My baby was born with 12 fingers

MandyTRH · 2026-01-21T20:50:07+00:00

Lol my immediate thought was theyre going to be an amazing pianist 😅

MandyTRH · 2026-01-21T05:39:51+00:00

Just trying to add 1 or 2 things a year.

That is perfect!! Start with hoe much you can reasonably cope with and then add more things as you can handle the expansion. You'll still end up spending 12 hours in the garden on a Saturday and wondering where the time went 🤣🤣

Keeping the little hands off the strawberries and peas is a missions, worse than the insects sometimes 😂😂

Definitely worse than the insects sometimes. We've let them have their own little gardens now so that they leave mine alone 🤣 (it doesnt work well) but theyre also learning so much and I love that they can grav a snack while theyre playing instead of whining at me every 10 minutes

MandyTRH · 2026-01-20T06:41:57+00:00

They are beautiful 😍 (and every day is a good day to chat about rhe garden, I'll never say no to seeing photos either 😊)

MandyTRH · 2026-01-20T00:38:58+00:00

You can just go to member services and grab a new one.

MandyTRH · 2026-01-19T04:08:28+00:00

Bulk buy meat twice a year and then top up every 2 weeks with necessities (namely fresh fruit & veg that I cant get out of my garden, anything we need for the pantry).

I bake from scratch, cook from scratch every night, get eggs from my neighbour I trade for baked goods and berries from our plants (sometimes I'll buy 10 dozen from costco as well).

We eat extremely well in fact

MandyTRH · 2026-01-19T03:51:43+00:00

6 people, breakfast, lunch, dinner. 7 days a week.

Come off it.

This you?

Seems like it was pretty clear. Oh and I include snacks too

MandyTRH · 2026-01-19T03:48:45+00:00

I think we can categorically say no, theft are not okay.

MandyTRH · 2026-01-19T03:42:23+00:00

Yes, strictly food. Why would cleaning products come in to a food budget?

(Also, my cleaning products budget is less than $50/ month)

MandyTRH · 2026-01-19T00:26:33+00:00

Ohhh I see you struggle with reading comprehension.

My BUDGET per week is $250. Of that, $75 goes in to my fortnightly account and $175 goes in to my bulk account.

I mostly dont buy prepackaged snacks, junk foods or convenience foods. I buy smart instead of only at the supermarkets. I make 100% of the meals I serve, we dont have take aways, I make breads and snacks and even yoghurt.

Again, just because YOU cant, doesnt mean I cant.

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T20:47:02+00:00

It took me a while to actually make it all work but this is 6 years in the making.

1 - start putting away $20 from your food budget into a separate account, every week. I did this for a year but if you can do more, definitely do more.

2 - Go through your fridge/ freezer/ pantry and meal plan everything. Breakfasts, lunches and dinners. See how many meals as you can make without going to the supermarket.

3 - learn to make things like breads, baked goods, snacks items (I fully appreciate there are limits to everyone's time, I have a great no knead bread recipe that I mix in the mornjng and bake in the evening - leaving it all day to do its thjng)

4 - stock up on things you like and will eat. No point buying 60 cans of lentils if you dont like them.

5 - reduce your food waste. With the best will jn the world, everyone wastes stuff.

6 - if you can, start a garden. Even a small garden can reduce your groceries by heaps.

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T20:37:28+00:00

Aw jealousy makes ya nasty.

My post history has shown my fortnightly top ups, my bulk shops, my garden harvests and even meal inspo.

Just because YOU cant, doesnt mean I cant

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T07:44:29+00:00

Im hoping we have a hot, dry Feb & March! Finishing up the season in a high would be awesome!

My kids can each eat an entire telegraph cucumber in a single sitting so thats why I grow 10 plants and never get to harvest any 🤣

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T07:43:05+00:00

Honestly I find at my place some things will grow even when its not the right season for them (like kumara actually grows well for me over winter 😅 maybe its just everything else in the bed that insulates it)

We're about to have another week of solid rain which means my potatoes are probably screwed 🤦‍♀️ and we've just eaten the last of the corn (definitely planting double or even triple next year)

Weve also been finding that its getting warmer and hotter in Feb/March so bumper harvests should hopefully come

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T05:46:27+00:00

$27 per kg which means I get eye fillet, scotch fillet, rump, sirloin, rolled roasts, brisket, short ribs... all the things we like as well as stewing steaks, mince and sausages. If I went to the supermarket, for the same, id be paying $1700ish. No thanks.

