I never really got that phrase (click here if you have no idea what I'm talking about..). I always thought that if you had money everything else would be fine. Our current financial statement is one of 'no money'. Were basically living off social security payments which cover necessities (barely) and not much else. this post is not one of complaint. it is not a post seeking charity. It is simply a post highlighting to POSITIVES this situation.
yes POSITIVES!
when my husband got accepted into university we were both over the moon because he had been trying to get into uni for a long time. Discussions began on when he would stop working before uni started & neither of us even flinched at the thought of him not working. Ive been a stay at home mother for almost 4 years now. we both agreed that is what we wanted for our children, so we were used to living on a single income. Now we are living on no income (basically) and its tough but its actually changed our lives for the better in my opinion.
1) life has slowed down... by that i mean we aren't always off rushing to go out to the movies or make dinner reservations. we aren't always rushing out to make it to the shopping centre and circling the car park to find parking to then buy things that we don't really need. We spend a lot of time at home where things are calm. Home has always been important to me and its my favourite place to be. Its where we have our most fun. Its where we feel the most comfortable.
2) Were spending more carefully. With less money going around being conservative and making a budget and sticking to it is vital. I find that when we were comfortable and money was not an issue, it was just that, not an issue. My husband and i never talked about how much the bills were, how much the groceries cost this week, how much to spend on things like fixing the car, birthday presents and eating out. Because i was basically the one in charge of the budget and how we spent our money i would hold both ATM cards and if he needed anything he was take some cash or his ATM card. Now whenever either one of us is going to or has spent any money we tell each other just so we both know where we are, financially. Its not romantic at all and it almost feels business like but i think its an important conversation that we weren't having before. We used to have fights over money because neither of us knew where the money was going and what it was being spent on. Now that there's a constant dialogue fights about money don't occur.
3) Creativity is a must. Ive always considered myself to be a creative person, but when you don't have a lot of money to spend on whatever you would like, imagination and creativity are very helpful. My creativity has expanded from painting canvases & crochet (my weapons of choice) to meal planning, reusing & up-cycling things around to house, ways to entertain the children for free, how to clean the house for basically nothing & other ways to save money. I feel like i haven't been this creative in my life ever!
4) An appreciation for everything. every little thing. We cant afford to buy new things or travel to far away destinations which forces us to look at what we have now and love it. Of course an appreciation for each other has always been there. An appreciation for our families is inevitable. But now i appreciated things like dish washing liquid, laundry powder, my massive arts & craft box accumulated since i was in high school which has come in handy now that i have 2 creative little angels. I appreciate all my shoes, i really don't need this many but I'm grateful that i have them all. I appreciate all the gifts from baby showers and birthdays which were too big at the time but now fit perfectly. I appreciate the fact that i have less than 20 dinner plates. who need more than 20? i hardly ever entertain.
5) Cleaning occurs more often & with less complaint. Along the lines of appreciation and due to the fact that we spend a lot of time at home, i try to make it as comfortable as possible. i try to keep it organised so there isn't any "where is my other sock?" "where is my school bag?" "can you find my phone!??" yelling conversations going on as were are heading out the door. De-cluttering was the first step so once there was less stuff in the house, there's less stuff to pick up & put away and cleaning is easier.
there are obviously a lot more positives but for now i must be off, time to tackle the dishes & the pile of laundry just crying out to me.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
The Shipping News
by Annie Proloux
Just finished this book after slowly reading this book on & off over many months. The main reasons i picked this book to read is
1) my year 12 English teacher recommended it & high school was a long time ago but for some reason i always felt the need to take her advice.
2) it got turned into a movie, so there must be a decent story there. mind you i don't watch the movie adaptation of novels but i always go out to read the novel.
3) i found it at the markets, it just seemed like a sign.
