Sammy Leia Money Saver

I’m afraid this blog hasn’t been updated enough lately. I just have too much to do and the other blog I run is taking priority at the moment, I’m afraid. I hope to get better organised after Christmas and post more regularly then.

Last year I participated in Operation Christmas Child. I spent way too much as I left buying the items till the last minute. This time I have been collecting things all through the year.

Unfortunately I’ve been slack this time and haven’t recorded the cost of every item, but I’m sure that I’ve spent at least $100 less than I did last year. The items in the box are of the same quality as last year’s box, but I’ve saved a lot of money by collecting things during the year.

I have to hand in my box tomorrow. Hopefully the little boy who receives this will enjoy discovering all the items

I had a wonderful holiday in Europe but blew my budget dreadfully. I’m giving up this year’s budget as a lost cause, and although I’ll try to reduce my spending over the Christmas period (?!!) I’m going to start again in 2013 and hopefully do better!

My apologies for not posting for so very long. I was away in Europe for nearly 4 weeks and had a wonderful time. I took over 900 photos and now I have to wait for my computer to get fixed before I can download them. (I borrowed my daughter’s computer for the night).

I’m battling some health issues at the moment and have a specialist’s appointment in a couple of weeks. Therefore I’m finding it hard to concentrate on a lot of things but hopefully it will all be okay.

I have decluttered 26 travel brochures and 7 summer tops (I bought 3 more though!) since I got back from holidays. I ran up nearly $1000 on my credit card on my holiday (Shame!) so I have to do something about that. I’ll give more details on that later.

I haven’t read blogs in over a month so I think I’ll have to do a massive delete in Google Reader and start again, as it’s too much to catch up.

This is just a quick message to check in and say hi. Hopefully I’ll post more regularly from now on.

Today I cleared some items out of the downstairs kitchenette that I’d been saving for my daughter. They are:

4 glasses

1 knife set

1 dinner set

1 rolling pin

1 pie plate

1 saucepan

2 storage containers

1 double-tiered serving tray

Miss Sammyleia is the one who loves to cook in our house (I hate it and only do what I have to, which is cook dinner) so she may as well have most of the baking stuff. I’ve kept a few items for making muffins, as this is probably the most I will do in the way of baking!

Here’s another card I made today:

Miss Sammyleia has announced that she is moving out of home and will share a house with a friend. She is visiting quite a few Open House inspections and is starting to buy stuff for the house.

Inspired by this, I decided to go through my kitchen cupboards to see what I could give her. This is what I came up with:

• 1 Espresso Maker
• 1 Coffee Machine (that I hardly ever use)
• 1 blender (same)
• 29 kitchen utensils
• 11 storage containers
• 2 egg cups
• 1 saucepan with lid
• 14 serving dishes
• 5 cake tins
• 7 vases
• 7 glasses
• 6 plastic cups
•  1 jug
• 5 mugs
• 1 chopping board

That’s 92 items!

I wiped down the insides of the cupboards and gave the wooden doors a good scrub. Decluttering is a great feeling!

I’ve added 2 more cards to my other blog. Here they are: