In praise of baskets -and tips on how to buy them

I love to browse op shops for things that are both beautiful and practical, and none are more beautiful and practical than cane baskets. All of these have been found in op shops, and I have not spent more than about $10 on any one of them. I have quite a number now, and don't yet see the need to stop collecting them yet. Nothing screams "simple living" than a basket actually being used. If I were a social media influencer this post would contain a picture of me in a floppy hat and a frilly dress, with a basket hooked over my arm, in my garden whilst I harvest flowers or something.

Instead I use them in the following ways:

This is my library basket. It is strong and sturdy and feels great when carried. I can keep my library books near my chair and pick it up and carry it away if I want to go and get more books! 

This is the laundry recycling station. We have laundry baskets, flat baskets for drying seeds, baskets to take the recycling to the bin, and baskets to corral the scrap paper for the compost. 

There is nothing like a good sturdy basket to take to the garden to pick your own fruit. 

But if you have too much fruit, you need a basket to put some out on the verge to enable neighbours to help themselves. 

And if your seed is dry, you need a basket to hold the seed heads while you separate the seed from the husks. 

When not storing fruit,  baskets can hold dried flowers or your keys.

They hold toys for grandchildren. 

They keep spare parts for quilting.

They cover plastic plant pots. 

They fill the space at the top of bookcases in a decorative way, whilst waiting for another task. 

A few tips for buying baskets:

1. Set them on a level surface and see if they stand upright without wobbling or looking wonky. Wonky baskets are very hard to correct.

2. The handle needs to be securely attached if you might want to use it to hold heavy things. I have been able to reglue a few handles which were coming unstuck, but each basket seems to have its own way of attaching the handle to the base, and you need to look carefully to see if it is repairable. I have one basket which I repaired by wrapping with string, and it is still going strong. 

3. I can make do with a basket that has a tiny break in the cane weave, but not if it affects its ability to hold the contents securely

4. Fashion will tell you that you need your basket to have a washed out French grey look, and I have seen people spray painting them to get that look. Personally I think the golden brown shades of cane to be universally acceptable. 

5. If a basket has been damp and has a mouldy look or smell , you may be able to resurrect it (non-food storage only) by spraying it with a teaspoon of clove oil mixed with a litre of water, and sprayed on the can very thoroughly, then dried in the sun. I have one that I gave this treatment to, and it is still very useful to take Nanna's supplies of games and toys when I go babysitting. Note: our grandchildren are too old to put things in their mouths! 

6. Always buy them second hand or in charity shops! The price is very much discounted there. 

7. Consider picnic baskets - but take out the inner loops which were made to hold utensils- you will then have a very sturdy basket for other purposes.

8. Don't carry a basket close to your clothes if you are wearing a loose weave fabric which may snag on a bit of cane which is sticking out a tiny bit. 

Do you love baskets too? 

 

A quilt finish, a new machine and more fixing things

When I wrote my last post about fixing things, DH had a plan on how to fix the pot plant stand which was buckling. I am happy to report that this circle of wood which he cut and fixed to the base is exactly the reinforcement it needed. 

I can now turn the ficus benjamina around towards the morning sun, to help it grow more branches and become less uneven in its growth habit. 

This week I dropped some things off at the op shop, and as usual went inside for a quick look. This original watercolour  (below) was in a broken frame and stuffed in a crate. I  saw it, loved it, and so bought it for $7 and another empty frame for $5. DH helped me trim the matt to size and installed some piano wire to the frame to hang it up.

We are both delighted with it. It would appear to have been painted in 1983. 

Some time back I decided that we would try to feature original art, or buy prints directly from the artist, but each art work had to cost less than $50. Since that time we have added some very lovely works to our home. 

My friend's elderly mother received this 1960 Elna from her sister. As she doesn't sew, my friend offered to find it a home, and thought of me! It works well but I need to get the wall plug rewired. I have downloaded the manual and so know where to give  it some oil. Stay tuned for how the project goes. 

Finally here is the 'forest floor' quilt I have just finished, using batik jelly roll fabric I was given by a friend. It got a bit sidelined over Christmas, but I am happy it is now complete. As my tshirt says "done is better than perfect". 

