down to earth

I am a home body. I enjoy being in my home more than any other place. There is so much to do here, it's never tedious, the hours are filled with cleaning, cooking, sewing, knitting, gardening and bits and pieces that fill my days to the brim.

Yesterday was a catch up day - Thursdays always are because I spend the beginning of the week at the Centre, so I did some cooking, swept the floors, baked bread and made up some liquid soap and a new batch of laundry soap. I have been using this in my front loading washing machine for many years now and it always gives me a good wash. The only ingredient I've changed is that now I always grate my own homemade soap instead of using Lux flakes (too expensive) or yellow laundry soap. When I need to treat stains, I find that for the type of stains we have - garden dirt, a drop of blood, tea or coffee - I can usually shift them using liquid soap. I pour the soap onto the stain, rub it in for a few seconds, then put the item in with the normal wash. Nine times out of ten that is enough to move it, but if it isn't I use the Aldi brand of an oxygen bleach (Napisan). So yesterday I also made another batch of liquid soap and that will probably do me for the next six months.

LIQUID SOAP
Grate a bar of soap - I use my own home made soap, and place it in a saucepan with two litres (quarts) of water. Stir over heat until the soap is completely dissolved and allow it to cool. If it's a gel consistency when it's cold, re-heat and stir again as it wasn't completely dissolved the first time. Cool before adding it to your storage bottles. I use this soap for general cleaning and washing up.

ADDITION: I use my homemade soap for this liquid soap and it doesn't turn to gel. If you find yours does, reheat and add 2 tablespoons of glycerin to your mix to stabilise it.

When it was time for morning tea, I made a quick and easy apple yoghurt pikelet which we ate, still warm, with a little melted butter and cinnamon, with organic black tea. I have quite a few Pink Lady apples here at the moment so after morning tea, I peeled about 10 of them, added a little honey and cinnamon and cooked them in a saucepan for 10 minutes. Last night I made some more pikelets that we had with the stewed spicy apples and a dollop of yoghurt. Delicious!

APPLE YOGHURT PIKELETS
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups of plain flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
pinch salt
half cup of yoghurt (or sour cream)
2 eggs
sugar to taste
milk - enough to make a thick batter (or whey when you have it)

Melt the butter and add it to the sifted flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add yoghurt and beaten eggs and mix well by hand - don't over beat as it will toughen the batter. Add enough milk to give you a thick batter. Allow to stand for 10 minutes.

Add some butter to a frying pan and add dollops of batter. Form round shapes with the batter and then grate some apple over the non-cooked side while the underside is cooking. When the first side is cooked, flip over and cook the apple side. When cooked, add a sprinkle of cinnamon.

With morning tea over and the sun streaming onto the front verandah, I sat there knitting for a while. I'm making Shane some dishcloths using Debbie's wonderful waffle pattern that is easy to knit and makes an excellent cloth. Australian ladies: you can now buy the Lion cotton yarn Debbie talks about at Spotlight. I found some a couple of weeks ago in a variety of beautiful colours. That is what I'm using for this cloth.

While I was knitting I could see the volunteer tomato still growing nicely at the end of the verandah. There are bunches of pear shaped tomatoes there now as well as many yellow flowers. This plant is growing in a crack in the concrete. Amazing. Mother Nature is certainly a fine mistress.

The rest of yesterday was spent working on a quilt, tidying up and researching the article I'm writing this week for Warm Earth magazine. It was a quiet and slow day with plenty of work to keep me on my toes, along with enough time to be mindful of what I was doing.

And now it's raining after a period of about three dry weeks. I was going to do the washing today so if I go ahead with that it will be hanging on the back verandah. No doubt work will continue on the quilt, another dishcloth will be started, hot bread will be ready for lunch and all those other chores that make my days now will gently mould around the hours that lead us to the evening.

I hope you all have a lovely day. Thank you for reading and connecting with me through your comments. I truly love reading every one of them.

Happy 4th July to all my American friends.

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 part of the territory. You will get away with not growing your own food, you don't have to keep chickens, goats, make soap, bake bread, sew or knit, you can live in the city or the country, you can work or not, you can be young or older, but the one thing everyone has to do is to reduce their spending. Every time you buy something, you also own the carbon released into the atmosphere in the making of your product, you own the petrochemicals used in it's manufacture and in the transport that gets it from where it was made, or grown, to your home. Living simply will reduce the amount of of money you need to live because you'll be satisfied with less and you'll be making a lot of what you use. Maybe you'll also do some of those things I listed above, like bread baking, growing food and sewing. You'll also make do with less, recycle and mend, and in the process of that you'll give old items new lives and reduce the amount of things you buy.

A simple life costs less than the life lived by most western people now.

So if you believe me when I tell you that you must reduce your spending, also believe me when I tell you the best way to reduce your spending is to have a budget. This is not a scary thing, it's liberating. A good budget will be one of the best tools you'll have to help you live the life you want for yourself and your family. I've said before that a simple life is not about deprivation and being miserable, so with that in mind, when you first start living this way, make your budget a document that will give you the life you want but allow yourself small things that you need to be happy. My only luxury is $10 a week that I can use to buy what I want. Many of you would wonder why I bother with such a small amount, but that is what this lifestyle is about, it's being satisfied with the small things and being happy with the life I live. If you do it well, your life will make you happy and if you do budget for small luxuries like an occasional cup of coffee, I bet you eventually give it up because you'll find other things you want to spend that money on - things that will be more important to you. But if you can't imagine a life now without being able to buy a cup of coffee, a magazine, a bottle of water or whatever, budget for it.

