Home made laundry liquid

In an attempt to further our frugality I decided to try making laundry liquid. 

Here is the recipe which I found at Frugal and Thriving. It works out to around 1c per load apparently (but I didn't do the calculation so you can either trust my second hand info from internetland or do the calculation yourself.. :P)

11/2 litres of water

1 bar of soap, grated (vegetable soap, homemade soap, laundry soap or lux flakes)

1/2 cup washing soda crystals (you will find it in the laundry isle)

1/2 cup of borax (also in the laundry isle)

• In a saucepan, combine some of the water and the soap and stir over a medium heat until the soap is dissolved.
• Add the washing soda and borax and stir until thickened.
• Pour the mixture into a 10 litre bucket and then fill with hot tap water. Stir to combine. (It will become like egg whites)
• At this point, you could add a few drops of your favourite essential oil for fragrance (eucalyptus or lavender are great).
• When cool, store in a plastic container.
• Use 1/4 cup per load

This recipe filled the three blue bottles, one Earth Choice bottle and half the nappy bucket!

I won't be needing to make any more for a LONG time! 

Reversible sling bag... with tutorial link!

I have been looking for a quick, easy and super cute bag to make for Christmas presents this year but have been a little daunted by tutorials with loads of steps and processes so I was delighted to find THIS tutorial over at Crap I've Made.

This bag took me around two hours however I think I could probably halve the time next attempt now that I understand the processes. I am a VERY beginner sewer so I imagine most serious sewers could knock one of these up in well under an hour.

I made a rookie mistake when cutting my black & white fabric and ended up with four panels instead of two however I was able to sew them back together and carry on as planned.

The tutorial warned that you will wonder how on earth you will be able to manage turning the whole thing right way round via the small hole in the strap but to persevere gently as it will happen... This prediction was exactly right for me as I thought I had stuffed the whole thing up during this process but like predicted, it did happen eventually! What a relief!

Next time I will give the strap a little more length but all-in-all I am very happy with this bag! 

Now I need to go op shopping again for more lovely vintage sheets so I can make some more!

Thanks to Cintia at My Poppet for being a constant source of sewing and general creative inspiration!

Apologies for the crappy photos. It was very bad light. iPhone no likey bad lightey!

It's good to be back... an update

Hello! Is there anyone still out there? I have been MIA, I understand if you've all gone AWOL.

Things have been rolling along since Richie's birth. He is 10 weeks today! I can't believe how time has flown! It's certainly gone a lot faster than the last few weeks of my pregnancy!

I've decided to do an update using sub-headings as my brain is full of thoughts and I don't want to forget anything...

Family

Richie Jack has settled right into life in our little brood and Molly (despite the expected adjustment issues) absolutely loves having a little brother. She loves him hard. In fact, much of the time I am trying to stop her from smothering him with her affection. I am truly in love with my son. He is the sweetest little boy and is so chilled out, only really crying when he needs a feed, sleep or nappy change.

Our household is in the midst of change right now as our lovely housemate is moving out as she is marrying her love in 6 weeks time. I'm so happy for her but will miss her so much. We interviewed a prospective new housey but decided after meeting him that we would like to have some time as a family unit. It was nothing to do with him. He was a lovely guy who would have fitted in nicely however it just wasn't sitting right. We can't really afford the rent on our own without using some of our savings however it really feels like the right thing to do so we are just going to have to make it happen somehow. Our lease is up in February next year so we would have to spend about $3000 extra if we were to stay here in our own until the end of the lease. If we did that, we would then find something smaller (a 2 bed unit or something) in the new year or find a new housemate to move in with us. I figure we will know what the right thing is at the time. Until then, we are going to be focusing on frugality and thriftiness in  big way. Stay tuned for more frugal living posts! I welcome any ideas for interesting ways of bringing some more income into the household.

I am meeting my half brother for the first time soon! This is extremely full on as he has been estranged from my father for as long as I have been alive. He's about 20 years older than me.

