down to earth

It might sound strange but it's a good idea to start off your debt reduction program by saving for an emergency fund, before you pay off your debt. Even if you can put aside $500, do it, put it in a separate account where you won't be tempted by it and leave it for unexpected emergencies. If you can get your fund to $1000 fast, do it, but have at least a $500 cushion before you start reducing your debt. You emergency fund will be a god-send if your car breaks down, you need new tyres, the dog gets sick or the children need something important that you didn't budget for. Having that emergency fund will stop you putting those unexpected expenses on your credit card. This is a way of preparing to reduce your debt. You will give yourself the best chance of success if you have that cash tucked away somewhere.

If you have only one credit card, find out what the minimum payment is every month and pay that, plus every extra dollar you have spare. It will be difficult at first but as you see the amount reduce every month, it will give you even more incentive to keep paying it off. You will see the light at the end of the tunnel. Don't be tempted to go back to spending when you reduce your debt. Keep going until you've got that final payment, then celebrate your success with the knowledge that you were strong enough to stand up to the banks, the department stores and your old ways, and you won!

If you have more than one credit card you can snowball your payments. This means you make a list of all your cards with the smallest amount at the top and the highest at the bottom. Make a list of all the minimum amounts and pay those minimum amounts on all the cards except the one at the top. On that one you pay at least the minimum, plus as much money as you can spare that month. Search high and low for a spare five dollars, search pockets and purses, just make sure you pay as much as you possibly can. When you finish paying off that first credit card, you concentrate of the second one on the list. On this credit card you will pay the minimum payment, plus the minimum payment you were paying on the first card and anything extra you can manage that month. This card will be paid off faster than the first card because you're using that extra payment from the first, now retired, card. And you keep on doing that - paying the minimum on all cards , plus as much as possible on the top card, until they're all paid off.

It sounds simple writing it down like that and I know it's not simple, or easy. But if you can do this, if you can dig yourself out from this debt, you'll put yourself in a much better position to live the life you want. Debt strangles you.

I have no doubt that while you're paying off your debt you will get a letter from the bank telling you that as you're such a good customer, they're raising your credit limit and please feel free to use the extra credit facilities they so kindly offer you. (gag) Always remember this: it is not in the bank's interest for you to pay off your debt quickly or completely. When you do that, they stop getting your money. They will tempt you, YOU will tempt you, you say you've been so good you deserve a reward. And yes, you do deserve a reward. But the reward you really deserve is to be debt-free. Never stray from that thought. Having no debt will set you free. I'm not saying you'll never spend money on what you fancy again. But when you get rid of your debt burden you will look at spending in a different light. You will know how difficult it is to pay back and you won't want to go back there again. So, when you get that letter from the bank extending your credit, write back and tell them to decrease your limit. If you used to have $5000, reduce it to $3000, when you pay off more, reduce it again. It will reduce your temptation in this period of debt reduction and as you're such a good customer you'll be given the credit you desire when you finish paying everything off, if you do decide to keep just one credit card.

Another way to save for debt reduction is to have a change jar. It can be anything like a jar or tin or old vase. Leave it in your bedroom and every time you come home, put your loose change into the jar. If you have any spare small notes, put them in too. It will quickly build up if you do it every time you come home. Don't raid the jar! It's not for spending, it's your savings and part of this debt reduction program. Every so often, or when you have to make a credit card payment - or a mortgage payment, take the jar with you to be counted and added to your payments.

If you have a lot of debt it will take a lot of will power to get yourself out of that hole. But it's not impossible. Starting is difficult - making those decisions to change always are, staying on target is difficult too but if you're reading this you're probably at the stage when you're ready to do it. Remember what I wrote about sacrifices yesterday. We all have to make them at some point. So if you're at the beginning of your debt reduction, or half way through it, I wish you the very best and hope you achieve what you set out to do.

Most people hate budgeting. I did too. I used to think that making up a budget would put restrictions on me and I didn't like the sound of that. But when we did up our first budget, I was surprised that instead of feeling restricted, I felt liberated. I knew we had money put aside for our bills and what I had in my purse and in the bank was available for spending. Soon after we started working to our budget, I stopped thinking about having money to spend, I was more concerned with not spending. I wanted to get off the consumers' bus and make my own way. I saw more value then in buying needs instead of wants and I still feel that way.

