coming to an inbox near you–the march / april newsletter
The 2012 edition of the Frugal and Thriving newsletter has been sent this weekend.
This month’s newsletter includes tips for having a healthy body and mind, without it costing money (or the earth).
In this issue you will find:
- Four ideas for changing habits that improve health and wellbeing
- How to eat wholefoods – information on what are wholefoods, the benefits of a wholefood diet, where to buy them, how to find time to cook them.
- Tips on finding balance when life is busy
- Articles from the archives
- A few links from blogs around the web – how to get your partner to eat wholefoods; how to make oven-dried tomatoes; the difference between healing and curing; and warning signs to look for that may mean you’re too frugal.
If there are things you would like to see in the newsletter, drop me a line and let me know – it’s all about giving you useful information!
If you would like to sign up to the newsletter, find out more or read past editions, check out the newsletter archives page.
an example savings plan – how ours works
This week I’m participating Women’s Money Week. The aim of the week is to create a dialogue about the financial issues specific to women and coincides with International Women’s Day. Each day there is a topic for participants to write about on their website. Today’s topics is about Saving Money.
I’ve written in the past about how we create a savings plan using excel, and how we save for multiple goals, but I thought today I would share exactly what we are saving towards at the moment to give you an idea of what saving for multiple goals looks like in real life.
Our savings plan is a work in progress; our goals change as our needs (and wants) are met and we develop new ones (for instance, we’re saving for a second baby car seat at the moment, obviously not something we save for all the time).
Also, each year I save for more and more specific things. For instance, I wrote the other week how it never occurred to me to save for the replacement costs of household goods like linen and furniture – we now put a little aside each week to cover those future expenses when they crop up.
The whole point of doing this is to keep us out of debt and reduce the pain of paying large bills when they crop up. Putting aside a few dollars each week towards a bill is much easier than having to suddenly come up with several hundred dollars when a bill falls due.
the money talk–a joint perspective
This week I’m participating Women’s Money Week. The aim of the week is to create a dialogue about the financial issues specific to women and coincides with International Women’s Day. Each day there is a topic for participants to write about on their website. Today’s topics is about relationships and money.
Relationships and money. If there was ever a minefield in marriage, this would be it. How couples deal with joint finances can either strengthen or put strain on a relationship.
I’ve written in the past about discussing money with your partner based on my own experience. In this post, I asked my husband to contribute his thoughts on discussing finances in a relationship, to get the other side of the story.
The following five tips are straight from the hubby’s mouth – his comments, as I’m sure you will guess, are in blue – along with my own thoughts on each of his tips.
pressed for cash – the ins and outs of starting your own ironing service
This week I’m participating Women’s Money Week. The aim of the week is to create a dialogue about the financial issues specific to women and coincides with International Women’s Day. Each day there is a topic for participants to write about on their website. Today’s topics is about Making Money.
An ironing service is a popular home-based business for women. It’s a flexible business that you can work around current commitments like childcare and it is easy to get into -there are no or low start up costs and no specialised skills required.
I ran an ironing service for about a year when we first moved interstate and unemployment levels were high – the tips below come directly from my own experience. I had two weekly clients over this period. Both were lovely, both were working mothers and both paid me more than I charged, which is always a good thing!
As far as household chores go, I don’t mind ironing. I find it meditative – it’s when I think up many of the article ideas for this website.
I have to admit though, any enjoyment soon wears off when you are ironing other people’s clothes on top of your own ironing pile.
Ironing shirts is an art form; ironing the micro-shirts of a two year old is an extreme exercise in equanimity.
If you’re considering starting your own ironing service, below are some tips and things to consider before you begin.
paprika chicken with a secret sauce ingredient
This dish is both tasty and inexpensive – less than five dollars for a family meal. The secret? The sauce is full of cabbage. And no one will know if you don’t tell them.
For someone like me who loves cabbage, that may not be a selling point. But if you walk past cheap cabbage and don’t buy it because you know no one will eat it, try this recipe.
Serves 4 – 6
mould in the bathroom–prevention and cure
Mould growth – not only is it unsightly, it can be bad for your health. Mould can reduce the quality of indoor air and can aggravate asthma and hay fever as well as increase the risk of respiratory illness, especially in children.
Mould is typically caused by bacteria that loves to grow in hot, humid environments. Our bathrooms, therefore, provide an ideal environment for mould to establish some real estate and start a family.
Prevent the next generation of mould colonising your bathroom with these tips.
getting more from your menu plan
Conventionally, a menu plan is a tool used for planning what you are going to eat and when you are going to eat it. I know to some people that sounds tediously boring but a menu plan takes the guesswork, last minute stress and last minutes shopping out of cooking dinner every night.
You can take your menu planning one step further and make life that little bit easier by using it to plan food preparation in advance as well.
Cooking food from scratch takes a little extra effort and a little extra time than opting for convenience foods. That’s the pay-off for eating healthy, whole food and saving money at the same time. While we may agree the pay-off is worth it, some days it’s easier said than done.
Which is where being prepared comes in.
Below is our menu plan for a fortnight. I think it helps to see a plan in action to understand what I mean. As well as planning ahead what we’re going to eat each night and writing a shopping list at the same time to ensure we’ve got all the ingredients on hand, I also note down when we’re going to be out of the house, when we’re going to be busy or any upcoming special occasions and make notes to remind myself to prep ahead in order to take the stress out of those busy days. I don’t plan breakfasts, lunches or snacks, but I do occasionally plan ahead what we’ll bake on baking day (see below).
a household routine can save you money
Our regular household routine has been disrupted a number of times over the last few months due to illness and then our little sewage leak in the lounge room fiasco. While these disruptions were unavoidable (and, I’d like to add, not all disruptions to routine are bad), it did end up costing us money we wouldn’t normally have spent.
It wasn’t until this point that I realised routines not only help you get things done, a routine can save you money.
While we can’t always avoid disruptions to routine (and sometimes we break routine because we want to – a break from the same old, same old is vital for happiness), we can avoid routine busters breaking the budget or leaving us feeling guilty over unplanned spending.
moroccan inspired lamb mince pilaf
Sick of the same old mince dishes? I was. So I went searching for a recipe and ended up adapting this one from Taste.com.
This is a tasty dish, easy to make and inexpensive. The yoghurt is optional but really gives the dish a lift; the tartness contrasts well with the earthiness of the spices and the burst of sweetness from the sultanas. Weevils nested in my almonds so I didn’t add those, but toasted almonds definitely balance the texture by giving the dish some crunch.
Basmati rice is recommended in the original recipe but I just use regular long grain rice. Also, I use lamb mince because we don’t eat beef anymore, but you can use regular beef mince also, which would make this dish even cheaper.
Baby knits round-up
Despite it being the regular hot and humid February in Queensland, I have the urge to knit. I blame it on overseas blogs, who, in the midst of winter (and what a snowy winter), are currently showcasing all their latest knits.
And I’m excited because this time round I’m having a Winter baby, so I can put down the dishcloths and try my hand at some baby clothes. I grew up down south where Winters are cold. While I don’t miss the cold so much, I miss the snuggling up in knits and getting warm part of Winter.
There are a trillion knitted patterns for babies out there on the internet – these are just a few I’ve been looking at over the last couple of weeks.
P.S. Lion Brand Yarn have over 4,000 patterns for free, but you have to sign up to their website. Some of there patterns are really, really nice.
