‘Eggy bake’ is a common meal in our house and one of our all-time favorites – named by the kids.

Eggy bake – this version with grated cheese on top from local cheesery. Typically we eat it plain. Rarely we have leftovers.

 

Another household favourite is pumpkin soup (veggie soup really) using all freshly harvested vegetables – pumpkin, Choko, potato, herbs, turmeric, ginger, garlic chives, mustard spinach, and many other veggies and greens we find.

 

I think our 4yo will discover one day that usually pumpkin soup is orange, not green, but both these meals are great ways to get him to enjoy lots of freshly-plucked organic greens.

 

Weeping rosemary hanging over the terrace wall gets plucked for most meals.

Anyway, I started typing up a recipe for the book I am working on, The Good Life Guide and realized that this meal was far more than the recipe could communicate. A simplicity of just listing the recipe ingredients and steps seemed somehow to diminish the inherent qualities of the food.

 

Tulsi leaves and seeds also end up in most salads, soups, curries, and bakes.

 

 For me it is the rich tapestry of connections that are cultivated through this food that brings it’s true quality to light – the connections with the seasons, with our local environment, with the soil, with neighbors, with friends, with each other in our family, with our play, with our home education, and our workplace.

 

Garlic chives and their flowers have an amazingly powerful garlic flavour.

Here is my first attempt to describe the eggy-bake process…

 

1. Send the kids up to collect the eggs from the chook house we built using timber our neighbour harvested in his woodlot and a gift of reclaimed iron sheeting. We have an eclectic mix of rare breed chickens that the children look after. The eggs are all different shapes and sizes – but all have superbly orange yolks because they free-range often.

 

2. Wander around the garden with a handmade basket collecting a wonderful array of herbs, flowers, and leafy greens (and purples). I take a leaf from this and a leaf from that so I don’t harm the plant and can come back again day after day for more. It’s a peaceful way to garden and harvest.
   
   I collect things like soft pumpkin leaves and shoots, sweet potato leaves and shoots, mustard spinach, any brassica flowers, and soft flower stalks, many varieties of kale, welsh onion leaves, the bolting shoots from coriander/cilantro, tulsi leaves, garlic chives and garlic chive flowers, Brazilian spinach … there are so many things to collect, even pea leaves, bean leaves, beetroot leaves, young chia leaves, young amaranth leaves, weeds – chickweed, dandelion leaves. The more diverse the selection, the more diverse the nutrients in the food.

   The magnificent red mustard spinach is making its way into every meal in these cooler months.

   I love this time in the garden, watching the birds, noticing things – new shoots on trees, self-seeding veggies, subtle changes, and simple beauty. I think about what I can add to the garden to increase diversity or adapt to the changing season.

   Brassica flowers are a wonderful treat. I often snack on them in the garden.

   
   I notice where I need to add some more compost or mulch. The compost is made from the chicken bedding, and the Azolla we harvested by hand from the lake. The mulch is often chopped and drop materials, but we do also go and pick up some local bales of grass straw that another neighbour orders in bulk for us all to use. The kids love to ride in the trailer with the bales slowly back along the little internal road within the ecovillage with the wind in their hair, singing in the breeze,  watching for hawks and kangaroos.
   
   I could ask the kids to harvest the greens too because they know where all the great greens are at any moment – the garden is their playground – and sometimes I do, but I just love this time in the garden pottering for a few minutes.

 

There’s always a surprise somewhere in the garden.

 

3. Ask my children to whiz it all together in the food processor with a bit of fresh milk from the neighbour and handmade ricotta from another neighbour.

 

4. Cook it in a solar cooker (for a lunchtime meal) or a solar-powered electric oven (for dinner).

 

5. Duck out to the garden again just before the eggy bake is ready and collect some salad greens. I like to wrap little bits of eggy bake in a leaf.

   Fresh mixed salad with self-seeding tomatoes and lots of perennial greens, edible weeds and edible flowers.

