It's the little leaks that are the problem..

I'm getting pretty good at saving up for the more expensive (say $100+) purchases, but boy the little amounts add up quickly..

I just added up the unbudgeted expenses I know we have coming up next month. It's mainly $10 here, $20 there (mostly for homeschooling activities), but all up there's $100 that's just not budgeted for.

No wonder I'm having trouble balancing the budget!

I've made a list of the amounts I know about, worked out where I can cut to get the money and stuck the list to the fridge to remind me to not spend anything other than that!

No more spending!

I've been catching up on our finances the last couple of days, transferring money from savings to pay for our holiday and realising what a dent it's made in the account! One of the worst things about taking a holiday when you're self-employed is that not only does it cost you money but you don't get paid while you're away :( Double-whammy :(

We used the credit card a lot while we were away just so we didn't have to carry large amounts of cash - we didn't go much over budget - I was roughly estimating $100 / day and it cost us around $120 / day. However it's been too easy to just keep on using the card since we got back, and I'm sure we've bought things we could've done without, just because we "put it on the card".

Add to that the uncertainty of Pete's work atm - they've offered voluntary redundancies with a chance of forced redundancies after that - and it's time to take the head out of the sand, buckle down, use lots of cliches and stop spending! I'll be trying to spend only on essentials until the end of January (hopefully longer).

I'll be using twitter to log how I'm going - I'm not really sure how you "follow" me using twitter, but you can see it on the right on my blog.

Book Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I read a lot of books, both fiction and non-fiction. I like to think I learn something from every book I read - yes, even the "trashy" romance ones!!

Every now and then though, a book comes along that totally inspires and changes the way you think about your life. "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver did that for me.

Subtitled "One Year of Seasonal Eating", it's about the author and her family's year of attempting to eat only food from the local area. Some of it they grow themselves, some of it they buy from local markets. Some foods they have to give up altogether! They live seasonally - eating what is in season locally rather than something that has been shipped half way across the world.

It combines factual investigations as well as anecdotes about their life and recipes but is a really easy read. The descriptions of their gardens, cooking and pantry were making me drool!! I'm now on my 2nd read before it has to go back to the library, and will be putting it on my present wish list!

I particularly liked the fact that I could relate to their family - they still ate meat, and they worked other jobs as well. "Real life" continued while they changed their lifestyle to eat locally. It's certainly given me a lot to think about and I've already started making changes to the way I shop.

$21 & 'no supermarket' challenge explanation

A couple of people asked for more information on the challenges so here's a more detailed explanation.

The $21 challenge was created by someone on the Simple Savings site (see banner on the right). You use this in an 'oh no I have no money until next payday and need to feed the family for the week' situation! The idea is to use up what you have in your pantry / freezer and stretch it as far as possible. The tin of chickpeas you bought when you were on a health kick, the meat that's worked it's way to the back of the freezer etc - time to haul them out and see what you can make.

The first step is to inventory what you have - go through your cupboard, freezer, fridge, fruit bowl etc and make a list of everything that can be used to make a meal. Then get creative and make a menu plan - remember Google is your friend :) Look for substitutions for things you think you need - if you think outside the square you can really stretch your food.

Then work out the things you absolutely *have* to buy and try to keep it to as little as possible (in the case of the original challenge the limit was $21). That's it - stick to not buying anything else for the week and you'll succeed.

It's not something you can do all the time - generally the meals lack a bit on the nutrition front - and certainly in my house, the peasants revolt after a while :)

***

The 'no supermarket' challenge has a different purpose. You won't be able to do it unless you have a bit of a stockpile. The idea isn't necessarily to save money (although that can be a handy side-effect) but to challenge yourself to be more self-reliant, and to avoid paying money to the big corporations. Ideally I'd like to get to the stage where I could go an extended period without buying food, but until the garden is producing and my stockpile is bigger, it's baby steps.

So my challenge is to not go to the supermarket for 4 weeks. I'll be using what I have at home, and if I need anything else I can only buy it from local shops. So I can buy from the fruit & vege shop, butcher, and the small independent servo. Oh and I only have $20-odd to do so lol

That's my rules - feel free to adapt it to your circumstances. I shop fortnightly, so I'm just doubling the normal time I usually go - if you go to the supermarket every couple of days, try to extend to a week. If you shop weekly, try to extend to 2 weeks etc.