 

So that is all for this week. I hope you have some joy in fixing and finishing things too. 

How to be happy and frugal: Fix Things!

 If I think of the things which make me very happy the list is long, and one of them is absolutely the delight I feel when I fix something. The sense of achievement is a real ego booster. What was a problem has now been solved. The item is useful again. In turn this is a big money saver- as well as a way of preventing things going to landfill. I think this is compounded for me by the sense of agency- as a girl I was not expected to do more than cook or sew, but give me a drill and a hammer and I am powerful! 

For instance, today the youngest grandchild noticed letters in the letterbox, and wanted to get the key and get the letters. When you are 6 this is a grown up, independent and helpful thing to do.

 The problem was that the key would not turn in the lock. We knew it had been getting worse, but had  done nothing  about it but jiggle jiggle jiggle everytime we wanted the lock to turn. Today it was a serious problem for Mr 6, and today it took just a squirt with a can of silicone spray to lubricate the lock and make it good for another 6 months. At the same time DH sprayed the tracks in our outdoor blind and made them smooth and easy to use too.  

Some kind of hardware style lubricant is a good thing to have in any 'fix it' kit. Other items might be strong glues of various kinds, a screwdriver or two, some strong adhesive tape, a couple of permanent markers for covering scratches, maybe a clamp to hold broken pieces together as they cure. 

Do you have a fix it kit? I wonder what you would include in it? 

In our hot climate an automatic reticulation system is essential in a garden and because we have a drying climate we use drippers and microsprays. Sometimes these get clogged or broken and a plant will be struggling. Yet it is a task of just moments to replace the broken part and get everything working again. We keep reticulation parts for exactly that reason, in our shed. 

We use two clothes lines outside -the kind we call 'parallines"- a rectangle hung on a wall with lines of wire to hang the clothes on, making great use of limited space. Recently the most used one -up in the sunshine and the wind-had its wires fray and snap. I took a piece of it with me to the hardware store and found a replacement bundle of wire, then worked out how to re-string it again. Not difficult, but so practical and useful. 

I did the same with the lovely windchime which announces the arrival of our sea breeze. Recently it fell with a clang because the fishing wire which holds it up had broken. I found some galvanised wire in DH's shed and made it secure again. 

A common issue in households are things which use batteries, because they stop working when the battery has to be recharged or replaced. One very aggravating place to have battery failure is the computer wireless keyboard, because you can't do anything until you replace the battery -and the batteries for mine are AAA -the very small ones, not used for anything else around here. Other things in our house which use batteries are wall clocks, torches and hand held devices. If you have little children you may have night lights, toys and games which also need batteries. 

 We keep a selection of battery sizes on hand so we don't have to run to the shop at awkward moments to get a new battery. This is just a bit or regular household 'magic' that can de-stress an awkward moment and sometimes be a big thing. We recognised this week that our battery stash is a bit scattered. Maybe I should try to find a good receptical and bring them all together so that we don't do a mad scramble when something dies. Nearby could be a place to stash used batteries, so that I can take them for recycling (they should never go in landfill!).

One major cause of frustration is anything 'remote controlled' -including TVs, garage doors, etc.  Our CD player is used daily during our morning meditation, and has a remote control. Just replacing the battery gives a moment of joy when the click starts our Hilda of Bingen music.

DH keeps a pretty well resourced handyman shed. Now that his knee replacement is behind him, he is back to tinkering in the shed again. One of the projects on his bench at the moment is a wheeled plant pot stand. It got buckled because I put a heavy pot plant with a ficus benjamina in it on the stand but it was too heavy. I like to have wheels on that pot plant so I can turn it around and keep the tree symetrical as it responds to the light. DH is going to reinforce the pot stand with a scrap piece of wood so that it can be used again, and we don't need to buy a new stand. This will require a bit of nifty cutting with one of his favourite tools -the band saw. 

We keep warranties and ownership manuals in plastic pockets in a lever arch file. This has been invaluable. 

• Why is that light flashing on the induction stovetop? 
• How do I clean the exhaust fan over the stove? 
• Can I fix the dishwasher by buying a new part? 
• How do I program this new appliance?

