down to earth

It's only a couple of days until Christmas and I hope you've got your menu planned and all your goodies ready, or almost ready. It's always a nice touch to give a nod to our frugal and food loving grannies by adding a couple of homemade items to your yule table. So here are two easy recipes, even for new cooks, that you can make now or over the holidays.

Pickled cucumbers is the easiest pickle you'll make and even though the flavour increases the longer you let it mature, if you made it today you could eat and enjoy it on Christmas day; it's not too late.

Quick pickled cucumber

4 - 6 young cucumbers or about 15 - 20 baby cucumbers
1 onion
1 tablespoon salt

1 ½ cups of your favourite vinegar (I used malt vinegar)
½ - ¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon pickling spice OR ¼ teaspoon black peppercorns, ¼ teaspoon coriander seeds and ½ teaspoon mustard seeds.

Cut the cucumbers in halves lengthways, then cut each half into three long pieces. Leave the baby cucumbers whole. Place the cucumbers in a large bowl and sprinkle 1 tablespoon of salt over them, cover and leave for three hours. After three hours rinse the cucumbers to remove the salt and salty water. Leave them in a colander to drain. If you don't do this step the cucumbers will release all their water into the vinegar and spoil it. You must remember to wash the salt off though.

Sterilise a preserving/canning jar big enough to hold the cucumbers. You can do this in the dishwasher or in the oven for 15 minutes at 150C/300F degrees.

Bring the vinegar, sugar and spice to a boil and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, lay the sterilised jar on its side and pack the cucumbers in. Stand the jar up and pour in the hot vinegar. Seal the lid and leave the jar on the bench to cool down. When it's cool, store it in the fridge or cupboard. The vinegar and sugar will help preserve the cucumber if you don't eat it all on Christmas day. When you open the pickles, store them in the fridge.

Ginger cordial

This is a ginger cordial that, when added to cold mineral water, tastes like homemade ginger beer. It will take you about 30 minutes all up to make it.

thick piece fresh ginger about three inches/8cm long
1½ litres/quarts tap water
¾ - 1 cup sugar
rind and juice of one lemon

Peel and grate the ginger. Grating is better than slicing because the greater surface area you have, the better the flavour. Place the grated ginger, water, sugar and lemon in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir to make sure all the sugar dissolves. Turn off the heat, put the lid on the saucepan and leave on the stove top over night. The next morning, strain the ginger liquid through a strainer, sitting in a jug. Pour the ginger cordial into clean bottles and store it in the fridge. If you want to store the cordial for a while, sterilise the bottle before filling it.

To make up a drink, pour a small amount of ginger cordial into a glass and fill the glass with cold natural mineral water or soda water. Add ice, mint leaves or a lemon slice.

I have some exciting news to share tomorrow. See you then. : - 0

Hello my friends. I was away longer than I thought I would be. I had a much needed rest, started a new Maggie rabbit, prepared a few things for Christmas, did some gardening and ironing, cleaned the fridge and oven, reorganised my tea towel drawer and had a few afternoon snoozes in my comfy arm chair in the lounge room. I feel refreshed and ready for anything. Which is good because my god daughter Casey and her partner Kerry have just had their first child, a beautiful baby girl called Marlee. So it looks like there will be another Maggie soon.

(Above) I took all the tea towels, tea cosies, jug covers and pot holders from the drawer and dumped them on the kitchen bench. (Below) Then sat with Jamie at the table looked at all the older tea towels, moved some to the rag bag and re-folded the rest.

And now we have a tidy drawer again.

Today and tomorrow I'll be preparing a bedroom for our after Christmas guests, finishing off the second Maggie, wrapping one last gift, hopefully having a haircut and tidying up the front and back verandahs. It's always a busy time of year but one that I look forward to because we get together with family and friends, relax, watch cricket, reflect, plan and wait for another year to start. There is all that time just around the corner waiting for us to fill in the hours and make the most of what it can be. Thinking about what we want to happen and planning for it gives us a map to follow through the months and when life gets busy again, we just have to follow our map.

I finished knitting a pink apron last night and today I'll attach the apron straps, knit the shawl and make the boots.

I hope you're all getting through your Christmas chores or finishing up at work before a couple of week's summer holidays. Soon in Australia, there'll be camping, long trips to visit relatives, cricket, swimming, cold drinks on hot days and plenty of memories being made. I can picture my friends in the northern hemisphere making soup, walking around the house in their slippers and settling down in front of the fire with warm drinks and craftwork. What will you be doing this week? Is there snow falling silently? Are you enjoying the excitement of the season or pretending it's not happening?

