Thrifty things at the cottage - 19 January 2016

My Abundant Life blog lists all the weekly frugal tasks that Wendy completes.  This is a great idea, so I thought I would start to do this too.

It has been a quiet few weeks as I am toilet training my last little boy.  I have tried not to schedule to many activities so we can stay at home.  Toilet training has been a bit of a nightmare, but we are slowly getting there.

Thrifty things for the week:

• Baked 24 apple and cinnamon muffins from frozen apples for lunches and snacks.

• Made 5 jars of Lemon Butter.  Recipe link here.  This is Rhonda's recipe from Down to Earth blog and it is fantastic.  I have already given one jar as a gift to a friend.  This was made with eggs from our chickens and lemon juice from Bush Lemons that I was gifted from a good friend and I froze the juice.  Lemon butter is delicious on toast or in a cake, tart etc.  

• Looked through the freezer at what I already had on hand for dinners.

• Made gift tags from Christmas cards received this year.

• Took my lunch to work each day.

• Made up and froze two rolls with leftover ham, cheese and chutney for work lunches.

• Bought packets of Christmas biscuits for .49c each at Aldi.  There are 5 individual packets of 3 ginger biscuits in each pack, which are great for school/work lunches or to take out with us.  I bought a few packs to check if we liked them and then went back to Aldi to purchase more.  They had 8 packets left, so I got about 11 packs for around $5.  I think they were about $1.99 each originally.

• Bought 3x packets of toilet rolls on good special at Woolworths.

• Bought a pre-packaged salad and mixed small tomato pack for 90% off.  Cost me $1.20 for the three and has lasted ages.

• Put my hand up to work a shift over the Australia Day public holiday.  Usually I would be working (but we are closed due to the PHL).  Will be good money :-)

• Picked up a box of jars from a local freebie site.  These will be great for gifts of lemon butter, jam and chutney.

Keeping it REAL

Because I am ALL about keeping it REAL.

Today had been a really fucked up, completely SHIT day.

Toilet training ANOTHER (and my final) child with Fragile X Sydnrome.  FML.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Things will get better - my mantra (it is true)

Goals for 2016

I don't really do new year resolutions as I find I never stick to them.

This year I am going to set us some goals to achieve.

Some are personal.  Some are family orientated.  I think all are achievable (with hard work).

Goals for 2016

• Purchase power saving LED lights for the house 
• Put $20 per week away for Christmas time.
• Investigate and seriously consider purchase solar energy and hot water
• Start walking 3x per week again (I haven't been doing this lately)
• Use my roller 5 nights out of 7 (My back muscles are very tight and this helps release them)
• Move our mortgage from ANZ to CUA (there is a story to this which I will write about another time)
• Do more "family outings" with the boys.  

And the biggie:

• Pay $30K off our mortgage this year (including our normal payment)!!! This is about 10K more than our current payments.

I may add to this list as time goes on,

Last year we achieved some great things.

• We adjusted to me working part-time and the loss of income that entailed.  We actually thrived with the amount of extra time I had to cook and plan meals etc.

  

Apple and cinnamon muffins

• We moved the chickens to the side of the house - they now have a big run and it is a much better position for them.  We don't have to worry about the dog getting to them either.  It's a great set up.

Our chicken run down the side of the house

• We got new fences.  Our old ones were falling down terribly.  It has made the place look so great.

• I got my veggie garden happening - it still needs more work but so far so good.  Tomatoes, strawberries, spinach, raspberries and blueberries, mint and passionfruit so far.  Soon I want to get cucumber, lettuce and other veggies in there.

Tomato, spinach and strawberry

Passionfruit, blueberry, strawberry and raspberry

• Got the twins into the intervention class for school preparation.  This was a really difficult programme to get into so I was very happy with this.
• I settled into my new job and love it.  I now feel like I'm part of the furniture :-)

We may have done other things but I can't remember off the top of my head LOL.  Most importantly we had a pretty good year.  There were some sad times - such as Rhys being diagnosed as being on the Autism spectrum (high functioning), which mean't that all of our boys have a diagnosed disability.  Some days are tough, but most are great.  Who doesn't have a tough day every now and again?

There were lots of great times - and that is what is important. Keep 'em coming too!

2016 - A year of happiness

Happy New Year 2016

I had an ok 2015.  It wasn't the best but against the previous three years, which were horrific for me, it was better.  For some of my friends, 2015 was horrific.  So here's to new beginnings.

I believe that this year will be a year of happiness for my family.  Of course no one can ever be 100% happy 100% of the time, but we can always strive to see the best in things - that is my aim.

I didn't make any NY resolutions.  But I have some goals that I would like to achieve.  Some are BIG and some are small, but they are all important.

I think it is a good idea to have some goals for the year.  I like to feel I am achieving something and having a goal makes me work a bit harder (and smarter) to reach it.  

I will post my goal list soon.

Someone I know commented to me the other day that I am always so happy and always have something happy to say when they chat to me.  They said it was really great that I had such a positive attitude considering all the difficulties I have.

How lovely is that!  It made my day.

While it's true that we have some difficulties and they are fairly major, I still think I have a great life.

And I really, really do :-)

Sure, some days are BAD - really, really challenging and I wonder what an earth I have done to deserve everything.  They are few and far between though and let's be honest, everyone has those days at some point now and again.

I know some people who look like they have great lives and actually they really don't.  It's all an image that they uphold.  Their real life is not happy, not loving and not fulfilling - sadly not at all.  

But they have lots of money, a fancy car and house and have a "great" job -  often as a Manager!!

Good luck to them!

BUT.........

My grass is looking very green at the moment which is pretty darn excellent.

Happy 2016!