Let me know if anyone decides to take part - I'd love to hear how you go.

***

BTW, there is a truckie's strike happening from Monday next week. Opinions vary as to what the effect will be, but it mightn't hurt to be a bit prepared.

Extreme $21 - final update & No Supermarket for 4 weeks challenge

A final update on the extreme $21 challenge - we did it! I'll review the recipes tomorrow when I menu plan for next week, but it went well. It cleaned the freezer out of lots of bits & pieces, and got me being a bit creative especially by the end of the fortnight.

And now for a new challenge.

On Friday I ordered a bulk meat pack from our butcher - I'll pick it up on Wednesday. I'm "borrowing" the money from our bill account (there's enough in there to cover it) and will pay the account back each month. I went shopping today and spent $80-odd on staples - flour (16kg!), cheese (1kg), butter (1.5kg), a couple of whole chickens, some fruit & veges etc.

So my goal is to stay out of the supermarket for the next 4 weeks. I still have about $20 that I can use to top up with fruit, veges, eggs & milk if I need them - I can get the fruit, veges & eggs at the fruit shop, and the milk at the servo so I shouldn't need to go near Bilo or Aldi during the time.

Does anyone want to join me?

Extreme $21 challenge

"Welcome to the extreme $21 challenge. Watch Kez try to feed her family with $26 for the fortnight!"

Due to a bit of runaway spending on the credit card (I'm only guilty of too many fruit trees!), as well as a client who thinks its ok to pay their invoices whenever they like rather than when we want them paid, we really have to tighten the belt for the next month or so. If you haven't heard of a $21 challenge, the idea is to feed your family for $21 for a week by being creative, and digging into the pantry. I'm extending that - I've raided the coin tin, the console in the car and anywhere else I can think of, and I'm going to try to feed us for the next 2 weeks on $26.

I have to cater for 12 dinners, plus lunches. (we're not home for the other 2 dinners).

In the freezer I have:

* cocktail frankfurts (probably 500g worth)
* 1 lot casserole chuck steak
* 4 lots of mince
* 1 lot of sausages
* 2 lots of sandwich steak

So 9 meals there, more if I can stretch it out. Very "meaty" though so I want to buy some chicken to alternate.

I have 15 eggs so that can do a couple of meals. Pete is very much a "need meat" man so I can't feed him too many non-meat meals, I just have to sneak lower meat in!

Fruit & vege wise - I have a bag of oranges, a couple of apples & tins of fruit so that should be adequate. I have about 10kg of potatoes, frozen peas & cauliflower, a couple of ears of corn, a few carrots & tomatoes, heaps of tins of tomatoes and a tin of corn if I get desperate. So we should be right there.

Here's my shopping list:
* 3L milk
* cheese
* butter
* chicken - will try to get 2 whole chooks, 1 to roast & then use for lunches, and the other to cut up into pieces.
* cream (to make ice-cream)
* yeast (for bread, rolls etc)

Prices have gone up so much lately esp for cheese etc that my price book is way out of date, but hopefully I'll be able to do it.

Stay tuned :)

Food

In an earlier comment Miserly Mum asked what sort of meals we eat - huge apologies for not getting back to you earlier!

In a nutshell, we're basic, meat & 3 vege eaters. Pete is doing the CSIRO diet atm which is high in meat, low in carbs. I buy mostly staples and we eat very few processed foods. Bear with me while I take a small meander down memory lane and see how far I've come.

Growing up, Mum worked hard and wasn't really into cooking - meals were more fuel for our bodies than for enjoyment. So when I left home and moved in with a girlfriend, I was a pretty hopeless cook! I was working full-time & going to uni at night, so meals pretty much consisted of cereal, toast, pasta, frozen foods and take-away! (Needless to say I put on a lot of weight during that period!)

Things weren't much better once Pete & I got married - consider the scenario - 2 non-cooks, lots of disposable income, living within 5 mins drive of most of the take-away chains! We were getting pizza delivered several times a week at one stage - I shudder to think of it now! Our idea of cooking was to put frozen pies or cardboard fish, and frozen chips in the oven.. Or if we were feeling *really* adventurous, we'd brown some mince, open a jar of pasta sauce & cook some pasta. On the odd occasion I would cook a roast dinner - on the *very* odd occasion!

