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1st - Bridget Jones strikes again
3rd - We could be heroes...
12th - $1.00 x 18,000
22nd - No such thing as a free lunch
25th - A Changed Man
Bridget Jones strikes again
Mar 1, 2010
Woohoo, the first day of 31 Tip Challenge Month! Thank goodness it’s not No Screens Month or our house would be off to a poor start. The boys and I are all sick with rotten colds and the lounge has been turned into a sick bay. Ali is watching Hanna Montana, Liam is playing Nintendo and I’m checking out the Vault and Forum for new tips to try!
Actually I confess to trying a few out already, mainly in the culinary department so far. Last week I finally got round to trying out something yummy which had been jumping out at me from the Forum for ages. I LOVE tinned spaghetti! Unfortunately it doesn’t love me. It gives me such horrendous heartburn I gave up eating it years ago, so I was intrigued and excited to see a recipe for home made ‘tinned’ spaghetti! I have to say it was one of the BEST things I have ever tasted. I made a huge batch and I just couldn’t stop eating it; it kept calling to me from the fridge! Best of all, no heartburn! Needless to say I am never buying spaghetti from a can again. Try it and you’ll be an instant convert!
The same day I also tried out a new recipe for Liam. The weather here has been unbearably hot and humid lately and this has played havoc with my baking, with cakes and muffins going mouldy far sooner than they normally would. I tried keeping them in the fridge but this also rendered them inedible for lunchboxes as they turned hard as rocks! So we decided that we would only make slices for lunchboxes until the weather turned cooler as they could be kept in the fridge with no problems.
Noel and Ali were easy to cater for as they live on the muesli bar recipe from The $21 Challenge book, which you can also find in this month’s newsletter. Finding slice recipes for Liam which don’t cost a fortune however is a different matter. Until I came across the Mars Bar Surprise slice and realised I could adapt it to use up the gluten free rice bubbles he didn’t like. Those of you who have The $21 Challenge book will be familiar with the Mars Bar Surprise slice – the surprise being that there are no Mars Bars! Liam took one bite and – “YUM!!!” was the verdict. It’s great to have a gluten free lunchbox filler that he really loves at last!
Now our house is for sale we never know who’s going to pop in, so I’m endeavouring to keep it clean and welcoming at all times. As well as looking nice I want our home to smell nice too, not of spaniels and cricket gear! I’ve heard all the stories about cooking bacon to create a cosy, homely atmosphere but it’s not always convenient or practical – and what if our prospective house buyer is vegetarian? It might put them off! I’ve been looking around for nice air fresheners to create a feeling of ambience but they were all so expensive and overpowering. So I consulted Wendyl Nissen’s ‘Domestic Goddess on a Budget’ book and found a lovely recipe for a home made room spray. I filled a clean, empty pump bottle with half a cup of water and half a cup of gin (pinched from Noel, haven’t owned up to that yet!) You can also use vodka. To this I added essential oils which I already had – 10 drops of lavender, five drops of tea tree and a couple of drops of rosemary. You can adapt it to use whichever oils you have but I was really happy with this blend, it smells gorgeous! I just spray it around before people arrive and as well as smelling nice, it seems to bring on a feeling of instant calm. I won’t be using anything else from now on!
Lavender oil is something I have plenty of and I plan to use it today to keep the flies away! The flies have been driving us all to distraction lately. We have two of those little gadgets that you hang on the wall and puff out bursts of pyrethrum but they haven’t made a difference this summer. Ali has a battery powered ‘tennis racket’ that zaps flies with an electric current but there are just too many to keep on top of. I have even resorted to using a can of fly spray but I hate the stuff and it only provides a temporary respite. So I searched the Vault and Forum and it seems to me that lavender oil could save the day. I’ve been meaning to clean the windows for days and now I have even more good reason to do it, so I can try out my fly repelling window cleaning solution! As well as that, I also found a tip in a Forum discussion which says you should burn lavender oil in an oil burner. Now as you may know I have a lot – a LOT – of oil burners, enough to light one in each room!
Liam often tells people that his mum is more like Bridget Jones than Bridget Jones is. Whilst not exactly complimentary I can't help feeling that he's right. One of the reasons I ended up making the Mars Bar Surprise slice was due to the fact that I had made him some blueberry muffins using a new recipe, and they really did turn out bright blue. 'I can't eat those!' Liam protested. 'All my mates will be grossed out! They'll think they're mouldy!' I had to agree they really did resemble a rather nasty science experiment but the problem was soon solved with the help of some melted chocolate, liberally applied. Nobody would be any the wiser! 'Bridget Jones makes blue string soup, my mum makes blue muffins!', Liam laughed. Unfortunately this wasn't the last of my mishaps. Last week was the last of my library visits in Hamilton. The library had been packed again and I had the pleasure once more of meeting some wonderful people. I was feeling pretty good! I was in full SS mode. I was a Happy Hanna! I was in control! I was going to do the grocery shopping! Now, going to the supermarket is not actually something I do very often any more. With Noel being on the road so much with his job, most of the time it’s easier for him to stop in at the supermarket for any essentials we need on the way home. It saves us heaps of time and petrol but today I was the one going past the supermarket, so it made sense for me to pick up the shopping.
