Look! I Received a Wonderful Gift Today!

Hello lovely readers. Today is just another day. No birthdays or special reason to celebrate. However when I arrived home today I found this surprise on my doorstep...

Bananas, Zucchini, Cucumber, Tomatoes, Green Beans, Winged Beans, Okra & Home Made Chutney!

Today's gift made me very happy, thrilled me to pieces and gave reason to feel like life is one lovely celebration. It fits with my want of Eco, Simple, Frugal and Local. Thanks Kelly and Carl! The gift was useful, delicious and beautifully presented too. A really really really nice surprise!!!

To know their labour and skills went into producing all of the fruit, vegetables and eggplant chutney made it even more special. Have you received anything this great before? Or placed a surprise like this, on someones doorstep? It's now tucked away in my brain as a great gift giving idea.

Please feel free to comment about your gift receiving and gift giving experiences. It's so interesting to know what your thoughts are. Your comments can be in any language you want. I know I have lots of readers from around the world (including many from France). So don't be shy.

Have a great day everyone :-)

Check Your Docket!

Today I went to work with some chopped fruit for my gluttonous snacking habit.

Kiwi fruit, apple and pear.

I also purchased veggies for a salad. I used 2 zuchinis, 2 carrots, half an avacado, 1 tomato and a dash of left over olive oil from a jar of feta cheese. Similar to yesterday except an extra carrot, only half an avocado and no lemon, to cut my cost down.

Trying to keep it healthy and delicious.

I always try to give myself a moment to check my docket before I leave any store, because there are often errors and today was no exception. My 500gm bag of baby carrots was supposed to be $1 on special - but it scanned for $1.45. When I took them to the service desk I received a full refund for my item due to store error. I love this store policy and I am willing to take full advantage of it.

Free Carrots.

Due to the refund and budgeting; today my Lunch only cost cost me $2.05 and I'm still focusing on getting healthy and happy again as I know food is linked to my physical wellbeing and moods too. I'm Feeling like a Winner already!

Do you check your Dockets before you leave the store?

Bouncing Myself Up.

I Hit 70 followers last week!!! Who would have ever thought people would read my ramblings. Thank you so much for following and also thank you to those of you who don't have blogger accounts and yet read me too. You all keep me encouraged to keep saving my pennies for the good stuff in life.

I also want to say a big Hello and Happy You Are Still Here to my readers from the Irene hit areas. I think we will also be in for big ones this year (cyclones) and can fully empathise when the wind strikes your town.

Now back to ME, the red faced shamed me, the big spender me, the money grows on trees me. Last week was a very bad week for the pennies. I bought pastry, snacks and takeaway nearly every workday from the supermarket and restaurants downstairs from my job. Not only am I overweight and not in my prime of health but really that $10 a day in junk and take out is a HUGE waste of money. Why have I been doing it??? I'll tell you..... It's been bit of gluttony, a feeling of overwhelm at work, dissatisfied here and there, over committed, busy with family, aching back dragging me down and maybe a bit depressed too. But waking up to my negativity is the 1st step to getting off the spend and eat ride I've been on and a new week is here to start afresh and be motivated.

Today being Monday was a fresh start and I got myself together. I wrote a list of manageable things to do. I organised a plan. I decluttered a little at home. I looked at my growing savings (feels good) and I made myself the best lunch at work for only $4.

When I take photos in the lunchroom - I'm sure people think I'm totally wackorama.

My Wackorama Super Healthy and Delicious Lunch.

I'm already feeling better and more in control already. Weight has lifted from my shoulders and I'm going to fill my next few days with healthy food, some exercise, feel good library books and ticks on my To Do list.

Do you feel you loose control sometimes too? Do you anything in particular to get your motivation back?

Tally of My Ebay Sales

Remember I was trying to make some extra cash for dinner with our 3 Parisian girls and us (3 adults and 1 child)?

The aim was $180 profit to pay the expected restaurant bill. Well I made $144.73 with sale of 7 sold and 2 unsold items after all fees. The restaurant bill was around $140.

Started the Auction at 99 cents and it sold for $31.

Purchased for 50 cents and sold for $20.50.

• 50's Vintage children's book .99 sold 1.00
• Ghan Pins 1.50 sold 9.99
• Wedgwood Pendant .50 cents, sold 20.50
• Vintage Scrabble Letters 1.00, sold $13.50
• Vintage 70's Napkin rings 3.00, sold .99 (loss)
• 1949 Children's book Rainy Day Activities 3.00, sold $31.00
• Federation era brooch 2.50, sold $99.99
• Mixed lot of vintage pins 1.50, unsold (loss)
• Raggedy Andy book 1.00, unsold (loss)

I'm really happy with my sales even thought some items didn't go as high as I expected. I aim to make $120 extra cash again in the next 2 weeks for a pair of sneakers. I will sell some of my clutter and also items bought in second hand stores to resell. The doctor told me to go walking for my injured back in proper sports shoes, so I need to go and by some new ones.

Have you earned yourself any extra money if a fun way?