Home

With our housemate moving out comes the exciting prospect of playing "house tetris" and re-arranging our space!! Molly will be moving into our housemate's bedroom (with floor to ceiling wardrobes! Storage!!!), Molly's old room will be becoming our study, the front room will probably be a play room/guest room/second living room, we are getting a smaller fridge and dining table for the kitchen area as we have not had an indoor dining table since we have moved in! The place is going to feel so much better. I am also planning to get into the garden, grow some veggies and just generally make it feel a little bit nicer. Ahh! Home! :)

Parenting

I am trying to be more proactive with my every day engagement with Molly. During the end of my pregnancy it became the norm for Molly to watch a lot more TV than I am really comfortable with. I felt bad about this however I didn't feel it was fair to ask her to turn it off considering I was not really prepared to or capable of helping her find activities to fill her time. But now I am and I'm trying to make up for lost time :).. I have bought some craft books and we are choosing a few things to do each week. I'll post some photos of our creations as we complete them. This week's first activity is making a mini worm farm!

Friends

I have also decided to be more intentional about connecting with people in our community. I have started going to the gym and walking with a kinder mum and I've been making coffee dates with some of the other parents. I have met a lovely woman who has really similar values around social justice/environmental issues/community connection etc and we are having a cuppa tomorrow morning. Her house is amazing. Her family are renters but have a great relationship with their landlord and negotiated a secure long term lease in exchange for their family purchasing rain water tanks and solar panels for the house. It's a great deal for both parties. They also have an amazing veggie garden, chooks and they pretty much never buy anything new. I've also put our family on the waiting list for the Western Organic Collective. I don't know how long it will take to get in but I am really excited.

Health and Fitness

I've got some work to do!

This area needs a lot of work. I have fallen into bad eating habits. It's not my main meals- I still eat loads of veggies, yummy alternative grains, lean meats, fruit etc.. it's the extra bits and pieces. The chocolate, baked treats, ice cream etc that have crept back in and are stopping me from losing the weight I put on during pregnancy. I have about 20kg to lose. I hope to lose it by the end of the year. I think that is a realistic goal.

I have started working out again. I am gradually building up my weekly sessions. At the moment I am doing a circuit class at the gym on Tuesdays, Walking with my friend on Wednesdays, trying to get to the gym on thursdays to do my program and walking around the tan with my mum on Sundays. I would like to build this up to doing something every day eventually consisting mostly of running and weights as I know these activities make me feel really good and give me a really nice shape.

Craft

Molly learning to sew

Crafting is my new outlet. I have taught myself to crochet and am in the process of learning to sew. I get so much pleasure from reading craft books and perusing blogs for ideas. Stay tuned for pics of my creations! I am thinking of doing some giveaways. Anyone want a pressie??

If you're still reading, thank you! I love knowing that there are a few of you out there supporting me. Please drop me a comment and say hi! 

Much love!

xox

Money money money

I am hoping it will be fine  however I am beginning to have a little anxiety around how we are going to manage financially next year.

I have 10 weeks paid maternity leave from my work which I am taking at half pay over 20 weeks beginning in 4 weeks! (yikes!) So this will mean an increase in Centrelink payments (I hope). Then the 18 weeks of paid parental leave will start. And after that, we will be 100% reliant on Centrelink until I return to work in January 2012.

This freaks me out.

I know people do it all the time.. just, usually not US!

So.. the frugality will continue.. which is the way we want it anyway however it's nice to choose it rather than being forced into it.

The other thing is, out lovely housemate will be moving out mid next year as she is getting married so we are praying for the right person to come and take her place in our home. It really needs to be the RIGHT fit for our family. If you know of anyone wanting to live close to Melbourne city and who would like to join our somewhat chaotic household, please let us know!

If we don't find anyone we will have to move.. and probably to a teeny-tiny apartment. Which would not be ideal!

Anyway.. enough complaining... it's nearly Christmas!

Advent-ure and Christmas rituals we love..

I am unashamedly a lover of Christmas.. Of course, there are many many aspects of Christmas that I detest (mostly around materialism, wastefulness and greed), but the season itself, and how we choose to celebrate it brings me joy nonetheless.

