You are absolutely right on the nail with this tip. I'm not sure what it's like in the US regarding applications, but here in Australia, even if you check into getting a loan or credit card, they deem it as an application... even if you didn't apply to take on that loan or card. The register that collates all this material never registers the fact that it was only an "enquiry". So, the more online "enquiries" you make, the more likely you are to be denied a loan or card when you most need it. For instance, a colleague of mine wanted to consolidate his debt in to one loan so that he could pay it off quicker with a lower interest rate. However, his zealous "checking" of all the loans and cards out there made it difficult to get a loan in the end because the banks thought that he had actually applied for all those loans. The registrer never showed what loans he had, but rather registered all the applications. Some people had to go and chase up all the banks they were supposed to have loans or cards with just to get letters stating that they didn't have anything with that particular lender/lenders. Best of all, avoid loans and cards if you can and buy with cash.
I for one think that the register should reflect the truth and we should push for more information to be kept so that in the future we won't have to "prove" our credit history.
Ok, here we go... I'm an Aussie and I know how much dearer things are, but there are alternatives.
Regarding groceries: Buy generic. Black and Gold/Retailers Own/Savings brand Tuna is just as good as the other brands. I never pay more than $2.50 for my tinned tuna.
I used to live in Adelaide so I roughly know the rents and rates, but believe me when I say that $550 is cheap compared to what we pay in Western Australia. My rates just came in and they were in the vacinity of $750 for a modest size block and house. As we are on the West Coast, we pay more because of freight being so far from the east coast... and because petrol (gas) has gone up that has taken fresh produce prices up sky high. I paid $2.65 for one lettuce alone.... When I looked last petrol was $1.30 for one litre. That is a jump of 30c in 3 weeks.
Things need to change in our houses. We need to walk more or take the bus/train etc.
Veggie patches used to thrive in most suburbs but now they don't seem to be so common, but I think the days of growing our own will become a necessity. I'm planning on a no-dig garden so that I can offset the cost of my fruit and veggie bill. In my last house I planted fruit trees. We need to start become more self-sufficient in our back yards and utilising what we have.
Co-ops are a great idea. Fruit and veg can be bought together. The power of the group is fantastic. Buying meat in bulk as well, with a group. I would love to do it here, but haven't found a group of people who want to buy any meat... It would have cost us $500 for a whole side of beef... which ended up being something like $7 a kg for everything... and the mince (ground beef) was excellent quality... and not the fatty stuff that you pay $5-$6 a kg for.
The Central Markets in Adelaide are fantastic, if you're not too far out. My parents are in the southern suburbs and too far to utilise the markets but there are several growers' markets on the fringes as well.
I don't know about South Australia, but in WA we have charity run cheap food outlets that are solely for government Health Care Card Holders. I used these shops for a few years when our income was very low. Some items were half the price of retail prices.... and they were not about to expire.
I would ring up your government departments and find out what exactly you are entitled to.... In WA we had discounted utility bills and telephone (Telstra only) for pensioners and people with HC cards.
Menu planning, and only buying what you need for that plan. It helps going to the supermarket with a list and if you have the opportunity to get or you already have a freezer, use it when produce is cheap. I buy vegetables whent hey are cheap and blanch and freeze them. It turns out to be cheaper than buying frozen vegetables myself from the supermarket. I always go to my local growers' market and buy fruit and veg in season and only making meals that suit that season.
This is all I can think about at the moment apart from walking instead of driving (which I have been doing at the moment). By doing that I've only been spending what I used to spend. Imagine if I had done that before when petrol was cheaper
I have been working on a Ebook for low income earners showing them how to survive on the income they have rather than getting further into debt. An aid agency asked me to work on it after I lectured a group on feeding their families on a shoestring budget.
It's not easy, but the alternative is worse. So many Australians are livng beyond their means and our national debt is spiralling out of control. Credit Card debt in Australia seriously needs to be looked at. I think we need to get back to basics again and blow these debts away. I'm not talking from the top of my head either. My husband and I are at the moment getting out of debt. We are not there yet, but we are using whatever means we have to become debt free.