8 years ago we built & moved into our current house. We suddenly had a big mortgage and were living further away from the fast food chains. I had to learn to cook all of a sudden! I can't really remember what we ate, but I think it was still a lot of processed foods - jars of sauce, frozen pies etc. We'd slowed down a lot on take-away though and were learning to cook.

5 years ago - now down to 1 income, with a baby that would.not.sleep!! I stumbled across the Failsafe diet. I've no idea why it took me that long since my sister had been involved with it with her girls from very early on but in my defense she was on the other side of Australia and we didn't keep in touch much at that time. That got me more interested in cooking from scratch. I also found the Simple Savings website somewhere in that time - I wish I could remember when. From there I learnt lots of new skills & recipes - I didn't even know it was possible to make some of the staples that I found recipes for! From a eating healthy / being frugal interest, it's now broadened to encompass being mindful of our limited resources as well - and gotten me more into gardening etc. It's really just spun off (out of control??! Lol) from all of those.

Now we very rarely eat processed food or take-away. I make most of our bread & buns from scratch (I love yeast-cooking!), and all of our tortillas. I mince our own meat, make our own jam, sometimes make our own ice-cream. I make yoghurt with the Easiyo sachets - I haven't attempted to make it from scratch yet! I like to give myself some slack - I enjoy it if I choose to do it, but if I *have* to do it, sometimes it just becomes too much like a chore. I got a dehydrator for Xmas so have been using that to dry fruit when I have excess. I make most of our sweet stuff - cakes, biscuits etc, but I haven't found a savoury biscuit recipe that I can make work!

I'm actually struggling to remember what else I do, because it's such a habit now! I have at various times made my own coconut milk, my own yoghurt cheese, my own butter by whipping cream. These ones are things that I may not choose to do all of the time, but it's a skill that I know I could do if I have to and comes in handy when the cupboards are bare!

I still buy things like Thai curry and Tandoori pastes just because it's more cost effective at this stage to buy a small jar and use it every now & then, than to buy a whole heap of foreign ingredients! I haven't attempted my own tomato paste yet but it's on my list next time I have lots of tomatoes.

I buy some of our meat from the butcher (he makes awesome ham, bacon & sausages) and usually pick the rest up (beef & pork, we don't eat lamb) on specials at the supermarket. I usually just stock up on specials rather than buy marked-down meat - I've been burnt a few times with off meat so I rarely take the risk. I usually get chicken from the Steggles outlet shop near us. We're trying to eat fish once / week, which I'll either buy frozen from Aldi or get from the fish markets if we're near it - it's an hour away.

I mainly get fruit & vege at a local f&v shop, but will sometimes pick them up at the supermarket if I'm short on time (or energy!). I used to be the "peas, carrot & corn veges" and "ice-berg lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber salad" type but am trying to be more adventurous with what we eat!

So basically, it's been a slow process, but if I can do it - anyone can learn :)

If anyone else would like to share their journey, feel free to link in the comments. It's heartening for those starting out to realise that not every one was born with a wooden spoon in their hand!

end of No Spend Month

I made it to the end! No spend month has been pretty much a success. I saved $50 from the grocery budget last fortnight so I'll be able to put that towards vegetables for the garden. I forgot to record it for the last week or so (I've been suffering from a distinct lack of motivation lately) but I think the only blowout was having the parents in law over for lunch at Easter. It wasn't too bad - they bought a chicken & buns, I provided salad & hot cross buns (homemade) so that was all fine. I forgot about buying soft drink though so had to send Pete for a last minute trip to the servo - $13 later. Ouch!

I also saved about $40 of my own sanity money and $50 in petrol money - that one was more good luck than good management as we didn't go far over Easter.

I'm pretty pleased with it though!

No Spend month Day 18

Monday - grocery shopping today. $94 for groceries, fruit & vege to hopefully do us for the fortnight. I'll probably need to buy some ham at the butchers later in the week (our butcher makes the nicest ham!) I've taken the rest of the money out of my wallet and tucked it away so it won't get "accidentally" spent..

Tuesday - I sucked!! I'm blaming hormones :( My hair was driving me insane needing a cut - I was seriously considering grabbing the clippers and giving myself a #2! I still haven't heard back from the LETS lady to organise a time to cut my hair so I succumbed and went to the hairdresser.. $23 later - but boy it felt good!!! My morning had been really busy and frustrating - everything I touched went pear-shaped. I was dropping things, burning things etc etc.. Once I dropped Billy at drama I had to go and buy Easter eggs for the Easter bunny to deliver - and I was powerless to resist the diet coke & chips that jumped into my basket :( So all up $28 I needn't have spent yesterday.

