FREE 2012 Simple Savings Calendar!

Here's the link to the FREE Simple Savings War On Debt Calendar. I printed mine out and am ready to tackle 2012 with more fabulous frugalness and saving madness.

Sure it says Australia and New Zealand! But hey! All saving money and the planet tricks and tips cross all borders don't you think. We all work of similar principals where ever we are   :-)

So what about you, are your going to squeeze each cent out of the dollar for a better life?

Are you going to think about all your purchasing actions carefully and see if they are good for your pocket, loved ones and planet?

Are you going to lead a less hurried and more thoughtful life?

Are you going to laugh more and enjoy your short time here on this wonderful planet?

I know I will try real hard, and those baby steps of mine are getting bigger, prouder and more definite. Here's to a wonderful 2012! Happy New Year!

On Holidays and a Cut Back In Pay.

Today I am on holidays for 4 weeks. Yeeee Hahhhh. Then back to work for 2 weeks on my regular hours and then.... DRUM ROLL... my hours are cut back by 25% for a 3 month trial.

That also means a cut back in my pay packet by 25% and a cut back in my Superannuation for retirement. Ouch!   But this is why I'm frugal and have been saving like mad, so that I can have extra time with my daughter.

I will be able to pick Dolly up from school each afternoon, help her with learning and other fun activities. We will have time to cook, craft, garden, read and play instead of me nagging her to eat quickly, brush her teeth and get into pyjamas. I can't wait for the lifestyle change!

We only have 1 car so to do this I will have to ride my bike to work and back each day. 1 hour of riding and as I get fitter this should reduce to 40 minutes of riding each day. Making me fitter, healthier, leaner and more eco. Extra gardening may mean more fresh produce. More time to cook may mean cheaper and healthier home cooked meals. So even though I'm cutting back on money coming in, I hope the change of lifestyle not only brings me more joy but also more time to be organised and savings in fuel, health and food.

Here's to a less hurried life! Bottoms up. Chin Chin. Cheers.

My Mini Market Stall

A couple of weeks ago I had a Market Stall at the Happy Yess selling my lovely preloved treasures. There were about 14 stalls on the day, lots of blankets, pillows, musicians playing good music and friends catching up. It was fun as usual and Dolly had a great time playing with children and hula hooping.

I brought home an extra $52 after all costs of stall and stock and spending from our profit tin on the local talent (cake, iced tea, balloon art, gift tags, badge, veggie burgers). We spent up because it was the 1st birthday of the market and I wanted to give back towards some of the stalls.

I've now placed this money in our travel jar, but Borneo may have to wait one more year for Dolly to be just a little bigger, as I don't have to carry her on a jungle trek.

Here are some picks of the day. Lovely quirky stalls and super friendly people. Feels like one big happy family.

My Stall - Vintage, Fashion, Quirky and Designer.

Multi skilled / Multi Tasking - Crafted Stickers

And, Ice Cold Herbal Tea

For The Sweet Toothed - Delish Cakes, Slices and Biscuits.

Buy Arts and Crafts to Support Creative Local Uni Students.

Funky, Kitchy and Eclectic Badges - Pick a Design, BYO or Choose a Ready Made.

Pat a Pet or Better Still Pull Out Some Cash and Take It Home to Love and Cherish.

If you live in the Darwin region, come to the Happy Yess Market at Darwin Visual Arts Centre on the 1st Sunday of every month and say hello. Bring your picnic and some blankets and enjoy the safe family friendly vibe.

Am I squeezing too much in my life (gardening, stall, blogging, frugal living) around my full time work? Yes definitely, but I don't want to give any of it up as they are enriching experiences, activities and skill building. I just need to find time to put my finances in order and clean my home. How about you? Are you doing too much too?

National Ride to Work Day

Today I pulled out my bicycle and participated in the Australian National Ride to Work Day. I had previously put up a poster in a prominent section of my work division to encourage others to ride too and sent out a few emails. I was happy to see one of the bosses had seen my call to action and participated in the ride.

