Visiting family a few weeks ago my sister-in-law mentioned that she was now doing what we do at our house and planning meals on the fridge door and it was making a huge difference. (Ours is defrosting in the fridge at the moment. Steak on toasted ciabatta bread, lettuce, red onion, tomato, avocado, onion marmalade chutney……. mmmm.). Meanwhile my mother at the age of 74 has become a white vinegar convert because of me and in turn is spreading the word to all she meets. I was talking to someone the other day about the usefulness of white vinegar and they said they couldn’t live without their Jiff but even my husband who was a Jiff fanatic happily uses our white vinegar spray and wipe. My mother–in–law has become a bush baby dwarf bean plant convert after I gave her some seeds last year (very easy to grow). It’s nice to see people’s lives getting a little easier just from simple things that you do in your life. It all helps to make us the eighth happiest country in the world NZ eighth happiest country in the world – National – NZ Herald News – maybe if we all work at it we can move up in the ranks after the next survey!
Home Baking
Our 2 yr old niece has been visiting for the weekend. She is not one of these fickle eaters – she eats everything you put in front of her and is more than happy to try new food. I needed a quick recipe yesterday for our afternoon tea given the minimal amount of ingredients I had in the cupboard. I pulled out my favourite recipe book – my 100 page plastic leaf folder filled with old favourite recipes or new recipes that look interesting as I have come across them in magazines or newspapers. I found this recipe which I tried for the first time and the result was approved by everyone including the 2 yr old! A very easy recipe for young ones to help with also.
Coconut Loaf
2C Flour, 2 tsps baking powder, 1C sugar, 1 ¼ C coconut, 1 ¼ C milk
Line tin with baking paper.
Sift flour and baking powder. Add sugar and coconut. Stir milk into dry ingredients until just dampened without over mixing. Bake at 170oC for 35 -40 minutes until loaf springs back.
FoodTown Magazine; pg 105; Sept 2004
Money Personality
I carried out the money personality profile last night on the Get Sorted site Money personality profiler | Sorted. Not too many surprises there – it told me I am not a risk taker. That’s OK – sometimes in life you have to play it safe and take stock of where you are – over the last year we have managed to save money every month due to sensible financial budgeting, hard work and me staying in a job that I absolutely detest at times. Some months we haven’t saved that much but on those months we remind ourselves that we are still heading in the right direction no matter how little we save. We can take risks a little later when we are a bit further down the road. This month we have managed to not only save money but also have been able to put away money into hubby’s kiwi saver scheme in order to qualify for the member tax credit. In the meantime I will just keep on dreaming of resigning from my job………………
Getting out of the Rut
I haven’t been writing lately. It has been a hectic time at work and I have been putting in 80 plus hours a week. I am constantly at a computer but not for blogging. Hubby and I were starting to go off track a little in that we had got bored with our meals and I was constantly tired by the time I got home so it was easier to pick up takeaways a coupe of times a week. Not a good way to be heading in to winter! So this weekend is mostly a weekend off from work and we are getting back on track. We found this recipe in the Dom Post – New World Recipe – a few weeks ago and it has become one of our new dishes.
Tuscan Lamb Chops
6 lamb loin chops , half a cup red or white wine ,1 teaspoon Tuscan seasoning mix , 1 lamb stock cube crumbled or 1 tsp lamb or beef stock powder and quarter cup cranberry jelly.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees . Place one or two lamb chops on a piece of foil large enough o completely enclose the chop. On to the lamb in each parcel pour over a little wine, some Tuscan seasoning mix and stock powder and place a tablespoon of cranberry jelly on top.
Fold up the foil to enclose the lamb and seal slightly. Refrigerate for one to six hours to marinate. Bake for 35 mins. Stand for 5 minutes and serve with peas and mashed potatoes.
ACC Levy
My pay notification came in the post yesterday – $9.56 less per fortnight due to the increased ACC levy. That’s a $248 a year pay cut that I can now look forward to. In twenty – four years of working I’ve never had a workplace accident. I have never had a car accident nor caused one. The last time I had any injury was twenty-eight years ago when I broke my arm. It would be nice to have some sort of bonus system for good behaviour!
Freebies
This week I discovered we have a walnut tree at work. It has only taken me six years to discover it! So tomorrow I will be dropping off a bag of walnuts to my mum – she will love them. This afternoon we visited the mother-in-law and came away with a beautiful large ceramic plant pot – one of three that she had been given for free. In addition we picked up some lemons for the week from her tree. Now if I could only find a way to pay our tax bill that arrived in the post this afternoon through freebies I would be a very happy woman.
Magazine Mania
A few months ago I gave up buying my two monthly magazines to save some money. There have been some weeks standing at the shopping counter that I have been very tempted but I have stuck solidly to my shopping list. Last week grocery shopping we passed a mother and 12 yr old daughter near the bread/magazine section. Mum was getting bread, daughter was browsing the magazines, begging and begging her mum for a magazine. Mum stood firm that there would be no purchasing of magazines but it did remind me of my teenage years when I too was convinced that all the answers to my happiness lived in the information that could be found in women’s magazines. I am so glad that I am well past that stage now and can comfortably accept myself and where I am in my life – one plus for getting older!.
Full Price Phobia
The Dom Post this Saturday wrote about consumers having ‘full price phobia’. Consumers have come to expect discounts since the economic downturn. I know that’s how we have run our household spending over the last two years or so and I don’t really want to go back to full price spending.
When we see a sale advertised we don’t rush in and buy though. We sit down and go over our ‘need’ list for the year to which we add things when necessary. Then we go to the sale armed with the list. And just like grocery shopping only things on the list get looked at. Shops must hate us! Last week Briscoes had a sale – we made a list of birthday presents for the rest of the year and walked out in 5 minutes with the gifts we wanted on sale.
Even if the number of sales does reduce as the economy recovers as long as you are organized you can still take sensible advantage of them.
I think this may be one phobia I’m happy to live with for a while.
Let Go of Clutter
is the title of one of my library books this week by Harriet Schechter. My house isn’t particularly cluttered – it’s just that I’ve found over the last year that reading a few de-cluttering books every now and then is an essential part of getting on top of my finances. I’ve found that regularly suppressing that impulse of ‘I have to have that’ is an important part of saving money and is a major part of good de-cluttering books. This paragraph may be a bit new age for some of you but I think it’s actually the key to saving money when we are constantly bombarded by advertising telling us we need things.
Visualize an endless, flowing river. Imagine that it’s composed of information, opportunities, and objects. Picture yourself dipping into this river whenever you choose to, at your own pace, anytime you feel thirsty. You’ll use a teaspoon, a glass or a cup, but not a bucket – after all, you’re not trying to bail it out. That would be impossible. Know that this river will never run dry, so you can relax. You’re not going to miss anything; there will always be more stuff flowing by. ……Let it flow, and let it go. (pg. 155; 2001)
Domestic cleaning
My mum rang me this afternoon to find out how she could get her whites a bit whiter. I told her the same answer I tell her for every domestic cleaning question she asks me ‘white vinegar’ – I’m surprised she keeps asking! Looking up my Reader’s Digest white vinegar bible I found the following comment “there are so many benefits to be reaped by adding 200ml white vinegar to the rinse cycle of a washing machine that it is surprising that it isn’t mentioned in the owner’s manual of every washing machine sold” pg. 355. My cleaning rags are soaking in white vinegar at the moment as it is has antibacterial properties and does a good job at removing smells. Time to put white vinegar on the shopping list again.