down to earth

Today I'm featuring an email from a lady who wrote a couple of weeks ago about establishing a life while paying a mortgage and saving for retirement. I think this might be a topic of interest for quite a few readers. She comments here so let's call her Martha. Martha wrote:

"I became a single Mum almost 4 years ago I realised that my priority had to be to spend nothing so that I could buy another house to bring my kids up in. And it had to have a yard big enough for fruit trees, veggies etc...I bought probably the worst house in a safe area for the kids. I was soooo lucky to achieve this just as the GFC was picking up pace, especially given that I had given up my work (self-employed) to be home with my kids, and was just re-establishing my business.

My question now is, do I keep trying to pay the mortgage down fast and finish renovating (necessary for health and safety), or should some of my money be going towards super? (I have only about $30000 and I'm 44. My thought is, what if I make us as self-sufficient as possible by saving for solar panels, water tanks etc… and of course gardening and making things - am I deluded if I think I will be able to survive on a tiny amout of super if I'm debt-free and self-sufficient? I really don't think much will be available in the way of pensions when I'm 65 and I wonder what you would do in my position?

My children are 8 and 11. I do support myself with my business (I'm a pianist and teach too, mostly from home). However, without child support and a bit of family tax benefit I wouldn't be able to support my family - unless I took on a lot more work. I was working every other Saturday to try and get ahead financially, but realised this only made me more exhausted and stressed, my kids didn't want me to do it, and it didn't seem to give me extra income in the long run. This is because I had to let the vegetable garden go, stopped baking bread etc... The good news is, I have no debt other than my mortgage, and a bit of rainy day savings."

Well Martha, the short answer is, yes, you are deluded to think you can survive on that amount of money when you retire if there is no pension then. And I think that in 21 years time, when you're 65, the retirement age will be closer to 70. However, you asked what I would do. I think you're doing the right thing, actually. Buying an older home in a good area is what I would have done. The good news is, if you have no debt and live in your own home with opportunities to grow food and have chooks, you won't need nearly as much as they say you need when you retire.

I would stop paying superannuation at the moment while you renovate, but in the long term, I think it's wise to continue paying it. Remember, it's not only the lump sum at the end of your working life, there are also tax benefits too. If I were in your shoes, I would to continue to pay off the mortgage as fast as possible, even if some months you can only manage an extra $50. Everything extra is a real bonus.

But you also need to renovate. While you're renovating, buy as much as you can from ebay, demolition yards and second hand shops. There are lots of ways you can cut back, even when you're renovating. It's good you have those "rainy day savings" - that can be your emergency fund while you renovate.

If you're self employed, you'll probably be doing your own payments into your super fund, these may be regular payments or lump sums. As soon as the renovating is over, build yourself an emergency fund, then start regular contributions to your superannuation again. You still have over 20 years you can pay into your fund, taking a couple of years off to get your renovations done won't make too much difference in the long run. The main focus should be to get the home in order, make sure it's safe and sound, and you and your family are too, then start thinking about your retirement.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you and your children will be better off living in a home that you own. If that home is set up to support a frugal and simple life, with vegetable gardens, hens, water tanks and solar panels, you will reap those benefits for many years. But you also need money to pay rates, for the emergencies that will come up over the years, for insurance and for the enjoyment of life. "The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, together with Westpac, found that to have a comfortable lifestyle, retired singles who live in their own home need to spend $36,607 a year and couples $48,648." This is from How much do you need to retire? Hanno and I live on less than that, anyone can - it all depends on what you're will to do without and how much work you can do in your home, while remaining happy, optimistic and strong.

There can't be a definitive answer to the question about how much money you'll need in retirement, because it depends on how long you'll live and no one can predict that. But if you produce some of your own food, if you have set your home up well to support an environmentally sound life and if you live simply, then you will be in a better position to live well than if you didn't have those supports. Don't forget to learn as much as you can about the things that will support you and live simply now. That will help with your current financial situation and when you do retire, it will be a smooth transition to your new life.