 Lots of things can be solved by reading the manual. If you can't solve it sometimes you can find the address of the supplier/manufacturer and order a new part which will solve the problem. If you have bought an appliance second hand you can often get a manual online. I did this recently with my new-to-me icecream maker.

If not, there are many good videos on the internet which will show you how to fix a lot of things. 

Then of course there is the good old 'tie it up with wire' approach, time honoured in the song True Blue by John Williamson. The real masters of this approach are the stars of Bush Mechanics -a humorous TV show about First Nations people hacking cars in the outback to keep them functioning 'some how".  For these times, a creativity and a 'she'll be right' approach can be what is required. In the garden, my cable ties and bits of scrap wood  or tree branches can make a whole lot of useful shade in a temporary arrangement, like this I have made at the east end of a struggling garden bed, when I realised the hot morning sun was making the silverbeet struggle. I just cut a couple of branches of bamboo and cable tied them to the end of the bed. Instant shade! Not too dark, and no money required.

Then there are the things you might find in an op shop, or a skip, or offered for free from a neighbour. They might be a bit battered, or neglected or broken, but maybe you can fix them and get more life out of them? 

We bought a rather battered old dining table at the tip shop for about $10. DH thought it was 'good wood' underneath, and had an idea. He cut down the legs, sanded and smoothed the top, turned some of the boards around...and then we have this fabulous coffee table. He used a waxed finish, so that anytime its life has been a bit rough, we can get the wax furniture polish out and buff it up again. We both love it. 

We also try to keep a list of repairers and general 'fix it' helpers -the computer shop which is able to replace a mother board, the sewing machine mechanic who can source old parts, the 'guy up the road' with a history of fixing garden equipment, all sorts of helpers. In Australia if your spectacles are broken, you can take them to any optician and they will fix them on the spot, usually free of charge. These people are rare and valuable. 

Finally a thought from Brenna Quinlan, Permaculture illustrator and teacher

So, save money and be happy: Fix Things! 

BUY these things at an op shop! They are useful, hard working and durable*

 I was browsing in one of those kitchen tool type shops recently. They have lovely things, and I had 20 minutes whilst waiting for my husband. What shocked me, though, was the price of things I have at home which I got at op shops and have loved and used for years.

In each case, buying them from the op shop extends their useful life, saving them from landfill. (However, only buy them if you can actually use them. The Op Shop Goddess likes people who are considerate of others!) 

1. Wooden salad bowls, plates and boards

We buy wooden salad bowls and use them a lot around here. Mind you, some of them looked pretty drab in the shop as no-one had cared for the wood for years. That large teak salad bowl was desert dry and had tuned almost blond in colour. We brought it home and gave it a wash, then layers of lovely food safe Orange Oil (an Australian product and I don't have any links to the company- substitute whatever food safe product you can find) were applied and this is how it came up. I wash it in soapy water, dry it and use it over and over, but about once a year, I slick the orange oil over it and take care of it.

Sometimes we have found a nice handmade bowl -but someone has put plastic estapol on it. DH sands it back and then gives it the orange oil treatment. 

Salad bowls are of course, just a bowl which can hold all sorts of useful things. Many foods are most flavourful when at room temperature: tomatoes ripen slowly on the bench on a cute raised bowl . If I had chickens I could put eggs in them. 

Scones look lovely on a table when served in a wooden bowl with a linen napkin lining. Bread is  a natural on a wooden platter or shallow bowl or a wooden chopping board. 

There is nothing to stop us using wooden bowls for mixing bread or cake batter and other things in -I must confess I never have, but once upon a time wooden mixing bowls were standard in kitchens. 

Wooden chopping boards and cheese boards can take a bit more of a sanding back, because they are flat and thicker -DH gives ours a turn in the workshop if they need it. to freshen up the surface before treating with the food safe oil again. 

Oh, just so you know -wooden salad bowls were $70 or more in the kitchen equipment shop! 

2. Serviettes or Napkins

I have a lovely range of wash and wear table napkins which we use a lot. No need to have single use or disposable  ones. These are generously sized, easy to use and easy to wash-honestly, I don't worry if they are used for greasy fingers or to wipe tomato spills-after all, they cost only cents. I can't remember any of them staining that badly though. I have a couple of sets of colours to go with my table settings. You can shove them in the picnic basket and not worry. 

