Celebrating simplicity and reclaiming control

In our fast-paced, consumer-driven world, we are constantly bombarded with the idea that convenience is key. The allure of shiny, ready-made products - quickly purchased with a swipe or click - seduces us. And yet, there is a deeper, more fulfilling way to live: making things at home rather than buying them. It’s an act of defiance against waste, excess, and the relentless push of consumerism. But more than that, it's a reclaiming of control, a celebration of simplicity, and a mindful exercise in frugality and time management.

At first glance, making things at home seems daunting. "Who has the time?" some might ask. "It's so much easier to buy." These thoughts are born from a culture that equates ease with value. But what if we flipped that equation? What if, instead of measuring value by the time saved, we measure it by the skill earned, the money conserved, and the creativity sparked?

Frugality is often misunderstood as deprivation, but in truth, it’s the art of stretching resources without sacrificing quality of life. It’s not about skimping, but about finding alternatives that enrich your day-to-day existence without spending. Making things at home allows for this kind of smart economy.

The weekly grocery bill can easily spiral out of control if we rely on pre-packaged, pre-made meals. But when we return to the basics, learning to cook from scratch, we find the key to living well within a budget. A loaf of bread, fresh from your own oven, costs a fraction of what you’d pay for a plastic-wrapped loaf, and its aroma fills your kitchen with warmth that no store-bought loaf could deliver. A simple stew, simmered slowly with seasonal vegetables and leftover cuts of meat, stretches ingredients far beyond the limits of fast food.

The same can be said for cleaning products. Store shelves overflow with specialised sprays, powders, and wipes, each promising miraculous results for a price. Yet, with a few household staples like vinegar, baking soda, and essential oils, you can create a multipurpose cleaner that costs pennies, is free of harsh chemicals, and is just as effective.

This is the hemp I used to use for my dish cloths. It was great to knit with but it didn't suit dishcloths - the knives easily cut it.  My go-to yarn is organic cotton. That is easy to knit, it dries quickly and it's soft to the touch.

The satisfaction I feel when I make something for my home far outstrips the feeling I used to get when I bought everything I needed. What I make suits my home better than most commercial products and as a bonus, I feel the warm embrace of self-reliance when I make them. I know it can be difficult to disconnect from the ease of buying pre-made everything but once you settle into to it, home production, moderation and self-reliance delivers long-term, constant contentment.

These are my organic cotton dishcloths.

Making things at home requires an upfront investment of time but it also encourages mindfulness and creativity. When we dedicate time to preparing a meal, mending a piece of clothing, or knitting a dishcloth, we are fully present in the moment. These acts become meditative, pulling us away from the frenzy of daily life and into a slower, more grounded rhythm.

One of the most significant benefits of making things at home is that the skills you develop compound over time. The first loaf of bread may feel like a laborious task, but by the tenth, you’ll have refined your technique and cut the time in half. You may begin by knitting simple scarves, but soon you’ll move on to sweaters, hats, and mittens. The satisfaction that comes from honing a craft and mastering a skill is unmatched by the fleeting joy of purchasing something ready-made.

There’s a profound shift that occurs when you start making things at home. When you’ve invested your time and effort into making something, it holds greater value. You care for it differently, knowing the energy that went into its creation.

In this way, making things at home is a practice in gratitude. It teaches you to honor the resources you have - time, money, and skill - and to use them wisely. It’s a path towards simplicity, sustainability, and self-reliance, where the things you surround yourself with are not just objects, but symbols of care, creativity, and intention.

In the end, making things at home is not just about frugality or time management. It’s about living with purpose, finding joy in the process and crafting a life that values quality over quantity, creativity over consumption, and mindfulness over convenience.

What do you regularly make to use in your home?

Cheaper meals, for one or more

I eat my main meal at lunchtime. This is last week's lunch - corned beef with mashed potatoes, salad and homemade relish.