This is a really good retirement calculator. You can fiddle around with it and see how much you'd have on retirement using differing super payments. It also gives actions plans and ideas about working longer.

So to summarise, I would:

stop superannuation payments for the time being
keep paying as much as possible on the mortgage
renovate the home on a tight budget, without cutting corners

As soon as the renovation is finished:

build an emergency fund
start paying into the superannuation fund again
keep paying off the mortgage as fast as possible

There are just two points I'd like to add. 1. Make sure all your superannuations is in ONE account. Fragmented super will cost you money. Usually the industry-specific funds give the best returns so I hope you're in one of those. If you have to transfer fragmented funds to one account, know the cost of your transfer fees before you act. 2. Enjoy life as you go along. That is easily done while living simply but you are the sole breadwinner and that can brings responsibilities and concerns that may keep you from the lighter side of life. Look for ways you and your children can spend time together and have fun without it costing a lot of money. Camping, homemade pizza and movie nights, swimming in summer, hiking in winter - all these things will show your children that enjoyment isn't always bought. It will also give you a break from those sole parent responsibilities and help you see that happiness is still all around you.

That is what I would do. Do you have any thoughts for Martha?

I haven't written about our garden much lately but it's still here, happily bubbling away in the background, providing much of our fresh food. It's getting towards the end of winter here so we'll be planting a few more summer vegies now - increasing the number of potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums (peppers) and cucumbers. We have a wonderful crop of Portuguese cabbage, grown for the first time this year from seeds sent to me by a permaculturalist in Melbourne. It's fast become my favourite cabbage. Hanno does a wonderful job in our garden. I love that he feeds the gardens so well between plantings and the quality of the food that comes out of that garden is a real credit to him and the work he puts into it.

These Pontiac potatoes were dug up last week.

The basket is usually filled with what we'll eat that day but I often grab the tomatoes to ripen indoors.

No matter what we do in the garden, the chooks are always watching, hoping for a bug to be thrown their way.

Two of our chickens died in the past week. They were old girls and we'll miss them. The rest of them - I think we have about six or seven chooks left - are keeping us in eggs, even though a couple of them are too old to lay regularly. Soon we'll start looking around for a few more ladies to join our family. After 30 years keeping chickens in the backyard, I can't imagine living without them now, and it would be impossible to live happily without good eggs. Whatever we give them - a safe home, good food, fresh water and love, they always give back more.

The empty spaces don't stay empty for long. To successfully plant for the table, you need to have seeds on the go most of the time, know how long they take to grow to maturity and keep on top of the bug population.

This garden has been weeded, raked over and had manure added. It's ready for planting.

Corn, Colossal tomatoes and lettuce.

Radishes, Welsh onions, kohl rabi, potatoes, Portuguese cabbage, tomatoes and silverbeet (chard).

The black kale plants (Cavolo nero) have grown really tall this year and as they've been harvested from below, they're started to look like palm trees.

Chillis

The last of the turnips.

Bok choy, Daikon radishes and brussel sprouts.

It's always peaceful out there wandering down the green pathways between garden beds. Gardening, particularly vegetable and fruit gardening for the home is such a satisfying way to spend time. Plunging my hands into fertile soil connects me back to the natural world in a way nothing else can. We're lucky to have such a wonderful climate here and can produce food year round. It can be hard work, but as we get such wonderful harvests, we wouldn't have it any other way.

New lettuce beside lettuce waiting to be harvested. Such is the look of a productive garden.

Speaking of gardens, I received a gift from my editor at Penguin - Kitchen Gardens of Australia by Kate Herd gives a wonderful account of 18 local kitchen gardens, complete with garden plans, photos and the stories of the gardens and the people who work in them. It's interesting and inspiring and I can't wait to dive right into it. There are a number of people we Australians recognise - Jeremy Colby Williams' wonderful garden at his home, Bellis; the beautiful Gay Bilson's country kitchen garden as well as a self-sufficient garden on an historic Tasmania farm and a locavores' garden in the Red Centre, and much much more. I'd been taking peaks into this book whenever I visited my local book shop, and I'm so pleased I now have a copy that I can relax with and read from cover to cover.