These are cotton and synthetic blends mostly, which is why they are pretty indestructable.  I would rather use all natural fabrics, except in this situation where the fabric already exists, and is practically bombproof. 

3. Table cloths

I have a couple of table cloths which fit my table and were bought at op shops for tiny amounts of money. They make it look like I made an effort, and are so easy -just wash and fold. Recently I borrowed a book from the library about how to emulate French Country style -and guess what? Table cloths were recommended! If you have ones that don't need ironing, or find them at the op shop for a few dollars, why not put them out and enjoy them?  

4. Tea towels

Many opshops have souvenir type teatowels which are made of linen, and will cost very little! I buy them and wash the shiny sizing off, and use them in the kitchen. Have enough to change them every day! 

5. Glass storage jars

I store my food in glass in the pantry and in the fridge whereever possible.  Glass jars are expensive to buy new, but cheap in op shops. They can be refreshed in the dishwasher and come up nicely. If you need lids they can often be found online. Here is an Australian supplier. 

Yes, I do freeze food in glass jars! So long as you leave a 'headspace' for the food to expand as it freezes you will be fine.

If you are lucky enough to have one of those bulk dry goods stores near you, you can fill up your glass jars with all sorts of spices and flours and bypass the plastic bags in the supermarket entirely. 

6. Baskets

Baskets are the MVPs of my house. 

 I have dedicated baskets for my library books, so I can keep them safe by my favourite chair, and then pick them up and go the library when it is time for a renewal.

Decent baskets with useful handles and a fair capacity can be picnic baskets, shopping baskets, harvest baskets, fruit baskets, there are so many uses.

Those little flat bamboo baskets are great for drying herbs 

The lovely thing about baskets is the way they feel -sort of old fashioned and they swing as you walk.

One of mine needed a bit of a repair when I got it -the edge was a bit broken and likely to catch on things. I wrapped some string around it and now it is fine. I believe in making things last -no need to hide a repair, enjoy it. 

And, of course, there is always a creative use for baskets.

7. Kitchen tools 

I have a number of kitchen tools that I picked up at Op Shops. I like things like tongs, strainers and double boilers that will fit a number of saucepan sizes. The good thing is that if they don't work, you can easily return them and let someone else have them. 

*Footnote

You can also barter these things for a jar of your home made pickles, or get them for free from a local share/swap site, or find them in garage sales. Whatever, if you use them they are not in landfill. 

Choosing a variable tarriff for electricity? Ummmmm

 

It all started a week or so ago, when I opened an email in which our electricity company Synergy which offered us a deal whereby, if we had a 'smart meter' we could choose to pay a variable tariff -in which some parts of the day were quite cheap and the peak times quite a lot more expensive. 

Up until now, we have had only a standard rate no matter what time of day you used the power. The details of the offer are: 

    Between 9 am and 3pm the charge would be 8c per unit.

    From 9pm to 9 am would be 22 cents per unit.

    The most expensive time would be between 3pm and 9pm when it would be 0.50c per unit.

Our current charge is 28 cents no matter what time of the day we use it.  

One thing we noted, was that the supply charge per day for the variable tariff has been increased from about 96 cents per day to $1.20 per day. You have to read the information quite carefully to find this out! 

The aim of the proposal is to 'stabilise the grid"- Perth is a great place to have solar panels, so many days of sunlight - but they make a lot of energy during the day when many people are at work, and then when they go home and turn on their TVs and stoves and things, the sun is going down and the grid is at peak demand but without solar input.  This week we got news of a problem with the grid due to a coal mine going bankrupt is here-it is only a small part of the way WA gets energy -we have wind farms and plan to get more. There are a few places where there is a local energy grid using a battery and wind farm combined with solar power for homes.

DH and I considered that we should be in a good place to do change to this tariff -we are retired so at home a lot, we have solar panels and a smart meter. As DH said, we should also be prepared to play our part in this. For decades, enviromentalists have talked about 'peak oil' and the necessary adjustments away from fossil fuels. We are all going to have to live less profligate lives in the energy sphere. Our simple living lifestyle, which we have been working on since this blog was started in 2008, should set us up for success.  