Before I write about how Hanno and I budget, I'd like to first write about money in general. Please remember that living simply is not about being miserable. It's the opposite of that. It is giving yourself the time and the opportunity to find happiness and to build it deep within your life. I like the idea of sacrifice, I liked the idea of having to give up things to help me get started. Giving up the things I'd always had was like a line in the sand for me; a definite point when I could say: THIS is me now, I am not a mindless shopper, now I buy things for a purpose. Those who have been reading here for a while will know I'm talking about giving up British Country Living. LOL! It's such a little thing but I loved that magazine, still do! I no longer buy it because that was my line in the sand - that was the point when my new life began. If I bought it again it would be a step backwards for me, a betrayal of my beliefs. In many ways it's my guage of authenticity. But that is me and you are a different kettle of fish. If you are struggling with your money, if you're in debt or saving for a deposit for a home, I have no doubt you too will have to give up things you love to reach your goals. However, if you are debt free and have more than enough money to live on your sacrifices will be more symbolic than practical, but significant and important just the same.

Most people know what they earn but very few can tell you, with accuracy, how much they spend each week. To work that out for yourself, you need to track your money. This is a real eye-opener. Get yourself a little notebook and pencil and take it with you every time you go out. EVERY TIME you spend something, write it and the price down in your notebook. If you buy an apple, groceries, a cup of coffee, a magazine - whatever, write it down. If you cheat on this, you're cheating yourself so please be accurate so you gain a genuine understanding of where your money is going. You'll have a bit of an idea after a week, after a month your spending patterns will start to emerge. Who knew that having a cup of coffee five days a week would cost you about $750 a year. That's an extra mortgage payment. Tracking your money will clearly show you that all those tiny amounts add up to a lot of wasted chances to be debt-free. I'm not saying that you give up all your pleasures, but there are sacrifices to be made, you decide what you will sacrifice. And always keep in mind your long term goals - to be debt-free, to be able to work if and when you feel like it, to travel, to help your children, or whatever your goals are.

When you sit down to do your budget, this money tracking notebook will be important. If you can't stretch your budget to cover what you need it to, go to your notebook and see what you can give up to pay your bills. Don't just look at the single price of anything, judge it instead by the price, multiplied by the number of times you will buy it in a month or a year. Along with Country Living, we gave up a few other things and pay TV which was then costing us about $80 a month - $960 a year. We've never missed it.

You all know I'm not a financial adviser, all I can tell you is how Hanno and I work out our budget and how me make it work for us. There are many other ways of doing this, but this is all I have experience with. When we first started, we got all our bills from the previous year so we had a good idea of what we spent on fixed bills like electricity, phone, internet, land rates, insurance etc. Our budget is a monthly budget because we usually do our grocery shopping once a month. So for our insurances - health, car, house etc, all of which are paid yearly, we divided each bill by 12 so we had a monthly amount. We did that with all our fixed bills - the electricity bill was quarterly so we divided that by four to give us a monthly amount. When we had worked out a monthly amount for every fixed bill we had to pay, we added all of them up to give us a monthly amount that we had to have in the bank to pay those fixed bills. For us that was around $800. Then we had to work out our cash spending for things like groceries, fuel, medical and medication costs and pocket money. For us that was around $650. So we knew we needed $1450 every month just to cover our every day costs ($363 a week). If you want a weekly budget, divide your yearly amounts by 52, or 26 for fortnightly.

We have a bank account where we transfer $800 a month for our fixed bills and we withdraw $650 in cash. That cash money is then divided up into ziplock bags labelled "groceries", "animal food", "garden and postage", "fuel", "medical", "bulk food" etc. If you want to use this kind of system, which is very easy and efficient, label your bags for the things you spend your cash on. So with your cash bagged up and the fixed bill money sitting in the bank, when your bills come in, you know you have the money there to pay and it takes the worry out of wondering if you'll be able to pay the bills.

Hanno and I have $50 each a month for pocket money that we can use however we like.

When we go out to do the grocery shopping, we take the money from that bag, and from the gardening bag if we need gardening supplies, or the animal food bag if we buy their food, and when we return with our supplies and the receipts, we put back the change into the bags in case it's needed again during the month. Don't leave it in your pocket or purse. We often have money left over in the bags at the end of the month, that money is put into our holiday fund or if we're not saving for anything, it just goes into the bank. When we have a sum large enough, Hanno transfers it to our ING online account, which gives a higher interest than we would get at our local bank.