After water, tea is the most popular non-alchoholic drink in the world. My favourite drink is orange juice made from our backyard oranges, but I live many days without drinking organic orange juice, I never go one day without tea. I drink it for breakfast and lunch, and often have one or two more cups during the day. Tea is part of my ordinary days.

When you think about it, millions of cups of tea would be enjoyed every day. I wonder how many of them are made using tea bags. Just think of all those one-use, "disposable" bags and all the string that makes those bags dangle. Then there are all the staples that attach the string to the bag and the label. It makes me shudder to think of all that waste. Every day. For tea.

I grew up drinking tea made in a tea pot. I still prefer pot-brewed tea now, but when Hanno drinks coffee, I'm make one cup of tea and make it right there in the cup. No, not with a tea bag; I use a tea infuser or tea ball. They're like sustainable tea bags. I have several - those I use in cups and one for the tea pot. Spooning tea into an infuser and making tea in a cup takes slightly longer than using a tea bag to make tea, but it saves all that waste. When you multiple one tea bag by millions - every day - it doesn't take a genius to know we should be moving away from tea bags and towards tea infusers or tea pots. I know tea bags - minus the staple, are compostable, but that doesn't make up for all that paper, string and staples being made in the first place.

Loose tea makes a better cup of tea. The tea that goes into tea bags is called fannings or dust - it's low grade tea that is left over at the bottom of the barrel when all the loose tea is removed. Many tea bags are made using paper that has been bleached. A tea infuser will cost you a few dollars, but it will last a lifetime, or close to it. And speaking of the economics of tea, high quality loose black tea is much cheaper than tea bags. With tea bags you don't pay for the quality of tea, you pay for the packaging. And then you throw it all away.

This is one of those small steps I've talked about many times before. It's a way in - an easy way to start your simple journey. Or it might be the next sustainable thing you add to your simple life. It may not seem important alone - just one cup of tea - but add that cup to all those you'll make in your life. That, my friends, is significant.

I've been drinking loose tea all my life but for the past couple of years I've also been buying Aldi's organic black (and green) teabags. I'm not doing that anymore. I have found what looks like a very good organic and fair trade black loose tea that I'm going to order online from Honest to Goodness in Sydney. It's only $35 for a kilo. Sealed in a glass jar and stored in the fridge, that will keep me going for many months. I've never ordered from them before so I hope they live up to my expectations. If you've bought from this company, were you happy?

Why don't you join me in this move towards sustainable tea drinking. All it requires are some tea infusers, or a tea pot and strainer, and loose tea. Tea bags offer convenience and fast tea. I am not going to settle for that anymore. I want to slow down and I want to buy quality tea for a good price, not inferior tea and packaging. Will you take this small step with me?

A couple of days ago I made a batch of cultured cream and some chilli jam and Eclair asked if I would write more about them. We have quite a bit of fermented dairy here and I home-make yoghurt, cultured sour cream, fresh cheese, and sometimes hard cheese. I will be making cheddar when I get fresh milk and the spare time. If you've never tasted fermented foods before, you're in for a real treat. Not only are they delicious, but they contain probiotics and will do you the world of good.

I live in a very good dairy area so I couldn't go past our local Guernsey cream from Maleny Dairies. It's a soft yellow colour and sometimes it's so think, you can stand your spoon up in it. Good sour cream starts with good fresh cream. It must be pure cream, not cream thickened with gelatin. There is absolutely no hidden secret to making it - it's a mixture of cream, heat and the right bacteria. You will find that bacteria either in commercial cultured sour cream or buttermilk, or in a starter that you can buy online. I do both. I buy starters, and have them in the freezer, but I generally make small batches and make the new batch with some of the old batch. When I want a break, or there is no old batch, I use a starter. You can use the same starter to make cultured butter milk. There are details on where to buy them below, with links.

