Living contrary to my values has been a source of discontent lately. I have a utopian vision of the ‘good life’, which if I squint, I can see somewhere off in the distance. But there are days when I examine my life that I can only see the discord between the vision and the reality.

What does it mean to live an authentic life? Living authentically is being true to yourself and your values, whatever those values may be. It is when your actions reflect your thoughts and your words. It is when you stand up for what you stand for. It is when your inner self and your outward world are in harmony.

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I read some depressing statistics about cigarette smoking that revealed the poorer you are the more likely you are to smoke. Not only that, but smokers with lower income smoke more cigarettes per day than the average. In other words, those who can least afford to smoke are the people who smoke the most.¹

Why? There are several hypotheses in a study conducted by the World Bank on Poverty and Smoking² including the argument that poorer people tend to be less educated or that smoking is a form of self-medication against the stress of feeling deprived. However, the researchers conclude that none of the hypotheses are adequate at explaining the link between poverty and smoking.

With the link between being poor and smoking in mind, the next finding isn’t very surprising: the number one motivation for quitting is not for health reasons but for financial reasons.³ What is surprising however, is that poorer smokers are less likely to try to quit smoking that their wealthier neighbours.⁴

It’s a no-brainer that smoking is expensive. Your money literally goes up in smoke every time you light up. So how much does smoking cost the average smoker? I did some calculations based on some national averages.

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This dish is inspired by a Margaret Fulton recipe, but this version is quicker and easier.  While I’m sure my version doesn’t have the depth of flavour that Mrs Fulton’s does, there’s a lot less mucking around, so a doable dish for a week night meal.

As with many spice dishes, there are a few ingredients, but most are pantry staples. And when I say spicy, this dish isn’t hot. I took out the saffron because it’s too pricey for my pantry, so if you prefer, throw in some saffron with the other spices. I also put the raisins and chickpeas in with the chicken rather than in with the couscous because I like my couscous plain and buttery and the sultanas swell and go juicy and impart their flavour to the stew, while the chickpeas absorb some of the spice flavour. Thigh fillets have more fat on them and therefore taste a whole lot better (especially in stews) than breast, but chicken breast works just as well. I used tinned tomatoes because the ones in the shop at the moment aren’t worth buying. Freeze any leftover tomatoes and chickpeas for later use as pizza sauce or for a quick homemade hummus.

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It is Wednesday afternoon. At the time of writing this, we still don’t have a government. Maybe by Friday when this post is published, politics will have sorted itself out. In the meantime, it seems that the top job is up for grabs.

So any takers? What would you do if you were the Prime Minister?

This is an open invitation for you to bring out your soap box. You can be as controversial as you like. Us Aussies are good at criticising our government. But I don’t think we really appreciate the complexities of running a country.

So I’m asking, what is your solution to one of the many issues facing Australia at the moment? Consider the following questions:

• What portfolio would you tackle?
• What are the main problem that you see that portfolio faces?
• What would you do to improve / fix it?
• How would you sell your solution to the people?
• How would you fund it?

For example, maybe it is healthcare that you want to improve. How would you fix the healthcare problem? More staff? More beds? Better facilities? More private care? How much would it cost? Where would you get the money to pay for your new policies? How would you convince the voting public that your idea is a good one?

I started thinking about this just this afternoon. Below is an idea that I came up with off the cuff. It isn’t going to be popular. I even looked up the Federal Budget to find out how much money I have to play around with. Just over $320 billion if you are wondering.

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…or why burnout can cost you money

The last two weeks off has given me the chance to catch up on a few trashy novels, picnic in the park with the little fella and nap in the afternoon. I’ve been a little bit lazy and it has been wonderful. I have found that it is healthy (for everyone in the family) if I take some time out every day to be lazy.

Whether you are working or you stay at home, life is busy in the 21st century, despite all our modern conveniences that are meant to make life easier. I teach computers to adults and even the retirees tell me that they are too busy to practice at home.