Bikes Taking a Well Deserved Rest

I would love to ride everyday as it's only a 15 minute - easy ride to work BUT, I like to drop off our daughter to school with my fishing addict partner the The Rambling Expat. And this means we are late for work everyday and stressfully rushing against time. It is also super hot at this time of year. The weather is between 26C and 33C with humidity at 79% and I was HOT HOT HOT. My face was flushed, my forehead perspiring, my glasses fogged up and my hair a mess. Not a pretty sight but boy does it feel good to be ALIVE.

So anyway I peddled to work and met up with a group being escorted by pedaling police on the way. I peddled with the group with a proud feeling of comradeship and joined everyone at the FREE celebratory inner city park breakfast of sweet or savoury buns, juice, water and bananas. Once done I headed to my buildings bike cage and shower room, then my desk.

Hot Sweaty Posing Before Heading Off To The Shower Room

I think I will try to make this a weekly event as Dolly does not go to school on Fridays this year. While she is driven to Grandma's I might try to ride to work if it's feasible in the hot weather and tropical monsoonal rains.

Biking has so many personal, financial and environmental benefits:

• Less road congestion.
• Less pollution.
• Preventative health issues.
• Exercise and fat buster
• Inexpensive (cheaper then fuel)
• Fun
• And a great mental health booster

Do you have a bike gathering rust that needs to be used or are you a keen biker? How do you feel about biking about?

Junk Food Dinner & Great Homemade Lunch

Hello everyone. Thanks for popping in and reading about my highs and lows in my frugal eco quest. I love comments and questions so feel free to click on the comment link. I enjoy Blogging, its a fun creative outlet and as for reading blogs - It's bordering on an addiction!!! But I learn so much from everyone and take on some peoples tips into my own life. So thanks for being readers and thanks also to those who have blogs, this is a very cool community to be part of.

Tonight we ate rubbish. We had McDonald's. We wasted our money and health. But we don't do this weekly as we used to. It's roughly a once a month affair now. I should put it on the calendar to keep real tabs on it and make sure I'm not tricking myself. Since we started the 40 minute clean up every night, better calendars and organisation are becoming possible and achievable.

Even though our dinner was rubbish we did have nice lunches to take to work and school. I make quick easy simple sushi in just a few minutes. I simplified the recipe and made it super basic. I just filled the Nori Rolls with rice (sprinkle of vinegar), tinned tuna and mayonnaise (with a dash of chilli for the adults). Dolly was so thrilled she said "No ones ever taken sushi to school in their lunch box! I'm going to be the first one ever!!!" I also added a snake bean and some berries from the Botanical Gardens for vitamin and colour in her sweet 2 tiered lunch box from Grandma.

Child size portion for Dolly.

Pleasing my family makes me happy. And pleasing myself with some inexpensive sushi for lunch is an extra bonus.

Any quick simplified exotic delights in your lunch boxes or dinner table?

"Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"

Can't wait to read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Going to get my hands on it next weekend.

Already have a few books to read from the library and my own from op shops. Plus all the loveley blogs to read too.

I have my Happy Yess Market stall today... So lots to do. I will blog my Giveaway when I have:

• Completed my laundry.
• Charged my camera.
• watered my 2 plots.
• Had my stall (2pm to 6pm).
• Finished my menu planning.
• Completed my weekly shop. 

Sundays can get so crazy busy. I live a Hurried Life. Mondays is always back to work. However I'm eating out tomorrow night because I will turn 41!  How did that happen? This year has zoomed... And I still feel 16 most of the time. And, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.



Are you leading a Hurried Life to?

Weekly Grocery Shopping

My weekly shop was way over my $100 budget by $37.51!! Ouch... but this is mainly due to purchasing 2 large boxes of cat food and 2 blocks of cheese for $40. Both items had a great special and even thought I don't need them for another week or two, they were worth getting ahead of time as they are saving me $15 in the long run.

This is $137.51; it doesn't look like much food once out of the bags.

I took time out to write my menu plan for the week. It's such a worthwhile exercise. When I don't write one because I'm time poor, I end up wasting time and feeling even more disorganised then before. It only takes me 30 minutes and it's a pleasant way to spend time (daydreaming about food).

These are the planned dinners this week for 2 adults and one 4 yr old child. And always enough for guests.

