• Have a “make or bake Christmas” – only exchange gifts that have been made or baked by the giver. Start making now – pottery, a painting, a calendar featuring family photos, or print a photo annual (the best photos for 2017 for example), make a family recipe book featuring each person’s favourite recipes, or record your favourite children’s book digitally and send to others to enjoy the story and your narration. Join the painted rock craze and decorate keep-sake rocks with designs and warm messages, like “You rock”!

• For plant gifts, why not a cherry tomato? They are sweet and kids love them. They suit pots too, so if you plant them now, they will be ready to fruit around Christmas time. For trees, citrus doesn’t mind being in pots so are a great idea for those who are space challenged – or have a spare sunny spot on their patio. For oranges, try a Washington Navel which has a seedless fruit that ripens in late autumn to early spring.

• Many varieties of herbs make excellent gifts and look great sitting on a sunny windowsill. For something a little bit different try lemongrass – it makes a refreshing tea, but has many beneficial properties and is often used when cooking poultry, fish, and seafood. Or what about a red hot chilli pepper plant in an attractive patio pot!

• Add a personal touch to everyday things. Take a plain coloured umbrella and add drawings and decorations, like song lyrics: “raindrops keep falling on my head…” Or personalise kitchen containers, like the cookie jar… “Prohibited area. Keep out!”

• A Wellington reader writes, “I have recently been trawling galas, garage sales and op’ shops for Christmas pressies for the kids. You can buy fantastic gifts at very reasonable prices. I have bought all my nieces and nephews puzzles and games of their favourite cartoon characters for 20c each and they are still in almost new condition. My nieces are also getting jewellery boxes that were less than 50c each and my son is getting a huge box of Lego we found for $5. Cannot believe how little we have spent so far and the fantastic toys and gifts the kids are getting this year. Have also saved some presents for Birthdays too!”

• Check out the number of credits you have on your reward cards. Redeem your points for product or vouchers and use them as gifts. This is a great way to save cash and for some, it’s like being a member of a Christmas Club – the beauty is whoever receives a voucher can use it in the Boxing Day sales and make it go even further than it did the day before!

• M.G. from Hastings says, “Our wider family got together and decided to limit Christmas gifts to a few dollars per person. That way nobody is too disappointed when they don’t get anything flash. So what can you give for a few dollars:
 Photos with a message printed across them, from digital machines.
 Photo frame, brought or homemade.
 Plants grown from seed or cuttings.
 Home-made biscuits, cakes, drinks, etc
 Personalised pens made by printing names (or something more imaginative), on stickers in a small font. Also, make a pen holder to go with them.
 Glue give-away fridge magnets to the back of a small notepad, maybe attach a photo or calendar to the top to personalise it. You now have a handy shopping list to keep on the fridge.
 A family favourite is chocolate. Look for a mould that has about a dozen deep individual shapes. Slowly melt chocolate in the microwave to coat the sides of the shapes. When they have set fill with a cold ganache, made by heating 100mls of cream and dissolving 100grms of chocolate into it. This can then be flavoured with peanut butter, liqueurs or honey.
 Kids love to get a plastic glass full of lollies or lolly kebabs.”

With Christmas fast approaching, if you have some thrifty tips to share, please let us know so we can help others who would like to have a frugal Xmas! We think all things made with thought and attention will be appreciated far more than gifts bought in a panic on Christmas Eve!

Please drop us a note via oilyrag.co.nz with your favourite Christmas tips to share – or the questions you want answered.

To save money on chicken, I buy a whole fresh chicken and cut it into pieces myself. This costs about the same as two chicken breasts, but you get all the other parts of the chicken too for other meals.

Same principle with pork.  You may need someone to show you how to cut the meat correctly but it’s worth finding out as you will save yourself money. Maybe your friendly butcher will show you how to cut meat. I never buy chicken pieces – always a whole chicken.

From one chicken you can make – from the breast – butter chicken, or schnitzels to pan fry; legs can be slow cooked; wings can be fried Chinese style. The frame can be cooked with onions, carrots and celery then left overnight. Next day, skim off the fat, retain the meat and veggies and add a can of cream style corn to make chicken sweet corn soup, or add extra veggies and make a chicken vegetable soup. If you buy a fresh chicken you can then freeze the stock for another time.

If you don’t have a mincer, either borrow, or pool money with friends and buy one together. Same with the meat – sometimes it’s an outlay to buy a medium to large piece of meat, but again pool with your friends and distribute between you. Once you get the hang of it, the recipes are limitless and you’re saving a heap of money and eating well. 

No doubt lots of little chickens will be hatching soon, so for those who want to venture into the world of back-yard chicken farming it’s time to start thinking about how many you need and what type. There are loads of interesting breeds, and we can see why raising chickens has so many dedicated followers.

There is basically a choice between the commercial breeds such as brown shavers, or the heritage breeds. The commercial ones are the best for egg production but we like heritage breeds because they are more interesting to look at – we like Sussex in particular and think they look great foraging in the orchard.

For those with a little bit of space it may be a case of mixing things up so you get the best egg producers and those with the most interesting appearance.