The only things you'll buy from now on will be what you've budgeted for.

This is how we wrote our budget. We got all the bills we paid in the previous year and added them up to make a yearly figure. That was four electricity bills, three gas bills, in the first year we guessed how much petrol we used. We added up our grocery bills, what we spent on medical, optical, dental, the garden, postage, house rates (or rents), water, insurance, phone, Internet, gifts, clothes, shoes etc - everything we spent money on was calculated out at a yearly sum. So we had a yearly figure for each thing - our electricity, our water, groceries, petrol etc. Then, because we shop monthly, we divided our yearly amounts by 12 to give us 12 monthly amounts. That is what we budget for - 12 amounts for our 12 months. If you shop weekly, fortnightly or bi-monthly, divide your amounts up by 52 (for weekly), 26 (fortnightly) or 6 (bi-monthly). Whatever the amount is that is what you have to spend for the period you have chosen.

We keep the money for our fixed bills - the things we don't have to pay in cash, like the electricity bill, phone, internet etc - in the bank. Those amounts are paid by direct debit directly from the bank when the bill comes in. For everything else, our grocery shopping, petrol, garden supplies, dog food etc, we withdraw that amount - for us it's $690 a month - in cash. That cash is then divided up and placed into a ziplock bag that is named for its purpose. For instance, I have one bag for grocery money, one bag for bulk food money, one bag for medical, dental and chemist. The good things about these bags is that you deal with real money, you see what you've spent and what you have left.

Hopefully, you've started tracking your spending because that will play a big part in your budget. When you've tracked your spending for a few weeks, you'll see the pattern of your spending. You'll find places where your money is leaking and you'll be able to stop those leaks. If, when you do your budget, you find you do not have the amount of money you need, go to your tracking, find those leaks or items that are not needed, stop the spending on those things and so you have it to cover what is in your budget. And remember, now you only spend what you budget for. If you've budgeted for your cups of coffee and you can afford them, that's fine, if you cant afford them, you will have to do without. My feeling is that if you've read this far you will be keen to get your money in order. My guess is that paying off debt and living a good life will replace your coffees - or whatever your luxury is - and you won't even notice the absence.

We try to be thrifty with all our purchases so we have money left over at the end of the month. Usually it's around $100. That money is then put into our emergency fund. If we have enough money in the EF, that leftover money goes straight into our savings. But if you're paying off debt, I would encourage you to build up an emergency fund, then put every spare cent towards paying off your debt. Put your left over money as an extra payment on the debt with the highest interest rate.

So that's it. That is my guide to budgeting or creating your own spending plan. I'm not going to say it's easy, I know it won't be, but if you can do this, it will be the thing that makes the biggest difference to the way you live. And as I said before, don't be fooled into thinking you can keep spending and also live simply - it's impossible. You do one or the other. I hope you can reduce your spending, I hope you see the worth of it, because if you do, you will be able to live well on less, you'll pay your debt off much faster and you live a life that is unique and not a carbon copy of all the others in your street.

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 require that you throw away those ideas you've probably lived with all your life that lead you to buy whatever you wanted. Modern life gave us the credit card and the notion that it was okay to immediately buy the things we used to save up for. I was well into my 30s before I got a credit card and could then buy what I wanted, when I wanted it. And not only that, I could also buy more of everything, as well as things I didn't need, and soon I had too much of everything. I kept buying, the shops and bank kept getting richer. I look back on that time now as a sickness, it was something like an addiction. I kept buying because it made me feel better, eventually I was shopped out and buying felt good for shorter and shorter periods. Eventually, buying was just a habit and what I bought didn't satisfy me at all.

I stopped cold turkey.

That's not an option for everyone. Some of you still need to shop because you're still building your lives, still have children to care for and are probably working, which requires a certain level of grooming and decent clothing. I want to encourage you to shop at op shops and garage sales and also swap clothes and shoes with your friends and family. Have a Saturday afternoon party where you invite everyone to bring five items of clothing or five pairs of shoes to swap. It doesn't matter about the cost of the item, if it fits and the other person wants to swap, deal done. You could also swap children's clothes and shoes, books, small appliances and all sorts of odds and ends.

But that is getting off the subject, that is un-shopping and this is budgeting. Before I get onto that though I want to encourage you to think about your need to shop, what you get from it, what it takes from you and if, like me, you are shopping for more than you need. If you are, I suggest you stop shopping altogether for a period of time and then go back to it when you have more control.

So, now that you've starting tracking your expenses you need to look at what you've got. Let's say you've been tracking for a month and you notice a pattern of coffees emerging. Most times you go out you buy a coffee costing $3. Do that four times a week and you've spent $12 on something you didn't need. Continue on for 48 weeks of the year and you'll be almost $600 out of pocket. That is $600 for coffee you didn't need or could have made at home. Imagine if someone came up to you in the street and said they'd give you $600 to stop drinking coffee at a coffee shop all year. You'd jump at the chance. What's that you say? You don't drink coffee. Well, make the coffee some small thing you do like - magazines, renting movies, newspapers, bottled water, buying lunch at work or whatever. It all adds up.