Do You Give Peel?

Everyday I see people throw good looking peels and scraps at work. I thought what a waste of such great organic material! Its all going into landfill and releasing methane into the atmosphere!!!

Then I had a lightbulb moment. I went out and purchased a lidded box, wrote a message, stuck it on and placed it near the office lunchroom rubbish bin.

Office Lunch Scrap Bin

It has been a hit, including a nice little post it note telling me what a great idea it was. I have been taking a box full of lovely fruit and veggie peels to the compost bins at the Botanical Gardens Community Garden Plots every second day. The rubbish is now being turned into composted soil full of lovely rich nutrients. It's cheap and it's good for my planet and that makes me one happy girl indeed.

My Message To The Peelers and Scrapers.

Have you taken any "new" little eco-frugal steps lately?

Family Crashing in Our Bedroom

My cousin, her daughter and friend came to our side of the world from France. To keep costs down they stayed with my mum in her tiny 1 bedroom apartment and (only) one night at our slightly bigger home due to me having to go to work most days. We freshly washed the sheets and had them drying in the sunshine all day so that they could sleep in sunshine smelling sheets; a treat they don't get in Paris.

I tried to have my messy cluttered home cleaned up before they came for the sleepover - I forced myself the tidy up 30 minutes a night for about a week - but I'm a little piggy and have a bad bad habit of dropping stuff at the nearest point instead of where it belongs. So I tidied and dropped, tidied and dropped. Our home also has very limited storage space for our STUFF. (I've been watching The Block to get DIY renovation ideas.) So it looked better but was still not clutter free.

The Parisian girls slept in our beds, in our room while the 3 of us squatted the office/clutter room and squeezed in on a smallish mattress. Dolly even fell out of bed in our home camping trip - luckily it was a thin mattress on the ground.

We Happily Gave Up Our Beds

And We Slept Amongst Our Clutter

Cousin Love Makes it, Worth It.

Our neighbour Mr T lent us the mattress that we slept on, that way we didn't have to sleep on the ground. I was going to go out and purchase one as I will need a new mattress for a long term guest in the near future. However purchasing in a limited time frame and under pressure usually means a fantastic deal is passed by for an expensive choice. So I was happy to borrow and will search around for a new mattress/bed calmly in the few weeks.

Do you have guests come and stay? Where do you put them?

Teddy Love

Today I took Dolly out to the yearly Teddy Bears Picnic.

Before Dolly and I headed out we were pushed for time as we went out and watered our garden plot and then took our Parisian guests out to meet my mum for a BBQ breakfast of bacon & eggs and champagne at the sea's edge all by 9:30am.

I was unprepared and I had a hungry Dolly and a rumbling belly by 9:35am. So I stopped at a bakery on the way to the picnic to purchase ham and cheese croissants and cold drinks for us. I thought they would be cheaper then the food on sale at the event. I stuffed them in our basket with the teddy bears and blanket and quickly headed to our destination as we were already running late.

I had totally forgotten how great and inclusive of all families the event is! You don't need money to attend the Darwin Teddy Bears Picnic as nearly everything is FREE.

Children Get Free:

• sausages on bread, 
• cordial, 
• bottles of water, 
• balloons, 
• a Teddy Bears Picnic cup, 
• a packet of Teddy Bear Biscuits, 
• science activities, 
• arts and crafts activities, 
• performances, 
• disco,
• and importantly care for Bears at the various Bear Hospitals. 

Dolly and Friend, Crafting With Love Hearts

It's so cool that events like this give all families the opportunity to give their children a wonderful day without having to empty their pockets of money.

However I spent $13 at the Bakery due to being over committed and disorganised. But I didn't need to, as the Teddy Bears Picnic had everything my daughter needed plus more. She had a wonderful time with friends, created some art and had a dance. After the event we had other activities planned but my little Dolly asked to spend the rest of the day at home. And her message was loud and clear to me - she needed some time our from our busy lives to just play calmly at home with her toys and her Papa The Rambling Expat, which she did.

Does your home town offer any great free activities too?

Keep Your Frugality Happy

I've been away from my blog as I hurt my back 2 weeks ago. I went to public hospital to be looked at where the 6 hour wait was long due to a horrific accident in Darwin that took the lives of 3 people. Two are the parents of 2 gentle boys I once knew. They no longer have their mum and dad and I feel deep sadness for them.

The accident was early Sunday morning between a fire engine that was rushing to a fire and a 4 wheel drive with four tropical architects talking excitedly about a new project. They didn't hear the blaring sirens and smashed right into the fire engine. At the hospital people with small injuries were complaining of the wait. As for myself I was grateful to be Alive with only a minor ailment as I saw family members of the accident victims run in and a priest walk out.

Life is short. It can all go horrible wrong in an instant. So please, live a frugal and simple life, but most of all be happy. That is important. Don't cheat yourself from happiness, good times or laughter. Save for the important things in your life however don't be so tight that you become a cheapskate to yourself. If you do, you may miss out on the happy moments you create for yourself and others you care about.