We have watched with great concern about the fuel crisis in Europe and especially in the UK, we have noted that many people will struggle with a low energy future if the rent in draughty, poorly designed homes (if they can afford to rent!) or if they are sick or in need in some other ways and need to use power for life saving machinery. Practicing low energy lifestyles seems like an act of solidarity, somehow. We have the choice -which we know is a luxury- of saving money this way, and helping out our community. Over the years we have been carefully renovating our home and changing our practices to live simply. 

WHAT WE DID

DH loves to work with numbers. In order to decide if we want to change our tariff, we started collecting data on our current use, and put it in a spreadsheet. DH collected the data three times a day. 

The first week we did not change our habits at all. 

The second week we did the following things:

1. As it is still cloudy and raining at times, we have a time switch on our solar hot water system, to boost it with electricity  if the sun has not been shining enough to get the water hot for a shower. We get about 8 months of free hot water from the solar hot water system, so cost of this boosting in the winter this is not a big issue for us. We adjusted the timer to boost during the cheapest period. . 

2. We have checked that there are no chargers left on during the peak period-and this is particularly true for things like tools in the shed and phone chargers in the house.

3. We adapted our cooking -  trying to either cook without the oven, or make bread and use the leftover heat for other things, or cook earlier in the day.  As a baker of sourdough, this means that I need to go back to proofing my bread overnight and cooking it in the morning. I used to do this but winter temperatures overnight made this impractical., and to be honest, I just didn't feel like making bread in the evening. Long hot summer evenings are much more conducive to this. 

The electricity company's  own suggestions include:

1. Setting your washing machine or dishwasher to run during the day instead of at night, to take advantage of super off peak rates. There might also be a ‘delay’ button or timer feature on your appliances to help you to do this.

2. Charging up your consoles and other devices during the day, and switching your chargers off when you don’t need them, particularly during times you’ll be charged at peak rates.

3. Doing the bulk of your cooking or meal prep before you head out for the day, or setting your dinner to cook during the day in a slow cooker, rather than cooking with your appliances when you get home in the evening.

WHAT WE FOUND: surprising

DH found that the first week's average daily use was 16 kw hours spread pretty evenly over the 24 hour period. If we had signed up to the variable tariff this usage would be expensive -more than $1.20 more or at least $62 per year. 

The second week of consiously making changes meant we used the same number of kilowatt hours, but reduced our overnight consumption drastically, mostly by changing the hours of electricity boosting. We also turned off chargers, and computers more consistently when not in use.  Some things were easy enough -waiting to turn on the dishwasher or dryer is not often an issue.

Changing our cooking practices required some thought.  One day I made a vegetable soup -first roasting the veggies for extra sweetness, straight after the bread came out of the oven, after 9 am but before 3. Then I put the soup together and simmered it  on the induction cooktop before 3. Then I put it in our insulated hot box until dinner, when I will blend it and serve it. Most of the cooking was done on what would be the cheapest tarriff. 

Another day, I planned a 'baking day" - making a quiche for dinner and some banana bread in the oven on the lowest tarriff setting. 

IF we  took up the variable tariff, but changed our ways and could keep them up over the year, we would save $40.

Now, in a cost of living crisis, that might be significant, but it required a lot of effort on our part.  

AND what about the other seasons? 

SUMMER  if it is still hot after 3pm in summer and we want to use the power to cool ourselves down -won't that be expensive? We often get sea breezes, but they sometimes come after 4pm or later. Earlier this year we had a 'heat bomb' where the temperature did not drop much overnight for over a week of soaring temperatures. The evaporative air conditioner we installed this year uses a lot less power than a refrigerated air conditioner, however. 

WINTER we are usually pretty active and don't use any heating until evening -and then we sit together in DH's study where a column electric heater and some rugs and quilts is enough. It could be expensive though....In winter you want warm food -and even using our insulated hot box and microwave, and the smaller than the oven convection microwave, you would still use power at the most expensive time of the day.

One of our friends said that most people would not go into the detail of the Synergy offer -I guess that is true. We did, however, and right now we are not signing up.