If you are buying that coffee and maybe a magazine and a rental movie each week, thrown in a couple of work lunches and some bottled water or Coke and you'd be looking at $2000 a year. If you are earning $50,000 a year, that $2,000 is quite a big chunk out of your pay.

But how do we get around the fact that we live in a modern world, we want to live well and sometimes that costs money? You reorganise your mind to accept the fact that you only buy what you have budgeted for.

I use a ziplock bag system for organising myself and our money. It works really well for me because when it comes to money I'm a bit of a dunderhead and I need to have a simple method that shows me clearly what I have to spend, and on what. Basically, we have two lots of money: one lot is for our fixed expenses like phone, electricity, gas, internet, rates, insurance bills, all that money stays in the bank. Our other money is cash money that we withdraw from the bank to buy our groceries, petrol, garden supplies, chook and dog food, etc. Here is the breakdown of our current budget, I've written in depth about it here:

GENERAL EXPENSES - STAYS IN BANK

(Per month)
Each bill is paid by direct debit when it comes in or kept in the bank until we need it

House and water rates 95.00
Insurance - house, car, health 225.00

Phone - Landline & Mobile 40.00
Internet 40.00
Electricity 53.00
Gas 15.00
Rego, tyres and maintenance 84.00
Vitamins 80.00
Clothes and shoes 20.00
Optical 25.00
TOTAL $677.00

CASH WITHDRAWAL FOR ALL BELOW
Money withdrawn from bank and put in ziplocks

GROCERIES
Aldi 125.00
IGA and markets 125.00
Chook and Dogs Foods 50.00
Bulk food/ flour 40.00
TOTAL $340.00

TRANSPORT
Petrol 150.00
TOTAL 150.00

HEALTH
Dental 20.00
Medical 25.00
Chemist 30.00
TOTAL $75.00

GENERAL
Garden Supplies 30.00
Pocket Money - HH & RH 80.00
Postage 15.00
TOTAL $125.00

TOTAL MONTHLY SPENDING $1367.00 or $342 a week or $49 a day

You will see that we have budgeted $80 a month for pocket money. We each get $40 a month to do whatever we want with. This is a little gesture that lets a bit of the pressure off. We can spend our money on what we love or we can save it - it's our own decision.

You will also see that we have no debt - so there are no mortgage or credit card payments. We try to live on the lowest amount we can and if we do that, the pay off for us is that we continue to live the lives we want to live. We don't have to go to work. Quite frankly we could both still work for pay if we wanted to. I still get offers to go back to my writing work, Hanno is still fit enough to work if he wanted to. We don't want to. We prefer to have the freedom of our days. We want to stay as we are.

Obviously your budget will look different to mine, but the structure of it could be the same. You will have certain bills that you know will come in every month or week that must be paid. If you set up a bill paying or have a direct payment system at your bank, this money can sit int he bank until the bill comes in and then it is paid directly from the bank. You don't have to touch the money at all. Then you need to make up a list of the cash expenses you have - you will withdraw this money from the bank each week, or each month, depending on your circumstances.

An important element of this type of system, is to have an emergency fund (EF). Things go wrong. No matter how careful you are, there will be points along the way when, out of the blue, you'll need money for something unexpected. To cover these times, make one of your categories for saving an emergency fund. If you can cover your unexpected expenses with cash you have already put aside, you won't have to put such things on your credit card. We try to keep our emergency fund between $1,000 and $2,000, but it goes up and down all the time. The most important thing is to save for your emergencies and don't see your emergency fund as a little bank that you can borrow from. When it's in the EF, it stays there for a real emergency.

We try to keep under budget for everything during the month. Everything left over - if we budget for $100 but only spend $70 - on every category, that money goes into our emergency fund. That is how we save for emergencies. It is the incentive we need to try to stay under budget in every category, except our pocket money. Generally, we have about $100 month left over. That money is put into a special account for the EF.

It's not all straight forward, is it. Budgeting requires a lot from you. You'll need strength of character, commitment and determination to succeed. It's difficult, I'll be the first to tell you that, but if you get this right, if you can knuckle down, control yourself and your money and understand your motivation to buy, you will be able to live well on little, and really enjoy the life and the satisfaction you'll get by being independent and having enough. I know what 'enough' is for me, have you worked that out for yourself yet?

Tomorrow I'll continue with budgeting. I hope I haven't put too many of you off. It's an important subject.

Graphic from the Carl Larsen gallery

There have been a number of new readers commenting and emailing about starting a new simpler life, and I am starting another budgeting class at the Centre today, so I thought it was a good time to write about managing your money.

I've written about this a couple of times before but it's such an important part of this way of living that it needs to be highlighted often, if not for your benefit, then for mine. Like everyone else, I'm flawed and sometimes want things I don't need. Writing about budgeting and teaching my classes reminds me about the real value of money and how it can make or break us.

There is no doubt about it, you don't need a lot of money to live well. Hanno and I are testament to that but we still need to monitor what we do. We have ways of dealing with our money so we know how much we have, we know what we need to spend it on and we make sure we have enough left over to save or put aside for emergencies.

I know this seems strange but I know it to be true, most of us know how much we earn in a week but few of us have a realistic and accurate idea of how much we spend. If you're reading this as a guide to how to live well on less, then the first thing you need to do is to stop spending on wants and buy only needs. That means from this minute onwards, until you have a good understanding of your money situation. When you have worked out where your money is going and have a budget, you can relax more, but now you need to stop spending and try to change old habits.

