Saving...

Things have been interesting and at times very hard for us... especially with me not working we are on one income but I was very determined to spend at least 6 months off work with Little Miss and so far we have managed ok, but now it seems like every week I am pulling money out of our fast disappearing savings account (which we are living off to cover the rest of our weekly expenses after Matthew's work pay) so I have been spending the last couple of weeks trying to find different ways that we can save money and I'm so open to new ideas!
Matthew and I did notice at one stage we were spending a lot of money on our groceries and were throwing out a lot of veges that werent getting eaten so we decided to plan our meals each week and just buy what we were going to use (so if you happen to come to our house and look in our fridge and see hardly anything, don't panic - we're only buying what we eat) that's one way we're saving...
WE LOVE CHEESE! and we do eat a lot of it in our house - let's face it cheese can go on everything! I recently went to an enrichment activity at church and one of the workshops was on Preparing meals on a budget - something I was very interested in - anyway, we began to talk about cheese, and Ana, dear Ana who was sitting next to me at the time told me what she does. You see Ana cuts some cheese off her block and only grates that cheese - but that is not all - she grates her cheese on the side of the grater with the smaller holes too! I decided I would try this and guess what?? I LOVE YOU ANA! So much more cheese and it's lasting twice as long! THANKYOU!
Another way we're saving money is when we plan our meals I try to include one meal a week that doesn't have meat in it since meat is so expensive! (when I grew up we had meat 7 nights a week) This is working great too but does anyone have any other ideas for meals without meat? I'm interested!
One other way we're saving is by going for dinner at Matthew's Mum and Dad's house on Sunday nights - I love it that I don't have to cook that night, and it's great to spend time with them as well.
I also don't go anywhere unless I really have to - this way we save on petrol, AND... if I don't go anywhere I don't spend money on things that we really don't need, and plus I can get some of the long list of projects that I have on my list completed.
We also use our fire - we don't use heaters because our house is open plan it would just be a waste of money to try and heat it up - the fire is good because it heats our whole house and our water - so grateful for our fire!

I'm trying really hard to be careful with our money and so far I think i've done a pretty good job (I used to be the kind of person who would just spend any money I did have), I'm open to any money saving ideas and meal ideas you might want to share with me!

I will say that being poor does make me grateful for the things that we do have and for the way that we have been able to survive for this long (we did think it was not possible at all for me to stay home with Little Miss so I'm grateful that I have been able to stay at home for this long!