I am happy to try to save power where we can though. 

Finally -stuff I found on the internet related to simple living! 

Growing veggies -encouraging tips here 

Rhonda's wise words on reducing expenses here 

Green Godess sauce here

Baking zucchini slice in the slow cooker here 

Enjoy this wonderful Youtube channel in Ireland called Bealtaine Cottage

Inflation -some strategies for avoiding spending money

 In Australia, as in other places, the cost of living is rising sharply at the moment. Interest rates are going up, and for those who have loans and mortgages that means that they will have less discretionary spending money.

Food prices are going up around the world, too. 

One of the best definitions of inflation, that I have read, is 'a time when your money buys less than it did before". For anyone on a tight budget, or a fixed income, inflation is a challenge -how manage when prices are going up? What follows are my thoughts on how someone in my situation -one a fixed budget and at the retired stage of life, might do some hedging against price shocks.

  NOTE: I know many others have it much tougher than we do, and I am sorry, really sorry. If this blog post is not helpful because you just don't have enough money now let alone when prices go up, please know that I have been there too, and I really hope our society can be kinder and fairer to everyone. In Australia that means, at the very least, we should raise the rate of Newstart to something like $80 per day. 

Get it for free

This is a devil's ivy plant, which was given away on our local "Buy Nothing"  site, because it really really needed some plant first aid. Now, I have quite a collection of indoor plants, and enjoy growing them up. They can cost quite a few dollars, but last a long time if cared for and in the right place. 

After a few weeks of tender care the plant is now thriving in a new pot -this one which actually has drainage- and I am using the pot as a cover pot for another of my plants. It was a fun challenge, and it made me happy. If I want to, I can now give it away as a gift.  Free stuff -you might find it in all sorts of places if you are open to it. It is particularly true in gardening -most people are very happy to give away cuttings and seeds, or even whole plants if it is in the wrong place, and you are willing to dig it up for them. Many of my garden plants were grown from cuttings, and often turn out to be the best for this climate, such as pelargoniums and shasta daisies. 

I will also mention libraries as my favourite place to get reading material for free. I absolutely love my library -I am an avid reader. It would cost a fortune to keep me in books, so libraries are a great source of entertainment and education and they cost nothing. 

Books to find at the library on frugal living

The Art of Frugal Hedonism bu Annie Raiser Rowland and Adam Grubb

A Girl Called Jack -recipe book for those who are living in a low cash environment -and all the other cook books Jack Munroe has authored, like "Cooking on a bootstrap" and The Tin Can Cook. 

Regarding free stuff -it may be important to check what subscription items are in your budget that you could replace for free things -I am thinking of subscriptions to various apps and channels. If we are creative, we can find our entertainment and educationw without paying each month for it. 

Lend it

If you can't get it for free -maybe you know someone who would lend you something you only need for a little while. I read somewhere that most electric drills are used for only 4 hours. People want it to do one thing, buy it and never use it again. In some parts of Australia folk have set up lending libraries of things like camping equipment, garden and workshop tools and the kind of things you need for a big party, but don't need very often. If you take good care of the item you borrow, and return it on time, you will keep your friend happy.

Don't forget to return the favour -maybe you have some things you could lend to another. The kind of reciprocity of this exchange builds community. 

Maintenance Pays Off

We have all had that experience of suddenly discovering that the washing machine won't work, or the dishwasher is making odd noises, or the car has a warning light on the dashboard. Not only is it often extremely inconvenient, it is also really expensive. Getting a tradie to visit your home involves a 'call out fee' even before they have started work. 

I try to do routine maintenance on my appliances to ensure that they last as long as possible, and that such emergency service calls are only required infrequently. I am not in any way a technical or mechanically minded person, but I can easily clean the filter on the dishwasher, and often give it an extra clean with lemon juice or vinegar, to clean off scale and mould in the pipes and hoses.  One of my friend's adult daughters watched some YouTube videos before succesfully fixing their washing machine. 

My car does get it's regular service, and now that we use a mobile mechanic who comes to our home, we notice that they do not try as much as the franchise mechanic, to on-sell us extra parts like air filters.