Over the last few years we have been practicing being more frugal, wasting less, making more and giving truly meaningful gifts. We have also focused on creating family rituals that revolve around togetherness and fun. These are aside from the community and churchy stuff that we also do.

A few of these rituals include;
- Decorating the house with a Christmas tree and adding several home made additions each year. This year we have made paper chains, painted Christmas paintings and have hung the new (old) Advent calendar that was recently bought by my sister in law from the op-shop.

- Christmas cooking. This starts some time in early December (fruit "super" balls, gingerbread angels/stars/house, shortbread, fruit cakes etc) and finishes Christmas day with the baking of Christmas morning cinnamon scrolls and any lunch/dinner fare that we may be serving up. Oh, and a pav... can't forget the pav! Molly has requested a peppermint crisp topping this year after eating some at a friend's party yesterday. I am a traditionalist and like strawberries, kiwifruit and passionfruit but I am willing to be flexible so I may come up with a way to combine both! Fun!

- Women's Christmas brunch... now this sounds very "hoity-toity" however, it is really just an excuse for the women in my family to stop, eat, drink tea and gass-bag. Not sure when this is happening this year but I hosted it last year and I think the torch was passed on to the mother-in-law. Better confirm this soon!!

- Going to Nana and Pa's to put up their tree and decorate it. This is done at the beginning of December and the kids (although it was just Molly this year) receive a special Christmas-themed gift from Nana and Pa to use in the lead up to Christmas. Molly was given a cool sticker book this year.

- The advent calendar. This is a new one this year! It involves getting a lolly (yes, we do lollies.. it's Christmas after all!) and a written message with an activity to be completed during the day. Eg. Yesterday was "make icecream sundaes" and the day before was "go op-shopping with Dad". There are lots of funny and some more meaningful ideas, some of which I copied from one of my favourite bloggers Owlet. I will come back with some advent calendar activity updates as they happen!

So Christmas is a special time for us in our family.

What do you do for Christmas?? Why not write a post about it? I'd love to read it! Go on, go write one and let me know (in the comments) when it's done so I can steal some of your ideas share in the joy!

Ooh! 30% saved for the homebirth!

Every single time I see the % number change on that little icon over there ----> I get SO excited!

You see, I have never ever been a good saver... like.. ever ever!! And now that I have this goal in sight and that little gadget to do automatic transfers each fortnight I can see it coming together. I CAN save, I just need to have the motivation and the right tools to help me.

I am over 50% through my pregnancy so I am a little behind in my goal but I do have some back up money just incase we don't get there. I am assuming that we may (fingers crossed) get a couple of family donations which may top it up however I don't want to pin my hopes on it just in case that doesn't happen.

I have increased my fortnightly transfer amount to $180 and I have also been making random contributions when there is some spare money on my salary packaging card.

Fingers crossed we can get there without having to dip into our ever-dwindling savings...

Green, green, green for my little bean!

In an attempt to save $$$ and to bring a little colour into our lives I decided to dye all our tired old baby "whites"... Done in the washing machine, it was as easy as pie!! I am really pleased with the result.

Okay, so it looks like I'm obsessed with green.. but I do intend to dye more bodysuits in different colours... Going to scour some op shops for barely worn body suits!!

Dying stuff is fun!!!

Relief!!!

I'm shocked...

Had a call from C/Link today and it seems that they had communicated some information to us wrong and it turns out there is no record in the system of any debt that we owe. I don't have a clue how this has worked out but I'll take it! There's no debt!!

I feel like we can move forward now but are in a much more organised place and will be walking a better path. What a blessing!

I'm so thankful to God for helping us out of what was looking like a pretty sticky situation.

I do not take it for granted and am totally committed to our renewed enthusiasm for living frugally.

Budgeting... Old school!

I know everything will work out in the end, but.......

MAJOR STUFF UP!

Some of you (who follow me on Twitter) might already know that I have had a very full-on week... To cut a long story short, we have been overpaid by CL (for those of you playing along overseas- social security) for two years (!!) and now owe them a LOT of money...