I'll be back tomorrow and Wednesday when I'll have a something exciting to show you. :- )

It's been a while since I wrote about bread. We don't eat as much bread as we used to when we had sandwiches for lunch. We have our main meal at lunch time now so I usually only need bread for toast and breadcrumbs. But Hanno loves rolls, especially cheese rolls, and every so often I bake a batch. These are easy to make and would be a good addition to your lunch boxes or, as a smaller roll, for the Christmas table. I'm linking this to the forum so you can ask questions and, hopefully, share your photos when you've made a batch.

Even if you're a new baker, this should be within your capabilities because the dough is made in a bread maker and then baked in the oven. But you can make them by hand as well. After mixing, you must knead the dough for at least ten minutes. Kneading the dough develops the gluten which helps the bread rise.

CHEESE ROLLS - makes ten large rolls

You'll need:

2 heaped teaspoon dried yeast

About 1 ½ cups half water/half milk - warm You might need more but start with this amount and see how you go. It will depend on your flour and the humidity in the air.

2 teaspoons sugar (optional) it adds extra flavour.

2 teaspoons salt

4 cups of baker's flour - also known as high protein flour or strong flour. You can buy this at the supermarket or your local shop selling loose flour and dry goods. I used white flour for these rolls, you can use whatever baker's flour you like. Soon I'm going to do a trial with spelt flour.

2 teaspoons of bread improver. I generally don't use this in my bread but adding the cheese weighs the dough down and it needs some help to rise. Here is information about bread improver. You can buy it at the supermarket. If you don't want to use bread improver, use 2 teaspoons of cornflour, but you won't get the light dough the bread improver will give you.

1 tablespoon soft butter or olive oil

Cheese of your choice - I used eight thin slices of Jarlsberg and a sprinkling of parmesan. You use 1½ - 2 cups of grated cheese and add a sprinkling of ham if you want.

Before you start, warm one cup of half water and milk to blood temperature, then add the yeast and sugar and stir it well. Leave the yeast for five minutes to start blooming. If the yeast is active, after a few minutes, bubbly froth will start developing on the top of the liquid. If that doesn't happen, you'll probably need to buy new yeast.

You can see here how fine the crumb is on these rolls.

In the bread maker bucket and in this order, add the salt, flour, bread improver and butter/oil. Add the yeasty milk and turn the machine on to the dough setting. Wait there and watch it and add more warm water and milk to make a moist, but not wet, dough. You have to judge how much liquid to add, it could be more or less that I've allowed for. Some flour needs more liquid, some needs less, and the weather conditions make a difference too. When you're satisfied that the dough is right, leave it to run through the cycle.

When the dough is ready, remove it from the machine and place it on a floured surface. The dough will be fairly soft and pliable because you added the butter/oil. Knock the dough back by flattening it out with your hands and when you have a rectangle, roll with a rolling pin. If it's easier for you to handle half, cut the dough in two and work with two seperate batches. You want it to be between 1.5 - 3 cm or ½ - 1 inch thick. The rolling process is similar to making cinnamon rolls or a Swiss roll. Sprinkle the cheese over the top of the dough, right up to the edges, and then roll the dough into a big sausage shape. Try to keep the shape together, you may have to add another sprinkle of flour to stop it sticking. With a sharp knife, cut the sausage into 10 even slices and place each slice flat on your baking tray.

Allow the dough slices to rise for about 20 minutes - depending on the temperature of your kitchen, longer if it's cold. Ten minutes before you put the tray in the oven, preheat your oven to 220C/425F.

When the slices have risen, place the tray in the oven and turn the temp down to 200C/395F. Bake for about 15/20 minutes or until the bread is golden brown and it smells like bread.

I didn't think to take a photo when I was rolling the dough out but this photo shows a cold roll cut in half so you can see it's just a simple roll with a cheese layer.

These rolls are delicious and if you use the bread improver, they'll be light with an excellent crumb, even with the cheese layer. Here is the link to our thread at the forum. If you make the rolls and take a photo, add the photo over at the forum and if you have any questions, there are many experienced bakers there to help you along and I'll be in and out during the day to help as well. I hope you try this.