    
6. Sometimes I go the extra bit and drizzle a salad with homemade dressing – shaking together a little organic olive oil made just down the valley (sourced from the local organic food store), with some homemade kombucha vinegar (using a SKOBY dropped off by a neighbour, a chopped up garlic clove hand-delivered from a friend in Tasmania (traded for limes), and some herbs and spices from the garden like rosemary, oregano, thyme, or chilli, ginger and lemongrass. Even simpler, I grab a lime, lemon, or grapefruit and squeeze it over the salad. Delicious just like that!

    

   Fresh greens, snowpeas. tomatoes, citrus and garlic

    

7. Ask the children to set the table. Often they gather a little posy of edible flowers and lemon myrtle leaves and make a beautiful arrangement.
8. Sit down together and enjoy, discussing the particular flavours and textures that we like in today’s version. You see, they are always different – and that’s the beauty of it too. 

 

It sounds quite complicated, but really it’s ultimately simple. All the ingredients are all just here around us, it’s seasonal, it connects us with our neighbours and friends, and our local environment,  we all help to make it happen, we all enjoy it immensely because of the heart and soul that we know has gone into every part.  And, from start to finish, cooking from scratch, it usually takes us around 30 minutes to prepare and cook as long as we keep it thin in the glass cooking trays.

 

Brazilian Spinach has leaves all year round for harvest.

This is slow food, but it’s not slow, quite rapid actually. With three children – two of them boys with huge appetites – preparing good food quickly seems to be the best approach, as well as getting them involved in the process.

 

Keep in mind too that I typically garden for about 10 minutes a day to maintain this garden – not a huge commitment, but an enormous benefit to our health and to the education of my children.

 

Some other reasons I love this way of cooking:

• this is community food
• it’s package free – the natural packaging of the eggs goes back to the soil. The milk comes in re-used bottles.
• it’s part of nutrient cycles in the garden and is waste-free
• it is so satisfying and just makes me smile so deeply when I sit down to share this meal

What’s a simple meal you cook from scratch?  What does it mean to you?

The post Good Food: Good Life: My recipe for simple eggy bake straight from the garden. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Some of the bags of clothes waiting to head up to the charity stores in Maleny.

Living like a backpacker

Back in the early 1990s, Evan and I were travelling around the world a lot with our backpacks and lived amply on a handful of simple clothes. However, since we’ve had kids and settled a bit more, things have accumulated. As much as I promised myself this would never happen, it did. It was definitely time for a big clear out. I’m pretty sure what I’ve kept would be able to fit into a backpack again.

I love wearing sarongs here in the subtropics – they are lightweight and easy to store and care for.

Special souvenirs of musty space-fillers?

Not only were my own clothes filling up the wardrobe space, but clothes I had kept from when our children were little – things I thought were special souvenirs of their baby days. What they had become really were musty, stained and old (storing things in humid subtropics is difficult). I have kept just a few really special items and packed them very well.

Getting up my nose

All these surplus clothes were collecting dust which I was really starting to find was getting up my nose – literally.  Today, everything got washed with soapnuts and eucalytus, and the entire wardrobe and room was wiped down with diluted vinegar. It feels so fresh again.

How did I sort through it all?

Basically I just made one big pile on the floor  in the middle of my bedroom and methodically went through each piece.  It took me half a day to sort, wash and clean out all the dust from the back of the wardrobe  – a big commitment of time, but one that is going to save me lots of washing, sorting, putting away etc. later.  

As I went through the clothes I placed them in nine different piles and bags: 

• Keepers –  I went through this pile a couple of times to refine my choice to pick natural fibres, ethical items and ones that are biodegradable.
• Storage box – a selection of a few things for different seasons and some favourite skirts which will be good when I lose a few kilos (!?)
• Gift bag – almost new children’s clothes that are suitable for friends with young children.
• Hand-me-down pile – some retro pieces of my clothing that now fit my daughter
• Charity store bag – all the good quality clothes that were left
• Upcycling box – a few pieces I liked that had fabulous fabric, but no longer a good style are awaiting redesign (when I get a new sewing machine pedal – Monty was experimenting with scissors recently).
• Rag bag – too bad to fix but good for rags.
• Worm pile – too bad to fix and fully biodegradable.
• Rubbish – too bad to fix and not good for rags or worms. (thankfully this was the smallest pile)

My small selection of clothes for storage for another season.