I read the subject the wrong way. I thought that you were talking about the Christmas in July getogethers like we have in Australia. Then, when I read further I found out that it was for preparing for Christmas. Here, where it is way too hot for a traditional hot Christmas lunch/dinner, we eat mainly cold meats and salads. So a few people organise Christmas in July parties for those who miss the Christmassy fare of the Northern Hemisphere.
I can still take these preparations on board though because I don't like last minute panicking.
This is a fantastic way of garden and one my husband and I have done for quite some years. We also suggested it to my BIL, who is a paraplegic. We suggested to him those garden beds to be long and narrow, so that he could reach all the plants in the bed and could go up and down each side of the beds and "tend" his garden. But a gardener he is not and he didn't take up our suggestion but I have heard that many other wheelchair bound people have done this. My husband has used any many of "sides" for our garden beds, ranging from old fencing, bricks, wood etc. Where we live in Australia we use a layer of newspapers, then pads of straw (separated from a bale), a little bit of organic fertiliser, then a layer of lucerne hay (in pads again), a bit more fertiliser. We layered it like that, until we finished off with organic mulch/soil with some more fertiliser mixed in. If you are worried about the cost of straw and lucerne, ask if stables have loose straw that you could rake up. We actually have a contact on a farm who sells straw and lucerne and he lets us "clean up" the floor of his barn. Hels him and it definitely helps us.
We had some really excellent results and lived on the produce of our garden for many months before we moved interstate. Where we are now, it is essential to have raised garden beds because we only have alkaline sand, rather than soil and the only plants that do well are native to the area. Anything else seems to go "belly up" or is rather sad looking.
If you are in a rental property or in an area with limited garden space, you can build the framework of the beds from recycled bits and pieces, and take it down when you have to move of ir you want to turn it back into lawn etc. If you are on the move constantly, you can even take the plants with you when you go by transplanting the ones that will transplant into styrofoam vegetable boxes. If you do this a few weeks before moving, they should thrive when put back into new beds later. I know some people that use these as their "garden beds" permanently.
I began to read the recipe and realised that you left out eggs in the ingredients. I am assuming becuase you have eggs in the instructions, that they have to go in. Do you use 2 eggs?
This is very similar to a tried and true vanilla cake recipe I use all the time....
By the way, how much does a stick of butter weigh? I'm an Aussie, and our butter comes in 500g paper wrapped packets.. just over 1 lb in your measurements. Actually I wish they would sell it in smaller amounts... especially when you run out just before pay day...lol
Although this is not a tip for remembering your keys, it is something that has helped me remember something even more important.....my shopping. I occasionally help a friend by taking her shopping. We do our shpping at the same time and I used to put the perishables in her fridge while we sat down to have a morning/afternoon tea after our shopping expedition. I was always leaving my shopping in her fridge by accident and we lived quite a way from each other... It was a pain to have to always go back to retrieve my shopping. I came up with a brillian idea that ALWAYS works. Of course, the only way to get home was by my car, so I what I do now is that when I put my shopping in the fridge, I put my keys on top or near my shopping. So when I go searching for my keys, my memory is jogged that I have put them in the fridge. So now I go home with my cool shopping and I have neve anything behind since I started using this tip.
I thought I'd add to this fantastic article that medical researchers in a university in Australia have been conducting trials on lycopene, and the fact that it can reduce the likelihood of men contracting prostate cancer, and in cases of them having the disease, it aids in the recovery period. On a recent current affairs program they interviwed a man recovering from prostate cancer and how the plate of cooked tomatoes that he eats on a regular basis has helped him recover quicker than other patients who were on treatment the same time as he was.
I truly am a believer that what we put into our bodies determines how quickly we recover from common illnesses and also how it can aid in recovering from diseases that could take our lives. In my opinion there are a lot of "natural remedies" in our own garden, and pantry that God created, but we are yet to discover.
