down to earth

Let's talk about money today, specifically how we spend our money. Most of us know how much money we make in a month but very few of us know exactly how much we spend, or on what. When I first started taking control of my money and had to make every penny stretch as much as I could, I found that tracking my money was the best way to discover two important things:

what I was spending my money on;
what my non-essential spending was.

Non-essential spending is often the key to paying off debt. It's that money we all spend on magazines, coffee, movies, a packet of chocolate biscuits, iTunes, takeaway food, convenience food, soft drinks/soda and bottles of water. Most of us know that spending on these things is wasted money, but we still do it, "just this time". If you can identify the money you spend on those non-essential things and add up the money spent over a month, I'm sure you'll be surprised. And if you can harness that money and put it towards debt repayment, or even to buy the groceries you need this month, then it's a step in the right direction.

How to track your spending

Every time you go out - every . time - record exactly what you spend and on what. You can do that in a number of ways:

Take a small notebook and pen with you and write it down as you spend.
Collect every receipt and when you come home, add them up and record the totals.
Use a smartphone app. The one for Australians on the government's Moneysmart website is very good. You can download it here. The data you enter into your phone can later be transferred to an Excel spreadsheet. It also allows you to set your limit and will track as you go and show you where you are in relation to your limit. You can download My Spending for Android phones here or Expense Tracker for iPhone and iPad here.

Changing behaviours is rarely about the big things. The big ticket items stand out and we notice them. They make us stop and think before we buy. It's the small things that do the real damage. Usually they are items you want but don't need. We buy them because they're relatively cheap but when you track what you spend over a month and then add it up, you'll be surprised at just how much you spent on all those small things.

When you get to the end of a month's tracking, you'll have a much clearer idea of what you're spending your money on. If you can stop that spending, your money can go towards your budgeting requirements. If you've never done this, it's worth doing. Otherwise you won't know your spending habits or how much all those small things are costing you. One thing is for sure, they cost you a lot more than you actually spend.

When you have at least a month's tracking, you have the two figures you need to make up your budget: how much your income is and an accurate summary of your spending. Then you go to the next step. Working out a budget you can live with, while paying off debt in an organised way, or building your savings account. That, my friends, will be our next post.

Please share your experience of tracking your spending and how you did it.

Sandy made a good point in her comment the other day when she said: We saved and budgeted hard years ago and cleared the mortgage. That is what helped us to live 'easier' now. But easier doesn't mean you give up 'simple'...it makes living 'simply' easier! That hit the nail on the head for me and it helps to clarify the point that simple life isn't only about frugality and paying off debt. Money isn't, and shouldn't be, the main focal point of life. However, if you have debt it will stop you living the life you want because your efforts will be directed towards paying off your debt instead of living your life fully. Debt reduction and not gaining more debt is part of simple life, but it's just one of many parts that make up how we live.

Hanno and I bought our home on a 20 year mortgage and paid that mortgage off in eight years. Had we still been in debt when I realised I was burnt out and wanted to stop work, I would not have been able to do what I did. I would have continued working until it was paid off. Luckily we were debt-free, so I had the self-indulgent luxury of giving up work to find a better way to live.

Hanno took control of our debts from day one of our mortgage. He paid the mortgage fortnightly instead of monthly and we paid extra payments whenever we had spare cash. Now that I look back, it wasn't easy but it was much easier than stretching it out to pay over 20 years and, as a consequence, paying so much more in interest payments. By knuckling down to pay that mortgage off fast, we literally saved ourselves tens of thousands of dollars.

You have to be strong to do something like that but I have to tell you I didn't feel strong while we did it. I only recognised our fortitude and strength much later, with the benefit of hindsight. Imagine this: we're both working hard, we have a young family, we're living in an isolated town to maximise our earning potential and friends ask us to to join them and their family for a weekend on a tropical island. It took guts to say no, but that's what we did. It was with trepidation at first but later it got easier. We didn't always say no to invitations but we did it enough to make a financial difference. Over those years we did take our boys off on camping trips, on a trip to Tasmania and to see our national capital - Canberra. But we also focused on our debts and paid them off. When we saw that debt total slowly decrease, it became easier and we knew we were doing the right thing. We didn't realise then what I know now - that paying off debt lifts the weight of the world from your shoulders and gives you the luxury of freedom.

And you never know what that freedom will be used for. It could be for an early "retirement" such as mine, to cut back full-time work to part-time to have more time for the family, it could be to divide your time between work and study. It could be anything. The important thing is that freedom and independence it will be there waiting there for you too.