Onwards and (hopefully) upwards!

Another thing to strike off the shopping list - coconut milk..

I wanted to make a thai curry on Friday night but didn't have any coconut milk. I remembered reading somewhere that you could make coconut milk from dessicated coconut so I did a bit of search and found you could!

I found multiple ways of making it - the simplest being just to soak the coconut in boiling water and drain it out to extract the milk. I ended up using this one from Recipezaar (because I like to find the most complicated method possible lol):

Ingredients

8 ounces desiccated coconut(dry)

3 1/2 cups water

Directions

1. In a medium-sized pot, place dessicated coconut and water.
2. Mix and allow to soak for ½ an hour.
3. After ½ an hour, turn heat onto low and bring to a gentle simmer.
4. Simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.
5. Turn off heat and leave pot on element for ½ an hour.
6. After ½ an hour, transfer coconut mixture to blender or processor and process for 45 seconds.
7. Put a large sieve over a bowl and empty coconut mixture into it.
8. Press down hard on coconut solids with the back of a spoon to remove as much coconut milk as possible.
9. This method produces approximately 2 cups of coconut milk.
10. Can be made up to 2 days before use in a recipe and refrigerated, covered. The milk will separate in the fridge, forming a creamy ‘fat’ layer on top, and a thinner ‘liquid’ layer underneath. Not to worry, the fat layer will melt into the liquid when heated and form a lovely milk.

It looked like coconut milk, smelt like coconut milk and tasted pretty darn good too! I don't know if I'll stop buying the tinned stuff altogether but it's nice to know I can make an alternative out of the pantry.

Oh and I used the coconut to make a coconut cake today, so the coconut milk was basically free!

No spend month Day 16

Wed - stayed home.

Thur - packed yet another picnic lunch to take to the park with a homeschool group! Paid $15 for a book I'd ordered last month.

Fri-Sun - home - no spend.

I've made it through this week without buying groceries! I had to soften some butter by mixing it with olive oil to make spreadable butter for the week, and I made some coconut milk because we didn't have any and I was craving Thai chicken curry but everything else has been pretty normal.

The Story of Stuff

I just watched this quick film - http://www.storyofstuff.com/ - after I read about on Libby's blog (http://libby.withnall.com/2008/03/11/the-story-of-stuff/). Certainly some interesting stats in it - very alarming to hear some of the figures, and interesting to hear about the planned obsolescence. If you're watched it what did you think?

No spend month Day 11

Saturday - filming, lunch was provided so no-spend. Tick.

Sunday - stayed home so no spending. Tick.

Monday - Pete's on a course this week with work, so his lunch is provided. That will save some money on packing lunch for him! Tick.

Unfortunately we had to pay a toll fine for the trip we made to Sydney last month - apparently we somehow went through an eTag Toll Booth and since we don't have an eTag we got charged the $1.30 toll AND a $10 "administration" charge.. Not happy Jan.. Especially since the eTag spot was on the entry ramp between 2 free roads so we didn't actually travel on any toll roads at all :( Cross.

Tuesday - a few essentials - parking, chiro, health-food shop. Unfortunately we were out for the day and I couldn't be bothered making a picnic lunch - I've made too many lately :( So we went to Hungry Jacks for lunch :( In my defense I did plan it, and it was paid for out of my allowance but still.. Cross.

No spend month Day 7

Thursday - meat & eggs - $78.35. There's at least 16 meals worth of meat there, so I shouldn't have to buy meat or chicken for a few weeks. I did manage to escape from the supermarket with only that - despite having a 5 year old with me! I've turned into mean mummy (again)!!!

Friday - a quick trip to Aldi for essentials (bread, milk, cheese, flour etc). Oh and 2 packets of wafer biscuits for Billy (65c each - $1.30) as a treat for a good week. $18.60. That's the grocery budget for the fortnight gone now - no spending next week on food at all, but we shouldn't need anything. We have enough meat for a couple of weeks so with a bit of planning I should be able to save a lot next fortnight. Today was the 1st day in absolutely ages where I worked out the prices *before* I went to the shops, so I could adjust it according to the money I had to spend. It got reworked a few times before we went to fit the most in!

