Sunday, April 7, 2019

Good times, little cost

I have been re-reading The Art of Frugal Hedonism by Annie Raiser-Rowland and Adam Grubb, so I thought I would reflect a bit on how we are finding ways to have good times with little cost. As my Dh has just two weeks of paid work to go until he joins me in the gentle art of retirement living, this is a helpful topic of conversation between us just now. By the way, I don't know the authors, and don't get any money from my blog so this is a completely honest recommendation!



The authors of this book learned to put aside the usual frenetic lifestyle of modern 21st century capitalism. and instead to priorities frugal living in order to maximise their enjoyment of life.
They found that when your life expands beyond career goals, and you live in a fortunate place like Australia, then if you are really lucky to have good health and secure housing, then your life is open and available for creative thinking: what can I do with all this lovely time when everyone else is working? 

I love the idea of learning to maximise enjoyment and keep costs down.

Many years ago, when suffering from restlessness and exhaustion from working too hard and resting too little, I thought that a trip to a nearby shopping mall would entertain me. Of course, I found it tiresome to see so many things I couldn't buy -or else I bought things I couldn't afford and didn't need. I wish I had even 20% of the money I spent on junk that later was thrown away after such trips! One of the early things I did on my path to a simple life was to put a sign on the letterbox saying "no junk mail" and so I stopped being subjected to advertising so much. We gradually stopped watching TV with any advertising included in it, and found it much more peaceful! I certainly stopped shopping for 'entertainment". 

Here are our latest activities, in no particular order.

Mind Blowing Free Art

The Art Gallery of WA has a great free exhibition on at the moment, called Desert, River, Sea. It is fabulous work by indigenous artists of the Kimberley region in WA. I visited first with a friend, then I made sure I took DH to see it too. I reckon we will get back to see it one more time before it finishes. 



Get out into nature: our national parks

We have a number of national parks within an hour or so of driving from here. I have posted before about how much we love visiting Walyunga National Park . Last Friday we went to a park we haven't visited for a long time -John Forrest National Park. It was a spectacular autumn day. It cost us $7 for a concessional entry into the park. We took a picnic and ate our lunch while being closely supervised by the local bird life.

We took a gentle walk along a 2 km bush track after lunch.


We have other outdoor locations which are great for some exercise as well as fresh air and nature study: our beloved beaches, and the two lakes we live nearby all have excellent walking tracks.

Read lots of free books: join a library! 

Many people love to read, but if you are a fast reader like me, it can be very expensive to keep the supply of reading material going if everything you buy is new. The library is a fun place to get books -and the joy is that if the book you select to bring home turns out to be a dud, you can just go back and get a better one. I have had excellent service through inter-library loans and reserving popular books, so that new books can be read almost as soon as they hit the shops!

I also like a good second-hand book store. You can browse for hours and come away with a treasure! I have got some classic cook books from second hand stores and op shops.



In this regard I want to let you know about the wonderful Better World Books, which is an online book seller which raises money for literacy projects around the world. They sell books which are discards from libraries, to raise money for libraries. They also keep books from landfill. You can find great books cheap on this site. Again, this is a completely honest recommendation -no financial interest involved.

Become an Expert at something
With time and practice it is possible to become an expert at something, even if you start with not much of a clue. Whether it is the naming of native species of trees or bees, or making pastry from scratch, or learning a language, there are plenty of opportunities to discover your inner learner. Do you remember when you went to school for fun? No, just me then?

Well anyway, learning in your own way and your own pace is different from being part of a class. The wonderful thing about the internet is just how freely people share information and how-to videos with each other. DD has learned how to bind books from online tutorials. I have a wonderful group of quilters who share freely all their tips and techniques. DH learns a language from a free app, and studies woodworking videos. DS is developing his own skills in woodworking from these places.

You can often find online groups of people who also are into your area of interest -this becomes even more fun as you catch up with people around the world.

Grow a garden

Of course you can spend a lot of money growing a garden, if you head out to the nurseries and hardware stores, or get expert landscaping advice.

I am talking the OTHER kind of garden. The one which you grow in a styrofoam box you got from the supermarket where it had been  a broccoli shipping box, or in a pot you picked up at the tip shop.  You have to buy some potting mix, but after that you bug in a cheap packet of seeds or maybe a cutting which you begged from a friend or neighbour. You give it some light and water and each day it rewards you with growth! The fun you have in seeing things grow!

The celery in this pot was the bottom end of a bunch I bought from a greengrocer. I bunged it in next to the basil and the root end of a spring onion I had also grown from a shop bought item.

You can grow things to eat, as I do, or things which are just pretty and colourful.

Our suburb has a 'buy nothing' Facebook group where people regularly offer cuttings and divisions of perennial plants -for free! I often offer plants and cuttings through this site, and enjoy meeting the neighours this way. I guess our daisies, cannas, frangipanis and pelargoniums are spread throughout this area now!

My garden gives me hours of activity and pleasure each week.


Free and Cheap Music
DH and I love live music, but tickets to gigs are expensive unless you know where to look. We have a couple of conservatory-type music colleges in Perth, where the students often put on free or cheap concerts to gain experience. Music societies also have regular events for their members and others. DH and I sing in a choir -and for the price of our membership we not only get the fun of learning to sing together, but we are actually in the performance too! We have one coming up on Good Friday and have been learning to sing some lovely music for it. 

Our local city councils regularly put on cheap and free live events -especially during the summer, in parks around Perth.


                                     


Other places for music include our wonderful ABC radio -we love Classic FM and the Jazz channel too. It has introduced us to fabulous music over the years. 

Now that many people are moving to only listening to digital music, there are many CDs in op shops. We have an extensive collection of CDs and a CD player which we enjoy very much, everything from World Music like guitar from Argentina or Fado from Spain, or jazz from Mali, to classical music and popular artists. 

I guess this post is now long enough. I don't think I have exhausted the topic, however. I would love to hear from you about your good times for little cost activities too. 

1 comment:

TheAwakenedSoul said...

Great post. I love to ride my bike, hike, knit, and read. Most of these are free activities. Growing food, cooking, and baking are also fun ways to stay entertained and healthy, too. Thanks for sharing.