I don’t think the interview went well, but we’ll see what happens.
Cat rambles
I was waiting on that phone call about Melbcat’s urine results, and fretting because I knew we’d then be waiting on a specially compounded antibiotic…
Then I realised I’m so stupid. I already had a half bottle of that compounded stuff in my fridge left from February. I had discontinued it because she turned out to be allergic and then forgot to throw it out. But now she’s resistant to the antibiotics she can tolerate (cephalexin) and the alternative (enrofloxacin) has the risk of idiopathic blindness… so she’s having to go back on the trimethoprim sulfa because the itchiness and ear infections from the allergic reaction are more treatable than blindness.
I rang up and checked with the vet if that can be used, and I’m good to start giving her that immediately to hold us until the next batch comes.
I still feel like piece of shit for waiting a couple of days and giving anti inflammatory pain relief to see if it was just stress induced cystitis (is it sometimes is). Because with not having the usual level of assistance available due to bad luck and then the weekend, Melbcat waited a while to be seen. Too long. And ideally I should have remembered having that bottle in my fridge at the vet or shortly after coming home /facepalm
Edit: I’ve given her the first dose now and she’s drooling and retching from the bitterness… poor bubba. I also need to start washing her ears out ready for when she inevitably gets an ear infection. Thankfully I have the ear wash and the antibiotics ear drops ready to deploy.
Poor baby cat. Lucky she has you.
Yeah, she’s having a rough trot. The antibiotic is about to cause an allergic reaction and probably an ear infection.
But she’s getting warm soupy wet meals served in bed with pumpkin baby food and cracker crumbs on top. Plus extra pain meds and cuddles
It sounds like you’re doing everything you can to look after Melbcat. It’s hard looking after a patient when they can’t talk
Thanks. I knew very quickly that there was an issue but unfortunately was limited in my ability to act quickly
What did white people feed their kids before bananas? They have their own case, are the perfect size and shape for tiny hands to hold, and you can chuck them in smoothies and pancakes when they start getting old.
There has to be some data correlating a reduction in child mortality when bananas started getting imported.
Back when I was a kid snacks in between meals just weren’t a thing. You got fed 3 times a day and only water in between. Maybe if you were lucky or sick you got a milky drink last thing at night to help you sleep. Also, bananas were pretty expensive, strickly for celebrations only. Fruit cheap enough to feed to kids on demand was pretty much apples & oranges in winter and whatever you grew yourself in summer. No I didn’t get scurvy.
I don’t remember a time before bananas, but I remember watermelon with pips in was a common summer fruit. Seedless varieties didn’t exist yet. And grapes used to be sold in big piles with the variety labeled such as Sultana grapes. Now you can only buy them in pre portioned bags labelled red and green.
Pasta. The kid will lose his frickin mind for some pasta.
I make the boys tortellini and meatballs and the love it, as long as it’s not served too hot to start with
Jonathon apple pieces.
also, bananas used to be much smaller and had seeds
Job interview tmrw. They should definitely want to have me, but unsure how hard they will fight giving me more money… Feel quite confident but just not going to enjoy the part when they say “nah your pay would be the same” and I need to play dumb and push back somehow. Going to wing it
“Considering the extra responsibility, I feel this new role may belong in a different salary band”
Give them this look 🥺
I’ve got one tomorrow too! Good luck, negotiations suck.
I need to book a GP appointment for something I know will take more than 10 minutes, but my GP doesn’t allow booking long appointments through the website, you have to call them. I try to call and have to sit through a lecture about how much easier it is to book and the app, if you’re having an emergency, call 000, etc etc. finally get to the options menu (you can’t key ahead…) and get redirected to where I need to go and…
"Your position in queue is:
23. Your estimated wait time is:50 minutes. Even if you call 3 minutes after they open, it’s somehow a 10 person long queue with 15 minute wait times. Like whyyyyy dude23 in the queue for GP receptionist? That’s utterly crazy. Time to find a new GP?