It's that time of year again when I slow down a lot, think about what I've done this year and consider the worth of what I'm doing. In some years that process has lead to some big changes and in others I made none because the balance was right and life was going along nicely. I feel privileged to live as I do but I don't take it for granted because I know that life can change on a pin head for all of us. So I continue to look at what I do and prepare for change if its necessary.

When I'm in this period of self-evaluation, I like to think again about why I changed the way I live. I remember back to the old days of spending for the sake of it, of mindless shopping and wondering why what I had then didn't make me happy. Simple life is never easy for any of us but in my experience it still beats my old life hands down. Life makes me happy now so at the end of every year I put aside time to decide what is working, what isn't and what needs changing. There is no doubt that most of us make our simple lives easier if we plan and organise and you don't do that once. Life is never static, it's ever changing, and these yearly assessments will help you change as your life changes.

Planning a simple life is like writing a love letter to yourself. You can include what you want to include, you live by your own values, love who and what you love, develop your own usefulness and eventually you become the person you wanted to be in all those private moments of hoping for a life of grace and splendid simplicity. In times of contemplation and reevaluation I always aim for balance. I plan for what I think will happen during the year but I'm realistic enough to know not everything will follow that plan. I try to be flexible and tolerant and I forgive myself if I don't do the right thing at the right time.

Simple life is different for all of us although there are many common elements as well. Don't judge yourself in comparison to others because you'll always be comparing apples with bananas. There are some of us who think baking is symbolic of what we do and others who don't; some who count every penny making sure they pay the least amount for everything and others whose aim is value for money; there are many of us who work our land and think it's a fundamental part of simplifying and many who have no land, no time and no inclination for growing food; there are list makers and those who plan by following patterns and rhythms. I could go on but I'm sure you get my meaning. How you think about your life, what you do on your ordinary days, what you find value in and what you seek sets you apart.

Deciding to take control of what you do instead of being led by advertising and what your friends think is a liberation that will define your days and what you want for yourself. And what elements you control and how you go about it should be the result of understanding your own circumstances and needs rather than anyone, including me, telling you what will work.

I can tell you that for me, the work I do here helps me create a home that satisfies my need for occasional isolation from the outside world. I can tell you that for me, focusing on my work here helps me slow down but still get everything done. I can show you photos of my rooms and where we sit at our kitchen table, I can show you the plants we grow and what I sew and type out old recipes to share with you but all those things should guide you, not force you to do what I do.

Copying what I do or someone else does, or mindlessly following what is in a book or on a website is the same as listening to advertising - it's someone else's version of life based on their own experience. If I can pass on anything of value to you it would be to work hard and live your own experiences, develop a sense of generosity and kindness, build your life with what feels right for you and choose your influencers carefully. The true prize here is living your own authentic life and that's the result, not of advertising or what others value, but what you plan for yourself and what you work towards. So when you write that love letter to yourself, you need to be at the centre of it because you will do all the work to make it happen. The advertisers and all those who think that one size fits all will be long gone then. It will just be you, me and the chooks. ♥︎

I've shared this poem before, but here it is again for those who didn't catch it the first time.

I have found joy in simple things
by Grace Noll Crowell

I have found joy in simple things
A plain clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof over my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through a door.

I have found such joy in things that fill
my quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace
A potted plant upon my sill,
A rose fresh-cut and placed within a vase,
A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
And books I have long loved beside me there.

Well, the first week of summer has been and gone and was marked in my traditional way - eating fresh yellow peaches. I think many of us mark the changing of the seasons with different foods and for me, everything about those first golden peaches says summer, heat, knitting and cricket. The heady aroma, the sight of peaches sitting in a bowl, the temptation to buy a tray of them and make peach jam. It's all there to tell me that Christmas is on the way and for the next three months there will be peaches to enjoy.

These chillies are the extremely hot and small Trinidad Scorpion and next to them and below, the mild large yellow Hungarian wax pepper. They turn orange when they ripen.

I've been busy with the library talks over the past two weeks and have the last two this week at Caloundra and Maroochydore. It's been a real pleasure to meet so many people interested in creating a simple Christmas for their families. I've noticed a real change this year in the number of people coming along to the talks and the enthusiasm they've taken on their various life changes. Mindsets are shifting and that has to be a good thing. I've taken Maggie the rabbit with me to the talks. She travels inside a calico bag and rides in my red shopping trolley then sits on the table during the talks. She's version 3 now; I changed the shoe laces on her boots from embroidery cotton to hemp string. I've decided to make another one before Christmas for another little girl I know so during this week, I'll gather my materials and then sew and dress her next week. I'm looking forward to going through the process again. I'll take photos so you can see her.