Must . be . strong..

Digger's seed catalogue arrived.... *drool* ..... Must not buy.....

Send me some "be strong" vibes please!!!!

No spend month Day 5

Monday was a successful no-spend day. All I bought was chicken from the outlet chicken shop, & fruit & veges from the greengrocer. I'm trying to avoid doing a full shop until at least next week - unfortunately for the rest of the family that means powdered milk to drink! (I don't mind the taste so it doesn't worry me at all - that's all I have in my tea now anyway). I will need to buy meat later this week, but have found a couple of meals from the freezer. With Pete being on the CSIRO diet (low-carb, high-protein) atm, it makes it hard - I can't just fill everyone up with pasta or rice :(

Tuesday - all I spent was $10 for sheets at the op shop (and you'd agree they were essential spending if you saw our current set!), and $3 for parking at drama - the classes are in the CBD so I can't avoid parking fees. I usually go to the cafe next door while Billy has his lesson and buy a drink and something to eat - not necessarily because I'm hungry but just for the chance to have an uninterrupted snack! Instead I took the thermos that Mum & Dad gave me for Xmas on it's maiden voyage! (After burning my hand AND my tongue I now know that it keeps the water quite hot lol)

Today we stayed home so no spending.

Boo on yet another interest rate rise :(

No-Spend Month

I know Simple Savings had their No-Spend month in Feb but I'm a bit behind the times! I'm declaring March No-Spend month for me. I'm sick of playing catch-up with money all of the time - I have a list of things that we've spent over the budget this year and extra money is going to pay for stuff we've already purchased - rather than saving for it and then purchasing. I want to try and build up a buffer and not get further behind.. It's not helped by the majority of my clients thinking that "We appreciate your payment in 14 days" on the invoice doesn't apply to them :(

So nothing non-essential this month. So far we haven't been anywhere in March which helps! I saved probably $30 by NOT going to the craft show yesterday! I was going to have a haircut tomorrow but have just trimmed the bits that were annoying me and will wait & get it done by a LETS member when I get a chance.

Got to go and pack snacks & drinks to take to storytime!

Update

I've been rather sporadic with updates since I'm not spending much time on here, so here's an update of what's happening in our household..

House: The house is starting to look great - if I do say so myself lol. I've been trying to tackle an area every day and declutter / tidy / clean - even if it's one shelf. It's gradually making a difference. Last week (I think it was), I tackled the spare room - it'd been used as a junk repository since about Nov last year. You couldn't even walk in there :( It took me a couple of days of working on it but it looks fantastic now. On Sunday night I got Pete to move the dead microwave out of the kitchen - I've decided not to replace it, so that left me with a spare shelf. I reorganised the kitchen a bit and inspired by Joyful Keeper's post, I took everything off the main part of the bench. It looks great and makes that area so much more useful.

Garden: Seeing me poring over the Digger's club catalog & Jackie French's book, Pete commented that I was "back into the gardening stuff".. :) I have a list of seeds I want to buy - I'll order them after this. I don't have a gardening category in the budget as yet - I'll have to take it out of the household stuff, but I want to keep track of what it's costing and see if I can recoup it out of the grocery budget once it starts producing.

Our fruit trees are really overgrown with grass so I spent a couple of hours yesterday out weeding (and being eaten alive by ants :( ) - I got 2 trees weeded and mulched with the lucerne hay I got the other day. 7 to go! (or possibly 6, I think one citrus is dead and it's just the tree that it was grafted onto that's still growing - not sure what it is but it's dreadfully spiky!!). I'll try to get some more done tomorrow if the weather co-operates. Billy built a flower garden while I was doing that - not sure if anything will grow but he enjoyed it :)

Finance: Our building society just raised mortgage interest rates again - I'm going to have to squeeze the budget a bit more to find the money.. We're not about to lose the house or anything, but it will start meaning some more sacrifices if it keeps up. I'm really hoping this ends soon - I just cannot imagine how some people are coping. I was pleased to see the govt is talking about introducing measures to reward people for saving and to cut their own spending - about time!

