site upgrades
Doing some site upgrades this weekend. There are a few bugs that I’m tearing my hair out over working on. Hopefully they should be fixed by Monday
up poo creek
Unfortunately the title of this piece is more literal than cliche (which should be enough to make you wary. After all, it’s pretty cliche).
So let me begin by saying that if you’re eating, you may want to stop reading.
Now, I’m no plumber, but I know that usually when when the sewer backs up it can mean your loo fills up with water. And that’s about all.
Let’s get out the plunger, call the council and she’ll be right.
The bloke who lives in number number six had assumed his kids had been flushing stuff down the dunny again. So get out the plunger he did (and here I would like to avoid all jokes about plungers, spring to mind though they may).
But when the lady in number two asked to borrow his plunger, he realised the plumbing problem was bigger than his kids’ fascination for flushing and had the nous to call the body corporate plumber.
We live in number one. At the end of the row. Down hill.
And we don’t need plungers, we need gum boots. Grossness has stepped up a notch or two in our house.
Our living room floor and transformed (did I mention carpeted?) garage is flooded with the sewage water of not one, but seven backed-up loos.
I’ve dealt with neighbour’s crap before. This takes things to a whole new level.
While I’m generally a fan of natural cleaners, right now I want to soak in a bathtub of pure bleach. And splash it around our house with reckless abandon.
Unfortunately pregnancy rules out the bourbon solution.
The silver lining part is that as I type this, we are waiting for the insurance people to come and rip up the carpet and they are going to scrub the house for us with disinfectant. They say there’s a possibility that the whole house will get re-carpeted if they can’t match the upstairs stuff. I’ll get a brand new bookshelf, and they will replace the toys we threw out and the towels we used to stem the flow.
Once the house is clean, the new carpet is laid and the furniture is back in place; once the little fella is over his tonsillitis; once my computer is back from the computer-fix-it-man with no more blue screen of death, once the rain, which has created a pond in the yard, stops threatening to flood the house (yes, it’s been one of those weeks) then I will resume my regular posting schedule, answer any emails (which for some reason I can’t access on the web) and stop the whinging.
If you’re an Aussie, happy Australia Day for tomorrow. I hope your day is filled with BBQs and sun and relaxation. We will be visiting relatives for a rest, some unpolluted air and sausages.
ask the readers–how do you save money on back to school expenses?
In the recent reader survey, a respondent suggested asking you, the reader, your ideas and input on various topics.
I think this is an excellent idea for two reasons: firstly my knowledge is very limited and I think all readers (myself included) would benefit from your experience and knowledge. Secondly, it makes for an easy post for me to write – not so much research, writing and editing (I do edit, I promise).
When it comes to back to school expenses, I have no clue. It’s been 13 years since I left school. A lot of things have changed since then. And the little fella won’t be going to school for another few years yet.
When I was doing the HSC we had one computer lab with four students to a computer (none of which were hooked up to the internet) and another room with a few old Apple Macs. I used a typewriter at home to type out assignments (ok, we were a little behind the times as well). For internet access, you had to book the ONE computer in the library and, well, there were only a handful of students that actually did that.
Nowadays, each highschool student has access to a laptop, so I’m told, and a USB drive is a compulsory item to buy. The local public school gives out scholarships each year to cover expenses. Do students still need to take their own dictionaries to school? I still have my trusty pocket Collins Gem in the top drawer of my desk and I still use it (and it still smells like Impulse deodorant spray – disgusting stuff that it is – all these years later).
Ok, now that I’ve had my reminisce, it’s over to you – what are your tips on saving money on back to school expenses?
cheesy potato topped chicken
This is a basic grilled or fried chicken breast with a little difference – topped with cheesy potato rather than having the spuds served on the side.
This dish is nice with a salad, but I have a pregnancy aversion to salad at the moment, so vegetables it was. The bonus of using vegetables is that you can add them to any leftover potato mixture for bubble and squeak the next day (just fry the mixture in a little butter like fritters).
That is exactly what we did for breakfast. The little fella insists on being involved in all cooking (who am I to argue with that! Hopefully the interest in cooking doesn’t wear off!). When I explained I was cooking bubble and squeak he noddled solemnly and said ‘noisy breakfast’. However there was total silence as it was eaten. Serves 4
the 2012 january / february newsletter edition is out now
The January / February edition of the Frugal and Thriving newsletter is out now.