Are we busy for busyness sake? Do we feel compelled to fill every waking moment with activity? There is a paradox to the Australian cultural identity when it comes to work. On one hand we would describe ourselves as ‘laid back’, on the other we harp on about ‘work ethic’. And for a laid back nation, we are amongst the hardest or longest workers in the world. Part of our need for busyness comes, I think, from our underlying cultural identity.

And all of this busyness leads to burnout.

Taking time out to be ‘lazy’ has multiple benefits for our health, our emotional wellbeing, our relationships and yes, even our finances. It is hard to be frugal when you don’t have the energy to be proactive about your finances. ‘Laziness’ also allows a space for creativity to flourish: without time to sit and stare, it is hard to have those flashes of creative insight that are also integral to a frugal existence.

I started to list some of the reasons why being busy all the time can hinder frugality. At some point the list turned into a (fictional) diary entry and I just went with it. I’m no Helen Fielding but I’m sure you will forgive that.

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Cauliflower soup is a wonderfully moreish and filling winter soup. To give you an idea of how much cauliflower it requires, I bought a large head of cauliflower for this soup, but only needed about half. This was our Sunday night easy dinner (I made the soup the night before while the roast chook was cooking), eaten with buttered bread rolls.

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I’m going to have a few days off to recharge. While it would be nice to be in the picture on holiday, just a sleep in would be wonderful this week!

I’m pretty busy at the moment and I get through a lot over the course of the week. I’m teaching MYOB as a volunteer again, so busy lesson planning; our hot water heater has just about given up the ghost, so I need to get it replaced; our house needs a little TLC and of course there is the little fella to look after. He is certainly growing up to be a handful, already he just wants to get going – he does a lot of moving backwards though . Apart from that, the doc thought he had a hernia (turns out it’s ‘just’ fluid in the family jewels) and now we’re trying lactose-free formula and hoping it will help with his eczema (very mild) and ‘reflux’ like symptoms.

Time management and being organised is something that I’m continually working on, but I think it’s one of my strengths (more on time management in the next few weeks). Having said that, there is one thing that I’m failing to do and that’s prioritising some time out, me time, time to relax and otherwise recharge. All work and no play makes mummy not much fun to be around. So this week (and maybe next week) I will be silent here (but not quite absent) while I take some time to gather the troops.

Hope that you have a wonderful week and that you take some time out also to relax and recharge.

Chilli beef freezes well, so makes a good freezer backup meal. We normally have this with rice, but it’s nice with corn chips for a treat. I had leftovers the other day with some fresh, mashed avocado, yum. To boost the vegetable content, add some sliced mushrooms, capsicum, diced carrot, peas or whatever you have on hand.

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If I had a dollar every time someone warned me about ‘throwing good money after bad’, I would be able to afford a new car. No, two new cars. I get the feeling that we tend to use clichés like this without really thinking them through.

Is it really better to replace something instead of repairing it?

Let’s face it: we live in a culture that has a throw away mentality. Many of us believe that it is better to replace than repair. What do I think? Well, I think it depends.

Let’s do some analysis. While the repair v replace debate could be had for a number of consumer goods, here I want to examine cars, specifically our car.

I’ve compared three cars. Two Hyundai accents, one new, one second hand and our current bomb car, a Ford Laser. (Why Hyundai? No idea – it was the first car that came to mind. The ones I looked at were both small cars, 4 door sedan).

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Do you consider yourself affluent? What does it mean to be affluent?

I came across this definition of affluent at Free Money Finance:

Simply stated, your net worth [augmented -- assets minus liabilities] should equal 10 percent of your age times your annual realized household income (0.10 x age x income = expected net worth.) If your actual net worth is above this expected figure, I consider you affluent, given your age and income characteristics.

Try this exercise for yourself. You can find out how to work out your net worth here. I’m assuming that the annual realised income is your net income for the household and that it is a combined household income.

For example, Joe is 28 years old and earns $38,000 after tax. His “affluence factor” would be 0.10 x 28 x $38,000, which would equal $106,400. If his net worth was more than this, he would be considered affluent by the above definition.

Now, despite the fact that I like formulas and numbers, there is a big problem with this kind of definition of affluent. In the very least, it assumes that you can define affluence with a dollar amount.

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