Although I seem to be moving further away from meat meals, I've had a craving for corned beef lately. It's a reminder of my youth because corned beef, mashed potatoes, cabbage and relish/pickles was a popular meal in Australia's suburbia in the 1950s/60/70s. My main problem with it is that the pieces of corned beef on sale at the supermarket are quite big and I don't want to waste what I buy. So when I see a small piece, I grab it, and at home, divide it in two and have a more reasonable size to cook and eat in the following days. I also use corned beef as a cold cut for sandwiches and when I make meatloaf, I divide that in two as well, eat one half for a couple of days and freeze the rest.

These meals are egg-based - above: asparagus quiche with filo pastry, below: tinned red salmon   with boiled eggs and salad.

Another thing I've been thinking about recently is how the increasing cost of living is impacting people all around the world, and how we can respond to it in a common sense way. First of all let me put my hand up and acknowledge that it's been fairly easy for me to keep my food costs to a reasonable level. I don't have to consider other family members who want their steak or leg of lamb meals and don't want to think about balancing the budget. This week at my local Woolworth's supermarket a leg of lamb large enough for a family roast (1.8kg - 2.8kg) is $42. Buying a leg that size will give you leftovers for meals the following day as well as cold cuts for sandwiches in the lunchboxes. Other popular meats include T-bone steak - $30 kg, Scotch fillet steak - $41.50 kg and eye fillet - $52.00 kg. If you buy eye fillet from the butcher, it costs around $70 kg. 😳 Cheap sausages are $5.90 for 550g, Angus beef sausages are $9.00 for six sausages. If you're going to serve your steaks with a salad, one iceberg lettuce is $3.00, 500 grams tomatoes is $5.00, a cucumber is $3.50, red onions are 68 cents each, so two = $1.36. I think you probably have the makings of salad dressing at home (olive oil/vinegar) but if you have to buy the processed dressing, it will cost you $3.00. You'll get 6 bread rolls for $2.85. To buy a steak/sausages and salad for four people for ONE meal will cost around $66!

There are a few delicious meat meals made using the cheaper cuts of beef - skirt steak, gravy beef, blade steak are just some of them. If you slow cook them as a casserole, stew or soup, they'll provide a wonderful meal that your family will enjoy. They're also suitable for freezing, so store your leftovers in the freezer for backup meals in the following days.

Meatballs, cabbage and boiled potatoes.

Beef casserole, using the cheaper cuts of gravy beef or skirt steak, with herb dumplings.

Leftovers - pasta with bolognese sauce.

I wouldn't pay that because I could make something delicious that would be much cheaper and nutritious for less. Everytime someone pays those prices it tells the supermarkets that we're willing to pay those inflated prices. And if you just buy the salad it's still $12.86. Instead of salad, you could do a potato bake - that would cost you $4.50 for 2 kg potatoes, one onions is 68 cents, a small jar of cream is $3.75, pack of pre-grated Parmesan cheese - $2 and your electricity to bake it would be around 50 cents. That option would cost $9.43.  Remember, theoretically, I'm cooking for a 4 person family.

Egg and bacon pie.

Making shortcrust pastry. It's easy but if you need a quicker option, buy a pack of filo pastry and use that instead.

OR you could make a quiche from scratch. That would cost $5.70 for 12 eggs (you'd have 6 leftover for breakfast), small jar of cream $3.75, garlic and onion about 85 cents, 500g bacon $6.75, and cheese $7.70. The homemade pastry would be $1.40 for 1kg of plain flour, $7.00 for 500 g butter (you'd have almost ¾ of the butter left over), the rest is just salt and water. There's a recipe for pie crust on Grandma Donna's blog here. This option would cost around $24.75 to make the quiche and you'd have eggs and butter leftover for another day and probably have quiche left over for lunches the following day. Add the salad at $12.86 and this meal would be $37.61. Both are reasonably healthy options but one meal is almost half the price of the other.