Then I want you to track your spending. If you're like most of us you won't have much of an idea how much you spend each week, so I want you to find that out. Get yourself a little note book, if you're married, your partner needs one too, and every time you go out and buy anything, write it in the notebook. By "anything", I mean everything. Your list will look something like this:
MONDAY
Groceries $83.45
Fuel $50.00
Coffee $3.00
Magazine $7.50
Lunch $5.00
TUESDAY
Fruit and veg $36.90
Coffee $3.00
Chewing gum $1.00
Newspaper $1.50
Postage stamp 50 cents
WEDNESDAY
Dress $120.00
Shoes $125.00
Gift for friend $30.00
Bottle water $2.00
Apple 45 cents

Write down everything. This is very important because what you are doing is making a record for yourself of what you do with your money. If you "forget" or try to hide your spending you might as well stop doing this right now and think about your purpose. If your purpose is to change the way you live and move towards a more sustainable life, then even though this process may be painful, it needs to be done. If you are reading this but intend to continue your shopping sprees, then I'm not your girl, because I will require of you that you make a commitment to yourself. I want you to see what spending really is. I want you to have a better life. If you want that better life, where you spend less but feel more, where your happiness is not bought but developed within yourself and within your family, then read on. If you're not ready to make that commitment to change, then goodbye, it was nice knowing you.

Now is a good time to tell you that this life is not about deprivation or being miserable. Yes, it requires a period of readjustment and possibly that may be painful, especially if you are like I used to be and have been spending on whatever your heart desires. But that way of living is not sustainable unless you are wealthy, and even then it's stupid to spend just because you can. This way of living and spending allows you to have what it is you need to live well, but within a frugal framework that encourages thrift, reusing, recycling, cutting back, being kinder to our planet and being mindful of how you spend.

So far we've stopped spending on unnecessary items and started to track our spending. What next? I want you to think about the kind of life you want. What will make you happy? How does money fit into those ideas. If you're like most of us, you want to live in a nice home and be free of debt and all the worry that brings with it. If that is on your wish life, then you'll need to make up a budget. Yep, the "b" word, a word that used to make me cringe because I thought it was about restrictions. Now I know that a budget is simply a spending plan. It allows you to categorise your spending, keeping aside what you must have for payments, and working out for yourself what money you have - realistically have - to spend on other things. I will talk about making a budget tomorrow.

In the meantime, start your tracking. That will take all month but by then you'll have a very good idea of how you spend your money. You'll see patterns emerging that you didn't know were there and if you are like many of us, you'll be spending money on rubbish that you're not really aware of. I also want you to think about your life and how money impacts on it. When you don't have a lot of money it is vitally important to manage what you have well. I hope I can lead you on to that path, but it won't be easy. So be prepared for a rocky road before it gets better. If you're still with me, I'll see you tomorrow. :- )

Graphic from the Carl Larsen gallery

In addition to the Frugal Food post today I want to add a few more lines.

Thank you to Sharon who spent a lot of time looking for excellent links for all of us. While this is my blog, Sharon helps me with the swaps and as I'm not posting on weekends now, on some Saturdays and Sundays she will post links or update you on the swaps. Sharon is the reason the swaps are continuing. Without her, I'd have stopped the swaps as I don't have the time to organise them. So thank you Sharon, your help here and friendly emails are a great encouragement to me.

The other person who you'll see at times on my blog is Bel. Besides being a million other things, Bel is the wife of Gary and the mother of six children, and she writes occasional guest posts here about living simply with children. Bel also has her own personal blog Belinda Moore and her business blog, Spiral Garden.

I have written before about not knowing why I like certain blogs but when I find one I really like, I know it immediately. There is a certain something in some blogs that I recognise straight away, it may be the style of writing or the unassuming character of the posts, I'm not sure. I do know I like blogs that honestly show a life being lived and the willingness to share the practical aspects of that life. I am not so bothered with the blogs that have a political slant or those that try and right the wrongs of the world but rather those that explain the day to day meanderings of a life moving towards sustainability. I want to see real people doing what they write about, I want to believe that an authentic life is being lived and not just talked about. I found such blog a couple of days ago. It's Clair de Lune by Beulah and if you have some spare time today I encourage you to check it out. It's charming, funny and real.

I also wanted to say hello to Helen in Gympie, Julia in Mackay and Cathy. I read every comment and sometimes write back but more often than not I don't have the time to express my thanks for each and every comment left on my blog. Thank you ladies and gentlemen, yes, there are quite a few men who read here.

I want to say hello to Di who commented a couple of days ago. She has finished work to have a baby. All the best Di, I hope it is a very happy time for you and your family.

And finally, welcome to all the new readers. I send my best wishes to everyone for a wonderful week. Now I'm off to pack some worms into a container. No, not my lunch ;- ) we are starting a worm farm for the permaculture garden that's already producing food where I do my voluntary work.

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 trying to keep within your grocery budget, these recipes will hold you in good stead.

I have included a link to each readers' blog if it was included with the recipes. Thank you for sharing, ladies.

from Alexandra (no link)
Beans and Rice

Prices in USD. I did the best I could with the metric conversions.

