Feeling Frugal

I have to make a confession.

I waste far too much food.

Not through buying too many fresh products and throwing it all away when they go rotten before we eat them. No, no, nothing as terrible as that. We're actually pretty good at buying exactly what we need fruit and veg wise and very rarely do we we waste any (go us, woo!).

Where we waste food is in the dry food department; cooking the correct amount of pasta/rice completely eludes me!

Now I know everyone says to freeze left over rice to use another day, but my problem (our problem - it's not just me that does this!) is that I tend to dish up everything I've cooked, even if I know it's too much which means that when it's left, it can't be saved and ends up in the bin.

This just will not do.

So I tried weighing out the 'correct' portions of rice and pasta and would you believe it! There was plenty!

But then I couldn't be bothered to get my scales out every, single, time.

So that went out the window! We waste soooo much rice it's ridiculous, probably about one or one and a half portions most meals so I needed to come up with a solution.

So I did.



I spent 15 minutes the other day and bagged up two-person portions of rice and pasta to put in the cupboard ready to be used.

So simple, yet so effective. Now we have no waste (unless we're not very hungry and that doesn't happen very often at all) which is fantastic and another little bonus is that I now know exactly how many meals we have left in the cupboard which means I can plan my weekly shop even more easily! No more extra bags of rice and no more running out of rice either!

I think we eat too much rice.

Anyway, I'm quite pleased with my little frugal moment. I hope it helps someone else too.

Waste Not Want Not

I hate throwing things away.

I'm not a hoarder (yeah right) I just hate throwing things away before they are definitely, 100%, undeniably, irrevocably finished with.

Which is the reason I've had this candle for about 3 years.



You see, this candle is lovely - but useless. The problem is that it's burnt so far down the jar that you can't really light the wick without burning your fingers, and if you do manage to light it the wax from the sides will melt and drown the wick so it only stays lit for about 10 minutes...Useless.

Until I had a brainwave!

I actually had this brainwave this morning and put it straight into action :)

Do any of you have oil burners? You know the pretty things with wells in the top for fragrance oils (and water - always add water!) and a space at the bottom for a tea light? Did you know that instead of buying oils, you can also get wax melts for the burner? You pop them in the well at the top and they melt to release a lovely aroma, they then re-set and you can melt them again and again - clever yes?

Well my thinking is that the wax left around the side of my defunct candle is going to be the same as the wax in these melts! Time to start melting!

I've used an old single cup cafetiere that I broke the plunger on for melting (I swear I'm not a hoarder!) as it's heat proof and can go in the microwave. I scraped the wax from the sides of the jar candle and popped it in the cafetiere:



After about 2 minutes it looked like this:



A little note: Your microwave is probably stronger than mine - Keep and eye on it! Watch the wax and make sure it's not bubbling and do not touch it when it comes out - hot wax isn't for playing with (unless you're feeling kinky).

Next step is to try and make the melts pretty :) I poured them into muffin cases to give them a pretty shape and left them to cool, it took about 20 minutes for them to be solid enough to pop out of the casing:



Lovely! Time to use one! I popped one straight on my oil burner to give it a whirl:



Whoops! It's a little too big but that's fine, as it melts it will melt into the well and stay there - I've got a pretty smelling living room right now :)

So there you go, waste not want not!

If you don't have any old candles and want your own wax melts, pop over to The One Stop Pamper Shop where you can buy some utterly gorgeous scented candles and melts along with lots of other goodies. I speak from experience when I say the goodies from this shop smell 100 times better than the candle I've used today! But like I say...I just can't throw things away!

Let me know if you give this a go!

BIG NOTICE! I have been warned by the almighty candle maker that you shouldn't melt wax in a microwave...whoops! So if you give this a go you need to melt the wax in a saucepan over a saucepan of hot water (like you melt chocolate - yum).