Bulk Billing GPs are like this, now.
Mines not even entirely bulk billed. They do bulk bill kids and people with health care cards, though. But otherwise they’re charging like $100 per 10 minutes, it’s ridiculous.
I’m hongry. Indian food has been ordered… gonna be a reeeeeal early dinner.
What are you having?
Medium heat butter chicken, rice, garlic naan and gulab jamun. About to have the gulab jamun now mmm
With extra coriander 🙂
Potentially up to 12 people away at my work, some taking long service but the majority of them sick.
Hitting the point I think where we can’t replace people in the interim.
I volunteer at an op shop and every shift has people off sick every day.
the amount of folks with Covid is crazy!
My milk powder isn’t dissolving in my tea. What’s its problem? (Don’t use liquid milk, not worth it for only 2 cups of tea a week)
I just had a thought - maltodextrin is added to milk powder to help dissolvability etc. so maybe check whether that’s included in yours. You might need one that has more of it (though it is a filler agent and can spike blood sugar)
Long life/UHT milk is good for six months even after opening and doesn’t need to be refrigerated. And is much nicer in a cuppa. Could be a better option?
Okay idk about you but I would absolutely not drink UHT milk six weeks after opening, let alone six months… I’m 100% sure it goes bad once the seal’s been broken…??!
Yeah, I use UHT soy milk and keep extras in the cupboard but it does need to go in the fridge after opening and all opened milks should be used within a certain number of days.
A better idea would be the little single serve shots of milk/creamer (unless waste is a concern)
I do this more for cocoa or other drink powders that tend to clump/not dissolve easily. Mostly cocoa powder when mixing it with cold soy milk before microwaving.
But first I put the powder in the bottom of the mug.
(If using any sugar add that and stir it through, taking the chance to crush out any lumps between the back of the spoon and the side of the mug. The rough granules both help to break lumps up mechanically and also the dispersion/dissolvability helps the liquid permeate the dry powder.)
Then add a small amount of the hot water/milk/liquid and stir it into a thick smooth paste, continuing to crush out any lumps. Keep adding small amounts and stirring until it’s thin and smooth, then add the rest of the hot water/milk/liquid.
(Then heat the drink in microwave if it needs to be heated, continuing to crush and stir. This catches any strays and prevents hot spots, or hotter liquid settling at the top with colder at the bottom.)
I don’t use powdered milk and haven’t done this with tea. But maybe if you do the paste method first then chuck the teabag in it might still steep like normal. (I add the milk immediately and leave the teabag in because I’m not waiting around to forget about the tea.)
Will test !!
Growing up all we ever used was milk powder, you got the best results by putting the milk powder in the mug, pouring a bit of hot tea (brewed separately in a pot) onto the powder to dissolve it, then adding the rest of the hot tea. Although not sure how that works with a tea bag. Personally I refuse to add a teabag to milk (liquid or reconstituted from powder)
Do you have one of those little cheap battery powered milk frothers? They’re great at mixing powders into liquids. $1.75 at IKEA or $2.25 at Kmart.
That’s a good idea or Mittens could buy a tiny whisk.
I hear Big Powder Milk is cutting it’s product with flour /s
Flour is too expensive. If it did happen it’d probably be melamine.
Fuck I hope we don’t have to worry more about food fraud due to shortages or cost cutting measures. Like it’s already long been happening with honey, and we’re all seeing the shrinkflation, but it would really suck if we had to deal with something genuinely dangerous like the melamine.
Sounds like it’s time to wean yourself off milk and start drinking your tea black
These title emoji are the absolute best lol took me a sec to figure it out 😂
YW 😹
I’ve got an emoji puzzle book. Maybe I should post one every now and again and see if anyone can figure them out.
The lead tenant’s officially moved out. It’s disappointing, but I understand why he has. We had a good chat over dinner earlier. He got pizza, I made a lemon slice and got the drinks. It was good.