So the story is basically about Quoyle, a man/widower with two children who hasn't had it easy. Moving back to a small fishing town where his ancestors & family were originally from, how can there not be a story. I'd love to tell u what happens in the story but not a lot goes on but a lot happens. Does that make sense? There just seems to be this mysterious vibe throughout the book like so many things are going on and you want to know what happens next. For me personally, I'm a sucker for a protagonist who get kicked when he's down. I just want to know that he's going to make it and be OK. This book didn't change my perception on life, it didn't make me cry, it didn't really create any world shifting reactions in me. I just let me breathe. Breathing is good.
The next book i am currently reading is Beloved by Toni Morrison. I'm in the first 20 pages and this book doesn't let me breathe. Its a 'heavy' book. not literally but its not a 'light' read. gosh i hope I'm making sense. This is the kind of book i cant even read at night, just because I'm so freaked about ghosts and anything haunting. I ha vent read enough to know exactly what the story is about but i will be proud of myself when i finish this book. I have a feeling this one will stick with me, in a good way hopefully.
Just finished this book after slowly reading this book on & off over many months. The main reasons i picked this book to read is
1) my year 12 English teacher recommended it & high school was a long time ago but for some reason i always felt the need to take her advice.
2) it got turned into a movie, so there must be a decent story there. mind you i don't watch the movie adaptation of novels but i always go out to read the novel.
3) i found it at the markets, it just seemed like a sign.
So the story is basically about Quoyle, a man/widower with two children who hasn't had it easy. Moving back to a small fishing town where his ancestors & family were originally from, how can there not be a story. I'd love to tell u what happens in the story but not a lot goes on but a lot happens. Does that make sense? There just seems to be this mysterious vibe throughout the book like so many things are going on and you want to know what happens next. For me personally, I'm a sucker for a protagonist who get kicked when he's down. I just want to know that he's going to make it and be OK. This book didn't change my perception on life, it didn't make me cry, it didn't really create any world shifting reactions in me. I just let me breathe. Breathing is good.
The next book i am currently reading is Beloved by Toni Morrison. I'm in the first 20 pages and this book doesn't let me breathe. Its a 'heavy' book. not literally but its not a 'light' read. gosh i hope I'm making sense. This is the kind of book i cant even read at night, just because I'm so freaked about ghosts and anything haunting. I ha vent read enough to know exactly what the story is about but i will be proud of myself when i finish this book. I have a feeling this one will stick with me, in a good way hopefully.
feed this family
grocery shopping, cooking, dishes... really unavoidable aspects of being a mother and a wife in my opinion but as of late due to our financial situation, I've had to figure out ways to feed our family of 4 for less. At first I thought, 'How can i skimp on food?? i need to feed my babies!!', feelings of guilt at not being in a more stable financial situation before having children came over me.. for about 5 minutes and then i had to prepare lunch and menu plan for the next fortnight and take the kids shopping.
I ALWAYS plan a menu, at least for the week though i prefer a 'big' fortnightly shop rather than several quick trips to the shops. I am blessed (yes, blessed) with a tiny kitchen with little storage. I don't have a massive pantry, i basically store all my cooking needs in one tiny cupboard and I like it that way. I'm never tempted to 'stock up' on things i 'might' need one day. I buy it, i use it. what is the big deal about all of this?? well before i burst with pride (yes, pride) i have managed to feed my family of 4 for a whole fortnight for... *drum roll* $132! that's basically 3 meals a day, snacks and this fortnight i needed NAPPIES and TOILET PAPER! this includes all groceries, meats, chicken, fruit & vegetables.
Menu planning for me starts with 'shopping my pantry' or cupboard & fridge in my case. And for such a tiny space i actually had a lot to work with. Its all pretty basic stuff but its amazing the meals you can come up with using different combinations of ingredients.
Coming up with meal ideas & recipes has been made much easier with Google. i basically google a bunch of ingredients I think go together and slap on the word recipe on the end and i come up with an endless list of yummy recipes.