1 onion, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper (capsicum), chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup (approx. 180 g) raw white rice
1-2 cups (approx. 230-500 ml) cooked red or black beans, drained
1 14 oz (400 g) can tomatoes (any kind), drained, liquid reserved
Enough chicken broth to make 2 cups (500 ml) with the liquid from the tomatoes
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp mild chili powder, or a few dried chiles, soaked in hot water and pureed
1/2 tsp ground coriander (optional)
1 spoonful tomato paste (optional)
1/4 lb (1/8 kilo) smoked sausage, sliced

Heat oil in a heavy pan with a lid. Saute onion, pepper, and garlic until soft. Add sausage, spices, tomatoes, tomato paste; cook, stirring, until the tomatoes have dried out a bit. Add broth, bring to boil, stir in rice and beans. Cover and cook over low heat 30-35 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid absorbed. Serves 3-4.

Beans-$0.50 (using dried beans at $1/lb); sausage-$0.63; onion and garlic-$0.40; bell pepper-$0.30; rice-$0.30; seasonings and stock cubes-$0.40; tomatoes-$0.54. Total $3.07.

from Gothelittle Rose

Food Group Glop (my own recipe)

1lb hamburger - $1.99-2.15 on sale

2 cups white rice
(or substitute with white/brown rice and barley mix) - Estimated $.50

1 bag frozen veggies (Sweet corn, mixed veggies, or broccoli mixes do especially well) - $1.10

1 10oz package of extra sharp cheddar cheese - $2.50

I start the rice cooking, often putting in a couple bouillon cubes and/or spices. Then I brown the hamburger, add just a tiny dash of milk, and add the cheese, shredded, by handfuls, mixing it until the cheese appears to 'disappear' and the hamburger 'drippings' turns yellow. I mix the vegetables and hamburger-cheesey mixture all into the rice and stir it all up together.

Feeds 6-8 for roughly in the neighborhood of $7!

from Juanita (no link)
You cant beat fish cakes for a warming dish and a frugal one too.

Cook some potatoes in water - 3-4 med ones.Drain and mash up and add 1 can drained tuna or similar fish. We pay $1.30 for a can. Add a sauteed chopped onion. Salt and pepper and chopped parsley ( we have in garden). If mix is a bit mushy add some breadcrumbs (I make my own) or some flour to stiffen a bit. Form into patties and fry in a med frying pan in some oil or butter. Takes around 3-4 minutes per side. Take care not too not move too much as they can break up a bit. You can also add any herbs or flavourings you like to make them spicy or more tasty. Even different veges and other main ingrediants.
They would cost around $3 at a guestimate.
Pumpkin soup is also very good. Saute onion, add chopped pumpkin, stock and water. Simmer till pumpkin is soft. Blend or mash up. Add water or milk to thin down. Season with Salt and pepper and you can add spices etc if you like. I buy pumpkin at the local market and its around 3$ for a big pumpkin. This can make a really big pot of soup. Also freezes well. So the soup itself would cost around $3-$4 for the pot.
Very nice on a winters day. We can also cook on our wood burner so I often cook our soups and casseroles on the fire.

from Dani (no link)

Carrot Fritters.
2 tablespoons plain flour 40c
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 clove garlic, crushed 10c
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
3 spring onions, thinly sliced 30c
2 eggs, lightly beaten $1.20
3 carrots 30c
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 spring onions, thinly sliced length ways to garnish 20c
yoghurt to serve 15c
Combine flour, cumin, garlic, parsley and spring onions in a large bowl. Add eggs. Mix well to combine
Coarsely grate carrots. Squeeze out excess moisture. Add to egg mixture. Season.
Heat oil in a large fry pan over medium heat. Fry up as fritters with 1/4 cup to each fritter. Cook in batches for 3 minutes each side until golden.
Serve topped with yoghurt and garnished with spring onions.

Total $2.65 serves 4 so 67c per serve

from the Tin House

Swiss Onion Tart

for the pastry:
1 cup plain flour
1 cup SRF
pinch salt
125gm butter (1/4 lb)
cold water
wizz in a food processor and line an 8inch fluted tart tin. Blind bake for 12 minutes.
(cost for pastry: 80c)

for the filling
2 tbl oil (20c)
3 med onions sliced ($1..ours are homegrown)
1/2 cup sour cream (50c)
2 eggs (50c)
1/2 cup finely grated swiss cheese (eg. gruyere)(80c)
cayenne pepper (5c)

heat oil in pan and add onions. Cook, stirring often over a low heat for 15 mins or until onion is lightly browned and very tender. Spread over pastry base.

Whisk sour cream and eggs until smooth. Add cheese and stir to combine. pour egg mixture over onion and sprinkle lightly with cayenne pepper. Bake for 40 mins at 180C (350F) or until filling is set.
Cost of tart: $3.85

Serve with garden salad: even a purchased bag of salad will cost $3 - ours is garden fresh.

So - fully costed if you have to buy everything: $6.85
if you don't: $2.35

from Kristi in the western reserve

I find it challenging to figure out the prices because I used to cook for 5 with leftovers and now it's only for me, with leftovers. This meal is a good and cheap one but my vegetarian son won't eat eggs so he won't eat it.

This would serve 3 to 4 I think. Or two people twice.

Hungarian Stacked Potatoes. (Rakott Krumpli)

Boil six good sized Idaho potatoes and six eggs.(You can do this in one pot.) Make a blend of one cup of sour cream thinned with about 1/2 cup of milk.
When the eggs and potatoes are done, peel them. In a casserole baking dish put one layer of potatoes, one layer of eggs and salt and pepper. Pour some of the milk mixture over it. Continue til it's all done. Bake at least 1/2 hour at 350degrees Fahrenheit. (About 175 C.)

