Our cashflow this year has been snug.
Irene and Denise, our wonderful financial advisers, read us the riot act about not having enough for retirement if we didn’t start funneling every spare cent into super immediately, so we’ve been trying our hardest to do that. But as a result, we have substantially less disposable income this year.
That’s ok, because even though I don’t like it, we’re really quite good at it. We’ve had lots of practice. And it’s very empowering – there’s a sense of achievement and control that comes with tightening the reins.
The first thing to go, of course, was fine dining. We’ll still have the occasional fancy meal with friends, but for the most part, $60 dinners have been replaced by $13 curries and rotis at Spice Alley. If I’m honest, that’s a win, because I far prefer eating there to anywhere else…
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Instead of buying large quantities of meat in bulk as we used to, I now haunt the “Save Me” section at our local Harris Farm Fruit Market.
There are spectacular savings to be had on high quality grass fed and free range meat nearing its expiry date. I won’t buy chicken or mince that’s getting too old, but I’ll happily come home with pork, lamb or beef cuts with a day or two left on them. They’re usually reduced by 30% – 50%.
I picked up a 2.2kg free range pork loin recently for $12.84 and turned it into two containers of stir fry strips, three boxes of pulled pork, a jar of lard, and two boxes of stock. That’s five family dinners’ worth. The rind was cut into small pieces and frozen to enrich future stews…
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For retail therapy, I’ll pop into Reverse Garbage once a fortnight with $20 in my pocket. That’s always enough for me to come home with craft treasures, like rainbow ribbon at $5 a bag…
Or a mountain of handbag vinyl in bright colours for just $14…
I made dancing ribbons and a windsock…
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…and the vinyl was paired with zips and pulls (also from Reverse Garbage) in these funky little pouches…
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We are blessed to have access to wonderful free art in Sydney, especially with the Biennale currently showing, and I’ve been trying to visit all the spaces before it ends on 11th June. My favourite so far has been Carriageworks and I highly recommend a visit if you have time. Marco Fusinato’s enormous installation is great fun, but be warned, the video below is loud!
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On Saturday, I popped into the Art Gallery of NSW to view their Biennale pieces, but it was hard to go past the huge John Olsen painting on the ground floor. I sat and stared at it for a while…
Reclaiming the Inner Space by Indian artist N. S. Harsha was very impressive – I liked it as much for her use of recycled packaging materials as I did for the design. The hand carved wooden elephants were particularly lovely…
The Art Gallery is a fascinating old building, with creaky parquetry flooring and hidden wings just waiting to be discovered. While looking for the Adrienne Doig tapestries, I stumbled across the Gallery library in the basement (complete with stern librarian). This piece appealed to me very much…
Indigenous artworks form a large part of this year’s Biennale, including these adorable creations by the Yarrenyty Arltere Artists of Alice Springs. They’re on display at the MCA…
…as are these elegant and touching burial baskets, woven by Ngarrindjeri artist Yvonne Koolmatrie…
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I’ve picked up the latest batch of stripey socks from lovely Richard (if you’re new, you can read about the socks here and here). As always, I’ve Napisanned, hot water washed and tumble dried them…
We delivered 120 sanitised socks to the Exodus Foundation for distribution to the homeless, and kept the rest to play with. Here are a few new craft projects to add to the list.
I cut rings from the socks and zigzagged them closed. They make brilliant elastic bands for holding beeswax wrap in place…
…and, as my friend Anita discovered, fabulous hair ties…
I created padded coat hangers using scraps of fleece and a pairs of socks…
An old idea worth mentioning again simply because it’s worked so well…after months of catching every oil drip and keeping my shelf completely clean, I’ve replaced the sock around my olive oil bottle…
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Lastly, Priscilla’s sourdough loaves continue to keep us all fed – at about 50c loaf, it’s something that we never need to scrimp on! And the beeswax wraps do such a good job of keeping them fresh, that we’re now wasting very little…
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It takes a bit of thought and creativity to live more frugally, but it’s so empowering. Do you have any tips to share with us?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
You are the queen of recycling and budget tips – I’m in awe. xxx
We eat a lot of Italian “cucina povera” which is what I grew up on. You can feed a family of four for $5-$7 .
Isn’t Reverse Garbage wonderful! We have one here in Brisbane too and it’s great for finding “treasure”. Love all your creative ideas! Meg:)
Yes you are the Queen and you do it very well, no grumpiness about it! Love the new sock ideas.Yes, you DO have to save for retirement…am retired and I KNOW this!!
Good on you. We have been retired 13 years and it is well worth saving for.
It is empowering to live frugally and well, as you exemplarily demonstrate. Anything you can cook, make, create, repair, reuse, upcycle, do for yourself is a money saver, and offsets discretionary spending. I am often perplexed at the cost of convenience… just last week I saw a small tub of pre-made take-home mashed potato in the supermarket quick dinners section, for $5. My freezer contents of leftovers make me a rich woman indeed! But a lot of frugal depends on perspective. For us buying a coffee out is a treat. However, we have a machine -a Jura Ena 5, over 5 years old- and we buy organic coffee beans online in 1 kg bags. I’m particular about ingredients, brands etc so buy quite a few household consumables online, in bulk, preferably at no or low postage. And I’m becoming more fan of certain items from Aldi. Something we’re just recently delving into is selling stuff we will never use on Facebook or Gumtree. I rarely buy books, never magazines. The online world offers more content, newsletters, blogs, free ebooks than I have time to read. A good way of looking at spending is to ask how much time did it take me to earn that money? Is it worth it, can I live without it/wait, do it another way?