Meanwhile, out in the chook house, the girls are diligently sitting on eggs and refuse to be moved. These are three breeds we won't keep again because of their tendency to brood - Australorps, Wyandottes and this particular Frizzle, which I think is a Rhode Island Red cross. They're wonderful if you intend to raise your own chooks but not so wonderful if you don't.

Outside in our backyard, the hot weather is taking its toll on our vegetable garden and, as usual, there are broody chickens sitting on eggs that will never hatch. The cucumbers have finished and been pulled out, blight has taken hold of the Rapunzel tomatoes, the lettuce in the ground has all bolted to seed in the heat and the flat leaf parsley is forming flowers. But on the other hand, the first of the rosellas are on the bushes, chillies and capsicums are growing like wild fire and the raspberries canes have reached the top of the trellis. And as usual, the rosemary, sage, curly parsley, Welsh onions, comfrey, oregano and kale are all loving the heat and growing strong. There are more than enough blueberries and passionfruit too, they're not quite ready to pick yet, but it won't be long.

Passionfruit above and raspberries below.

I'm also caring for a trough of baby lettuce in the bush house. When our lettuce go to seed in summer, these troughs keep us going for another six weeks. They only get a couple of hours of sun in the early morning, the rest of the day they're under 80 percent shadecloth. They're a handy crop to have in summer and instead of buying lettuce, I just go outside with my scissors and cut a bowl full of baby leaves.

As soon as these tomatoes are picked, we'll rip out the blight effected vines and let the soil rest for a few months.

Nothing can kill this kale. It will go on and on over summer and still be there in winter. It happily grows alongside the herbs.

The rosellas are flowering but still have a long way to go before we have enough of them for jam, cordial and tea.

After Thursday, I have no engagements, no deadlines, no articles to write. I'm a free agent for a couple of months and I'm looking forward to that a lot. I have a few projects to make, some gardening to do and a little bit of cleaning but apart from that I'll be relaxing along with the rest of you over the summer holidays. I won't write the blog for a couple of weeks over Christmas but will be here when I can be until then. I hope you're looking forward to the holidays too, and if you're in a colder climate, that you've got your fires burning. How I envy you that time you'll have in front of your fire. But we'll be sitting here clinking our iced drinks, knitting with feet up and watching the Boxing Day cricket test. (Hello Sue.) Good times!

We had a great weekend with a nice balance between work and relaxation. Jamie was here yesterday and he enjoyed helping us clean out kitchen cupboards by climbing in and bringing out the things at the back. Then it was just some shelf cleaning, deciding what would go back and getting rid of the excess. It feels so good to do that. I still have the plastic containers cupboard and the tea towel drawer to organise and will probably get to them this week some time.

I finished Maggie rabbit and I'm happy with it now. I knitted a cross-over apron in 8ply cotton for her. The top and bottom are seed stitch and the rest is stocking stitch. I did a new shawl too because I wasn't happy with the colour combinations of the purple and orange. Ecoyarns organic cotton in the Mercy colour looks better. I bought Alicia's pattern for a cute little knitted pinafore but didn't have the right needles so I made up the cross-over apron and I think it suits her very well. A couple of ladies told me about magic loop knitting, so I could use the needles I had to knit in the round, but I decided to go with what I know now and add magic loop knitting to my Christmas tasks. I'm happy with how Maggie turned out and I'll probably make another one next year for Tricia's grand-daughter, Alana.

I ordered a few things from the Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores last week. Enamel mugs for trips out in the car, two Robert Gordon Australian kitchen jugs, an enamel sugar bowl with lid and a fly swatter. I often use jugs in the kitchen and these two cornflower beauties will serve me well for many a long year. I have them sitting on the dresser at the moment so I can keep looking at them. :- )

Today I'll be baking bread in my new loaf tin. It's has perforated holes all over the sides and bottom to produce a crusty loaf. I'll let you know how that goes. I haven't been making nearly as much bread as I did before since we switched our main meal to lunchtime. But I have to get back to a routine with my bread because often we end up with none in the house.

The year is beginning to sprint to a close and I'm quite busy with various things at the moment. I'm not sure how often I can come back to write here in the next couple of weeks. I'll just have to see how it all goes and assure you that I'll be here when I can be. I hope you have a good week.

