Category Archives: Oily Rag newsletter

Xmas pav’ and kai

It’s only a few weeks until summer and one can feel a sense of urgency building as people start thinking about sun, sand and an oily rag Christmas! Lots of oily raggers will be planning something special so here are a couple of ideas. No-one can consider themselves a proper kiwi cook without knowing how […]

Silly season about to grip the nation

We can’t believe the year is coming to an end so quickly: as one gets older, the years just seem to get shorter! Christmas is almost here, again, and oily rag households are getting busy planning for the special day. Fortunately the oily rag community has lots of ideas to take the cost out of […]

Oily Rag mailbags

This week we took a spring dip into the bulging oily rag mailbags to see what fantastically frugal, and sometimes funny ha ha ideas the oily rag community have come up with. As usual we were not disappointed and again marvelled at the creative ways oily raggers come up with to strength a gold coin […]

Better Budgeting

A survey published a few months back revealed some good and no so good news about the spending habits of the imaginary Mr and Ms Average Kiwi. The not so good news is that about a third of us feel that dealing with money is a stressful business, but the good news is that about […]

Waste not, want not

Oily raggers are not the sort of people to let anything go to waste. It is no surprise that they have lots of ideas to make the most of what others throw out. Here are some suggestions for plastics, paper and tyres. “Use the inside ‘plastic’ bags from cereal packets to wrap left-over food instead […]

Kids gardens and BIG pumpkins

Being oily raggish does not have any age restrictions. Young or just young at heart but not years, matters not a jot when it comes to being part of the oily rag lot. The garden is a wonderful place for kids to be kids, and parents or grandparents to be parents. What better place to […]

Frugal millionaires

We, like most people, are curious to know from people who are financially very successful, how they achieved their success. Fortunately, the answer is usually much more mundane than one sees in the movies. It’s usually about service with a smile, enthusiasm and optimism; a frugal eye on costs, and investing generously in things that […]

More tips on frugal living

The oily rag tips from readers just keep coming. This week we have tips from Whangarei in the North to Dunedin in the South, on topics as diverse as snails and play dough. Spring time means oily raggers go gardening. Marion from Auckland has this tip for making a natural weed killer. Mix 1 gallon […]

Hints on home ownership

Oily raggers are not ones to dwell on the negative so they are probably not taking a lot of notice of the negative talk about young people not being able to afford to buy a home. As oily raggers, we know that home affordability is more like a molehill than an insurmountable mountain, so we […]

Spring has sprung

As the calendar clicks past August, we now know that spring has arrived – even if spring-like weather arrived early this year. Spring means new born lambs, but it also means it’s time to do those cleaning and clearing out jobs that have been conveniently ignored through winter. We know from experience the best way […]