I also was convinced to speak to the area manager about the situation and try and impress upon him that not only does old mates move in (right now) work out worse for him and me, it works out worse for him (or at least his organisation) too, since paying somebody to be here overnight and on weekends isn’t exactly cheap. Unfortunately, he didn’t settle for just saying no, but he decided to be a condescending dick about it too. I did bring a support person with me who witnessed the couple of things he agreed to and advocated for me, which was handy. Although the 2 things he agreed to weren’t actually concessions, they were just things I didn’t realise were even being considered in the first place.
I’m trying to keep a positive mindset and be empathetic towards the new person, he gets even less of a say in the matter than everyone else. Moving here is only a choice before you express interest in it. Once you indicate you may be interested, even just conditionally, it’s pretty much a done deal you can’t cancel. But even ordinarily it’s difficult to put on a brave face and show your best side when things are changing, but now I’ll basically be placed in a position where I am the lead tenant, which feels kind of like an emotional drain multiplier. Like penalty rates. Luckily I’ll be away from Thursday until Tuesday, so I can let the dust settle for a bit. But the thing is, the workers won’t be consistent or know where things are, so I’ll have the try and show the new YP where everything he might need is on Wednesday and give him my number in case he needs something. God, at this point, just make me the damn worker
Kiddo you are handling this really well. Remember you can do everything right and still have dumb things happen because of others. You have done what you could and I am really glad you got to have a nice goodbye with your current LT.
Enjoy your break and fingers crossed for the new situation, that it all works ok for you
Thanks. I’m sure I’ll be right, but logic doesn’t outrank emotions. The break will be much needed, just generally it feels like I’m getting to the end of my tether and need a break, not even taking into account the situation with the new YP. There was Adelaide in March, but I was there for a conference not really a break and really just returned more exhausted than when I went (it was an awesome time though)
Just tried to give Gardening Australia a shot in the arm. Ignore the weird moon phase planting stuff in the growing guides, I picked the Local Food Connect link because the June planting list was simple and the site also has info on food resources + community gardens.
I think I might prefer to keep using Aussie Frugal Living because it’s part of Aussie Zone and I’m familiar with the mods. Also aside from Seagoon’s recent post and my reply the other place hasn’t been active in 11 months :(
Does anyone have any ideas on what content they’d like to see? I can do cheap low fuss recipes, clothing repair tips, cleaning tips etc. Also would you want to have a random discussion thread in there for anything not warranting its own thread?
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !frugal@aussie.zone
Good bot
You can post whatever you like on there. If you want to start a weekly thread go for it.
Lol if I remember.
Also I have this weird fear of getting made fun of for my tight fistedness/povness (despite the fact that it allowed me to save an emergency fund from very little)
I think I spent about $3.50 on food today. Porridge, lentil curry, beans on potato, two eggs on toast. Maybe $5 with trimmings.
That actually sounds quite tasty. I wish my stomach would stop being a jerk
I had jerk stomach for about five years after I got back from India. I did the fodmap routine over about six months and it seemed to restore my gut somewhat. I still get heartburn with too much white flour.
I’ve done it all and have now discovered it may be something related to disability
I’m a mod on there. @TinyBreak@aussie.zone is a mod on there. If anyone makes fun of you then they get banned. You’ve got our support. We’ve got your back.
Thanks. It’s silly, living conditions being what they are, but poverty and frugality are still quite stigmatized and some might turn their noses up
Hard agree. I’ll admit I havnt had a lot of time for the community lately. I will try put some more time in.
You do what you can.
I probably shouldn’t have spoken on your behalf so I apologise for that.
nah your right, it was a good call.
Thanks. It’s silly, living conditions being what they are, but poverty and frugality are still quite stigmatized and some might turn their noses up
I’ll be putting my recipe for braised steak and onions on !foodaustralia@aussie.zone in a couple of days. I’ll make it into a cheap eats post so you can add a few things on there.