This is all that is left in my wardrobe –  a couple of skirts, shirts, singlets and long sleeve tops – and my favourite jacket with all the pockets for collecting seeds while I’m out and about.

The post How I downshifted my wardrobe by 80 percent. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Thank you and Merry Christmas to everyone who’s responded so positively to the writings and films I’ve been posting on Our Permaculture Life – on this Blog, on Youtube and Facebook,

After decades of ‘just doing it’, I was encouraged a year ago to start writing about our permaculture way of life and have received such amazing feedback both in person and online. It is so uplifting to know so many people are interested in living a simple &natural way of life.

I so enjoy receiving the comments you write, and participating in discussions about the various topics. I’d love your suggestions too (please fill in the v.quick survey below).

The ripple effect of our actions, our words, our thoughts – our work and the way we choose to live – is profound. It’s so important to be thinking about change – exploring the possibilities and taking positive, practical steps.

16 POPULAR POSTS FROM ‘OUR PERMACULTURE LIFE’

1. My Permaculture Garden – a 30 minute tour of my award-winning garden, plus list of species.
2. Morag’s Simple and Successful No Dig Garden Method – a step by step guide (film coming soon)
3. How to Make Comfrey Tea – a super easy natural homemade fertiliser
4. Worm Towers – a quick and easy way to turn food waste into garden fertiliser – without digging or turning. and Worm Tower Film Clip – a superbly simple way to put your foodsraps back in the soil
5. 7 Ways to Use All of Your Pumpkin Plant – simple abundance
6. City as Farm: City Dwellers Love to Grow Food – weaving food growing into the cities
7. Ingeniously Simple Idea to Harvest Compost Worms By 8 Year Old Boy – innovative thinking from my young home educated son.
8. Temporary permaculture for renters – 11 ideas for growing abundant food without owning land
9. Live simply: 14 Ways to Save Money and Avoid Debt – practical and common-sense advice
10. Save over $23,000 a Year and De-stress with a Few Simple Living Strategies
11. Five Easy Steps to Make Cheap Beeswax Wraps & Reduce Cling Wrap Use – make your own beeswax cloths in minutes for less than a dollar.
12. Five Simple Ways to Improve Your Soil – having great soil is the basis of healthy plants and food.
13. Did you know our clothes are poisoning us? More Reasons to Choose Simple Natural Fashion for Earth Care and People Care – it’s good to know the backstory to where many of our ‘things’ come from
14. 27,000 Trees A Day to Wipe Bottoms – What’s Your Wipe of Choice? – taking a closer look at a  very common household consumable
15. Why I Let My Young Children Leave School To Learn At Home… an introduction to the way I home educate my children
16. 9 Ways to Simply Use Chia: an easy ‘superfood’ to grow at home – great ways to grow and use chia, and some yummy recipes too.

PLEASE SEND YOUR SUGGESTIONS AND FEEDBACK

I’d love to get your feedback and suggestions about the topics you enjoy most and those you’d like me to write and film more about. Either leave a comment at the bottom of this post or click on this survey monkey link – it should take less than a minute to complete.

The post 16 Best Posts on Our Permaculture Life : Practical Simplicity for Everyday Life appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST: Morag Gamble on Permaculture Education: Living a full life, simply and in conjunction with nature’s principles. 

I teach practical permaculture to kids ….

…high school students…

… and adults.

At home in our garden.

I was inspired to live a simple abundant life after volunteering in Ladakh, in the Himalayas in 1992 and 1995. My experience there had a profound impact on me.

For 18 years I have lived in a permaculture ecovillage with a vibrant community and beautiful natural environment.

We designed and built our home in affordable, ‘buildable’ modules – before this, we’d built a coffee table!

Our edible landscape surrounds the house and provides an abundance of vegetables, fruits, herbs, flowers, medicinals, mulch and habitat for a diversity of species. It’s a super low maintenance system filled with self-seeding plants and perennials.