I buy frozen Australian peas and grow the greens and herbs I eat every week; they're really easy to grow, even in pots. My list includes parsley, chives, basil, cucumbers, radishes, rainbow chard, perpetual spinach, lettuce, chillies and green onions. I grow the lettuce in the shade of the bush house/verandah, the rest grow in the sun in the old sandbox. All of them are easy to grow from seed. I sprinkle seeds on the top of good potting mix in pots and grow in the shade. It requires water every second day and it will grow fast. I let the plants grow for about 4 weeks and while they're still small, I harvest a quarter of the pot with scissors and add them to my salads. The lettuce continues to grow after harvesting so I just give them a drink of Seasol to keep them healthy and they'll be ready to harvest again in 4 weeks. Setting yourself up to grow some of your own food will cost around $40, for seeds, potting mix and Seasol, but that should keep you going for a few months.

If I were to buy fresh parsley, chives, basil - all $3.20 a bunch, and rainbow chard - $4.70, spinach - $3.90, lettuce - $2.50. I woudln't buy all of them every week but most weeks herbs and green would cost me $10 if I didn't grow them myself.  I think this is an excellent chore for one of the kids to take on. They'd learn to produce food and give the family the FRESHEST herbs and vegies every week. But even if you do it yourself like I do, it's well worth it.

Here is a list of some of the many vegetables, legumes and nuts that contain protein.

What I'm getting at here is that there are always options and protein doesn't have to be meat, chicken or fish. You don't have to choose the thing you've always chosen. Be wise and think of what you can do with different ingredients and when this cost of living crisis is over, and it will end, you'll be proud of how you got your family through it by changing what you eat and adjusting what you spend.

Homemade potato and curried mince pies - no pastry.

Vegetable frittata - which is just a fancy way of saying eggs with whatever vegetables are in your fridge.

The main problem moving away from meal, chicken or fish meals is that they all deliver the protein we all need.  However, that doesn't mean there's no substitute for meat, fish or chicken. Egg, milk, cheese, yoghurt, legumes and pulses such as chick peas, split peas and lentils are all high in protein and they're all cheap, healthier than meat and better for the environment.  If you have some tried and true meat-less, or almost meatless, meals, please share them with us. And don't forget tinned fish such as tuna and salmon. Boths are cheaper than meat and very nutritious.

Mostly meat-free egg recipes

45 reasons to have eggs for dinner

Delicious RecipeTin Eats meals

Let's think about unit prices, generic brands and being flexible with our choice of brands. 

Unit prices are generally displayed under the product price on supermarket shelves. Checking the unit price gives us a more accurate understanding of the value for money of each item - even if something is "on special". So make your selections based on the unit prices, not the product price.

Generic brands can help you make ends meet in times like these. Supermarkets are retailers, not manufacturers so the generic brands are made by the same manufacturers that make the branded products you know well. There are no factories set up to make inferior generic brands - so manufacturers making flour, butter, tea, sugar etc. for the supermarkets just change the packaging and produce the generic brands you see on the shelves. And they're all cheaper than the well known brands. 

Being flexible - this is good advice all through life. Flexibility helps us cope with difficult times and situations. We can all switch to generic brands when we need to but we can also substitute ingredients so we don't have to buy something we might use in just one recipe. If a recipe you want to try suggests something you don't have in your pantry, look up one of the websites below to find a substitute for it.

Allrecipes

Food Network

Food52

Baking for the grandkids - cup cakes and sausage rolls.

And finally, use your common sense and go with your instinct. Often your instinct will guide you in cooking. Back yourself in everything you do. You might have to stop and change your mind when it doesn't work but every time you do something new, it will teach you something. Open up your memory bank and store everything you learn for another time when you need it.

If you want the recipe for anything above, please use the search bar on the right hand side.