On the menu this fortnight is:
Crumbed & pan fried chicken with roast vegetables
Beef Stir fry
Peanut Chicken Curry
Beef Risotto
Cajun Beef Chili
Macaroni & Cheese
Potato & Carrot Soup
five spice chicken & broccoli stir fry
Corned beef & Thai vegetables
BBQ Lamb with onion rings & asparagus salad
No food goes to waste in this house, leftovers are always eaten. for breakfast we bake our own bread & have scrambled eggs, we have some sausages from last fortnight & we have a gigantic box of cereal to go through. For snacks, we bake cookies or we have cheese & fresh fruit.
and yes i can cook all this for 2 weeks for $132 and i bought NAPPIES & TOILET PAPER in BULK! I just cant get over it..
talking with other mothers who shop & cook for their families, we've admitted to spending $100+ on groceries and not really feeling like you're buying much. Mind you, meal planning for me takes time, looking for recipes & looking at the specials at all the many different supermarkets, but its something Ive come to enjoy & take pride in. If i were to take away the nappies & toilet paper which we don't buy every fortnight i would have spent... $111! wow. yay me!
learning to live with less, i feel, has been such a blessing for my family. We've come to develop a real appreciation for the little things. We've come to see how truly lucky & blessed we are. We've come to take care of and appreciate the possessions we have, we've come to appreciate each other. We cant afford to take the kids to the movies or to any fancy restaurants or out to too many places but home is where we have the most fun anyways. Baking bread & cookies a few ties a week has become a little tradition me and the children enjoy. its a chance to get messy, to talk & to listen. ahhh OK well off i go to bake some bread & get lunch started.
Enjoy Sundays, that's what they're there for.
I ALWAYS plan a menu, at least for the week though i prefer a 'big' fortnightly shop rather than several quick trips to the shops. I am blessed (yes, blessed) with a tiny kitchen with little storage. I don't have a massive pantry, i basically store all my cooking needs in one tiny cupboard and I like it that way. I'm never tempted to 'stock up' on things i 'might' need one day. I buy it, i use it. what is the big deal about all of this?? well before i burst with pride (yes, pride) i have managed to feed my family of 4 for a whole fortnight for... *drum roll* $132! that's basically 3 meals a day, snacks and this fortnight i needed NAPPIES and TOILET PAPER! this includes all groceries, meats, chicken, fruit & vegetables.
Menu planning for me starts with 'shopping my pantry' or cupboard & fridge in my case. And for such a tiny space i actually had a lot to work with. Its all pretty basic stuff but its amazing the meals you can come up with using different combinations of ingredients.
Coming up with meal ideas & recipes has been made much easier with Google. i basically google a bunch of ingredients I think go together and slap on the word recipe on the end and i come up with an endless list of yummy recipes.
On the menu this fortnight is:
Crumbed & pan fried chicken with roast vegetables
Beef Stir fry
Peanut Chicken Curry
Beef Risotto
Cajun Beef Chili
Macaroni & Cheese
Potato & Carrot Soup
five spice chicken & broccoli stir fry
Corned beef & Thai vegetables
BBQ Lamb with onion rings & asparagus salad
No food goes to waste in this house, leftovers are always eaten. for breakfast we bake our own bread & have scrambled eggs, we have some sausages from last fortnight & we have a gigantic box of cereal to go through. For snacks, we bake cookies or we have cheese & fresh fruit.
and yes i can cook all this for 2 weeks for $132 and i bought NAPPIES & TOILET PAPER in BULK! I just cant get over it..
talking with other mothers who shop & cook for their families, we've admitted to spending $100+ on groceries and not really feeling like you're buying much. Mind you, meal planning for me takes time, looking for recipes & looking at the specials at all the many different supermarkets, but its something Ive come to enjoy & take pride in. If i were to take away the nappies & toilet paper which we don't buy every fortnight i would have spent... $111! wow. yay me!
learning to live with less, i feel, has been such a blessing for my family. We've come to develop a real appreciation for the little things. We've come to see how truly lucky & blessed we are. We've come to take care of and appreciate the possessions we have, we've come to appreciate each other. We cant afford to take the kids to the movies or to any fancy restaurants or out to too many places but home is where we have the most fun anyways. Baking bread & cookies a few ties a week has become a little tradition me and the children enjoy. its a chance to get messy, to talk & to listen. ahhh OK well off i go to bake some bread & get lunch started.