• Her path to get to where she is at based on strong ethics, environmental activism and natural health upbringing from her parents.
• Her early teenage year with activism and being connected to nature
• How growing up with the awareness of nuclear war potentials and oils shortages influenced her messages
• Her father’s teachings to look for positive solutions
• Being influenced by Fritjof Capra, author of TAO of Physics,
• Her adventures in England that introduced her to permaculture foundations and teachings
• Her head and heart filling up with possibilities
• How she transformed her ideas and inspiration into the reality of her life in Australia
• Her life on the amazing Crystal Waters village community (you need to hear all of this to believe it) with 83 households working together in a true permaculture community
• WWOOFers that come to the village and the WWOOFing that helps teach her kids so much about the world
• When your green you grow, when your ripe you rot
• Her son’s homeschool project of solar powered transportation for their community
• How she learned so much more about successful permaculture after she left the university
• What she feels is needed to start successful polycultural systems
• Her connected pods that create her home which expanded as her family did
• The story of how their home was built by themselves and what that means to them
• How she can forage for food just outside her door
• Why she considers her home an ecological system that looks after itself 

• Some real treats in her garden that demonstrate how many edible parts there are in any garden
• What the biggest products that come from her garden are besides food for her family
• What she does with the recycling depository in her carport
• How her children are already living and speaking permaculture
• How she is un-schooling her kids and the benefits of this method

As well as:

• How she is learning to accept that some of her ideas have not reached their time yet
• Why she thinks her project of Northey Street City Farm is her biggest success
• Why feeling the pain and injustice of the earth being destroyed and cultures being dismantled actually drives her to seek out better solutions
• Her final piece of advice is to be open and listen to learn

The post Why Do I Live A Permaculture Life… appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Listen to the latest Simple Life Segment on ABC Radio. Evenings presenter, Sarah Howells, and I explore two key threads in our conversation:

• Simple ideas to create abundance in your edible garden.
• Getting out of the throw-away cup habit.

Take a listen to the podcast 612ABC Radio – Evenings: Simple Life with Morag Gamble (22mins) on Soundcloud.

I love that the intro song is from Charlie McGee’s Formidable Vegetable Sound System.

I’d also like to invite you to come and join me in my garden at these new Permaculture Life Workshops over the next couple of months.

Click here for information and registration for Sept 17: DIY Permaculture Home

Click here for information and registration for the Oct 1: DIY Natural Healing and Beauty Products

Click here for information and registration for October 29: The Simple and Abundant Garden

Click here for information and registration for Nov 12: Harvest to Table

The post The Simple Garden: ABC Radio Simple Life with Morag Gamble – Podcast #3 appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

By spending less, I can work less. With my spare time, I get to hang out with my family more in the garden, and even have the opportunity to homeschool them.

Spending less, amongst other things, means:

1. we use/have less stuff
2. we save energy
3. we create less waste 
4. we create less pollution
5. we save money for important things and the good stuff
6. we share and exchange things more
7. we are encouraged to repair, reuse and up-cycle things.  
8. we have less stuff to clean and put away 
9. we could work fewer hours and have more time to pursue ‘passion-projects’.
10. we get to spend more time with family, friends and community

The ‘pots and pans’ drum kit is just perfect, and far more robust than the plastic drum kits for little kids.

So here’s the 3 simple ways to save money….

1. Use CASH – studies have shown that you spend at least more than 20% more if you use plastic.
2. Go shopping with a LIST – and try to stick to it – have a standing list of basics.
3. Create a BUDGET for weekly spending – and try to stick to this too.

7 Questions to Ask:

Seems too simple, bit if you stick to it you will be amazed what a difference it makes. Also, you may like to try asking these questions before buying something:

1. Do I actually need this (or is it just a ‘want’)?
2. Is there a better way I could be spending this money?
3. Is there something growing locally, in my garden?
4. Could I make this? 
5. Do I have an old one I can mend? 
6. Could I get it second hand?
7. Can I share buying this with others, borrow it from a friend, (or join a tool library, for example)?

I go shopping for my basic weekly supplies at my local organic coop store and buy bulk foods in recyclable and reusable packaging. I love this store and often bump into friends.

Voluntary simplicity, also known sometimes as downshifting, cultivates a level of resilience and abundance thinking. It also helps us to keep in mind the really important things in life and spend more time doing the things we love.