I would serve this with a salad or steamed vegetable. In this case, a pound of steamed broccoli.

Potatoes about $1.00
Eggs. 1.00 (I buy organic eggs for $2.00 from a neighbor.)
Sour cream about 75cents.
Milk about 25cents.
Broccoli $1.50
Total about $4.50.

from Desley (no link)

Lentil and Vegetable Cottage Pie (AUS $)

1 tbs olive oil (18c)
1 onion, finely chopped (30c)
2 celery stalks, chopped (53c)
1 large carrot, chopped (22c)
2 tsp crushed garlic (10c)
250g tinned diced tomato (25c)
2 tsp mixed herbs (20c)
1 cup (250ml) vegetable stock (85c)
400g can lentils, rinsed, drained ($1.09)
800g potatoes, peeled, chopped ($1.00)
100g unsalted butter (50c)
1/2 cup (125ml) milk (16c)
2 egg yolks (27c)
100g grated cheddar (90c)

Preheat the oven to 200°C. In a large pan, heat oil over medium heat and cook onion for 1-2 minutes. Add celery, carrot and garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add pesto, pasta, bay, thyme and stock.
Simmer gently for 15 minutes until vegetables are cooked. Stir in lentils and season, then transfer to a 1.2-litre baking dish. Meanwhile, cook potatoes in boiling salted water until tender.
Drain and mash. Stir in butter, milk, yolks and cheese. Spread over lentil mixture and roughen top with a fork. Bake for 15 minutes or until bubbling and golden.

Total Cost: $6.55. Per Serve: $1.64.

from Lorisdoris

It is called Monday Macaroni and uses up leftover meat and vegetables (1 cup of each.) Because the meat and vegetables are leftovers, I did not include them in calculating the cost of the recipe. The entire recipe costs about $2.25 US to feed 6 to 8 people.

Monday Macaroni

* 2 Tablespoons butter (17¢)
* 1 Tablespoon olive oil (28¢)
* 2 minced onions (80¢)
* 1 cup finely chopped cooked meat (leftover, so already paid for)
* 1 small can tomato purée or soup (75¢)
* 2 teaspoons minced parsley (minimal cost - free if you garden)
* bit of bay leaf (minimal cost)
* 1 cup cooked vegetable (leftover, so already paid for)
* 1 cup meat stock (free if saved from cooking liquids)
* 8 ounces uncooked macaroni (25¢)

Cook the macaroni according to package directions. Sauté the onion in the butter and olive oil until yellow and soft. Add the meat and cook 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato purée, parsley and bay leaf. Simmer 15 minutes. Add vegetables and stock. Pour over macaroni and stir before serving. May sprinkle with grated cheese if desired.

Serves 6 to 8

from just trying to be green

Well, I know I'm unusual, but my largest meal is breakfast. The rest of the day I just kind of nibble along while I'm working outside, and I don't really have a dinner.

So here's my recipe for buckwheat pancakes- we eat them with bananas, maple syrup, and local raw honey.

1.5 cup milk ($5.50 a gallon)
2 tablespoons butter ($2.75 per pound)
1 large egg (free for us, but $3.75 for a dozen)
1 cup buckwheat ($1.75 per pound) (or combination oat flour and buckwheat)
2 teaspoon baking powder ($2 for way more than we use in a year)
1.5 table spoons honey (or 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, $3.95 per pound)
.5 teaspoon salt ($3 for way more than we use in a year)

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine egg and milk. Melt butter and honey together, add to wet ingredients, then mix everything together. Pour by 1/3 cup fulls on to a medium heat frying pan, flip when the bubbles near the edge stay open.

Top with what ever you'd like. Fruit, honey, maple syrup, jam.

from earthly jane

Nacho Spuds:

6 potatoes ($.25???-$2.49 for 5lb bag) sliced fairly thin (not so thin they fall apart when baked)
3-4T butter ($0.20)
sprinkle with cumin and s&p

*toss to coat with oil and seasoning, spread out on tin foil covered baking sheet, back on top shelf of oven on 400 for about 30 minutes or until done (you'll want them a little crisp.

Meanwhile...
1 lb ground turkey or beef or chicken ($1.75)
3 T cumin ($0.10-$1.00 for the whole container)
1/2 cup water
1/2 jar of salsa ($1.00)
-brown meat, add seasoning, salsa and water, let simmer until it starts to get thick.

Top baked sliced potatoes with meat mixture. Shut off oven.

Top with 1-2 cups of cheese ($1.00) Stick in (turned off)oven until cheese is bubbly.

Top with black olives ($0.50 can)
1 green onion ($0.15) and sour cream ($1.00)

We serve with lettuce salad and vinegar and oil dressing.

Serves 6 @ around $8 for everything.

from toria

Tomato & tuna pasta - very cheap to make, with ingredients I always have stockpiled.

One can tomatoes (49c at Aldi)
One small can tuna - ($1.50)
one onion - (30c)
1 tbsp olive oil (10c? we buy in bulk)
1 bag pasta (59c)

Heat the oil, slowly saute the chopped onion for about 5 minutes - soften the onion, don't brown.