As far as housing is concerned, if you are keeping only a few chickens then a moveable coop is probably all you need. It should be large enough for them to roost in at night and should include nesting boxes. It needs to be secure against pests and offer protection against the weather.

Anyone handy with a hammer and saw can make a chicken enclosure, although we have noticed some very inexpensive coops available nowadays which, given the cost of materials, makes one wonder.

Chickens are libertarians by nature and they do like to wander. We noticed ours looking through the kitchen window while we were cooking breakfast (eggs!), so confining them to an area like an orchard is ideal.

We hope we have egged you on about chickens – they are great fun to have, especially if there are children around, and the taste of freshly laid eggs makes it worth all the effort.

An oily rag reader from Northland has sent in this letter. “We read one of your columns recently that mentioned strawberries. My husband thought it was a great idea so our backyard is now a strawberry patch! He did a great job, even putting the plants in rows with plastic – just like the commercial growers. We have about 20 plants in total and they are already producing delicious berries. The kids, big and small, love them and it’s now a daily pleasure to go into the strawberry patch. What is a worry though, is that I saw him reading your article about blackberries. And now I think he has his eye on our fence – it looks likely to become a blackberry patch before long!”

Busy Mum from Wellington has asked for help. “I am looking for economical dinner recipes for a family of four, that can be made in next to no time.” If you have a low-cost, make-in-a-minute type recipe, please let us know.

We have received a number of emails from readers about health insurance. It seems Nib has upset a number of its policy holders (and us) by increasing premiums on some of its health insurance policies – in some cases by more than 70%. Nib is listed on the Australian sharemarket, but has been expanding into the NZ insurance market. In 2012 it bought Tower insurance and has just announced the purchase of OnePath Life.

It has also received some less favourable coverage recently when the media ran a story about a former Tower agent who cancelled his policy after Nib said they would be increasing the premium from $478 a month to $620 (up 30%). In our own case the premium increase is 75%!

To date the response from Nib has been more what one would expect from a politician – on the lines that they have “been working through the old Tower policies offering better deals to policyholders”. If you too have received a nasty surprise from Nib, or have your own health insurance story to tell, please let us know.

An egg shell accounts for about 10% of its weight and is about 95% calcium carbonate? For years scientists have been looking at ways to use the calcium properties in egg shell. It has many commercial uses, including in paper making to improve brightness, opacity and strength in paper (those oily raggers making their own paper may want to try adding crushed shell to their paper making recipe). It is also used as a nutritional supplement in animal feed and more recently engineers at Ohio State University have found a way to use the high calcium content in the hydrogen fuel process.

But it also has many uses around the home and in the garden. Here are some of the more common (or interesting) uses.

• Finely crush the shells and tip a small quantity down your drain. It will sit in the elbows and scour away grease and grime and as they flow to waste, and prevent future blocking.

• As a stain remover. Place finely crushed shell into a damp tea pot or thermos. Let it sit overnight, then add water, swirl around then rinse out.

• Some people use the shell as a filter. Crack open the top of an egg, poke a small hole in the other end, and pour in whatever is to be strained. The liquid will seep from the bottom. (Big jobs may require Ostrich sized eggs!).

• Use near whole shells to plant seedlings; crack a few holes in the bottom for drainage. Place them in anold egg carton. When the seedlings are large enough to plant out crack the shells and plant. This can add a bit of fun to a children’s garden.

• Surround plants with crashed egg shells to deter slugs and snails. It acts like a barrier because these garden pests do not like crossing over sharp objects. Add crushed shell into your compost bin or directly into the soil of plants like tomatoes and roses. You could also make a liquid fertilizer by placing crushed egg shells into a jug of warm water and leave for two days. Apply the water directly onto indoor or outdoor plants.

• For those with chickens, add crushed shell to their food. The calcium in their diet helps build strong shells and give them grit to help them digest their food. The trick here is to crush the shells up in tiny pieces. Place them in a plastic bag and run-over it with a rolling pin or something similar (like the family car!).

• Use as a health supplement for you and your pets. Shells are full of calcium. Crush dried egg shells (preferably in a warm over) into a powder and sprinkle over your food. Half an egg shell would provide the daily intact for most people. Add it with the dog and cat food too… they need calcium for strong bones and healthy white teeth.

• A traditional oily ragger now in her 80s recalls with humour playing practical jokes on her school mates. They would fill an empty egg shell with confetti and break them over someone’s head (and we thought kids today were bad!).

• Another oily ragger said they hide little home-made treats inside eggs and open them up at kids parties – a little like the Christmas-egg-cracker.

• Make egg candles. Remove the top from an empty shell, add a central wick then melt candle scraps into the egg. Place in an egg cup and light.

• Egg baubles are interesting decorations on a Christmas tree.

• Egg faces. Paint a happy egg face. Mom, dad, bothers and sisters… all sitting on a humpty dumpty wall. Or what about Russian eggs? Cut each egg in half… hinge and have a smaller one onside.

• To make mosaics from egg shells, paint the shells before crushing, and gluing to a solid surface. Another method is to spread hobby glue over the surface of something sturdy or a box, can, a mat, books, etc and sprinkle the egg shell over to give texture. Paint the image when dry and spray with several coats of sealer. Small prices can be used like glitter.