METHOD

Put 500 mls/17oz pure fresh cream in a saucepan and heat to 30C/86F. Take the cream off the heat and stir in half a starter pack (or whatever the instructions for your starter say). Usually it's a sachet to one litre/quart but I only make up half that amount at a time; the leftover half sachet can be refrozen.
Pour the warm cream into a pre-sterilised warm preserving/canning jar and put the lid on. I then wrap the jar in a fleece and a towel and leave it on a warmish bench or in a warmish oven, overnight. The next day it is ready. Instead of using towels to keep it warm, you can also make it in a yoghurt maker, slow cooker or Thermos. The cream will continue to develop in flavour while it is stored in the fridge and will keep for two weeks, easily.

If you use commerical sour cream as the starter, you still need to warm it up to 30C/86F, remove from the heat, add ½ cup of sour cream and mix it well. Place it in a sterile warm jar and keep it warmish for 24 hours.

A FEW CREAMY FACTS

If the fresh cream you buy is very thin, add ½ cup powered milk to it and mix it in when it's warming in the saucepan. That will give you thick sour cream.
If you beat this sour cream, it will make cultured butter.
It's not cheaper to make sour cream (or butter) like this but it tastes MUCH better and you know what's in it. Often commercial sour cream contains stabilisers.
You can make cream sour by adding lemon juice or white vinegar to it, but cultured sour cream is either made this way - with a starter, or by using raw milk and cream that is left unrefrigerated till it goes sour naturally.
If you leave pasteurised cream or milk out, they will go bad because all the good bacteria have been removed. Raw milk will turn sour - not bad - and it's perfectly fine to drink.

In Australia, you can buy these starters online from Country Brewer (cheaper) and Green Living. In other countries, Google "sour cream starter" and choose one from your country.

CHILLI JAM

I have been trying to replicate the delicious Maleny Clean Cuisine Chilli Jam that I buy for $5.95 a jar. This is my first attempt. It's useable but it needs refining. I'll do another post about making chilli jam when I've got it to the stage I want it. That will take some time because I have to get through the two small jars I have here - I gave one to Sunny - before I start a new batch. What I made this time is more a sweet chilli sauce, rather than a thick jam.

This sauce is made up of:

1½ cups good vinegar - any type
½ brown sugar
½ white sugar
10 cayenne chillis, sliced finely
¼ cup of dried chilli flakes and seeds
2 cloves garlic - finely crushed
1 pack pectin, about two tablespoons

It's all placed in a saucepan, boiled, then simmered for 15 minutes.

It is much too hot for my taste, but I'll be able to use it in cooking. Next time I'll halve the chilli portions, add mustard seeds and water, and a bit of fish sauce. I don't want any tomatoes or other vegetables or fruit in it. It needs to be red, but almost transparent; not opaque as it would be if it had tomato or sweet peppers in it. What I'm after is a thick, but runny, jam consistency. I'll get there, like many things, it just takes time. This is the opposite of fast food.

Once upon a time, suburban homes were showpieces where the smartest appliances, the largest screens and latest furnishings combined to place the home owners on a pedestal alongside their neighbours - pillars of the community and working hard to pay for every new thing that caught their eye. Often the king and queen spent long hours working away from the castle so that whenever a new sparkler appeared, it could be bought straight away and added to the trophy house.

Times have changed. A breath of fresh air sweep through and now many people are more concerned with self reliance than acquisition, and along with the smell of home cooked meals, we hear the click of knitting needles and the buzzing of the sewing machine. People have returned home again. Many are discovering the joy of cooking for the first time and along with that, gathering their family to the table for meals and the significant connection it brings. Gardens are being dug, nesting boxes for chickens being built, fruit trees planted. Garments are being mended instead of replaced with something new. Shopping in second hand stores and op shops is no longer looked down on - it's cool now. And the wonderful thing that has come hand-in-hand with these new (old) ways, is a feeling of contentment and something close to pride in building self reliance and working towards sustainable lives.