Add the can of tomatoes, turn the heat up & cook for about 10 minutes. Flavour with some pepper to taste.

Drain the tuna (I think one packed in olive oil tastes better in this dish, rather than one packed in water), flake it slightly with a fork & stir into tomato mix. Toss in some chopped parsley if you have some available in the garden. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil a pot of water, toss in the pasta & cook.

Drain pasta, serve with the tuna/tomato sauce.

This serves our family of 2 adults & 3 children (who only like a small amount of the sauce but will demolish a huge amount of pasta to make up for it) for just under $3. To serve a few more people, just add an extra can of tomatoes; to serve lots more you will also need to add more tuna.

from Rose

Split pea soup
1 kg split green peas soaked in cold water 8 hours ($2.28)
2 medium onions diced (50c)
2 large heavy carrots peeled and sliced (40c)
½ bunch celery sliced ($1.85)
1 litre vegetable stock ($2.79, less for homemade)
salt and black pepper to taste

Drain peas and rinse until water runs clear.
Add all ingredients to a very large stock pot plus another litre of water.
Bring to a rolling boil then a low simmer for 1 hour 15 mins.
Use a stick blender to puree all.
Reheat and serve 4.

from Paula

Here is my recipe for frugal mostly vegetable chili. We love it with a garden salad.
(Canadian Prices)

1/2 pound ground turkey ($1.50)
1 large can tomatoes ($ .69)
1 large can kidney beans ($ .49)
1 large can white beans ($ .49)
2 large onions, chopped ($ .50)
2 green peppers (capsicum), chopped ($1.20)
1 large carrot, grated ($ .20)
2 cloves garlic, minced ($ .10)
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. hot sauce (more if wanted)
1 tbsp. olive oil

Saute onions, peppers in olive oil until translucent. Add ground turkey and brown. Add remaining ingredients except canned beans and gently simmer for 1 hour. Add canned beans and simmer additional 15 mins. Taste and adjust seasoning and chili powder.

Serve with a green salad. ($2.50)
Serves 6

Price: $5.17 or $.86 a serving without salad
$7.67 or $1.27 a serving including store bought salad

We can actually get 8 servings out of this recipe.

from Ashley

My recipe – usually have this for lunch all the time – but now I love it for dinner as well.

Summer Salad – (for 2)
40 almonds ~ 90 grams ~ 1/5 pound @ $6/pound = $1.20
2 cups Spinach (squashed down) ~ 1/3 bag @ $4.99/bag = $1.67
½ cup tomatoes (or from your tomato plant) ~ $ 0.90
1 Tbsp Rice vinegar ~ 14ml ~ 1/35 bottle@ 4.99/bottle = $0.14
½ cup broccoli ~ ¼ head ~ ¾ pound @$1.5/pound
¼ cup Raisins ~ 1/8 pound @$2.99/pound = $.39
Grand total = $5.8/ 2
I also add some cooked and cooled potatoes when I am really hungry or some left over meat if I have some. The almonds really fill you up though.

I was feeling relaxed and focused as I went about my work yesterday. I pottered around the house doing this and that, and then worked on Shane's quilt in the afternoon. Hanno went to the dentist in the morning so morning tea was had, just me and the dogs, on the front verandah. It's my favourite place to sit and stare into the trees and think about life, the universe and our place within it.

We are fortunate people, we are happy living here. Just breathing this air fills me up and I know that if we continue living as we are now, working away at lives that are home made and filled with work and the satifaction it brings, our happiness will continue. We don't need the frills and trappings that have become part of modern life. I find the simple things we surround ourselves with and the work we need to do to live this way brings us the kind of contentment we never felt when we visited shopping malls and paid for our happiness. Like most others, we were conned into believing that work was a bad thing, something to be avoided, but since we discovered that work brings its own joy, we have never looked back nor regretted leaving behind lives that took but never gave back.

I look around our home and see a space that is easy to live in. It's beautiful here. The weather is lovely, we grow food all year round, we can keep our chickens, dogs and cat, we enjoy the many birds that visit us. We have a driveway a fair distance from the one lane road that leads to our house, we can close the gate on the outside world and feel content here. It's quiet. We sometimes hear children playing, a train going by at night or the whip birds and sacred kingfishers as they fly by with their strange screams. Otherwise is the gentle clucking of the chooks, Hanno hammering on one of this projects or the sewing machine buzzing away constructing fast stitches for me.

Just at the end of the front verandah a tomato is growing. It's a red cherry pear tomato and it's growing, against all odds, in a crack between the end of the verandah and the driveway of the garage. I have no idea how it came to be there but it has come to symbolise for me the way we live our lives. A seed planted in a hostile environment, going against the pattern of what has been before, and yet it thrives, bears fruit, and shows every day that difficult things are possible. We know that despite what is told to us by the media, and the example set by mainstream Australia, we can live well on $342 a week and we are happier now than we have ever been. When "they" tell you you need to have more to be more, don't believe "them".

How could you not love this life. No, we don't have a big TV or pay for the viewing of it, we don't have the latest fashions to wear, we no longer fly off to far away places for exotic holidays. But what we have is far more stable and significant than those passing fancies. We have built a life here that gives us enough work to fill our days and makes us sleep well at night, we are independent and we have the freedom to choose whatever we want to do each day.