Even though I used to think budgeting was a real horror, I now see it as a necessity and a bit of a game. You can do things like trying to reduce your grocery bill each month or decluttering your home and selling things on ebay or at a garage sale. That money can be used to pay off debt or go into your general savings. I guess my message here is don't let money control you. You take control and you will not regret it. Stop thinking "poor me", be proactive and deal with what you have in the most effective way you can. We all have to take responsibility for our own decisions, either now or down the track a bit. If you've been spending like a drunken sailor, giving no thought to your long term future, now is the time to stop, think about the life you want to live and start making the sacrifices that will make it happen. I'm here to tell you it's not half as bad as you think it will be, and the rewards, oh my, the rewards of sacrifice and budgeting are wonderful.

Please feel free to add how you manage your money. Sharing what you do may well be the one thing that helps someone else.

Tomorrow we'll talk about paying off credit cards, change jars, emergency funds and various ways to reduce your household costs.

When I first started living simply, I didn't know what I was doing. I had no plan and no recipe for success but I knew what I didn't want so in the first few weeks I just did the opposite of what I usually did. Eventually I found a few books that helped me. I read The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs, The Encyclopaedia of Country Living by Carla Emery, Your Money or your Life by Joe Dominquez and Vicki Robin, and I found an American forum that I eventually became an admin on and I helped start an Australian forum, all of them helped me start my brand new life. I wish I could have found one book that contained everything I wanted to do, instead I stumbled along doing what I felt was right and developed an idea of what I thought a simple life could be. Eventually I connected up all the dots and I'm now living that life.

In the early days most people writing about living simply were writing about the philosophical and financial aspects of living. Most of them, except Carla Emery, left the practical bits out. But to me, the ordinary day-to-day living parts were the real crux of it. If I didn't simplify how I lived it wouldn't matter how much money I didn't spend or how I thought about my life. If I didn't simply my daily life and all the day -to-day things I constantly repeated, what was the point?

Another big turning point for me was when I found blogs. Here was a wonderful unseen world where people wrote about things that interested me. I could see into their lives, get to know their families, understand how they lived and be part of a big neighbourhood that supported each other. When I found blogs, it didn't matter much that I didn't know anyone in my real life that was doing what I was doing, I felt comfortable here. Still, I didn't find many people living my dream life. I found blogs talking about global warming, lightening your footprint, going green and peak oil but none that wrote about how each one of us could do our own bit in our own homes doing ordinary things like changing how we shop, mending clothes and making do with what we have. So I dived in and started writing about what I was doing. I had already started writing a book and much of that then went into the blog. Writing everyday made me accountable and gave me a clear record of what I was doing. Slowly, my life took me by the hand and one by one I added things I wanted to learn. I was on my way. This felt right!

So what did I do? Basically I stopped spending, made a budget and stuck to it, shopped in a different way, started stockpiling, cooked from scratch, decided that growing the majority of our food in the backyard was possible, started making bread everyday, looked for ways to clean without chemicals, started sewing, mending and knitting, made soap and laundry powder and a million other things that although they came slowly and had to be learnt or re-learnt, are now all a normal part of my life and what define my days. I no longer struggled to earn a living to pay for food and clothes to be made for me, I stopped buying what was fashionable and went for the practical. I was over looking like everyone else, I couldn't be bothered with who the latest celebrities were or who they were divorcing, I stopped focusing on myself and came home in the truest sense. I started to fluff my nest and make my home warm, comfortable and inviting. I changed my life on purpose and while I was doing that, reinvented myself as well. Hanno was slower to realise this new direction was right for us, but when he did, he dived right in with few doubts. Now we are happier than we've ever been - the way we live encourages and supports that.

But the path is different for all of us. If you have a look at your mainstream friends, even though they're all living in the same way - with debt, convenience foods and keeping up with the Joneses, they all have their differences. This way of living is the same. My way of living won't suit all of you, you have to define for yourself what you want your life to be, then step by step move towards that life. You will probably have to give up much of what supported you in the past but that is replaced by the security of knowing deep down that what you're doing is good for you and your family.

Don't be fooled into believing that a simple life - or whatever you call it, is easy. It usually involves doing more work because you give away convenience and you trade fast for slow. And don't live your life according to mine, think about what you want and custom make the life you want.