I forget when we bought our blueberry bushes, it must be at least eight years ago now. We planted them along the fence line that we then had in front of the garden to keep our Airedale girls away from the tomatoes (they picked their own) and the compost. The blueberries struggled in full sun for a few years and although we got the odd berry, I can't say they were a viable crop for us there. When we took the fence down, I put the blueberry bushes into pots to wait until the following spring when I intended to replant them in another spot. Well, those bushes started growing in the pots and looked very healthy so I decided to replace the soil, add compost and mulch and see how they did in the pots full time.

If grandchildren or birds discover the berries they'll be picked as soon as they change colour but leaving them on the vine for as long as possible will improve the sweetness and taste.

In that first year they gave us a couple of cups of blueberries, the following year there were more and this year the bushes are full of berries. They're in full sun most of the day and partial shade after about 3pm. I keep them fertilised with comfrey, a sprinkling of potash in spring and they're watered with rain water about three times a week. Good water is critical for blueberries. They thrive on rainwater and don't do so well on tap water containing minerals. They don't like any manures but they love acidic soil - so if you're growing camellias, you're in the right area for blueberries. I give them the cold leftovers and grounds of the coffee pot occasionally to boost the acidity in the pots a bit.

Keep the berries close together to aid in pollination. There are two blueberry seedlings on the side as well as one avocado I'm growing from seed. Propagation by cutting is quite easy and a good way to increase your stock of blueberries quickly.

As I was watering the garden yesterday morning, I noticed that two of the bushes are now as tall as me. They can be pruned which you would do after they finish fruiting. I prune ours like I prune my roses - vase shape, open in the middle, prune out any branches that cross over each other and any branches that touch. You can cut back any shoots that grow too tall. Once they get to the stage where you're pruning, they take off and grow into strong bushes.

Blueberries come in many different varieties and can be grown in cold and warm climates. We have Biloxi and Sunshine Blue. Of those two, here, Biloxi is the better. Both Biloxi and Sunshine Blue can set fruit without pollination from another plant but fruit is increased if you provide a means of cross pollination. Check varieties and pollination requirements here at Daley's site. It's easy to propagate blueberries. I took six inch cuttings at the end of winter and they started growing new leaves in spring. Doing this you can develop a nice stand of blueberries, just make sure you have the right varieties for your climate and types that pollinate each other. If you're growing them in the ground, they must have good drainage. They like to be wetter rather than drier, especially in summer, and here, watering three times a week with rainwater seems to keep them happy. Otherwise their a hardy plant, easy to grow, despite what you may have heard, and definitely worthwhile addition to the back garden.

You probably remember that I don't go out much. I am naturally a bit of a hermit so it's never bothered me that I stay in more than I go out. Now when I do go out, I feel out of place. There is nothing familiar out there and the only place I feel at home, is, well, at home. But this week I will be out in my community again with a few talks at my local libraries. I actually enjoy these outings because after wandering about feeling like a fish out of water, I find my tribe waiting at the library. We talk, share, compare and laugh a bit, and I go home again feeling that, maybe, my little bit of the world is not so unfamiliar after all. There are still a few vacant places so if you want to come along, book on the Sunshine Coast Libraries website and I'll see you there.

I found a new friend today, someone I could easily live next door to. Unbeknownst to her, I crept into her kitchen, her home, her farm and looked around without anyone knowing I was there. Of course I wasn't there in person, I found her blog after she posted a comment here and followed the breadcrumb trail back to hers. I love finding blogs that feel very familiar to me. I realise all over again that I'm not such a funny fish out of place in the general scheme of things and that there are many others out there doing what I'm doing, finding joy in the small things and living true.

Sally and Brian live on Jembella Farm in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, one of our great wine regions. They run their farm along biodynamic principles to produce organic food for their own table and for sale. They have cows, alpacas, bees, sheep, chickens and geese and live in what looks like a beautiful house, tucked into the valley away from the rat race. I'd love to have a cuppa with Sally on that shady verandah of hers. Go over, have a look and be prepared to be charmed by her and learn a little about how these small farms are run.