Who would have thought a few short years ago that the sale of DIY and craft supplies would soar as people take to doing things in their own homes again. And it's not only that - home cooking is popular now, chemical cleaners are being ditched in favour of soap, bicarb and vinegar, jars of food are being preserved, and hand made knits, made with luxurious pure wool, alpaca and cotton yarns, are on our backs again. Household savings rates in Australia have gone from negative figures a few years ago to positive again. There is a very interesting article about world wide household savings rates here, as well as a chart of rates for many countries from 1992 to 2011.

I've been really surprised at the interest in the life skills workshops I'm currently presenting in my local town. Each one is booked out as soon as it's announced and a waiting list started for the next. Just yesterday someone in the next town asked if I would do a Frugal Home workshop for his sustainability group. These are ordinary people opening up to change the way they live. They want to know now about budgeting, reading electricity meters, cooking from scratch, shopping for groceries in different ways, vegetable gardening and green cleaning. I am going to take advantage of this trend and show as many people as I can the true wonder of living a simple life - that it's not just about a list of life skills that are ticked off, it's about personal growth, self reliance, independence and sustainability. It's empowering, and if two ageing hipsters in rural Australia can do it, anyone can.

I regret it's taken an economic crisis to bring us to this point but it seems nothing else was strong enough to change us. Worries about global warming didn't, neither did peak oil. Even drowning in debt didn't stop us. But the good thing is that when this changed was forced upon us, we discovered it was a healthy and sound way to live. It's not mean, it doesn't deprive us - having less gives us a richness we can only see when we step back from the excesses of the past to really see, and understand, that less is more.

I wonder if you see the same signs I do. Do you see a change happening in your neighbourhood? Or am I reading too much into what I see. Maybe I'm living in an area that is leading the way, or maybe I'm living in dream land.

Last week I received a sad email from Sophie in New Zealand, she wrote:

"I just wanted to write you a wee note to tell you of my experinces in the last month. I was away in the US with my daughter having a new baby (she paid for me to go over to her) and my husband was killed in a car accident. He was 52 years old, and I am 51. We had been married almost 32 years and were very happy.

The main reason i am writing to tell you this is that while I have followed your blog for several years now and posted sometimes I am on my own now and am very unprepared. We have some debt, a mortgage etc. my income for the next five years is going to be about a third of what he was earning. I have never worked outside the home. After 5 years my payments will cease and I am not sure what I will do then. We had no life insurance but do have a little savings which will help with funeral expenses etc. I have learnt so much from your blog and I know I can do it, but I do somewhat regret that we were unprepared. We never thought anything like this would happen to us and that we had time to get into a better position. I am grateful that the government here in New Zealand will help me for the next five years as I know in other countries there would be no help for me. There is no use in looking back and I will go forward and do the best I can."

Although Sophie didn't specifically ask for help, I asked her if she would like me to show this email on my blog, open it up to helpful comments, and for me to put in my two cents worth. She was happy to do that. I think the major help Sophie will have will be from people she knows, but sometimes people who are are further removed, especially people who live in a similar way, can come up with suggestions that others may not have thought about. That was the reasoning behind my offer, as well as offering the hand of friendship and support to someone going through a sad and difficult time.

My first thought was that Sophie is lucky to have that buffer provided by her government - five years financial support. We have a similar payment here in Australia for widows born before 1955. My second thought was that, depending on how much equity you have in your home, Sophie, you probably have a sizeable asset you can use. If there is not much to pay off the mortgage, I would suggest selling the home, paying off the mortgage and the other debt and buying a smaller house or unit. That would be a huge burden lifted and would open up the future for saving and living frugally. No matter what happens, your debt will have to be paid off somehow. Now that you're on a pension it will be difficult to pay off that mortgage. If it was all paid off using the house, and enough left over to buy a smaller property, you would be in a much better financial position. Did your husband have any superannuation? You say there was no life insurance but if he has been working all his life, there has to be superannuation.