I had everything I needed – wallet, shopping list, iPod. Noel and I both listen to iPods when in the supermarket. I consider it to be a valuable money saver! Listening to good music relaxes you and takes your mind off the too-bright lights, the nauseating loudspeaker ads and the inevitable people who stand blocking both sides of the aisle, deep in conversation, totally oblivious to the fact that everyone else is desperate to get past them so we can all get on with our shopping. More importantly however, my iPod puts me in a good mood and stops me getting too grumpy and making hasty decisions in my mission to get the heck out of there as soon as possible. Instead I’m happy to browse the aisles at a leisurely pace, comparing prices, sussing out the best deals – and no doubt scaring all the other customers away with my singing.
Mission complete, I drove home feeling very pleased with myself. I hadn’t bought a single thing we didn’t need and, more importantly, I spent less than Noel! I couldn’t wait to wave the docket under his nose when he got home from work. I brought the shopping in and unpacked it and realised I couldn’t find the lettuce. Or the carrots or spring onions. Or the apples and plums. I checked the docket – yep, they had all been put through the checkout. Somehow, and I have no idea how, I left all the fruit and vegetables behind. Thank goodness we had beans, tomatoes, cucumber, broccoli, cabbage, pumpkin, silverbeet and peaches already at home! It was inconvenient but there was still time – I could ring the supermarket, locate my shopping and get there and back before Noel got home! Unfortunately not – ‘looks like another customer went home with your shopping!’ the supervisor’s cheerful voice came down the phone. I had no choice but to confess all to Noel. ‘Oh well done, dear. That’s great Simple Savings that is!’ Needless to say, I still haven’t lived it down…
No such thing as a free lunch
Mar 22, 2010
Good heavens! Another busy week, with more library talks and even more planned for the future. It's certainly a fun way to see the country - be warned, your town could be next! I've realised that to save the money I need for Liam’s new school I need to start a ‘Would Have’ account. In this, I plan to put all the money I would have spent without using my Simple Savings brain. It's rather like the Vault hint 'We were going to' box stops needless spending. Every time I stop, think and save, I will put the money it would otherwise have cost me into this new account. I proudly started it off on Monday by depositing $10. That's the money I would have spent on lunch and a drink while I was out doing my library talk, if I hadn't packed a drink and a sandwich. I think it will work brilliantly but also a bit scary to see how much I COULD have spent! It's just a shame I also have to fork out $30 for a speeding ticket (six measly km over!) and $150 insurance excess for Liam breaking the ranch slider glass on Saturday night, playing balloon cricket!
It's also a shame I ended up spending twenty-something dollars on McDonalds for the boys and I earlier in the week. Granted, it had been a horrendously busy day and if we hadn't eaten something soon we would have fallen over but I would much rather have seen that money go towards my children's education! The annoying thing is, you don't even enjoy it when you feel guilty about it. With me, I feel guilty on two counts - one because it's money I would rather not spend and two, because it's bad for my waistline! The more hectic life gets, the easier it is to fall into the junk food trap. With swimming on Mondays, rugby training on Wednesdays, cricket training on Thursdays, swimming on Fridays and cricket all day on both Saturdays AND Sundays, I can see that the only way I'm going to avoid wasting money unnecessarily on food is to 1) Fill in the Purchasing Planner every evening without fail and 2) Print off Fiona's Life Planner from The $21 Challenge book and also fill that in religiously. With these two fantastic tools, I should be able to make sure that I'm never caught without food and drink when we're out and about, and that I'm organised for every meal when we get home!
Have had a houseful of boys this weekend. I love all the ferrying around to sports. Yes it can be a tie but it's so much fun! There's nothing I like better on a Saturday morning than driving a carload of rowdy boys to cricket, all singing at the tops of our voices and giving each other plenty of good natured ribbing. This weekend we have had Alex and Jakob stay and the two of them have made me feel like a real domestic goddess. 'Oh my goodness! These are the best sausage rolls ever! How did you MAKE these? They're so much better than bought sausage rolls! The ones you buy are just full of yukky stuff!' said Jakob, blissfully unaware he was also scoffing mouthfuls of carrot and courgette. 'Oh man, I never get any baking!' he said as he wolfed down his third muffin before dinner. Alex was also a huge fan of the sausage rolls and between the four boys, the whole 36 were gone in 24 hours (even Liam, who's not supposed to eat pastry couldn't resist them and helped himself to five!) Dinner was met with the same reaction. 'This is the best pie you have ever made!' complimented Alex on my Leek, Ham and Egg Pie. I don't know what it is about this pie but everyone always goes crazy about it, so I'll write the recipe here and you can try it too!
