrelink (approx $200 per fortnight). It was hard - very, very hard for the first eight months but then it was tax time and I was very surprised when I received a tax return of more than $7000 with my lump sum FTB part A and B. We paid our bills and bought a second hand car. This year I paid a little extra tax each week ($10) and was pleasantly surprised by an $8000 tax return. With this we bought a block of land 30 minutes down the road (in a bigger town closer to Adelaide). The value of this block is double what we actually paid! Some people say we were lucky but luck had nothing to do with it - we were just prepared to live in very yucky houses in areas no one wants to live. Three months ago a house in our town sold for $21,000 which is around the same as the first home owner grant now and there are still others which would be around the same price. We don't have sewerage or town water but we have a school and a pub so it was certainly a change in lifestyle.

Other people have asked how we are doing so well now and I just laugh! We are earning $845 per fortnight and I have chosen not to work extra hours so I can still be a stay at home mum to our diabetic 10-year-old. We have private health cover, Internet, insurance, power, phone, petrol expenses ($100 fortnight), rates, medical expenses and even private school fees to pay but we still have enough to go around and often support other people with food, even though they are making much more than us. This year we plan on buying a second hand relocatable house for our block with our tax return. It may be a form of forced savings by not getting a fortnightly benefit but when it comes in it is amazing. Thanks to careful budgeting and Simple Savings we easily survive!