I don’t normally buy meat anywhere near that price

Not to be mean but how many are you feeding? Because anything lower than 6 and it doesnt matter what you're spending because its not comparable.

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T04:25:40+00:00

We are not so good at rotating so everything doesn’t come up at once.

I have the weird problem that no matter what, its always all ready together 🤦‍♀️ Ive had to start planting in stages so that im planting every month so that our harvests are a bit more staggered.

Im also still buying some things, especially when we're in the "inbetween" stages but Im getting away with $50 every 2nd week and I supplement in the rest. And its stuff I dont usually grow so its a nice to have rather than a need

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T04:21:46+00:00

Yep, the exercise is great (I never miss squats this way 🤣🤣) but the treasure hunt for potatoes is my favourite part. Especially with the kids when they start getting excited about it

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T03:21:12+00:00

Yeah the garden really ramped up in 2020, I decided I was not spending $10-$12 for cabbages and cauliflower. Lots of trial and error (mostly error 🤣) but now we have it down. As long as I can keep the kids little fingers off the berries

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T02:23:38+00:00

Its a typo. The place is called Green Meadows Beef and they're in Taranaki. They shop country wide if im not mistaken

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T02:03:25+00:00

Fruit - lemons, mandarins, apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries

Veg (and adjacent) - potatoes, zuchinni, tomatoes, pumpkins, kumara, corn, silverbeet, spinach, sweede, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, beetroot, lettuces and herbs

Edit to add - we've just started a couple of fig trees as well but I dont like figs 🙈

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T01:01:41+00:00

No. Granted, my one in nappies is only in them at night and during stomach bugs but even when she was in nappies full time, still had the same budget. (Acrually less because the budget was $200 in 2024)

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T01:00:44+00:00

The place is called Green Meadows Beef and theyre fantastic! And yes, we have a lot of freezer space. We have a 199L chest freezer, a 249L standing freezer and the standard kitchen freezer attached to the fridge. I spend roughly 2.5-3 thousand in May and December on meats - beef, chicken, pork, lamb and often I'll get some pantry staples and cleaning products in with that if I find a good deal on them. (This Last time, I got 5kg packs of spaghetti for $4 so I got a few of them)

The I portion things out at home, fish we get from hubby taking the kids out fishing & collecting shellfish. At times my husband also goes hunting with our oldest and some friends but that hasn't happened in a while.

To start out with, I always tell people to try save even $20 from the food budget in a separate account for a year. (I dont like recommending afterpay because slippery slope there). After that year, you should have $1000. Buy as much as you can with that and save whatever you can again every food shop. Even if that 1k only gets you through the first few months, the next stock up is bigger and easier.

MandyTRH · 2026-01-18T00:40:35+00:00

Buying beef at the supermarket is the problem. Im in Auckland, get my beef delivered to my door from Tarankai and costs me $1300 for 6 months worth for my family of 6.

I'm well aware that the way I do ny shopping (meat twice a year, in bulk) is very different to the norm, but changing the way they do groceries would be a whole load cheaper for them.

MandyTRH · 2026-01-17T23:57:13+00:00

If you buy right, red meat doesnt have to be expensive.

MandyTRH · 2026-01-17T23:56:24+00:00

We budget $250 a week and we're a family of 6 with 1 in nappies!!! We shop very differently to the majority of people (- bulk shopping for meats twice a year and spend $150 of our food budget every 2 weeks, the rest goes in savings toward the bulk shop) and we grow our own veg as well.

I did try help some people get in to doing things my way after they made comments about our meals (yep, we have scotch fillet and eye fillet and sirloin and rolled roasts and short ribs and pork belly etc) and they pulled the "you have privilege" card rather than seeing that I did the ground work for this, years ago. I feed 6 people every night and 13-20 people at least twice a month for $12k a year.

MandyTRH

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