It’s 6 am.

And I’m grating soap.

I’ve been up since 2. The little fella: fed, bed and then gurgling, grunting, snorting and farting his way to 5 am. Fed, bed.

Now I’m standing in front of the washing machine, shivering in my undies, grating soap so that I can wash another load of nappies.

With sleep-squinted eyes and grated, bloody knuckles, I have a moment of existential angst.

Why?

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We don’t have an ideal situation for growing our own vegetables. Despite living in the sunshine state, for most of the year, our tiny courtyard doesn’t get any sun at all. We have grown vegetables in the past, but the only months our yard gets sun, is the off season for growing here in QLD. We do however have ideal conditions for growing a good crop of moss.

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I’ve always had a fascination with ants. Did you know that they farm fungi underground and that they can lift 20 times their own weight? Did you know that they love cat food? And cheese? No, neither did I until they invaded our kitchen.

Oh, they come for other crumbs inadvertently left behind, but they swarm for the food kitty flicks all over the floor and the cheese grater waiting to be washed.

As far as pests go, I don’t mind ants too much. However, in the days leading up to the wet season and throughout summer, the kitchen invasion becomes too much to ignore.

A few ideas that I found on dealing with ants naturally:

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According to the stats, around 75% of jobs are never advertised. These jobs are often filled through an informal network and they can only be accessed through networking or cold calling.

When I first moved to QLD, I decided that I only wanted to work in an accounting firm despite not having finished my studies and having pretty much no experience. Having no success with the few advertised positions there were, I cold called until I was hired. From the time I started cold calling, it took me two weeks to get the position I wanted in an accounting firm.

The key to cold calling for employment is having an organised and systematic approach. Treat getting a job as a job in itself. This kind of job hunting approach can be harder than the usual job hunting methods, but the result can be a better job than those that are advertised.

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A frugal blog will inevitably extol the virtues of ‘the simple life’. After all, the simple life (synonymous it seems with ‘the good life’) is often one of the reasons for being frugal. But what is the simple life and is it a one size fits all definition? Is it something specific, or are there principles that can be embraced so that no matter where you live, or what you do, you can live the simple life?

Living the simple life is generally considered a voluntary lifestyle choice for environmental, frugal, spiritual, philosophical and social reasons. It is often characterised by one or more of the following traits:

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Regular preventative maintenance on your car can save you hundreds if not thousands down the track on repairs and other costs when car parts breakdown or prematurely wear out. If it feels like there is just not enough money in the budget to repair that minor problem, think again. We thought that too…

In February we had our regular service on the car. So far so good. However, there were several small maintenance tasks that Mr Mechanic recommended above and beyond the regular service, like replacing the worn radiator hoses and cleaning the cooling system.

Well, it wasn’t urgent, said Mr Mechanic, and we were only planning on driving the car around town, so we decided to put off these maintenance tasks until April when we knew we would have a little extra cash in the budget.

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Protecting yourself and your assets against illness, damage and loss is essential to good money management. Be it self insurance or conventional insurance, insuring yourself and your property reduces the risk of serious financial strain should some mishap happen.

Conventionally, we pay premiums to insurance companies to cover the risk of future mishap. These premiums not only cover the cost of any claims that you or other customers might make, insurance companies are also in business to make profits from your premiums. Below are some tips to save money on your insurance premiums.

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I previously wrote about how I was preparing for a frugal baby, listing the absolute bare minimum essential things that I thought I would need. Then we brought the little fella home.

I never expected that I would be bottle feeding so to the list of essentials we added a breast pump (I was trying for a few weeks to bring my milk in), bottles, formula and steriliser (as I expected to breast feed, we started out boiling our bottles on the stove top. A steriliser was an expensive but oh so wonderful convenience purchase). We also ended up with a pram (for nanna really), a bath and a bouncer, both of which get a pretty good work out.

Apart from the essentials, I also did some less essential crafting before the new arrival, that I wanted to share with you. Despite being non essential, we use the items below on a daily basis. As a quilter, I have quite a stash of fabric from my cashed up days, so everything except the fabric and notions for the bag was made from what I already had on hand (no extra money spent).

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I like being productive. The best days are ones where I feel like I have ‘achieved something’. If I’m feeling down, the number one pick-me-up is to get something done. It’s a control thing probably.

When I was in the workforce, I became obsessed with the study of time management. If there is a book written on the subject, then I’ve probably read it (and made notes).

Now full time with infant and COO of our household, the time management skills that I used at work are even more useful now.

Previously I wrote about having a tidy house without effort – well that was pre-baby, pre-sleep deprived days. Now that I have less time, I find that I get more done. I think because I have less excuses to be lazy (and I prioritise more). These are some of the things that I do (and am trying to implement) to get through the thousand things that each day brings.

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I have a small confession to make. For the first four weeks of the little fella’s life we used disposable nappies. Not entirely, we had a foray into cloth the few days we were at home, but mostly it was disposable. The hospital required it, and I’m not sure I could have managed the six long days in the car with a bucket full of stinking nappies.

But now that things have settled down and we’re back at home, we have gone the last week using entirely cloth nappies (even out and about) and we won’t go back to disposable (unless we have to do another long car trip etc). I have to say that using cloth nappies is really not that much more work than using disposables. We are currently using terry towelling flats. They are inexpensive (we purchased them at $1.70 each), easy to wash and dry (much quicker than fitted nappies – a night on the clothes horse in the laundry is sufficient at the moment).

If you’re interested, below is how we fold our nappies. It fits a newborn bum well and is a good fold for boys.

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