Potato Vegetable & Lentil Soup

LUNCH

Knowing what to have for lunch is always a problem for me. Grabbing a quick bite at the office was easy...now we are retired lunch has become a more formal affair.
Not formal in the sense of "formal" of course, its just that now I'm catering for a hungry husband as well I have to put something fairly substantial on the table :)

Left overs are always good but I have decided to have a "left over" meal at least once a week to save $ and also give the cook a night off so that takes this option off the table so to speak.

Anyway, last week I bought a 5 kilo bag of potatoes for $2.99, hence SOUP for lunch with a cheese toasty for the next week...CHEAP AS CHIPS

2 small onions, heaps of garlic and ginger. Cover with chicken
 stock, season with vegetable stock powder & salt and pepper
 

Added a few extras from the fresh vegetable bin and some
 frozen peas

Red lentils for more yummy flavour and to thicken a little

LUNCH !!!

#potatosoup
#budgetmeal

My Homemade Laundry Powder

Ingredients, Cost $10.20

 

Laundry soap grated in $8 op shop blender

I thought this was a good place to start and put into practice something I have learned thus far.

To make this laundry powder you will need:

1 Bar laundry soap - finally grated, I cut it on board first then blended to a fine powder.
1 Cup Lectric washing Soda
1/2 Cup Borax

Mix together and store in air tight container.
Use 2 teaspoons per wash.

I made a double batch and still have plenty of soap, soda and borax left for future use. I will date the top of jar so I can work out just how economical it really is. The ingredients were all purchased at Coles.

Hope to report whites that are whiter than white :)

#homemade #washingpowder #laundrypowder #savemoney

Retirement = New Life = Budget

Since our retirement late last year we immediately needed to watch every cent and every dollar.
This has led to an extensive budgeting system and also working out ways to save save save on every day living and facing "the living on the age pension challenge".

My system is not at all sophisticated or hard, I have just written down all expenses and then record all bank balances as well as spending.

                                 

I have found the trick to making this work for me is to update and check my folder everyday, and asking my husband to always give me receipts after any purchases he makes helps too.
If he forgets, I don't "balance" so its then easy to trace back and work out where the money has gone.

The hardest part of keeping to the budget so far has been the food and housekeeping allowance.
As we have 2 of our adult children living at home this has been hard to get right...
I started with $200 per fortnight but have found I'm spending around $250. Considering this includes all bathroom, cleaning products and random odd extras I didn't think this was too bad!

I then started reading blogs about how others do it and am totally in awe.

a couple are - My Abundant Life
                    - Debt Free, Cashed up & Laughing

Thank you ladies I will follow your blogs and try to learn some good budgeting tricks.

#livingonapension #budgettingforseniors #retirementbudget