I met Hanno on my 28th birthday, we married when I was 31 and our first baby, Shane, was born a year later. Shane turns 28 next Tuesday. H...

Graphic from the Carl Larsen gallery Whether you like it or not, to live a simply or green life, you must reduce your spending. It's pa...

Shelling peas from the Carl Larsen gallery I'm not going to hide the truth, learning how to deal with money is difficult. It will ...

Graphic from the Carl Larsen gallery There have been a number of new readers commenting and emailing about starting a new simpler life, and ...

Last week a number of readers shared their frugal food ideas, with costings for the ingredients. If you're like the rest of us and tryi...

I have a secret pleasure at work. It's a pleasure Hanno disapproves of so it makes it all the more special for me. Before you start th...

I am really surprised at the cost of food now. I went to work with no lunch yesterday and ended up buying a curried vegetable pie at the lo...

I want to carry on from my post about tightening your belt because there are more important things to consider. Yesterday I wrote about the...

Thank you for your comments yesterday. I'm quite overwhelmed by them. In the next few days I'll work out my plan of attack and writ...

There is always something to do in the garden at the moment. I love the photo above, it is of Hanno planting tomatoes with the chooks watchi...

Hopefully this will be the last post about money for a while. Our budget is an important part of our simple life. It gives us a spending pl...

Hanno and I spent two hours on our budget yesterday. We checked old bills and we had our little (solar) calculator running hot. We put 2 and...

There have been many emails and very thoughtful and helpful comments to my previous post. Thanks to everyone who contributed. Every comment ...

We have come to the sad realisation that we are not makings ends meet. In the past month our fuel costs have risen from $120 a month to $150...

Hello everyone. Here are the recipes shared after my request yesterday. Thanks to all who posted their budget recipes. I have fixed the spac...