Tomorrow we'll talk about various strategies you can use to pay off debt. In the meantime, I'd love you to share your thoughts with us on paying off debt.

Before we move onto specific subjects such as budgeting, paying off debt, traditional skills, baking, cooking from scratch, organisation, routines, decluttering, recycling, vegetable gardening, chooks and whatever else we can think of, I'd like to talk about living where you are - claiming your ground.

I suppose simple living is often been seen as a rural pleasure. A way of life that makes sense in the country, or at least outside the city. I think there are arguments for and against most locations, the key here is to work out where you have to be at a particular stage of your life and then make it work for you. Bloom where you are planted.

I live in a semi-rural town about an hour's drive from our capital city and I'm very happy here. There is good rainfall, we've built up our soil so it now produces abundant harvests, the sun shines most days and nothing much happens. At this stage in my life, all those things are important to me. But public transport here isn't as reliable and frequent here as it is in the city, if we needed specialist medical services we'd probably have to drive into the city for them, and entertainment consists of beaches, cinemas and not much else.

Living in the city offers good public transport, a wide variety of shops from which to buy groceries, a better choice of many things such as art galleries, exhibitions and schools. The down side of city life is that in Australia, and probably in other countries too, rents and house prices are much higher.

Usually life tends to place us in certain locations depending on our stage of life. If you are living in an area that doesn't seem to support your wish to live more simply, you might just need to think outside the square and make the most of where you're at. Everything you do will prepare you for a move to another place later but don't waste this part of your life wanting to be where you can't be.

When we moved here we had a large block of land with an 1980s brick house on it. There were no fences, water tanks, solar panels, gardens, verandahs or garage. Over the years, when we could afford to add something, we did, and now we live in a home that easily supports our way of life. If we'd given up on being here, we never would have felt the warm familiarity we feel now. This is our true home now and I reckon we'll both die here.

If you're having trouble claiming your space now, look at the permaculture principles again here. If you can apply any, or several, or these principles to your current home, that will be a starting point for you. If that doesn't work, learn a traditional skill such as knitting, fermenting, baking bread or making wine and see how that fits into your life and if it makes you feel that your home is home (for now).

Whatever you do, don't waste time whining about where you want to be. Get on with your life and focus on the positives. Just do what you can do. It is possible to bloom where you are planted in almost any location. If you have the will to do it you can make a warm and comfortable home anywhere.

At first, staying as motivated as you need to be to live this kind of life looks like it might be too much. I worried if I could stay on track but I had a shift in thinking and it became easier, immediately. Changing your mindset will help you stay on track too. Let's face it, when you're just starting out on this journey and your best friend invites you to go out for coffee or lunch, or to cruise around the shops together or go on a weekend away, it feels like it's just too good to turn down. You might not have a good reason to not go.

I changed my mindset - or how I looked at the common things in my life - by thinking about what I wanted out of life. Did I want to wander aimlessly though shops looking for things to buy? Did I want to remain disconnected and feeling empty? No, what I actually was to feel more alive than ever before. I wanted to be able to get up every morning knowing that the work ahead of me that day would help strengthen me. I wanted to feel more comfortable in my own home than in a shop. I wanted to find myself. I used to live in this body but I'd gone missing in action. I wanted to find my way back home.

I did a lot of thinking on my front verandah. I stared out into the eucalyptus trees and while wrens and willy-wagtails swooped through the trees, I wondered how I could reconnect with my home, how I could enable my family to live on a reduced income, how I could find happiness again. I used to be happy with the simple things in life. What happened?

On those first few days of sitting and thinking, I thought about what I valued in life. I wrote it all down so I could add to it and wouldn't forget it. I used that list in my book, and here it is again, my constant reminder:

I want my life to provide me with:

A reason to get up every morning
Interesting and productive work
Contentment that explodes into happiness occasionally
A framework in which to live simply
The opportunity and continued ability to learn skills that facilitate our lifestyle
A strong and generous family circle that supports every member of our family – during the good times and especially when it’s tougher
Opportunities to express generosity, kindness and empathy
The strength to be a role model to the younger women in my family
The enthusiasm and perseverance to take charge of my home and make it a place of comfort, welcome and warmth

It's quite easy to write a list like that, it's much more difficult to write a list that truly reflects your wishes and then to live by it. I'm pleased to tell you that, so far, I'm living to that list and still feel very strongly about the values I listed.