This happened for two reasons:

1. J may have ticked a wrong box on his original form when applying for austudy and not realised he needed to report my income fortnightly, the forms are extremely confusing but an honest mistake was made- how this has gone unnoticed for two whole years is beyond me!? The strange thing about this error is that he has actually applied fot austudy online twice and both times was approved. Sound odd?? Yeah, I think so too. How could they not notice??! Is the "report partner's income" area that hard to find??! Maybe... I am going to try and complete the online for myself (without sending it off of course) and see where he could have gone wrong. He is an intelligent person and I just don't understand how this could happen twice.

2. CL systems are not linked. I have been faithfully updating my yearly income estimate and completed my tax return at the end of both financial years. CL actually have all my information in the system as we get a family payment. But because the systems are not linked, my updates were not noticed and J was getting the full amount of austudy. That particular part of the system didn't think our family had any income. Hmm... technology?!

So... we have a lot of sorting out to do! Of course I don't want to argue that we should keep the money. If we are not entitled to it we should not have it. However, it is a very large amount of money and it will completely clear out our savings if we pay it back in a lump. However, if we choose a payment plan, that gives us much less (read: not enough) to live on from week to week. I would like to try and work out what actually went wrong and why it took so long to pick up the problem. A friend has suggested legal aid however I do not want to dispute whether or not we should have to pay back the money. I know we should, it's not ours to have. The decision can be appealed, but all I really want is an apology.

CHA CHA CHA CHANGES.... FRUGAL LIVING...

We need to change our lives a lot now just to get by.

So this blog is going to change a bit... It's still going to be following my pregnancy but I also plan to document this whole thing and include our plan of action (ie. how we are going to make our lives work now on such a meagre wage- my weekend work and a little family payment)... I have written a budget and we are going back to an old-school cash in envelopes type of arrangement. Money comes in, it's divided up into envelopes and jars and we spend no more than what is in the allocated jar/envelope.
A few changes that we are making to begin with include:

• No eating out unless there is an occasion- even sushi and gyoza (cry!)
• Walking/cycling more places and leaving the car at home (I have seen quite a few preggie women cycling around and I think I'd be comfortable doing this for a while at least- on the footpath)
• No coffee out (cry!)- we will use our keep cups and make our own
• My gym membership is going (I have budgeted in yoga but may ask family to purchase some classes for me for my birthday. I really feel that I need something to help me get ready physically for the birth and to help me cope with the stress in my life (which is a lot right now)). The cycling and walking should do for my cardio.
• Having a budget and sticking to said budget- The homebirth is included as I just cannot sacrifice this.. (Contributions welcome! See sidebar! lol cheeky, I know)
• I have reduced my mobile phone plan to the minimum and dropped the insurance *gulp*. I had considered ditching the mobile all together as we have reliable internet at home now however I am on a plan and we can't afford to pay out my contract.
• No more random op-shopping adventures (double cry!). We are to shop only when we actually need something.
• Grow lots of our own salad greens and anything else easy that we wont kill
• Get our eggs from Mama
• Make two loaves of home made bread per week. No more shop bought bread. I always choose the expensive breads with alternative grains and I just can't  justify spending $7 on a loaf of bread any more (not that I really could before, but I just can't eat the supermarket crap). This will involve sourcing some good quality bulk alternative flours. Please tell me if you know any great suppliers.

After writing all this down, I can quite confidently say that this is how I want to live anyway (!!) (aside from the no cafe' coffee & gyoza thing) and I think this crappy thing that has happened to us may actually improve our quality of life. Wow! I just blew my own mind!

Little owl...

I just made this little friend for my yet to be born niece.. due any minute!

Cute hand crafted felt creations!

Found these treasures at http://katiecupcake.blogspot.com

I am sure I wont be able to create things that are quite this fabulous however I am going to give it a try! Gorgeous gift ideas!!

Look what I scored at the Savers 50% off sale!

Not a great quality pic.. A gorgeous Ripe maternity dress, a denim skirt and a long sleeveless cardie.. score!! All for $9.50!

Look what's on today!!!