I assemble my lasagne in 5 litre (5 quart) ice-cream containers... you know the kind I mean... round plastic buckets... and no, I don't cook them in the plastic!! lol..
I assemble them with sauce on the bottom, and layer them as you would usually do. Then I pop a lid on the container and pop it into my freezer. When frozen I loosen the lasagne and take it out of the container and put it into a bag and secure it and put it back into the freezer. I usually try to do 3 at a time. I haven't got room for more than 3 containers at a time so that's why I do this many. It's ok once they freeze because you can take them of the ontainers and put them in the freezer in bags and they stack on top of each other.
Why freeze them uncooked? Because when I need to cook one, I take one out in the morning or afternoon and put it in my crockpot and put it on low. My crockpot is one of the newer Aussie ones that cooks faster so I only put it on for about 3 hours on low and then one on high. So at 2 p.m. I put it on low, and then at 5 it gets put onto high until 6 p.m.
However, for the true crockpots..... the ones that can be left on all day, I would put it on fo 6-8 hours on low.
It comes out perfect and I thoroughly enjoy it and so do the kids. It's my "take out" or as Aussies say it, "take away". I refuse to spend spend a fortune on unnecessary junk food because I can't be bothered cooking. On nights I don't want to cook, out comes the lasagne during the day and it goes into my CP.
So why not try your favourite lasagne recipe and try this tip. It works for me
Windows 98 was a great operating system and unfortunately, there was a big jump between it and what I consider two fantastic systems, WIndows XP and XP Pro.
When I went from 98 to ME I was overwhelmed and I thoroughly agree that Syd's tip of using a book would have been handy.
Even after getting used to the new operating system, I still thought 98 was better and continued to think that when Win 2000 came out as well... The 2 operating systems between 98 and XP were difficult to get used to but still were ok... but I did it in bits and pieces, taking information here and there and applying it. At first I was ready to throw in the towel and forget about the computer altogether.
My DH, a computer technican, said that many of the techies were having just as much of a problem with them as we were so I was not to feel bad about it. He took his time, reading magazine articles (get them from the library as well) in the well known PC magazines. These will have tips from technicans who know the short cuts and are quite happy to share their expertise. Don't be afraid to ask your computer shop where you purchased your upgrade or full version of the newer system. They sold it to you and if they are worth their salt they will go the extra mile to help with any questions you have.
Any operating system will feel strange to you if you are used to a certain system. It will take time to master it, and if you take chunks of information every day, and piece these chunks together, sooner or later, you will feel much more confident.
I would love to hear from people who have recipes like this. Perhaps between all of us we could get a decent list together.
Here's my contribution.
Cup of uncooked pasta Cup of frozen vegetables can of tuna packet of white/or cheese sauce grated cheese (optional)
Cook the pasta according to the directions... cook until just tender.. don't overcook... Defrost the veggies or even put in frozen... your choice. Make up the cheese sauce. Open up the can of tuna and drain.
Mix everything together and put into a casserole dish and sprinkle with grated cheese.
Put into a pre-heated 180 deg. oven for 20-30 minutes or until the cheese has melted and is golden brown.
There you go. There's my contribution. You don't even have to cook it in the oven if you are really desperate for time. I have eaten this without cooking in the oven. However, if you do this you have to make sure the frozen veggies are not still frozen. I've heated this mix on the stove top in a saucepan, and served it up as is. By using the packet mix, I've had this on table in 13-15 minutes. It only takes 12 minutes for the pasta to cook on the stovetop... So while the pasta is cooking you can put the rest of the ingredients together and after you drain the pasta, you just mix the other ingredients together with the pasta, let it heat through for a while, and then serve it up. My girls wolf this down.
Even if you don't have any canned tuna, why not boil a few eggs and chop them up and mix through the cheese sauce and veggies. I know that I have used eggs, bacon, ham, etc. when I've been scrounging for ingredients to make up this meal.