So how did I go from a workaholic who shopped, to someone who was calmer, kinder and values-driven? I changed my definition of what success meant to me. I used to measure success by the amount of money I made and spent. I had shifted from my working class roots to someone who thought that buying too much for my children would make us all happy. It gives me no pleasure typing that out and I just realised I was frowning as I typed. But everyone is capable of change and over those first few weeks, my successes were good bread, how many eggs I collected each day, having my family notice the change in me and being a much nicer person to be around. I'd stopped being competitive and negative and tried to make improvements not only in my home but in my heart as well. It felt good!

Simple life isn't just about the practical things you do every day, it's also about how you feel about yourself and those around you. When I look back, I barely recognise that old me. I'm no push over now, I say what I think and I'll stand up for what I believe in but I'm not on a crusade to convince everyone that I'm right. I'm much more tolerant and accepting of everyone's view and changing my mindset, changing my view on what success was, that did it for me. I live in a softer place now.

So if you're at the beginning of this journey or if you're not feeling quite right about how you're living, I encourage you to take some time out, sit and think about what you want out of life. Think about what you don't like about your life and yourself and then try to picture what you want. Write down that new life in short sentences to make up your list. And do it in pencil so you can edit it and make it the refined list you'll happily live with for many a long year. I am living proof that you can change your life with a pencil and a piece of paper. All you need is the quiet time and the will to do it.

Have you had a similar experience to mine or did your change happen in a different way? I would love to read about how your changes started and it may be just the thing someone else needs to read today.

Although during the previous 30 years we'd kept chickens, stockpiled, paid off debt, cooked from scratch, knitted and sewn, I felt all those things were just single activities that were useful in their own right, certainly, but not part of a useful or recognisable system. One day, soon after I came back to my home full time, I was thinking about how homemaking tasks related to the backyard and it all fell into place. It was all connected, I just didn't have a name for what I was hoping to do. The backyard provided fresh fruit, vegetables and eggs for the kitchen, the stockpile supplemented the backyard produce and the meat, fish and chicken I bought. Cooking from scratch improved our health. All of it impacted on our budget. It was the same for the laundry - making my own cleaners not only gave me better quality at a lower price, if I bought the raw materials in the form of borax, washing soda, soap, vinegar, bicarb, citric acid and salt, I could home produce all my cleaners within my system and leave the commercial cleaners in the supermarket. If I worked on it, I could see myself buying less and producing more of what we needed at home. I hadn't heard of the term 'simple living' then. Soon it would change me, change my life and make me happier than I could imagine.

I started to think about applying a permaculture-related concept to my home, where instead of focusing on each separate element in the home and backyard, I worked to strengthen the relationship between all my tasks so my system would be greater than the sum of its parts. It seemed clear to me that if permaculture could work so well outside in the backyard, then the design principles could also be applied in the home and to housework as well. I looked around on the internet for guidance but to my surprise no one else was writing about this. There were many websites about food production using permaculture principles, there were articles about permaculture and Waldolf and homeschooling, breastfeeding, dying with dignity and other seemingly unrelated elements of home life, but nothing about how to organise a home into zones and how the principles of permaculture also worked inside the home.

These are the commonly accepted permaculture principles:

Observe and interact.
Catch and store energy.
Obtain a yield.
Apply self-regulation and accept feedback.
Use and value renewable resources and services.
Produce no waste.
Design from patterns to details.
Integrate rather than segregate.
Use small and slow solutions.
Use and value diversity.
Use edges and value the marginal.
Creatively use and respond to change.

If I divided my home according to the zone concept in permaculture. The goal then would be to apply the above principles to every zone to create a warm and productive home where every family member thrived.

Permaculture zones in an urban home

Zone 0

The house. Here babies are conceived and cuddled, toddlers turn into school children, then teenagers. The home is where families grow into strong units.

Zone 1

This is the zone were the most action happens and for me, that's the kitchen. Included in this zone are the freezer, pantry, stockpile cupboard and kitchen table.

Zone 2

This zone requires a little less attention but still it's busy. This is the laundry where we wash clothes, make cleaners, make and store soap and keep the ingredients for all our cleaners.

Zone 3

This is the living and relaxation area of our home - the lounge room, front and back verandahs.

Zone 4

This is our maintenance zone. It's is sewing and work room and the linen cupboard. In here I mend, sew, store fabrics, yarns, sewing machine, knitting needles, buttons and sewing tools.