No matter what the final version of your life is, it will probably involve some of these changes:

Thinking about what kind of life you want to live - this is a conscious thing, you don't have to stay the same as you are now
Controlling your spending with the aim of being debt-free
Learning how to look after yourself and your family, reskilling
Shopping in a different way
Eating healthy, local food
Growing some of your own food
Disposing of disposables
Green cleaning
Using your time wisely
Cutting back and making do
Looking after what you own
Making home your centre and connecting with your family and community
Changing your definition of success
Becoming independent - setting yourself free

Tomorrow I'll write about the thing we all hate - budgeting. Today, right now, I want you to think about your life and how you want to live. Get yourself a notebook and write down all the ideas you come up with. It doesn't matter if it doesn't make much sense, edit it later, just let the ideas flow. From your list, come up with a paragraph that describes the life you want. Then make some dot points of all those things you need to change to make that life a reality. That will be your starting point - you've just written the beginnings of your simple life plan. It's going to be an incredible journey.

Another year has been put to rest and now I'm popping my head up again on my first day of work. Hanno and I had a lovely rest over the holidays, although truth be told, we both had a cold. I picked it up at our Christmas breakfast, with lots of hugs from people I didn't know, and gave it to Hanno a couple of days later. Two weeks down the track and we're just both getting over it but it did us a favour really. It made us rest and sleep and take it easy and now- here we are a fresh as two daisies ready for whatever 2010 will bring.

Today, my plan is to let you know a few of the happenings here over the holidays and tomorrow I'll start my simple living series. The popular kitchen sink photos will continue, I still have a enough for a couple of weeks and then I'll be calling for more photos to be sent, so don't be shy, join in and show us your kitchen sink.

I love the end of the year. I don't like the hot and humid weather, although this year is another mild one for us, but I love the feeling that most of the year's work is over and it's time to sit back, rest, watch cricket and plan for another year. We decided to stop planting in our garden a while back. We wanted to rest the garden because of a couple of bug and disease problems that were starting to show. For the past month we've had no tomatoes, although a few are coming on now, and there hasn't been any lettuce, but we've been harvesting perfect black and shiny eggplant, heavy, juicy capsicums (peppers), sweet corn, zuchinni, enough beans to sink a ship, herbs, sunflowers and cucumbers. Last week we let the chook forage in there. Hanno took out a panel of the fence between the chook run and the garden and instead of letting them free range in the backyard, they can quickly pop into the garden and eat to their heart's delight. I've seen them eating grasshoppers and caterpillars and I know they're also eating bug eggs and scratching around aerating the soil and the compost and leaving little parcels of nitrogen. They'll be allowed to roam freely in there until we start putting the new garden together in March. I hope the sweet potatoes, herbs and pumpkin survive, they're all still growing nicely. While they're feasting on the old silverbeet, cucumbers and carrot tops, they're reducing the amount of work we have to do to get the garden reading for the new season and they're getting rid of more bugs than we could ever hope to find.

While I was watching the cricket, and in between those times when I nodded off for a while, I made a cotton cover for my steel water bottle. It's a simple thing, just cast on and all plain knitting with a crocheted circle bottom. I usually fill my bottle with cold water and when it evaporates drops of water slide down the side and onto my desk, it makes a mess. I sat the bottle on a dishcloth for a day or two, then decided to make the cover. I'm testing it out today when I go back to work and I hope it will absorb the water and dry out. I'll keep you posted on that one.

Yesterday Hanno and I drove into Brisbane to buy a floor rug and to spend some time with Shane and Sarndra. We found the rug we wanted, the last one in the shop, and then made our way to Coopooroo where we had a nice lunch of sandwiches and cold drinks. Shane and Sarndra have made themselves a lovely little nest there. Everything is set out well, it's nice and tidy, the wedding quilt is on the bed - all is good.

We drove back home and picked up Alice who stayed with Jens and Cathy while we were out and all walked in here about 3pm. We spread the rug out to lay down a non-slip backing and Alice decided it was her space. I'm sad to say that Alice hasnt improved at all since she ran into the creek in November. She has periods of breathlessness and sits panting on her bed. But she still enjoys her food and when we looked after Koda, her cousin, for a few weeks, they had a good time together with a little play every afternoon. It's what she used to do when Rosie was alive. But I have no false hopes that the future is bright for Alice. The vet has told us she has a heart valve problem and as she's 12 years old, she doesn't have long to live. So we are giving her treats and looking after her as best we can and hope to make these next few months comfortable and pleasant for her.