Sorting and Purging from My Home

Today I sorted our some of Dolly's clothing which she has outgrown. She has a lot of it as my mum LOVES the op shops and can't resist buying Dolly the cutest name brand dresses, tops and skirts for $1 to $3 most weeks.

I went through a suitcase of her outgrown clothing and created 6 piles. 

• 1 lot to give away to a 2 year old girl we know. 
• 1 lot to give away to a new  4 weeks old baby. girl
• 1 lot to sell at my market stall (This money will go to Dolly's college fund).
• 1 small lot of very damaged cotton clothing for the rag basket.
• 3 items for the rubbish bin. Elastic stretched out and unrepairable.
• 1 pile for the op shop; too good to throw out but not to my taste to hand-me-down or sell.

To sell.

For Baby (full red skirt, stripy playsuit, 2 dresses and over nappy pants).

For 2 yr old (6 dresses, shoes, 5 leggings and other stuff)

It's very satisfying to have sorted the full suitcase and to give away some of it to friends and earn some $$$ with the others to invest into Dolly's future. Also de-cluttering is so energising. Our homes are our sanctuaries from the world and yet so many of us make it unbearable with piles of "stuff" on every clean surface.

Have your been sorting and purging anything lately? Aim to get any money back on any of it? Please share - I love your comments.

Oh and here's Dolly's school morning tea for today: 2 Vegemite star sandwiches, 1 star cheddar cheese, sultanas and half a pear.

Tucker Time

Have a great day...  :-)

Perks of Volunteering

Hi Everyone hope you are well and enjoying life. My grouch has gotten off my back and I'm happy go lucky again :-)

I have done a great deal of volunteer work in the past 15 years before Dolly came into my world. Here are some of the things I have done:

• London for 8 weeks, to help build a community house with hammer and nails. 
• 4 weeks (against my families wishes) in a refugee camp for traumatised children in ex-Yugoslavia towards the end of the war.
• In Melbourne with Asylum Seekers and Refugees for a couple of years in a food bank and legal team assistant and researcher.
• In Australia for an AIDS council, early nineties handing out condoms at concerts/nightclubs and counselling on the phones.
• Sorting clothes for the Red Cross during flooding.
• Helping with activities during a Mental Health Week Event.
• Working in a needle exchange for roughly a year every second Saturday handing out syringes to substance users and condoms to sex workers.
• A few months filling in for a volunteer at a Red Cross book trolley in a hospital handing out books and magazines for people to read and lending an ear.
• "Friend" to a young woman with various disabilities who no one wanted to work with due to a past extremely violent act and constant stream of "offensive" swear words.
• Various sausage sizzles for different fundraising events.
• Helped the UN feed refugees fleeing East Timor in Darwin's Tent City (I was able to also track down a friends missing family by showing everyone 2 photos I had of her family. Found out they were taking refuge on another Indonesian island and got a phone number for her! Great personal moment making the call to her with the news!)
• Helped a toy library stock-take all their toys for a couple of days. Mind numbing.

As you can see from the sample of jobs I'm a Jack of All Trades but mainly with a human rights theme, left leaning and pretty open to peoples choice of lifestyle.

With my hectic eco-frugal family life I feel I don't have time to regularly volunteer anymore. And if I do volunteer it must not put me out of pocket or drain me emotionally, as I need all I have for my family, which has definitely not been the case in the past.

Last week I did a 3 hour volunteer stint at the Darwin Show for the department I work for. No heartbreaks there. In exchange I received a Polo Shirt ($40) which I can wear as a uniform to work and get a tax break of .50 cents every time I wash it. I also received a ticket to the show which saved my family one $17 entry fee.
Total yearly value: $40 shirt + $17 ticket + $69 washing = $126, not too shabby :-)

Tonight my partner The Rambling Expat is volunteering. He is sleeping in a hammock on the Endeavour Replica from the Australian National Maritime Museum, which is visiting Darwin for 10 days. In his 12.5 hours on board he also has to complete a 2 hour stint of guarding the ships decks during the night. In exchange he gets an amazing experience that others pay $250 to $500 a night to have AND he receives a free family pass for 2 adults and 4 children $38! Now that is cool... And it was so easy. All he had to do was apply, be enthusiastic, have a clear police check and attend a 3 hour training with free lunch.
Total value: $125 twelve hours experience on the ship + $38 family pass + $15 lunch = $178, very nice deal indeed.

Arrived in Port a few hours earlier, Sails Down.

The Rambling Expat Off to Experience Boat Living 200 yrs ago.

So our volunteer work may be more "selfish" now. But we are still helping out in some way and enjoying the perks in exchange. Once Dolly is older, I will go back to doing volunteer work on social issues that are important to me. At the moment I will do mostly one off volunteer jobs that give me a perk as a dollar saved has more value then a dollar earned.

Here's another Blogger who volunteers for enjoyment and perks.

Do you do any volunteer work for the good of humanity/community or for any perks to keep you life financially balanced? Love to hear what you have to say.