Zone 4
Takes in the garage, the garden shed and Hanno's big shed. These areas are where we store broken furniture, bits and pieces waiting to be fixed, tools, hay and backyard equipment.

Zone 5

Budgeting zone. Although this is not an actual place and doesn't require daily monitoring, it's an important part of the system because it relates to every zone.

* Information about permaculture from permacultureprinciples.com

Over the years I've checked every now and then to see if anyone is using zones and permaculture principles in their homes but have haven't found it yet. If you know of such a site, please let me know.

It seems to me that applying permaculture principles to our homes would work well and I guess my home is run using permaculture principles and traditional old methods, but more in the way of my grandmother's home rather than my mother's. I use routines, plans, lists and a diary to help me organise my day-to-day tasks. I try to work mindfully, I respect my surrounding environment and support my community. I'm not going to say that my simple system of working here is permaculture but I do use the principles of permaculture in my daily work.

How would you describe your style of working in your home?

This is the first post in a series that will revisit the basic elements of simple life. It's about how we live here but also about the possibilities, now and in the future, for you to live simply. This is written as much for my own sake as for yours because I find it useful to refocus on what I'm doing quite frequently, to decide if changes are needed, and to improve what I do. Life is never static.

Let's start with the most basic - the name. Simple living isn't all that simple. In fact, when you give your whole life to it, it takes more time and effort because you tend to slow down, stop buying convenience and often home-produce a lot of the things you used to buy. So let's agree that the name doesn't mean much, it's just a way of us identifying a certain mindset and although we're all doing different things, we'll lump it all under the 'simple living' title for the sake of expedience and clarity.

The next thing to agree on is that what Hanno and I do here at our home isn't the only way to simplify. We are older than most of you and now we no longer work for a living, we have the gift of time to do whatever we like. Many of our contemporaries are off enjoying their retirement travelling in caravans around Australia in search of the good life, freedom, satisfaction and enjoyment. Hanno and I found that right here at home.

The two photos above are of my sister's kitchen and fuel stove.

We built a stockpile, grow organic food in our backyard, have stopped buying anything that is not necessary, cook from scratch every day, use our leftovers, preserve our excesses from the garden, bake bread, cake and biscuits, shop locally and support our community, have cut back on electricity and water, mend, repair and keep up our house maintenance. We firmly believe that everything we have here are our assets and we work to keep everything in working order for as long as possible. We recycle and reuse. We value the work we do alone, and together, and we value each other.

That is what WE do. It's not THE recipe for a simple life. There is no recipe and while there are a number of elements we all do, most of us pick and choose how we structure our simple lives according to age, children, work outside the home, income and ability. Simple life is always changing - there will be things you do now that you'll probably stop doing in the future; things that help you now that will become irrelevant. You'll change as your skill set grows, when the time you have in your home increases or decreases and when your passion and mindset start directing how you live.

Everyone who decides to simplify in some way will do it differently. Age plays a big part in this. You will do different things depending on how much time you have and at what stage you're currently at. The trick is to not take on unnecessary debt at any stage so that you have to work to pay back debt instead of living your life. We'll talk about money and it's role in life later but let's just say now that most of us will take on debt in the form of a mortgage and it's important to pay that off as quickly as you can.

So if you're wondering how to start living more simply, take some time to work out what your values are. Write a list and then depending on what is on your list, start with the most important part or the part that you can do right now - today. The other day, a younger lady asked how she could live more simply, given that she had young children and was working outside the home. I told her to start on making laundry liquid. It only takes five minutes to make ten litres, saves so much money and she would be using a lot of laundry liquid with the young children. What I have found is that when you try one new thing, it tends to lead you to the next thing and the next. So for this woman, she may make laundry liquid when she has time and when she sees it works so well, she might look into making other green cleaners. So for her, cleaning would be her starting point. You can start anywhere - by writing up a budget, menu planning, thinking about how you shop, creating a vegetable garden, buying chooks, making soap, organising your kitchen to better suit how you work, installing solar panels or water tanks/barrels. It could be anything.

I started with grocery shopping. I needed to cut the cost of living in our home so I worked on that first. That lead me to stockpiling, baking, cooking from scratch everyday, preserving, freezing, chooks and the backyard. I started with one thing and it lead on to others. It will be different for all of us, we are a diverse group of differing ages, values, ambitions and capacities. So it doesn't matter what you do first, the important thing is to start.