Growing citrus, berries and herbs

Hello everyone! I've had a good break and although we've been going through a heatwave, that will end today and the weather will be cooler for a few weeks. It's a lovely time of year now, the spring flowers are blooming, birds are visiting from far off places and from the look of the rose leaves, the leaf-eater bees are happily munching away. It’s the ideal time for sitting on the verandah with a lemon cordial and letting the world pass by. I am happy here, I feel as much a part of this place as all the trees deeply rooted in our dry soil. We all get our strength and nourishment from being here and I can't imagine being anywhere else.

Washington navel orange. This flowers now and I harvest oranges in June and July.

This is a Grumichama or Brazilian cherry, a gift from Morag Gamble. It had a few flowers last year but this is the first year I'll get a harvest. It can be eaten fresh or used in jams and pies.

This little orange tree is a Lane's Late. It's full of flowers but I expect many of them to drop off between now and when it fruits. Most orange trees lose flowers but still give a good harvest.

Out in the garden, I've been focusing on my citrus trees. I have two Eureka lemons, a Washington navel orange and a Lane's Late orange. In  this area, the lemons fruit most of the year, the Washington navel from early June to mid July and the Lane's Late oranges from July to late August. Right now, both  orange trees are full of flowers and the two lemons are flowering on new growth. Of course, spring time is the best time of the year for growing most plants. It’s the time when plants naturally put on new growth and produce flowers, vegetables and nuts. If you’re able to give them some help, with good soil, manure, compost, the right growing conditions and water, the warmer weather and sunshine will do the rest. So if you’re thinking about growing food, spring is the time to get started.

Here is a post I wrote that might help beginner gardeners start spring gardens

Another post of mine about growing your own food

I have two blueberries planted a few weeks ago. It's the new Burst variety, supposedly larger and tastier than the blueberries I grew in the past. They're growing in 50cm wide grow bags.

When grown in the right climate, citrus are really tough plants. Mine were able to survive nearly two years of neglect when Hanno was sick and I had no time for gardening. I have almost no memory of those first 18 months without Hanno. I know I made food for myself and got a basic grocery delivery of milk, eggs, butter, tea, salt, flour, fruit and vegetables but I don’t think I made my bed everyday. I looked after Gracie with her food and grooming but most of the time we were two sad sacks sitting on the front verandah - me staring into the bush and her watching the front gate expecting Hanno to walk in. Grief is such a powerful force. I underestimated its emotional intensity and the power is has to change us. It took me a long time to work out the best way to keeping living true to my values and not become someone I didn’t recognise.

The flowers are growing very well and have brought a huge number of various bees, mostly native bees, to the garden.

Here is the herb garden as it is now. In here I'm growing two chillies, parsley, perpetual spinach, rainbow chard, apple cucumbers, French radishes and green onions. I've left one green onion to produce seeds and when that flower blooms and develops seeds, I'll collect the seeds to grow in future years.

After a few years of no sewing, I’m delighted to be back at my machine. I’m just finishing a half apron of blue gingham linen and I have green gingham linen that I’ll use to make a full apron. I’ll also make a summer nightie but I don’t have the fabric for that yet. Of course, there’s always mending to do so I’ve adjusted a couple of skirts and fixed hems too.

One thing that always surprises me are the scraps, thread and general rubbish that is generated by sewing. It’s not a huge amount but the accumulation of all those tiny scraps and threads that spread out over the sewing table and floor. After I publish this post, I’ll be cleaning the entire room.

There have been so many new readers here and on IG. I’m not sure why these sudden streams of new readers happen, I guess it’s other writers sharing a post or something from my blog. I hope you find what you’re looking for, especially information to help you live a more sustainable life. And to all my long-term readers, thanks for staying with me over the years offering support and friendship along the way. I appreciate you being here.

I was going to write about food today, the cost of living crisis, ways of saving when buying food and the different forms of protein but this post is getting too long so it will have to wait. I hope to get that written and on your screens asap - it will be this week. Take care, everyone. ♥️ 

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