Growing food at home or in community gardens is a great way to save on the food bill.

The post 3 Simple Ways to Save & 10 Good Reasons to Do This appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Take a look at these pictures drawn recently by my little boy who turned three in April. He only recently started taking an interest in drawing and now he loves it –  I mean page after page after page.

This series of drawings was done in one sitting. Each picture has an amazingly in-depth story. I understand what they all mean because I sat with him and listened to his active commentary while he was drawing, or sometimes I asked him extra questions when he’d finished. I was astounded at the depth of detail he was describing, and the absolute focus he had on places in nature and the wildlife that surrounds him (real and imaginary!).

Birds feature a lot – here Mr Bossy Boots the seagull (who Monty met on a beach outing) and a bush turkey from our garden. There are over 160 species of birds at Crystal Waters.

Monty loves playing in mud and watching other animals play in the lake below our house. The sticks and mudzone are an obvious feature for him.

He has grown up in an ecovillage spending a lot of time outdoors, in natural spaces, down at the river, around lakes, in the permaculture garden, at community gardens, playing in muddy puddles, watching wildlife  – that is his daily reality. These pictures represent some of what he thinks about.

Rocks for rock hopping in the little river near our place.     One of the sections of river I think he had in mind…

This drawing Monty did as he told the story of a large creature called Jaca who met a little beetle and a snake (his story).

A Sea Urchin. Monty loves going to the beach to fossick in rock pools. (He also loves David Attenborough shows and the Octonauts).

The baby sea urchin looking for it’s mummy.

An underwater creature – perhaps in the lake below our house.

Monty is super excited about Grandad’s boat – a wooden trailer sailer he is restoring. We hope to go sailing in it later this year in the Gippsland Lakes.

 

The night sky out here is INCREDIBLE. Monty loves going out to see what we can see, and to say ‘Hello Moon’. He sings to it.

My little nature boy (it’s actually hard to find a picture with his clothes on that I can share here!) – the river is his favourite place.

He loves the beach and ocean too.

The post An Insight Into the Mind of a 3yo Nature Kid Through Art appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Each week my permaculture livelihood brings something different, interesting and challenging, and connects me with different communities and places. I always learn something new – about a plant, about a way of seeing the world, about an innovative technology… I love my work. This week I learnt from one of the mums from India that they mix Ajwain seeds with tulsi – the sacred basil I grow. Among other things, it can be used to sooth coughs and ease asthma. I am going to explore this plant more.

One of the beautiful smiling children I had the pleasure of working with this week with her mini-wicking hanging garden she made at my workshop at Brisbane Square Library this week.

I arrange seeds in their families and put pictures of the plants next to them for the pre-readers. I get many young people helping me to set up, and many of them who like to just get their hands in the seed bowls and feel them.

Rachel – historian, planner, earthship enthusiast and PhD researcher – interviewed me this week. Her work is focussed on Off-Grid living and with me she mostly explored the questions of why I live the way I do and what influences were in my life to bring me to these decisions. It was great to have the chance to think about and articulate this. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting her and hearing about her research too.

 CHILDREN’S PERMACULTURE WORKSHOPS

I have an absolute ball with the children’s programs and am always delighted at their enthusiasm and knowledge. Together this week at libraries across Brisbane, I led free gardening sessions for almost 100 children.  We made mini-wicking gardens and planted them with cuttings of permaculture plants from my garden. We made newspaper pots for perennial cuttings and egg carton seed trays for a diversity of seasonal annuals. We made origami seed envelopes too. We explored ecological systems thinking, permaculture design ideas, edible perennial propagation and seed saving, working toward a zero-waste system, simple living ideas, and ways to protect wildlife and nurture diversity.

This girl is delighted with her cuttings of garlic chives, turmeric, pelargonium and cranberry hibiscus to take home for her garden. She has made and decorated a mini-wicking pot out of a 3L milk bottle to help her get these plants started.

This little girl is taking home some Brazilian Spinach, Sacred Basil, plus the ever popular Turmeric and Garlic Chives too.

At one of the seed stations, the children are selecting a range of seasonal vegetables, flowers and herbs to propagate in their egg carton seed tray.