Cleaning out the gutters before the winter rains is a good maintenance tip. Water in the roof can be really expensive to fix. 

If you can sew, a bit of repair on a hem or a button can save money on buying another item of clothing. 

If you have your appliance handbook, there may be some tips about regular maintenance and what to do if it stops working. I have mine in plastic pockets in a lever arch folder, and this has saved the day many times. Like the time we somehow put the child lock on the induction cook top -and nothing worked. before panic set in completely, we remembered the manual, which  told us how to fix it, without a call out fee! 

Plan for replacement -or do without

We are using YNAB for our budgetting, and I love it. One of its rules is that a good budget knows the difference between an emergency and a 'true expense'. True expenses are things like buying new tires for the car -usually not an emergency, we should be able to predict that we will have to do this at least months if not years in advance. Similarly, we should be able to predict that a 7 year old appliance is probably going to need replacing sometime in the next year or so. If we set aside small amounts regulary to cover such replacements, we should not have our budget wiped out by them. In fact, if it works well, we just pay it! No drama at all! 

Of course, if there are too many things which need replacing all at once, before the budget has enought in it, we might be in difficulty. At such times we might just have to get by without the appliance for a time. In an inflationary environment, it will possibly be much more expensive to replace our appliances than when we bought them some time ago, and so knowing how to do without for a time, is a really good strategy. I know that I can wash all the dishes by hand, even though I would rather not, but I would struggle to wash clothes by hand so I would priorities a washing machine over a dishwasher if it had to be one or the other. 

Of course, you can budget this way without YNAB -we did for years with a spreadsheet, but the idea of true expenses is important to know. 

Do It Yourself

Some years ago I was part of a website and forum which taught frugality. One of the people there was a woman who had suffered an injury at work and so was unable to contribute cash to her family by paid work. She worked hard on finding ways to replace the things they had bought with cash, with things she could make using the time she had once traded for dollars at work. If she had been used to purchasing a packet of biscuits, for example, she made biscuits. If they were used to buying soap powder, she made her own. She actually went to the shop, studied the list of ingredients, went home and researched and experimented to find replacements. If you have the time to give, you can replace many consumer and manufactured products with your own ready made items, at cheaper cost, without fancy packaging, shelf stabilisers and funny ingredients. 

You can make your own curry powder, grow your own herbs, bake your own bread, culture your own yoghurt and make clothes. I learned a lot from this woman's example, and now have many items we regularly make ourselves.

In the garden I make compost, which uses up things we would otherwise throw away, and get a soil amendment to help me grow fruit and vegetables which saves me money too. Our worm farm makes the best soil amendments. Sometimes I simply take the 'do nothing' approach -if the plant is a bit sick, and I have watered it and fed it, and it still has problems I wait to see if the ecological niche it lives in will support it or whether it was just wrong for this place. I don't buy poisons and amendments for the garden. 

DH is a handy person who has helped us a lot by putting up shelves, painting walls, making and repairing furniture, repairing loose screws and such. Often a simple tool kit, picked up cheaply in garage sales, can make a big difference-every house should have a screw driver or three, a hammer and a pair of pliers. Dh often recycles things we get for free from our local Buy Nothing group, or cheaply from the Tip Shop. These lovely windows came from a neighbour for nothing.

Just today he replaced a towel rail in the main bathroom, which had actually broken off at the part where the rail joins the supporting plate attached to the wall. Imagine if we had to get a tradie in to do that job -it would have taken a lot more than the $70 for the new rail.

Don't forget to Pay it Forward

If the times are bad, our community can be a powerful force for good. It is hard to face hard times alone, so if we can, we should offer our surplus to others. This is a basket of limes from my tree which I have put near the letterbox for others to take.

If we have free time we can volunteer at a community organisation -it costs nothing, but can be very rewarding. If we are living in a tight economic environment, and feeling pinched, giving back to the community by volunteering might be something which gives us a feeling of bounty, of abundance and of connection. Both DH and I volunteer in community organisations and we love it. He is treasurer of a mediation community and I work in the garden of a play centre. 

Finally my advice is to try to be content with things -and here is a small article which may assist 

Home renovation of a modest budget