Skinflint Sunday.

Yes, it's that time of the week again. Skinflint Sunday, where I share the ways I stretch a dollar until it cries for mercy. This weeks suggestion is a corker. I've talked about it obliquely in a post a day or two ago. It's easily done, and the benefits to your sanity and of course your wallet are many.

Get rid of half your family.

I have four kids, so that means that I've rehoused two. What a saving. I'm not sure I want them to come back....

(Only kidding. I'm relatively fond of them, seeing as how they're relatives and all. Plus the fact that I've made very few humans in my life, if you take into account 4 vs 4 billion. So I'm a bit curious to see how they turn out, so I want to keep them under my eye.)

But by gum! The money stays in your wallet a lot more when there's only half the amount of bodies to feed, entertain and clothe. Jack and Jordan have been gone for 7 days. There's a truckload of food right there that I didn't have to find. Cha-ching! (That's supposed to be like a cash register. Work with me here....)

Pimple cream, shampoo, deodorant, hair gel and computer use more than halved. Cha-ching! No arguments, so the money that I was going to need to put aside to send me to the mental home is suddenly able to be used elsewhere. Woo Hoo! Let's go to the movies!!!!

An aside here... I rarely take my boys to the movies. It costs around $60 to get all of us seated in the cinema, which is a lot of money for a couple of hours entertainment. So unless it's Harry Potter (Family Tradition is to see each movie on the first day of release... I don't care how much it costs. Same with Star Wars, but at least they're not making them anymore), ...........what was I saying? Oh yeah. So unless it's something really really good then we just don't go. We go to Bali or Phuket instead and buy the dvds for $1. There's another priceless Skinflint Sunday tip for you right there. I have over 100 movies sitting in my room that I haven't yet watched. Imagine all the money I saved by going overseas with all the boys to get these films. Sometimes I amaze even myself with my financial expertise.

But with only TWO kids (I made Brennan scrooch down at the ticket box so there wouldn't be any debate about his 'child' status. He's taller than me, so I wasn't taking any chances. 13 is still a child ticket, isn't it?) then a trip to the movies to see "I am Legend" was only around $35. There's $25 saved right there! Cha-ching! We took chips bought at Aldi, so there was about $20 saved from not buying the rip-off food at the cinema shop. Cha-ching!

Brennan was desperate to see this film, and I really wanted to as well, so we went on Tight-arse Tuesday to see it. (T.A.T is called that because tickets are cheaper on Tuesdays, so all of the ....um... frugal people with very unsaggy bottoms choose to go to the movies on this day.) I was so rapt when Brennan turned to me in the car going home and said, "Mum, that was the best movie I've ever seen." I loved it too, so if you haven't yet seen it, it's worth a look.

But movies aren't the only bargain you can get when you only have to cater for half your family. Takeaway is suddenly instantly affordable. Normally when we get fish and chips the boys are only allowed to get a minimum chips and either a dim sim or potato cake each. But this time.......... we were able to go all out and I lavished them with an abundance of minimum chips and a piece of flake each. The luxury!! We felt like we were living in Toorak. Can't go cha-ching, because technically we didn't save money. But nice it was.

Oh. I went a bit Yoda then. Must've been the Star Wars reference above.

So get rid of half your family. I'm not saying permanently. That would be wrong. But think of Hansel and Gretel. They found their way back home eventually, and think of all the money that their father and evil stepmother saved at the supermarket while they were gone. Someone else fed them while they were in the woods, so it was all good. Jack and Jordan are being fed by their father and they're working in a fruit shop that also sells lollies and chips for the week, so I'm sure they'll come back just like Hansel and Gretel: bigger, fatter and pimplier.

It worked for me. I'm sure it could work for you too.

Life's little secrets.

To the left is a picture of my poor parched front yard. In more normal times it has flowers and colour, but now that we're only allowed to water two mornings a week, I've elected to mainly water the vegie patch and to make the front yard an example of Darwinian struggle.

But there's a reason why I love having my own place in this picture. It's not huge or profound, but it's a little secret surprise that pops up every year from the original garden that was here long before I moved in with my newfangled ideas about wide, sweeping garden beds. If you look closely you can just see it.... It's hard to do from this angle (from the driveway). From my bedroom window it's framed beautifully, just for me.

One lone gladdie. Very Dame Edna, I know, but it's a splat of colour in an otherwise silver-green world.

And my window is the only one that sees it.

I love how life has little rewards like this. It makes it worthwhile paying the mortgage!

In other news, I finally found out who started Shoestring Sunday. Those of you who have been reading for a while will know that I sometimes do Skinflint Sunday, which was an idea (ramped up a bit) taken from a blog. Someone else's blog. I read the Shoestring Sunday thing, thought "What a good idea" and moved on. But the idea stayed with me. (But I had to call it Skinflint on my blog. Shoestring is too polite a term for my frugality kick.) But I committed the cardinal sin of forgetting who had the brilliant idea to start with. Well tonight the lovely Lis left a comment letting me know that it was she who has shoestring tendencies. I'm so glad to be able to give credit where it's due. (Lord knows it's too good an idea for me to come up with on my own.)