When your five years is up, you'll be 56 years old - still nine years away from retirement. If I were you, I'd use those five years to build up skills so you can get a job. Hopefully, you can get a job doing something you enjoy. Five years will give you a good amount of time to think about what you could do, then the experience or training you may need.

Overall though, if you've been reading my blog for a few years, you have probably been doing a lot of the things I do. You may already be living frugally, you may already have a vegetable garden and cook from scratch. Keep doing all those things because the lower your weekly expenses, the better off you'll be. It might be a good move, when you can, to sell off anything you no longer need - like a second car, and to pare down on mobile phone, internet and pay TV accounts, if you have any of them. Do a little bit at a time, not all at once, and start with the most expensive things first.

I can't imagine how stressful this time must be for you, Sophie, but if you can pay off that debt, I'm sure you'll worry less and feel better. Moving from the family home will probably be a wrench for you but remember that you carry your memories with you, they do not reside in any one place. I have no doubt you developed the strength to get you through recent events and I hope that strength and resilience continue to support you.

Now, as a reader, you can offer some wise words to Sophie? And hopefully our New Zealand friends will be able to give very practical, relevant and sound advice about the local things we in other countries know nothing about. Thank you.

Another weekend - another mix of work and sitting back with our feet up. I did some knitting and reading, presented a blogging workshop at Maleny on Saturday, spoke to loved ones on the phone and did a lot of cooking. Maybe cooking isn't the right word - I worked in the kitchen with food. I made a beautiful thick cultured sour cream - the best I've ever eaten, and made yoghurt and set it into a sieve to drain to make fresh cheese. I couldn't resist taking a cup full of it to mix with homemade strawberry jam for a treat later in the week, and I made three small jars of chilli jam. So much for swearing off jam making for a while.

Last night we had corned beef, cabbage and potatoes for tea. I dabbed some sour cream, with green onions mixed through, on the potatoes - wow. The cabbage was wonderful too. About 6 months ago, a reader sent me some Portuguese cabbage seeds. Well, they grew this season, and were harvested just before being cooked last night. What a great cabbage it is. It's the first time I've tasted it but it won't be the last. It will be part of our yearly rotation from now on. Thank you Richard. I love it when what we eat comes together so well - a small portion bought at a local shop and the rest produced by our own hands and hard work. There is nothing like it.

I made up the last of the soap orders too. They're now ready to send off and we can get back to our version of normal again. I am really happy some of you got to try our soap, and many people said they loved it, but I'm happier not selling it. I know that doesn't make sense to some people - to stop doing something that brings in money, but I'm more focused on quality of life rather than acquisition, and we have enough - of almost everything. I've had to explain our decision to quite a few people and even though a few may not have understood my explanation, it makes perfect sense to me.

This week I'll be concentrating on knitting and sewing. More of Vivian's Eco Yarns are arriving this week and I'm so excited waiting for them. I love this part of knitting - when I choose yarns and patterns and try to work out if I have the time or if I am deluding myself. I always think I have the time and the skills, and usually, even though it might sometimes take longer than I expected, I get my projects finished. I like to pick simple patterns that stretch my capabilities, dotted with little things that I can pick up and put down several times a day. Oh, I finished a little orange and blue bamboo hat for Alexander on the weekend too. Tick! another little garment for my sweet boy. My sewing will involve a couple of aprons for the shop, including yours Lusi, and some table runners.

So here we are headed for another week. I hope mine is full of productive work and the satisfaction that comes from that; I hope yours is too. There is so much that goes into a happy home; it takes time and effort and sometimes we might feel overwhelmed by it. Always remember there is no need for perfection, you can take breaks when the chance arises, and if you work steadily at your own pace, you will get through your work. And if you don't, it will wait for you, you can start again tomorrow.