Sweet! I’ve got a pantry staples casserole from my grandma and a pantry staples pizza I worked out myself
I’ve seen ya !frugal@aussie.zone post and I’ll add some when something pops into my head.
No shame here.
I’ve had to do really cheap meals myself such as 2 minute noodles and peas or frozen veggies or Devon sandwiches for a week at times.
Wait until I break out the meals to use Spam ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Or the Vegemite pasta. Perhaps even sketti
I’ve also done pasta. 89c for a packet of 500 gram pasta with a bottle of pasta sauce 1.89 a jar spread over a few days.
Add some cheap stuff like frankfurts and some veggies which are cheap.
That might have been my cheapest frugal eats that I’ve made.
I don’t mind spam!
I’ve got a one pot pasta that uses generic tomato sauce, broth from a cube, UHT milk, cheap mince, and frozen veg or whatever veg is in season
The inexpensive sausages and franks are also good, you can even cut leftovers into coins and put them in a casserole
Ah cool.
I think best per volume bottles might be from woolworths for pasta sauce but they’re sort of I don’t know, tasteless?
Been doing the aldi sauces which I do like and are cheapish, pasta is of a good consistency there too which cook really nicely aldente so that’s a super bonus for me.
Sometimes I mix it up between franks and sausages and cut them up into it. Tuna also works if you like it, mince at Coles is down to 9 dollars a kg for the 1kg pack so you can buy one and split it up for multiple meals at the moment.
Peas are sort of a staple for me but green beans frozen can be gotten cheaply as well which works too.
Thank god I love pasta
Yeah nah bro, not in this economy no ones gonna be making fun. My mortgage is +1k greater when I moved in, power bills through the roof, council is knocking on my door for rates. I’m about to propose to the mrs we introduce 1 or 2 “Pov” nights for dinner, where we see what we can make for a capped price.
We all get it! Though I am gonna raise an eyebrow if you’re reusing teabags for the 4th time 🙃 I legit have been wondering about reusing some of the expensive tea bags a second time. 47 bucks for a box of tea is taking the piss!
Heh, I use generic instant coffee, and generic teabags. I don’t tend to reuse teabags but… if it’s still sitting in the cup from having been left in there… 🤔
There might be more tolerance now, sure. I just see people who are uh, perhaps a little new to being skint. I think what’s been happening is that working class (and underclass) have been forced to be frugal for a very long time so people’s expectations are lower and adaptability is higher. But conditions are now getting so bad that they’re starting to hit the middle class and it’s causing a real culture shock.
Like you suggest an occasional treat that can be made with leftover amounts of stuff you already have/buy in bulk - so they go out and buy large sizes of new ingredients they don’t have any other use for, just to try it, and then tell you that it’s not working out heaps cheaper than bought :|
Or this weirdly rigid handholdy article about recipes you can use if you can’t afford olive oil anymore… It’s like darls, those aren’t the only recipes you can use now. There may be specialised uses like animal fat or peanut oil for extremely high heat/deep frying but for general cooking you won’t explode if you substitute a more affordable oil for olive. It’s usually just a spoonful or spray anyway. Even if you don’t want low quality ‘vegetable oil’ the canola and sunflower oil are high in essential fatty acids so there is still a little bit of a health benefit there.
Or news articles will come out with the most obvious cost cutting tips presented like nobody has ever thought of them before when… it’s something everyone you know has been doing forever.
It makes me feel weird to say stuff like I haven’t bought olive oil in years, have never had a Netflix subscription, I don’t buy coffees or takeaway, grew up wearing op shop and hand me downs, I would always darn socks and replace zips or elastic rather than buy new clothes, I would use dried or tinned foods, never buy body wash - only shower with bar soap and cut own hair…
Poor shaming and class divides have been such a thing for so long that something very normal for me (even preferred to ensure more financial stability) might be a bridge too far for someone who hasn’t quite adjusted to ‘the new normal’.