I woke early today eager for this new year to begin. Today I go back to work at my voluntary job. We move into our new building in a couple of weeks so from today we'll be planning, packing and measuring spaces for the new furniture and equipment we'll buy to go into the new centre. I don't know what else this year will bring but I have a feeling it will be a busy one and I hope it is full of interesting work and wonderful surprises. Thank you to everyone who left comments over the holiday period. Long time lurkers came out of hiding, that always pleases me a lot, and many new folk introduced themselves. Well, hang on to your hats, everyone. Let move forward together into this new year and prove what our grannies all knew, that with hard work and persistence, anything is possible.

Lettuce, bok choi and cabbages.

One of my fantasies when I was younger was to wander off into the bush and live off the land. In the 1970s, many young people thought that was an attractive proposition and while some did it, my life lead in a different direction. I guess the phrase ‘living off the land’ has a romantic ring to it but I had no doubt how much energy it would take and how difficult it would be; even so, I probably underestimated it by a long shot.

A green crossroad.

Full of vitamins C and A the purple top turnip. You eat the root and the green top.

A lot of time has passed since then and many of the things I once thought of as great ideas now leave me underwhelmed and with a wry smile. But not that notion – living off the land, I still look back to a life when I would have, could have and maybe, should have. I’ve kept chooks and a vegetable garden for many years now, not in the wild and crazy way I once wanted to do it - living in the bush and foraging for food, but the more sensible and productive option of growing conventional fruit, nuts and vegetables, and that, combined with chooks, suits me just fine. Now, instead of it being a crazy way to live, my understanding of living off the land is more holistic, now it really fits into my life.

These delicious lettuce grow well here during the colder months.

I have no doubt that if we wanted to put more time and energy into our garden, if we dug up more lawn to double the size of it, we could live off our backyard produce all year long. But we are getting older and the time and energy we wish to give the garden is what we give it – and that results in us producing about half the vegetables we eat and about one tenth the fruit. Many fruits and nuts take a lot longer to produce than vegetables. Bananas, for instance, take about 18 months to produce a good sized bunch here, and then that part of the banana has to be cut down to allow others to produce. Unlike oranges, they don’t produce for many years on the same tree. Our pecan tree took 12 years before it gave us the first nuts. We have an excellent Eureka lemon tree that has been a prolific producer almost year round for the past ten years. When it comes to choosing fruit and nut types, make sure your choice is the right one for your area because you will either hit the jackpot or be wondering when and if that tree will ever bear the fruit and nuts you bought it for.

Sugarloaf cabbages. These are the only cabbages we can grow in our short winter season.

And when you grow cabbages, cauliflowers or broccoli, you'll have white cabbage moth caterpillars. When we have only a few of these, we sacrifice the one plant they're on - they usually go for the weakest one. When there are a lot of them, like we have this year, we spray with the organic bacterial spray - Dipel.

But I know now that living off the land in our own backyard is possible for us and it's also possible in varying degrees for many people. If you list what vegetables you usually buy and work out a plan to grow those vegetables right there in your back yard, not only will it give you inexpensive organic vegetables, it will teach you the many skills you need to be successful at it and give you the independence and freedom of being able to feed yourself. If you live in a warm climate, you’ll probably have at least six months of growing time, if you’re in a colder place, maybe four or five months That is ample time to get in a few decent crops and to freeze or preserve/can your excess – spreading that backyard cheer over a longer period.

The celery is tall and starting to fill out.

The other day I read that in the UK, USA and Australia, vegetable gardening has recently increased 30 percent in popularity. While I would love to think that all those people new to the vegie patch were doing it because they have changed the way they live, I think it is the result of the global economical crisis. But for what ever reason you’ve taken to growing food in your backyard, it is a good one because I think it will teach you a lot more than you think it will. All of our ancestors survived because they had the ability to produce or gather their own food. It is a powerful and significant skill. Our survival doesn't depend on it now but the feeling you get when you pull those early carrots, dig your first potatoes or freeze an abundance of beans will be very close to self respect.

I laughed when I saw this photo. The white girl is Germaine. It looks like she's creeping up on Mary.

When we decided to live a more simple life, I wanted to use every asset we had to produce what we needed to live - our land was one of our major assets. So when it came down to it, I did live off the land and it makes me proud to know I can because learning to grow food also teaches you a lot about the natural world we live in, and that is always a good thing.