I had several ideas for this year’s newsletter theme but settled at the last moment on ‘thriving’, so as well as the usual frugal tips, I will focus on the thriving side of life!
I’m excited to say that there are now over 1,200 subscribers to the newsletter and I hope that you find it interesting and beneficial. If you have suggestions for ways of improving it or ideas for content I would love to hear them!
This issue includes:
- A link to the 2012 reader survey (if you haven’t seen it yet
). - Links to budgeting and goal setting articles on the blog
- 12 uses for lemons around the home
- 10 tips for having more energy
- Articles from the archives
- Links to blogs around the web
- A free kid’s recipe book.
If you haven’t signed up for the Frugal and Thriving newsletter and would like to do so, you can subscribe here. Note: The newsletter gets sent out once every two months (and that’s all – no spammy stuff!) and is separate from the daily blog post email subscription.
one man’s trash…
We had an unexpected visitor drop by for a chat the other day to discuss some body corporate matters.
We don’t normally have visitors and to say that our house was untidy would be an understatement. As my mother said many, many times when we were growing up, ‘it looked like a bomb had gone off’.
Generally I ignore the mess. The adage ‘cleaning with kids is like shovelling snow in a blizzard’ is one that comes to mind several hundreds times a day. I’ve got better things to do.
But as I noticed this man (who doesn’t have children of his own) gaze around the room I suddenly saw our chaos through someone else’s eyes.
Now he was too polite to say anything, but I could tell by the look on his face that he saw a house strewn with garbage. Derelict might have come to mind. And that is certainly one valid interpretation. But of course, we’ve learned to see things a little differently:
get out of the house without breaking the budget
This post was inspired by a reader question I received oh, nearly six months ago now (sorry about the tardiness) but as it is summer and school holidays I thought it would be a good time to cover the topic: how to save money on family outings.
The key to saving money on family outings is to be organised. That means having the things ready that you need to take and having easily packed snack or lunch options available in the house, ready to grab.
It just so happens I’ve created a little printable checklist to give you some ideas on what you might need to pack on outings (you can download it below).
homemade mascarpone
Our Christmas lunch with family was a bring-a-dish affair, the best way to enjoy Christmas day without having all stress and financial burden of catering for everyone. As well as potato salad, I took the raspberry swirl cheesecake above. You can find the recipe for this cheesecake here at Taste.com.au.
I baked this on Christmas eve. Being a cheesecake novice, I was nervous that I had taken on too much. The stakes were high. I had promised cheesecake and had no back up plan if this didn’t turn out.
Well, after a few choice swear words and two hours baking rather than one, the cheesecake didn’t look nearly as good as the one pictured on the recipe, but it sure tasted sensational! (Oh yeah, even if I do say so myself 
).
This cheesecake recipe has a lot of ingredients, including a whole tub of mascarpone, meaning that it’s not the cheapest dessert to make. To bring the cost down, I made the mascarpone, which is relatively easy to make, much cheaper than the store bought stuff and tastes just as good, if not better.
To compare: a tub of supermarket mascarpone is $23 per kilo. Making your own with fresh cream comes in at around $7.90 a kilo, a big saving.
The recipe below yields about 400g of mascarpone cheese.
2012 frugal and thriving reader survey
Help make Frugal and Thriving a better website!
I’m busy planning for the coming year on Frugal and Thriving and my top priority is to make this a better website.
To help me achieve this goal, write the articles that you want to read, and cover the topics that are of interest to you, I’ve drawn up a very short (and anonymous) survey to get your feedback.
It would be wonderful if you could take just a minute or two to fill out the survey to let me know how I can improve the blog.
I want to thank you in advance for taking the survey.
debt free and thriving–a free ebook on getting out of debt
I’ve been working hard lately on writing an eBook about how to get out of debt and today I’m ready to launch it into the world!
This time of the year is popular for deciding to reduce debt – getting out of debt and saving more money are two of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions. Unfortunately, many of us don’t manage to stick to these resolutions.
This eBook outlines a strategy for paying off your debts (without too much pain) and saving money to cover future expenses at the same time, in order to stay out of debt in the future.
I would love to hear your feedback on the eBook, whether you find the information helpful and whether you see results. If you’re goal is to pay down your debts this year, I wish you all the best.
Have a great weekend.
You can download your copy (100% free) here (in PDF format).