School: We started school back last week. We spend a little bit of time in the morning on "formal" stuff, and then the afternoon is free play, cooking, computer time etc. The great thing about this time of year is the school holiday activities that are on everywhere. So far he's been to a hands-on science show run by the CSIRO, a fantastic storyteller named Bronwyn Vaughan who dressed up and told multi-cultural stories and a claymation workshop run by the Art Gallery. I was really nervous about how he'd go with that - it's the first activity that I've actually dropped him at and left (I felt like the first day of school!) . It went from 10-2, he was the youngest student - they worked in groups and he was in one with 3 pre-teen boys (and an instructor), but he lasted the day (I left my mobile no just in case). They'll be sending out the results of their animation on CD - I can't wait to see it. I know the story their group was doing was something to do with Pinocchio not cleaning his room, so I can see my child had a hand in the script-writing lol.

On Friday we're going on an Aboriginal Bush Art walk run by the National Parks to see some aborginal art and learn how they do it. It'll tie in well with our theme atm - we're doing Australia. His drama class starts next week - he's really looking forward to it!

Me: I'm trying to have some quiet time for me each day - I'm being anti-social and going into a room where there is no tv going and having a quick break. I'm breaking a lifetime of conditioning and sitting down with a book! (My mother is simply incapable of just sitting - she *has* to be doing something. I think that's why I got into the habit of using the computer as a break - it was "working"..)

I think that's all that's been the main things going on. I'm sure I'll think of something more as soon as I hit Publish Post though :)

Dehydrator results

My husband cleverly bought me a dehydrator for Xmas (after I told him exactly what I wanted, the model, how much & where to buy it from lol). I tried it out yesterday and today. Yesterday, for it's inaugral dry, I made potato chips (typical of me!) - cook potato, mash with milk, salt & pepper (I also added a small amount of Massel chicken stock), and spread on the drying tray. 12 hours later - voila :) They're not too bad actually - not a bad substitute for the real thing. I think the Gobbledok would approve (ok, who remembers the ad??! Chippy-chippy-chippy lol).

Chips before being broken up (or a big chip doughnut!)

Chippy chippy chippy!

At the fruit shop yesterday I picked up a bag of bruised apples for $1 - today I made dried apples. They taste delicious!

Not a bad haul for $1 worth of apples!

2008 - Time to work smarter, not harder!

For the past few weeks I've had thoughts running around in my head about next year. My motto for the year will be to "work smarter, not harder". I tried working harder this year - all that happened was that I wore myself out & disrupted the family - and I don't know that we're much better off.

Here I sit at the end of another year and I am literally exhausted. Mostly mentally, although physically as well as I'm not sleeping well due to stress. Financially we are doing ok, but there is certainly room for improvement. I've been too busy to watch the pennies and they've been getting up to all sorts of mischief :)

My plan at the start of this year was to start ramping up the business so that when Billy went to school in 2008, I'd be able to work full-time at home, finish paying off our debt and start saving for a new car - how things change in a year! Instead my income will be reduced significantly due both to homeschooling and not wanting to be on the treadmill anymore. So I need to be smarter with what we have rather than trying to earn more money.

These are some of the goals I've come up with so far:

Financial

* finance hubby's microbrewery from savings/earnings only - no debt - hopefully we have enough saved for this now. Even more hopefully it will get underway and start earning some money next year!
* get down to $10,000 non-mortgage debt ($6,000+ to pay off)
* look at non-stress alternative income sources that can work around homeschooling - does such a beast really exist??! lol
* save at least $1,000 in appliance repair fund (washing machine is on it's last legs) by June
* reduce present/gift spending - more homemade? LETS? We had a shocking year this year with the present budget - several weddings, births, 40th b'days - all out of the ordinary. Hopefully next year will be better but need to be vigilant.
* Go back to tracking expenses!
* Actual envelopes aren't working too well for medical / misc household - try virtual envelopes.

Work

* only take on one large project per month (max) - that will leave time for other one-offs / fixes. I'm booked up until May already!!
* Try to work no more than a couple of nights / week
* start monthly newsletter back up
* Keep weekends free

School

* Enjoy it!!
* try to get into some sort of routine
* don't overcommit with activities

Me

* me time each week

Steps to achieve above goals:

* Utilise LETS more
* Concentrate on grocery budget - more from scratch, bulk buying
* Stop buying lunch every time we go out
* Get garden productive
* Track expenses
* Take time to do things rather than just spending money

I'm sure I'll add to this over the next week or so!