Have you started a garden this year?

[I'll be back tomorrow.]

If you're not already baking your own bread, I want you to think about doing it. Not only is it preservatives-free, it's cheaper, tastes better and it a great skill to have. Bread is one of our staple foods and in days gone past everyone, and I mean everyone, knew how to make it. Bread baking is just one of the skills we've traded for the sake of convenience - we give them our money and our independence, they give us back a loaf of bread (usually inferior to what we'd make) and the convenience of not having the bake the bread ourselves.

I know that many of you don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen baking bread. If you are one of those people, I encourage you to buy, barter, or swap your way to a breadmaker. It doesn't have to be new or fancy, it just has to knead the dough for you. Then you shape the loaf and bake it in the regular oven. Making bread this way will take you about 10 minutes in the various stages of putting the ingredients in the machine, shaping the loaf and taking it from the oven. Baking bread using a breadmaker does NOT make you an inferior cook. If using a breadmaker allows you to make your own bread, then go for it. Don't think you HAVE to make the dough by hand, it doesn't matter! The object of the exercise is to produce bread and if using a bread maker is how you do it, so be it.

I did a tutorial for hand making bread so you can try that if you want to. I added gluten flour to that recipe because it is a beginner's loaf and the gluten flour helps with the rise. You can leave it out if you can't find gluten or if you feel you'll knead the dough well enough without it.

In the posts here and here I'm talking about the cost of bread. If you can find a supplier of good high protein flour - or bakers flour - you will be able to produce loaf after loaf at a fraction of the price of store bought bread. BTW, the protein in bread flour is gluten so if you can't find high protein flour or bakers flours, use your plain all purpose flour and add gluten to it - ratio is one cup of flour to one teaspoon of gluten.

There are two more posts about bread making here and here.

There are thousands of recipes for bread and this is the one I used to make my flower pot loaves last weekend.

SOY AND LINSEED BREAD - MADE IN A BREADMAKER

First take two teaspoons of dry yeast and a tablespoon of sugar or honey, add to a cup of warm water and stir. Let that sit on the bench to prove (bubble up) while you prepare your other ingredients.

In this order, or the order described in your breadmaker manual, place in your breadmaker:

3 cups bread flour/bakers flour/high protein flour or plain flour with 3 teaspoons of gluten flour added to it. I used soy and linseed flour, you can use white, wholemeal, wholegrain or whatever flour you have.
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of milk powder -- if you have no milk powder leave it out

If you have no milk powder, add some milk as part of your liquid component. You've already got a cup of water that the yeast is proving in, when the yeast has bubbled up (therefore you know it's alive and will activate the bread properly) pour the cup of yeast water in the breadmaker on top of the flour. If you didn't add milk powder, add half a cup of milk. If you did add milk powder, add another half cup of water.

Now, here is where you have to use your common sense. Turn on your machine on the "dough" setting and let it mix all the ingredients for a few minutes. Stay at the machine and watch it. You probably need to add more liquid. I can't tell you how much to add because all flour is different and even the humidity in your home will effect the amount of water you'll need to add at this point. If the dough is too dry, start adding water from a cup in very small amounts. Let the machine mix it in well before you judge whether you need more. One of the skills of breadmaking is judging the right amount of water and I always poke my finger in to check it. You're hoping for a moist dough that has mixed in all the ingredients - you don't want dry dough and you don't want sloppy dough. When you're happy that you've got it right, let the machine do it's work. I'll just say that the amount of liquid you'll add will be between 1½ cups and 2 cups. How much of that extra ½ cup you add you'll have to decide.

When the machine is finished, take the dough out, sprinkle a small amount (one tablespoon) of flour on your bench and knead the dough into a smooth ball. You'll notice at this stage, the dough is elastic - if you pull a piece out, it's springy. Shape the loaf, put it in a greased or lined bread tin and let it sit in a warm place until the bread has risen. This will take about 30 minutes in a warm kitchen but up to an hour in a cool one. You could also put your tin on top of a hot water system, or in the sun with a moist tea towel on the top to help it rise. I used three flower pots and divided the dough equally into three portions and added them to the pots.

When the dough is doubled in size and has risen just above the top of the bread tin, place it in a hot oven. Preheat your oven to its highest temperature, then when you put the bread in, lower the temp to 200C (395F). Bake until you smell the delicious smell of bread and the top is golden. It will take between 20 - 30 minutes.