Poor shaming and class divides have been such a thing for so long that something very normal for me (even preferred to ensure more financial stability) might be a bridge too far for someone who hasn’t quite adjusted to ‘the new normal’.
I also LOVE that its a way to stick it to the man! Cause fuck coles and woolies for screwing us for years. Screw fast fashion. Fuck the economy that requires us to buy buy buy. The planet is dying and society is too stuck in the status quo to see it. Being cheap is a great way to “fight back”. Kind of.
That too, that too 😏 There’s even a perverse pleasure to deliberately being a povo gremlin sometimes.
I’ll see the price go up on something I can do without and be like, ‘you know what, I’m good.’
Oh, your sales are falling? Less discretionary expenditure? Nobody’s buying as much stuff anymore? Well maybe it’s because the workers can no longer afford to buy the goods they produce, mf. Between low wages and inflated prices you killed the golden goose and nobody can afford shit anymore. I will proudly wash my hair with bar soap and pay my cat’s vet bills rather than pay you shysters any more than I have to.
Unfortunately physical disability = needing delivery (always the cheapest slot) otherwise I’d have long switched to a supermarket that wasn’t Woolies or Coles. But my genetics fucked me over there
yeah that makes it tough as heck. Woolies and coles just end up taking advantage of battlers doing it tough.
They aḷl sound good. I have some DIY food things I have been meaning to post but haven’t had capacity. I will get there.
I’m sure they’ll be appreciated, food costs are up
I’ve just put a comment in there. I saved $400 recently by swapping to a different car insurance provider. It’s a boring task, but a worthwhile reminder to shop around. I’m just mad I was probably over paying for years.
So I remember getting sick around 17,18,19,20 May. I recover. Then last night I start getting a sore throat again. What the actual fuck? That’s twice in the space of two weeks.
My cousin was stung by a bee 2 days ago and went into anaphylactic shock.
Just saw the photos last night from the hospital.
Holy shit that almost took him out. He’s 6’3 and a big strong dude. Induced coma and all.
Wild.
Anaphylaxis is serious stuff.
Did he know he was allergic to bees or vulnerable to anaphylactic reactions?
Hope he gets better soon.
Shit, I hope he’s ok
Thankfully he’s okay. He was regional apparently at the time so he’s a bit lucky there.
But jeez the photos are intense.
I got a little bit of good news about the situation with the new YP moving in. They’ve pushed it back until Thursday, although not as a response to what’s been happening, it was pushed back because of background stuff I’m not privy to. But I don’t care, it suits me just fine. And because I’ve been home alone overnight before, and A. Didn’t die, and B. Didn’t burn the house down, they’ve decided to not put their support worker people in until he moves in on Thursday night.
It’s probably going to suck for the new YP though. I’ll have to pass along my number in case he needs help finding anything, but it does mean I don’t have to deal with the workers for a week and he will have a chance to settle in first. They were trying to organise a meeting tomorrow (should’ve happened about 2 weeks ago, but I don’t think I need to point out they didn’t do that), but I don’t know if that’s going ahead or not because the program leader has been sick since she got back from holidays. I’ve been trying to figure out wtaf is going on with her supervisor who’s one rung below the area manager who’s a dick, nut although she’s lovely, she kind of too high up to really be looped in on what’s happening down here, and she’s an interim replacement because the last person in her role quit, too. But the lead tenant is gone, the case manager is off today, and the program coordinator is sick, so I don’t really have any other choice…
I don’t understand what’s happening in my organisation, and to be blunt, it doesn’t seem like anybody else does either… But I think I’ve been ranting about them here every single comment I’ve made for the last week so I should probably shut up - I think you all get the general idea 🤣
Good luck 🤞
Thanks goonsy
Hmmm…boss is going on secondment for 6 months, his role is available and I have been strongly encouraged to apply.
Wish me luck
Good luck!
Good luck mate 🤞
Best of luck!
Good luck!
Good luck!
Best of luck, E!