The photo below sums up our day yesterday, and, I suppose, our lives as well. It's a gentle scene in the afternoon sun, showing that tasks need to be finished and the animals fed before we eat and relax inside. Yes, that's Hanno handfeeding Rosetta, our golden Hamburg chicken - naturally, Rosie and Alice sit and stare because food is being moved around and a crumb might fall.

Just to the side of the above scene, bean vines are weaving their slow path around upturned pots. One of the simple pleasure we'll be enjoying soon will be sweet baby beans pulled from the vine and eaten raw in the garden.

And over on the back verandah, fruit ripens naturally, a few bananas at a time, just enough for the two of us.

But the sum total of this life is much more than the individual parts because it adds up to give us independence, freedom, choice, security, joy and the comforting knowledge that we make our lives what they are. Like any good organic system there is a cycle created that shows us that what we put into our lives is returned to us ten fold. There is beauty is such a system, it is created by taking small steps, by using less rather than wanting more and by knowing that, at the moment, the work we do enables us to make whatever we want and need.

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 thinking I've taken leave of my senses, I have to tell you my secret pleasure is a wood heater. It's an old metal fire box in the 1930s house I work in. It's been sitting there like an old worn out battle ship since we moved in March with all manner of things sitting on it, but in the past week I've brought her to life each day with blazing fires that have warmed the house to its core. It's just wonderful how people appreciate and feel comforted by a warm house when it's cold and windy outside.

I would love to have a fireplace at home but Hanno thinks they're dirty and polluting so we have reverse cycle air conditioning, which I think is dirty and polluting. ;- ) Consequently, we don't heat our home and instead start off with many layers of clothes in the morning and shed them during the day. So I am really enjoying the entire process of the fire - building it up each morning, adding more logs, poking it at every opportunity and, of course, just looking at it and feeling the warmth.

It was a busy three days at work this week. We always seem to have more people need us in winter, it's the end of the financial year, we have a lot of new building planning going on and there were about 20 other things thrown in for good measure to keep me engaged and interested. I am lucky to work there surrounded by kind and generous people, and in a position to help so many.

Today I'm at home again. I'll catch up on the washing and do some baking but mostly I'll be sewing. It's birthday season in July and I need to get Shane's quilt finished. I have a lot of emails waiting to be answered so if you've written, I'm not ignoring you, it's just the nature of my days and I hope to reply to you in the next day or two.

We were talking about the cost of lunches yesterday and I was really pleased to read that so many of you are packing lunch boxes. Food is an ongoing cost that everyone has to deal with and with the prices rises so much lately I thought we should continue that theme and see if we can get a few ideas for frugal dinners/suppers. No doubt most of you would have your main meal of the day in the evening, but some would have it around noon. I thought it would be helpful for many of us to concentrate on one main meal and cost that out.

So, my challenge to you is to choose a nutritious hearty meal that you cook for your family, break that meal down into its parts and price it out for us. Post your recipe along with the cost of the ingredients in today's comments. On Monday, I'll use your recipes and food costs to make up my post. It should make a very valuable frugal food guide for us all. Try to make your contribution as short as possible as I think there will be a lot of recipes submitted. I will include a curreny converter in Monday's post so everyone can convert the costs to their own currency. Each post will be added with a link to your blog, if you have one, so make sure you include your blog address.

I would like to welcome all the new readers. If you get a chance, make a comment and say hello. There is a lovely community of readers here and it's nice for all of us to know who is here. There have been well over 100,000 page hits over the past month so I know a lot of you are reading through the archives. If you have a question about an old post, comment in the current post as I never have the time to go back.

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 local bakery. It was $3.75. A sandwich of salad and cheese would have cost $5. Add to that a drink and I would have been out of pocket $7.50! I work at my voluntary job three days a week. If I bought that lunch every day it would cost me $22.50 a week for lunch or a bit over $1000 a year. Taking lunch from home three days a week would cost between $100 and $200 and will save on all that packaging you get with a bought lunch.

We have a fridge at work and I usually have some cheese, butter and fruit or nuts stored there so if I don't have time to make lunch before I go, I have some biscuits cheese and fruit. I always take tea with me but I can also make tea or coffee at work.

Today I'll be taking what I call a backyard sandwich to work. It's homemade bread with egg salad and lettuce. I have some homemade biscuits too so I'll take a couple of them to have with my tea during the morning. I've been taking soup in a Thermos flask over the past couple od weeks and that's lovely and warming on these cold days.

I often talk about small steps and this is one of them. If you're just starting out on the road to a simpler life, the small step of taking your lunch with you when you go to work will save you a lot of money. You do have to be organised to do this every morning, but organising oneself isn't all that diffficult if you know it will save you $1ooo a year. Having a store of things like biscuits, cheese and fruit at work helps too. Just remember to buy them with your normal grocery shopping so you get them at the best price.

Don't limit yourself to sandwiches, there are many great lunches that can be packed in a box. I've included links to some sites that have great ideas. If you're trying to get your husband and children to be satisifed with a homemade lunch, I'm sure some of these ideas will hit the spot.

We are all guilty of falling for the voice in our head that says: "go on, buy lunch just today. It doesn't matter." Well, it might not matter one day but it does matter if you do it more often. And when you think about it, what would you prefer to have at the end of the year, an extra $1000 off your credit card debt or mortgage or the memory of hundreds of store bought sandwiches? The choice is yours.

Lunch box ideas

Vegan lunchbox

Schmooed food

Brown bag lunches

Muffuletta sandwich