Making chicken stock.

I'd love you to share how you started living a more simple life. What was the first thing you did and did that lead on to anything else?

If you read yesterday's post you may well have your blog set up and ready to go. Let's take a look at content and how to customise your blog now. There are all sorts of strategies that will help you create an audience but I think it comes down to one thing - content. If you write well, write information that people need or find interesting, and if you write frequently, you'll build an audience. You can also build an audience by visiting other blogs and commenting. If you comment under your blog name, or under a name with your blog link, it will leave a little trail back to your blog. That link will stay on that blog and anyone who clicks on it will be transferred to your blog. You can leave another trail by adding your live blog link to your emails, in Facebook and if you belong to any forums, in your forum signature.

I think comments are like payment for a blog. I doesn't take long to leave a comment but it means so much to the blogger. Feedback and adding to the subject matter in comments adds to the value of a blog. Comments can make or break a blogger. I know of people who have given up blogging because of the comments - there either aren't any or they're nasty. Usually it's just one disagreeable person but when you get one of these nutters, they can make your blog life miserable. My advice is to always moderate your comments - the setting for that is in "settings", then "posts and comments". Set the "comment moderation" to "always". Moderating your comments means you read each comment and give your approval before it's published on your blog. That gives you control over what is seen on your blog. If you get a nasty comment, or one that is rude or offensive, delete it and no one will know anything about it. Delete it and don't think about it. These people have nothing better to do with their time. Always remember, it's not about you, they don't know you, it's their immature response, nothing more. So promise me you'll delete any nasty comments and just get on with your blog. Those people are not worth a second thought.

Gadgets: gadgets are a way of adding extra functions to your blog. You can install gadgets for a calendar, a link list, searching, followers, adding an image to your sidebar and many other things. You'll find the gadget function in the Layout section of Blogger. Once you've installed the gadget you need, you simply drag it to the place you want it to be. Please note, adding too many gadgets will slow down your blog.

Mobile Template: If you have readers who read your blog on a mobile phone or tablet, you can check to use the mobile version of the Blogger template you choose. BTW, I have chosen the Simple template and it's the one I keep going back to time and time again. It also has a version of mobile template attached to it.

Respect your readers: Write well and be careful. Make sure your spelling is correct, that you punctuate well and make your writing as clear as possible. Your writing is the only way you can communicate your message to your readers so if readers have problems understanding your writing, the'll leave and find other blogs to read. There is plenty of competition, you have to make people want to come back.

Reduce size of photos: Photos add a lot of interest to our blogs and if you can, you should add a few photos that illustrate what you're writing about. But you need to reduce the size of your photos. I've been blogging for six years and I'm still under my storage quota. Google gives you a certain amount of space to store photos - the photos that are on your blog. Once you go over that limit, you pay for storage space. Reduce the size of every photo you add down to under 150kb. I use Apple's built in export photo facility and that reduces the size when I export. You can also use a free program called Gimp, I think you can reduce size in Paint and possibly Picasso.

Legals and ethics: Never post copyrighted information, it is illegal to do so. Never write anything that might defame someone, that you know to be untrue or will invade someone’s privacy. Here are the Australian guidelines for blogging copyright. Please search for a similar guide for your own country: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/19714/1/Australian_Copyright_Blog_Guide.pdf

How often should you blog: In the beginning, to establish an audience, if you can, blog every day or every weekday. That might go on for six months, then you can ease off a little. You do that to get readers into the habit of checking your blog, putting you on their reader list and hopefully visiting you every day or two. Readers love knowing there will be new material waiting when they visit. If they visit a few times and nothing has changed, they’ll drop you. There are so many other blogs, you have to be up there, reliable, interesting and delivering to make a mark. If you're not concerned with building an audience, then blog whenever you feel like it.

We added a new blogging forum to the Down to Earth forums yesterday. It's here. In that forum you can either ask for help from our experienced bloggers or you can list your blog link in our blog list.

Blogging is such a big subject but I hope I've covered the topic enough in this limited space for you to give it a go. If you have a specific question, go to the forum and post your question there.

Next week we're going back to basics and going over some of our key simple living elements. We all need to revisit subjects like budgeting, paying off debt, cleaning, gardening, food storage, grocery shopping etc. Well, I know I do. It helps me stay on track and look at ways of improving what I'm doing. If there is a certain subject you want covered, let me know.