My little display at the workshops of upcoming workshops and articles about our garden. I am really looking forward to a Nature Kids program next week and a PDC from August 29 – September 9.

WORM TOWER WORKSHOP

During the week I also ran an workshop for adults at the Forest Heart Nursery in Maleny about worm towers.  The nursery is now the proud caretaker of a new colony of compost worms. Thanks to Hugh for breeding the worms.  My eight year old son, Hugh, is now launching into his second enterprise – worm farming (his first is Hugh’s Bike Shed) to supply locals who want to set up worm tower systems. (have a look at this previous post for more worm tower information)

Chopping a length of pipe for a low-set worm tower (I have used the full length of pipe in my garden).

It’s important to drill lots of hols for the worms and castings to move out of the tube into the garden. We used a 6mm drill bit here and spaced the holes about 5cm apart through the section that is underground. I don’t put holes above ground to prevent flies from finding the compost.

Extracting the compost worms from another worm farm to place in the worm tower. Mound it up, the worms go away from the heat and light. Scrape off some material and the worms go deeper. Keep doing this until you are left with a bundle of worms.

In goes the pipe – nice and level in all directions (I’m a surveyor’s daughter!).  The soil and mulch will be brought up around the tower and the pot will be placed on top.  Inside the pipe we made sure the base soil was loose, we placed some moist coco-peat at the bottom as a bedding We topped it all off with a handful of mulch to help keep the temperature stable and to prevent flies from landing on the food scraps.

ENTERPRISING CHILDREN

Yesterday the kids and I were busy making things for this weekend’s Crystal Waters Monthly Market. We have an abundance of lemons and limes so they decided to make marmalade. They researched and trialled a few different methods and made 24 jars of delicious preserves to sell at the market.  I have asked them to write these up – so hopefully you’ll see these recipes soon. Maia has decided to join Hugh in worm farming and they’ll have worms for sale too. It’s going to be a fun day with lots of friends and neighbours meeting at the village green.

Some of the delicious lime marmalade Hugh made.

Some of Hugh and Maia’s worms ready to be bundled up.

The post Working as a permaculture designer and teacher. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

About 8 years ago I made a short film called Think Global: Eat Local – a diet for a sustainable society that wove together projects and ideas from research I’d done over 15 years in 15 countries in a 15 minute film.  The focus was local food systems, and I shared examples from around the world and particularly my local region.

You can tell the filming was finished in Queensland summer with the cicadas in the background of some interviews, but despite that, I think the content is still just as relevant today.  I am working on getting a full quality version onto my new Youtube Channel: Our Permaculture Life, but in the meantime, here is the film in 2 parts (apparently easier to upload that way back in 2008).

Think Global Eat Local: A Diet for a Sustainable Society – part 1
Think Global Eat Local: A Diet for a Sustainable Society – part 2

Much of the inspiration for my work in local food, simple living, sustainable communities and relocalisation has been inspired by the many months I lived in Ladakh in 1992 and 1995. I volunteered with the Ladakh Project and for Helena Norberg-Hodge – who was in my early 20s and continues to be a major inspiration to me. (Her films are: Ancient Futures and The Economics of Happiness).

This is an old slide image of me with Amale (my Ladakhi host mother) 21 years ago – taking a break from harvesting. I helped to trial the farmstay program in Ladakh in 1995 which continues today. The Learning From Ladakh 2016 program is open for August intake. The lessons I learnt in Ladakh have shaped the work I do, the way I think and the way I live.

Me threshing grain in Ladakh in 1995 as part of the Farmstay trial program of the Ladakh Project.

The post Permaculture and Local Food Films appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Growing your own fresh produce is such a healthy and satisfying way to simplify your life, and save thousands a year. I typically grow so much that I need to give much of it away – mostly as cuttings at the workshops I give, to help other people’s gardens become more abundant.

By simplifying my life and avoiding unnecessary daily purchases, I am easily saving over $23,000 a year in just a few areas of my life.

What this means is that:

1. I don’t need to earn that amount (and can spend that time with my family, volunteering in my community, developing new skills, writing, riding, being in nature…) or
2. I have more freedom to spend the money on more interesting things, or things that will last…. or
3. Perhaps go on a journey and worldschool our kids.