Penny's Leek, Ham and Egg Pie
2 leeks (if you don't have leeks, onions will do fine)
2 rashers bacon
1 cup chopped ham (if you don't have both bacon AND ham, just one is still good but even better with both!)
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp wholeseed mustard
Flaky pastry sheets (enough to line and go on top of a 20cm pie dish)
1/2 cup grated cheese
4 eggs
Salt and pepper
Trim and thinly slice leeks, or chop onions if you're using those. Wash and drain the leeks thoroughly. De-rind and chop the bacon. Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the leeks and bacon, cover and cook gently until leeks are soft. Stir in the flour and cook for one minute. Gradually add milk, stirring until mixture thickens. Remove from heat, stir in mustard and set aside to cool.
Line the base and sides of your pie dish with some of the pastry. Spoon the leeks onto the base, then top with cheese. Sprinkle the hame over the cheese and break the eggs on top. Season well with salt and pepper, then pop more pastry on top to make the 'lid' and trim off any excess. Brush the pastry with a little extra milk to glaze if liked. Bake at 220C for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 180C and cook for a further 20 minutes. Enjoy hot or cold - YUM!
I've mentioned before that Alex is a real Simple Saver of the future but I was especially proud of him the other day. He told me he had been reading his gran's copy of The $21 Challenge book and came across something that really struck a chord with him. It was the chart which show how little bits add up, which members may already be familiar with in the form of the Big Savings Poster. He said it really made him think and ever since he has refused to spend a cent on school lunch. He is currently Year 13 and his friends all have a tab – a TAB! – at the school canteen. They rack up around $50 a week on canteen food, where Alex brings his from home. They tell him he's stingy; he tells them he's not stingy, just smart! On the days he forgets to pack his lunch, he keeps packets of 30c noodles at the school which he can make himself. I think it's terrific and bodes really well for his future, but what about the others? If these kids are running up these sort of debts now, what happens when they leave school? They go out into the world, get jobs and continue to buy their lunch every day. Or, they go to uni, where they soon find it hard to make ends meet and end up taking on part time jobs in order to survive. But in both cases what are they working for? To pay for their lunch! When you think about it, isn't that the craziest thing you ever heard?!
I was really glad that Alex told me all this, because as of next term I'm going to be teaching the Simple Savings philosophy to a class of Year 12 students for three hours a week as part of their Life Skills course. I'm really excited about it and will be making sure they all get a copy of that poster! Hopefully it will drive the message home and *fingers crossed* play a part in giving them a more secure and happy future. Another fact which I'll be sure to share with them and am certain it will appeal is the plain and simple truth that the more money you save, the less you have to work. After all, hard work is not high on the list of most teenagers' priorities! But seriously, do any of us want to end up on our death beds regretting all the extra years we had to work, all the time we sacrificed doing the things we love with the people we love, just because we spent the majority of our lives wasting our money on crap food? Once again, crazy!
I'm absolutely loving doing the library talks because I get to see what pushes people's buttons. Fiona often says; teaching people to save money is easy. It's making people WANT to save money which is hard! It's fantastic to see people literally 'wake up' when I touch on a subject that is important to them. Sometimes it's the thought of being able to work less, as mentioned above. Some people love the thought of making their own cleaning products (and no longer having to buy any!) Others want to become better cooks, they just lack the confidence to give it a go. Young mums get so excited about the idea of being in control of what they feed their children, rather than plastic wrapped products full of additives and preservatives. It's a real blast and I can honestly say I think it's the best thing I have ever done. Who would have thought it? Penny Wise, former Sad Sally extraordinaire, turned frugal teacher! I know just how they feel because I felt the same when I found Simple Savings. You feel inspired, positive, empowered to discover that you CAN save! Most of all, you feel hope that things will get better - because you can MAKE them better.
I just want to take a minute to talk about my last post, where I talked about the mammoth task of saving $18,000 to send Liam to a different school. I've received quite a few letters on the subject and I'm a bit concerned it came across as though my poor boy was being a bit of a spoilt brat! Yes, he does want to change schools and has for a long time but he is definitely not demanding that we send him to a private school, or spend moonbeams on his education. It's simply the only other option that we have - if we don't move any time soon. There are some fantastic public schools around and he would be more than willing to go to these but because of where we currently live, we fall outside their catchment zones. Some of Liam's friends have been on their waiting lists for years before giving up and scraping together the money for St Paul's. Noel feels that we can't do it, no way Jose! Hopefully our house will sell soon and the situation will be taken out of our hands but until then I'll keep squirrelling money away, just in case!