Enjoy Sundays, that's what they're there for.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
new banner
i was just playing around with a few freebie downloads avaiable all over the internet and this is what i came up with
the tape strips were from here and the shipping tags were from here.
Purple dotted ribbon was from here
great places for inspiration.
tis the weekend, which means either being completly lazy or running around and doing as much as possible... im leaning towards the first option..
xox
the tape strips were from here and the shipping tags were from here.
Purple dotted ribbon was from here
great places for inspiration.
tis the weekend, which means either being completly lazy or running around and doing as much as possible... im leaning towards the first option..
xox
Friday, May 7, 2010
Happy Birthday to me!
so my 24th birthday was yesterday and i always find myself reflecting on life and where I'm at in life on my birthday. I don't know many other 24 year olds out there married with 2 kids but that's where I'm at and i love it. I'm very much a results based person, so when i look at what i have 'achieved' thus far i would quietly like to say I'm proud of myself.
I will have to say I focus a lot more on home & family. I've always been a family type of person, but after being away from my husband and my home for 5 weeks (i was overseas with my parents visiting family, had a wedding to attend, etc.) I came back with a much more defined focus on what I want for my family & my home.
I may have mentioned in a previous post that my house isn't the prettiest house on the block, it may actually be in the bottom 3 on the street in my opinion. So I've directed a lot of my attention & energy into making it a home i love. We don't plan on moving any time soon, this location is just too convenient for my husbands uni and the children's preschool & soon to be primary school, so i thought it makes sense to turn this house into a home that we all love to be in.
I also have to admit that the only income we are receiving as of now is social security which is enough to pay bills, rent, buy food, pay for preschool & petrol for the car and not much else. This isn't me complaining, I'm just stating facts.
So the challenge is to create a 'home' for basically nothing, and i know I'm not the only out there attempting this, and i know many people have achieved this. Two major things, which basically cost nothing to do but in my opinion is a great place to start 'creating a home' are DE CLUTTER and DEEP CLEAN.
i thought i could do the two simultaneously but it got too complicated so i thought it would make sense to de-clutter first and get rid of crap you don't need or like so there are less things to deal with when deep cleaning. I was so surprised at how much crap i was surrounded by and getting rid of it all was such a relief and made me fall in love with things that i had forgotten i had.
I went through me & my husbands wardrobes and got rid of a lot of clothes we didn't need or wear anymore, most went to the salvation army, some went to eBay. I went through my shoe collection and donated a few pairs to SA. We had some sub-woofers sitting in our room which my husband always wanted to keep but we sold those on eBay so easily & got quite a bit for them. We had such OUT DATED electronics such as computers and gaming systems which we donated to a computer recycling company & the gaming system, we could trade in for cash. we even had an old VCR sitting around which didn't even work! We got rid of our hideous and humongous (i know its not a word...) computer table which i have had since high school. I found heaters and fans that didn't even work anymore just sitting around. All i can say is we had a lot of crap lying around and it feels good to have it gone.
De-cluttering never ends in my opinion. Its a constant battle with keeping junk out and re-evaluating what you have and comparing that to what you need.
onto DEEP CLEANING. I would have to say deep cleaning is tiring and kinda gross but the feeling of knowing your space is truly clean is worth the time and elbow grease. My house has a lot of trouble spots when it comes to cleaning. After living in this house for just over a year, my kitchen hasnt been deep cleaned EVER i think. I spent a good day really cleaning it, getting rid of all that built up grease, all those crumbs & spilt 100s & 1000s everywhere, going through the cupboards and getting rid of anything that i didnt use or was broken, going up into the corners to get rid of all the spider webs, going ontop of the cupboards & almost vomiting at the build up of dirt & grease. To think at how dirty my kitchen was and to think that this is where i cook the food to feed my family, i feel much better knowing how clean my kitchen is now.