Dale, I’ve just discovered I can borrow eMagazines through the online library. I am only interested in a handful like Earth Garden, delicious etc and I rarely ever bought them but it is great to have online access to them.
Yes! I’m still a member of Sydney of City Library which confers that benefit ☺
We’ll done – you’ve managed to make frugality look fun :)
Frugality is indeed empowering, and far less wasteful and kinder to the world. I think there’s mostly much greater pleasure in entertaining at home than in a restaurant, especially if friends then ask you over to join them for a meal! Bexhill is a small seaside town famous for its many charity shops. Some people dislike them but I love having a look around for things for the house, for fabric, for clothes I can either wear directly or fashion into something else. My best pal and I love surprising each other with Charity shop gifts…great fun and the small amount of money spent goes to a good cause!
I agree, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had in challenging yourself to feed yourself well for very little. My Ma was a master at this, and taught me how to extra the maximum benefit from the food I had, and to feel a bit embarrassed if I ended up having to throw out food because it hadn’t been eaten in time. Excuse me, I’m off to pick over the chicken carcass and then mend the Husband’s work pants – for the third time!
Love seeing your ways of frugal living and how it intersects with your attempts at sustainable living. It is inspirational as usual – one of my ways of keeping costs down is to ride my bike to work – less transport costs and I don’t need to think about joining a gym.
You are what I want to be, if I were to ever grow up. What an inspiration. Please let us know if you ever decide to sell the cute little leather bags.
I love the idea of repurposing socks to decorate coat hangers 😊.
I make just about everything we eat these days. It might be cheaper to buy certain brands but in the long run I reckon you save more money by eating quality food. Also, when people tell me what a bargain they’ve found (pouches of quinoa salad, for example) and then I work out how much it would cost to create my own with home-prepared grain and vegetables from the garden, it seems it is indeed most cost-effective to cook from scratch!
I too prefer eating at little “hole in the wall” type restaurants rather than fine dining. Our favourite Vietnamese place is always packed with locals, food comes out quickly and steaming hot, and everything is so fresh and delicious. If I close my eyes I can almost feel like I’m in a back alley somewhere in Saigon! I embrace the frugal lifestyle… I think it’s one of the best things I can teach my children – how to cook, and garden, and sew, and reduce consumerism for the sake of it.
Can I also just say how wonderful your little pouches are? I must make some time to go to my local reverse garbage – I haven’t been in awhile – and hunt through for some treasures!
I love your frugality posts Celia. looks like the socks are back too. You’re so inventive with all that treasure at the reverse cycle depot. I’m with you too on eating at the local Indian, or Vietnamese for a delicious meal out that doesn’t break the bank. The dining options have become ridiculous in Melbourne these days. The prices for wine have gone through the roof and on the whole, I can make better food at home whereas it would take me all day to make a variety of good curries for a Thali. I also refuse to learn much about Vietnamese cooking, as this is one treat I reserve for an outing.
I like to search out a bargain too- mostly in the land of food, and just before use by date is fine, especially for grass fed beef which is becoming so rare these days, you have to go to a specialty butcher. My grandchildren like a good beef casserole or ragu, and recently I went to Woolworths to buy some grass fed meat- a cheaper cut like chuck beef etc. No, none in sight. What has happened to the Australian beef industry while I was so busy for 35 years being a vegetarian? Only a couple of grass fed porterhouse steaks- all the rest came with the mysterious MSA tag, which says nothing at all about where or how it’s grown. Sounds like you have a reilable meat retailer.
We are recently retired, Celia, and my goal is to economize simply because we never know and at our age it’s important. You inspire me to think even more creatively. And Priscilla’s offspring Gidget keeps us very well fed, and makes excellent gifts! I’ve been ever so grateful!
I completely agree with the sense of achievement and empowerment that comes from making deliberate choices around where and how we spend our money. I find it a motivating challenge to find new ways to save and reduce spending while still spending on what I value. Thanks for sharing what you’ve been up to. You always have such inspiring things going on. I’m off to find a sock in the rag bag to cover my oil bottle.
Cheers,
Laura
You’ve shown again that being frugal can be a very happy way to live.
I’m enjoying listing our excess and no longer needed ‘stuff’ on eBay – cleared space and earned enough for our Wedding anniversary meal out. Score!
Great post Celia! You never know what is around the corner.We are close to deciding to revert to one salary after a decade of two incomes which is scary with two teenage boys and an 11 year old. One of our children has been very unwell with depression and needs a lot more support than I can give while working 4 days a week. I have been practising for the past two weeks to see if our family of 5 can manage on one modest income in Sydney. It’s not easy but your post is inspiring. Thanks so much
I have bins and bins full of upholstery sample squares that I rescued from the dumpster a few years ago, but have never been able to figure out what to do with them. Thanks for the idea to turn them into zip pouches! I will have gifts galore for years now.
You are so creative with ways to put things to good use! I can personally recommend the food at Spice Alley now. We had a discussion on the way home about where would we pick to take someone who was visiting and just couldn’t come up with anything like that. All so expensive and ‘wanky’ or dubious quality that we have experienced down here.
I just got a new sewing machine, it is a Singer Heavy Duty and I am so excited because on my first test drive, it was able to breeze through 10 layers of canvas (about the thickness of jeans). This means that sewing new cushions for the outdoor sectional will be easy! And I can make cool things out of leather or vinyl. Do you sell your beautiful little projects?
we use socks to keep bottles from clanging and clinking in the motorhome especially those all important wine bottles