While I was there I noticed another familiar name - Farmer Liz, who lives closer to me here in Queensland. Liz runs her property with husband Peter using permaculture to produce organic food. She writes about her life on Eight Acres and has a lot of good information on her blog so she's worth a visit too. It makes me feel very hopeful for the future when I know that people like Liz and Peter are coming through as the younger generation. If anyone will save us from ourselves it will be people like them who do it. Check out Liz's info on dairy cows, cheese making, butchering, chickens and so much more. I doubt I'll ever tire of looking at the faces of Jersey cows.

I've added both Sally and Liz to my sidebar so if you forget to bookmark them you can find them again over there.

And finally today, my friends, I have the recipe for my new muesli, asked for by Jules. It's simple and you can use whatever dried fruit you have in the cupboard.

3 cups of rolled oats - we're working our way through Quaker oats at the moment but we usually have the cheap Woolworths traditional rolled oats on hand.
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup flaked almonds
½ cup sesame seeds
dried fruit - as much or as little as you like. I used a small pack of dried peaches, two dried pineapple slices I had in the cupboard and a hand full of dried cranberries.

Mix it all together and that's it. Simple. I put the muesli in a bowl and pour milk on, then leave it in the fridge overnight. In the morning the oats are on their way to sprouting and the fruit is plump and soft. In summer you can just take the bowl out in the morning and start eating, in winter you can warm it up. I hope you enjoy making your own version of this.

Last Friday I linked to a forum post written by one of the members who is working on reducing her spending and doing the grocery shopping on, or under, budget. She wrote about using a calculator to add the purchases as she shopped which helped her come in under budget. But the sentence that really struck a cord with me was this: "... it felt so good to be taking more control and knowing that it is helping me to reach my savings goals." I smiled when I read that, I've heard it so many times before, I feel it myself.

I get a lot of emails from people who've consciously moved away from the mainstream idea of living above their means to become more frugal and pay off debt. This usually involves writing up a budget and working hard to bring in all planned purchases under budget so that the debt reduction plan moves ahead every week. The common theme in these emails, and I felt this very strongly myself back when I changed my life, is the feeling of control you get from carrying out and repeating these humble actions.

When I decided I'd had enough and would change how I lived, I stopped listening to advertising and just concentrated on what I was doing instead. I thought that if I stopped buying 'stuff' I would be better for it. And that is what happened. Look at me now, I ended up here, living a life I could barely dream of back then. When you turn off the advertising and stop caring what your friends are buying you realise you don't need the latest dress, shoes or phone and at the supermarket you stop buying convenience. That results in less money spent and more debt paid off. When you keep repeating that and actively try to reduce your cost of living without sacrificing your quality of life you're well on your way to living the life you want for yourself.

And instead you do something like I'm doing today - cooking a piece of corned beef in the slow cooker to use as cold cuts because it's much cheaper than buying them already cooked, sliced and cold. This week I'm making good quality ice blocks for Jamie too. I have one of my sponsor Biome's stainless steel icy pole sets and I'll be filling them with yogurt and fresh fruit, and making an egg custard and freezing that instead of looking for expensive good quality ice blocks. It's not as quick and easy as buying cold cuts and ice blocks, it takes more time and effort but I'm not prepared to pay for someone else to do those things for me. I'd rather do it myself, know what's in our food and pay less. I don't get caught in that convenience trap anymore and I'm in control of my own life again.

Advertising and the habit of convenience tells you to sit back and everything will be taken care of for you. Everything is for sale as long as you work enough to pay for it. And that creates a cycle that starts with you wanting the best for yourself and your family, you work hard to buy the things you need and want, and tiredness creeps in, you buy more convenience to get you through and then you have to work more to pay for it. I know it's difficult finding the time and energy to become more productive at home when you're busy with paid work or small children. The trick to doing it is to choose the right things to start with. It's a slow process of picking what will make the most difference in your life, starting with that and adding more as you go along.

I'd encourage you to start with making your own laundry liquid , then use that to clean other things in your home so you can stop buying those cleaners and save that money. Homemade laundry liquid will cost you about three or four dollars for ten litres and even the commercial liquids in bulk packs will cost between $4 and $6 per litre. It works and doesn't take a lot of time to make - about 15 minutes for ten litres and that should see you through at least two months, depending on the size of your family. It might be a year's worth of laundry liquid if you live alone. Fifteen minutes every couple of months isn't much. Combine those savings with shopping at Aldi and cooking from scratch as often as you can and you're well on your way to significant savings and paying off debt. And when you do, you'll feel that elation that taking back control of your own life gives you. You never get that when you keep buying 'stuff', you just get to work longer.