Another trouble spot is the bathroom. Theres not much ventilation in there so im having issues with mould and the flooring happens to be that weird outdoor carpet type material... yes i know, WHAT?!? carpet in a bathroom doesnt make any sense to me but we've learnt to deal with it. Vacuuming in the bathroom doesnt feel as bad as it use to.
ok so PHEW... i think this post needs to come to a rest and i will continue on with my mission of 'home creation' in my next post.
I will have to say I focus a lot more on home & family. I've always been a family type of person, but after being away from my husband and my home for 5 weeks (i was overseas with my parents visiting family, had a wedding to attend, etc.) I came back with a much more defined focus on what I want for my family & my home.
I may have mentioned in a previous post that my house isn't the prettiest house on the block, it may actually be in the bottom 3 on the street in my opinion. So I've directed a lot of my attention & energy into making it a home i love. We don't plan on moving any time soon, this location is just too convenient for my husbands uni and the children's preschool & soon to be primary school, so i thought it makes sense to turn this house into a home that we all love to be in.
I also have to admit that the only income we are receiving as of now is social security which is enough to pay bills, rent, buy food, pay for preschool & petrol for the car and not much else. This isn't me complaining, I'm just stating facts.
So the challenge is to create a 'home' for basically nothing, and i know I'm not the only out there attempting this, and i know many people have achieved this. Two major things, which basically cost nothing to do but in my opinion is a great place to start 'creating a home' are DE CLUTTER and DEEP CLEAN.
i thought i could do the two simultaneously but it got too complicated so i thought it would make sense to de-clutter first and get rid of crap you don't need or like so there are less things to deal with when deep cleaning. I was so surprised at how much crap i was surrounded by and getting rid of it all was such a relief and made me fall in love with things that i had forgotten i had.
I went through me & my husbands wardrobes and got rid of a lot of clothes we didn't need or wear anymore, most went to the salvation army, some went to eBay. I went through my shoe collection and donated a few pairs to SA. We had some sub-woofers sitting in our room which my husband always wanted to keep but we sold those on eBay so easily & got quite a bit for them. We had such OUT DATED electronics such as computers and gaming systems which we donated to a computer recycling company & the gaming system, we could trade in for cash. we even had an old VCR sitting around which didn't even work! We got rid of our hideous and humongous (i know its not a word...) computer table which i have had since high school. I found heaters and fans that didn't even work anymore just sitting around. All i can say is we had a lot of crap lying around and it feels good to have it gone.
De-cluttering never ends in my opinion. Its a constant battle with keeping junk out and re-evaluating what you have and comparing that to what you need.
onto DEEP CLEANING. I would have to say deep cleaning is tiring and kinda gross but the feeling of knowing your space is truly clean is worth the time and elbow grease. My house has a lot of trouble spots when it comes to cleaning. After living in this house for just over a year, my kitchen hasnt been deep cleaned EVER i think. I spent a good day really cleaning it, getting rid of all that built up grease, all those crumbs & spilt 100s & 1000s everywhere, going through the cupboards and getting rid of anything that i didnt use or was broken, going up into the corners to get rid of all the spider webs, going ontop of the cupboards & almost vomiting at the build up of dirt & grease. To think at how dirty my kitchen was and to think that this is where i cook the food to feed my family, i feel much better knowing how clean my kitchen is now.
Another trouble spot is the bathroom. Theres not much ventilation in there so im having issues with mould and the flooring happens to be that weird outdoor carpet type material... yes i know, WHAT?!? carpet in a bathroom doesnt make any sense to me but we've learnt to deal with it. Vacuuming in the bathroom doesnt feel as bad as it use to.
ok so PHEW... i think this post needs to come to a rest and i will continue on with my mission of 'home creation' in my next post.
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