• Sunday: Quiche Lorraine (plus an one extra to take to work for morning tea).
• Monday: Spaghetti Bolognese.
• Tuesday: Left over Bolognese mince sauce with vegetables.
• Wednesday: A beef stroganoff type dish with veggies and spinach from the garden.
• Thursday: Baked potatoes with cheese, sour cream, grated carrot, spinach and ham.
• Friday: Left overs (gotta keep it out of landfill and save those pennies for the future).
• Saturday: Baked fish (The Rambling Expat caught) with steamed vegetables.

I'll use the tin of tuna and one loaf of bread for my lunches. There's plenty of left over fruit from last week for my daily fruit at the office.

How about you? Saving those pennies? Is menu planning on your To Do list?

Chaotic Mess Reigns In Our Home

I've always been a very messy person. My mum is a super tidy freak. She has clutter but it all has it's place and the floor is always spotless. I however am a drop and go type of gal. Drop it in the closest place and go go go... onto something more fun, exciting or important. But due to this I waste time looking for important documents, letters, keys, glasses and on and on goes the daily searching for stuff.

In the past 3 months I made a small change. I designated a new place for my keys, wallet and glasses. And I have found I stuck by this place about 80% of the time making a huge difference in my life. Immensely reducing my stress levels in the morning dash.

In the past week I have tried much harder then usual to not drop and dash. Eliminating any further mess and have also tried to concentrate on clearing up one tiny area each day. I feel I am making a little headway but the problem is nothing lasts with me. My bad habits are hard to overcome. However if my very bad spending habits have been eliminated over the past 4 years then maybe there is hope for me yet, to become the organised person I would love to be.

This is my chaotic lounge room today.

Disaster

I hope to have an after shot latter in the week of a much nicer looking room. But in the past I have tidied it all up to just make a mess again within 2 weeks. Why am I like this... I'm just too frustrating for words!!!! I wouldn't want to live with me, so how can my family cope?

The spare room is worst. The bedroom looks like a cyclone hit it. The kitchen has been a work in progress in the past 2 weeks and starting to resemble a kitchen. The hallway has a pile of children's books that the shelves can not house (time to declutter kids books).

Anyway due to my disorganised clutter I missed a very important annual Bodycorp meeting, where we make financial, maintenance and improvement decisions regarding the building. Only 1 person turned up out of the 6 units. To me that shows slackness in general, but on my part by not turning up I am not looking after my family's asset or maximising the potential of increasing our asset's value. That is wasteful and definitely not frugal. Aaaarghhhh.

How are you with your most important assets? Increasing their value with good care and maintenance?

Tantrums and Crying

Dolly had a tantrum and tears last night and again this morning. For very silly reasons. She was angry and frustrated and I could feel her mounting tension. So this morning I told Dolly we would have a quick dinner and I would spend some quality time with her. After work with my aim of quick dinner I purchased a roast chicken from the supermarket and asparagus (on special). Once home I made a large salad with lettuce, tomato, feta cheese and asparagus. Cut up the roast chicken and plated it all up in a jiffy.

After dinner while Dolly brushed teeth and got into pyjamas, I cleared the table and washed the dishes while our returnee Helpx Jiri dried the dishes. He then headed off to my plot to water it while I spent a quality hour of playing with Dolly with her Play Dough she purchased with some of her birthday money a few weeks back. She was so happy and so was I. When we went to bed for story time I could feel the difference in her. She was calm and joyful.

Birthday Money Wisely Spent.

I find frugal life can be crazy and hectic when working full time. We currently get home between 5:30 and 5:45 pm most days. We aim to get dinner (prepared and eaten), dishes washed, teeth brushed and Pj's on, stories read and garden watered, all before 7pm (bed time for Dolly). No wonder she's frustrated as we push and proddle for her to have a hurried life. She doesn't care about saving for retirement. She doesn't care about a college fund. She doesn't care about buying a house. She just wants us to play with her and cuddle her. So we played for over and hour at making "pizza" Hers had base, tomato paste, cheese and green beans. Mine at her encouragement had base, tomato paste, cheese, eggplant, ham, green beans and... blue berries!

Playing Cooking

I need to slow down and give my daughter much craved quality attention. How about you? Do you feel time poor, rushed and short of breath?