And that's it. Even though there are a lot of instructions above, they have been written for those of us who have little experience. Anyone who has baked before will just need the recipe and will go on with it. As I said, it will only take about 10 minutes in various stages.

The little flower pot loaves were baked in real plant pots, but they need to be seasoned. DON"T BUY CHINESE POTS and don't use old pots that have had plants in them. I think mine were 5 inch pots. Clean them thoroughly with soap and warm water, rinse well and allow to dry for at least 12 hours. Rub cooking oil into the pots and make sure you cover ever part of every pot. The oil will soak into the terracotta. Make sure you apply a good amount of oil. Put the pots into a COLD oven and turn the heat up to 180C (350F). Let the pots cook in the oven for 20 minutes, then turn the heat off. Leave them in the oven, with the door closed, overnight to cool completely. Next day, repeat that process again. When they come out of the oven the second time, they're ready to be used for baking.

You can bake anything in these pots. I have used them in the past for baking little Christmas cakes that I gave as Christmas gifts - still in the pot - and tied with a red ribbon. They were a real hit. But on the weekend I baked bread in them. I lined them with parchment paper, both on the bottom and sides, to make sure the bread didn't stick.

If you're not a baker, or if you're young and new to home cooking, I hope you'll try making bread. It will save you money and it's better for you because there is no preservative in home baked bread. But best of all, it tastes like bread should taste and you'll be gaining back your independence because you'll be able to provide for yourself.

I wonder how many of you are having problems with bread making. Are there many? Read through my tutorial and try the recipe above and see how you go with it. If there are a few still having problems making a decent loaf, I'll do a troubleshooting post in the next week or so and well see if we can work out the problems together.

Happy baking!

While the shops get busier with the excesses of Christmas shopping, my simple life continues at a gentle pace. It was a cooking and odds and ends day yesterday. I baked two fruit cakes, one for my family and one for a gift, and then made butter with local Guernsey cream for a batch of shortbread, also a gift. Hanno had a garage sale happening outside with the results of our decluttering over the past couple of months. Luckily we sold our old stove and oven and some other bits and pieces, and ended up making around $400. There was a constant stream of people and also tea being made and taken out to him, then, later, cold drinks with ice.

I wanted to get all my gifts organised yesterday. I don't give much now and I don't send cards at all, but those I do give to, are very special people. The gifts must be exactly right. I've been storing the last of the luffas from a crop earlier this year and yesterday afternoon I peeled and cleaned them. They've been soaking overnight with a little bleach added to the water as a couple of them were slightly mouldy. A luffa and homemade olive oil soap is a lovely combination and every time I give them as a gift, they're always appreciated.

Homemade soap is a real luxury. It's creamy and leaves my skin feeling clean and cared for. Most commercial soap doesn't contain glycerin, and that is what nourishes the skin. Usually the commercial makers extract the glycerin and sell that as a separate product because it's more valuable than the soap it comes from. That's why those soaps often make your skin dry and itchy. When you make your own soap, the glycerin stays in it and when you use the soap every day it gently cares for and nourishes your skin. Homemade soap, used with a luffa, is the perfect simple indulgence. Skin is the largest organ of the body and you should be careful with those products that touch your skin every day. Using an organically grown luffa from your garden, with homemade soap, is the most gentle and wholesome type of daily skin care.

This photo was taken in February of this year. Luffas are a hot weather crop and are harvested in this area in late February. We grew these next to our poly tank. When they're small and green you can eat luffas as a vegetable. They're pretty bland but, like eggplant, they take on the flavour of what they're cooked with.

This is what they looked like yesterday. I think I harvested about 30 luffas and these are the last of them. That hole at the end is where the seeds fall from.

Seeds and the peeled luffas. They look pretty ordinary at this stage.

They sat in a bucket of water with a small amount of bleach overnight. That was to kill the mould that was on some of them, but it also lightens the luffas.

And here they are this morning drying on the back verandah.

The addition of a good homemade olive oil soap makes this a wonderful gift for either a woman or a man.

I'll finish preparing my gifts this morning. I'm also baking bread, washing the floors and ironing. Things not sold in the garage sale will be boxed up and given to our local St Vinnies. This afternoon I'm writing letters and a couple of reports for work that have to be ready tomorrow afternoon. I doubt I'll have time to do them tomorrow.