I’ve found that reducing our daily cost of living can be a simple, yet powerful series of actions that can help us live a more sustainable, low-impact and relaxed way of life.

I feel happier like this – more connected to myself, my community, the place I live, the planet and global society. I feel better too knowing that I have not contributed so much waste and pollution, or impacted so much on other communities. This is important to me.

Slowing down and exploring our own backyard – finding dragonflies, turtles, waterbirds, waterlily and other interesting plants, insects and animals.

So how do I simply save over $23,000 a year:

Go Shopping With a List – save $5000

I find it’s too easy to fill shopping baskets with spontaneous buys especially when I don’t take my list or I shop when I’m hungry. I’ve noticed my register bill almost doubles. I also avoid shopping at big stores that encourage over-purchasing. Even shopping at small ethical stores, I have found this saves me around $5000 a year.

Eat a Simple Dinner at Home – save $5000

I love to cook and kindly my kids say my meals are really good  – they even go so far to say they prefer my food to meals out (phew!). We eat simple, tasty and healthy meals together at home and enjoy the laid-back vibe. Eating out with a 3yo can be ‘not-so-relaxing’.  Some days (for no particular reason) we set the table really nicely, put on some music and make it a special meal. Taking a family out for dinner weekly can be costly. I think we easily save over $5000 a year by eating at home, and taking food with us.

Maia loves creating colourful little table decorations from garden flowers, old jars, socks and fabrics scraps. Delightful!

Pack Lunch and Snacks when we go out – save $3000

Go on picnics and local outings – save $3000

A favourite local outing is a picnic at the river. It is even something we do on special occasions. We pack up our little basket with little goodies and a thermos, sometimes even a bag of potatoes to through in a riverside campfire – yumm!  By reducing the number of expensive outings and choosing to entertain ourselves in our local environment I estimate saves us over $3000 a year.

We all love heading to the river, exploring, having a picnic and cooking potatoes in the fire.

Make a Coffee Thermos at home – save $4000

We love coffee and I think we still spend way too much on coffee when we’re out.  By taking our coffee thermos from home I estimate we could save around $4000 a year  – wow, oh dear, that’s huge.  Perhaps I should just drink my herb infused waters instead – which I already carry everywhere!

Grow fresh greens – $3000

By cultivating some super-easy home-grown food –  fresh salads leaves, bunches of greens, a range of culinary herbs, bundles of cherry tomatoes and delicious snow peas, not only is your food far fresher and more nutrient dense, I’ve worked out that we easily save over $3000 a year. If we took into account all the food we grow and the eggs, it would be much more.

I grow at least 20 different types of greens for teas, salads, stir-fries, soups, curries and other meals. This is super spicy red mustard spinach and one of the open-hearted oak-leaf lettuces behind.

The self-seeding tomatoes are so delicious and abundant. I don’t have to do anything and there are many many kilograms every year.

Other ways to save money by living simply

• Assess needs against wants – check in with yourself. I find I can often easily put things back on the shop shelf if I stop to think about it. Stepping out of the consumer lifestyle can be very liberating. It helps to avoid big shopping centres too. It’s hard to come out having bought just what you needed, and quite often items are not as good as expected.
• Choose good quality items that last – It’s better to spend money on something that will last a long time and is fixable, rather than on cheap disposable versions.
• Choose good quality second hand things – there is so much scope here! Furniture, cars, bikes, computers, musical instruments, clothes…
• Declutter – finding a clarity of mind in clear spaces, spaces not filled with ‘stuff’ we own.

Voluntary simplicity

Choosing to live more simply, moving away from the work-spend cycle and finding a broader definition of richness and wealth, is often known as downshifting or voluntary simplicity. This way of thinking and living embraces the notions such as:

• bigger is not always better,
• focus on quality rather than quantity,
• see that accumulating more stuff does not make us happier, and
• a simpler life creates far less impact on the environment and society.

Did you know that every year, the average Australian family produces enough rubbish to fill a three-bedroom house, producing about 2.25 kg of waste each per day. Cool Australia 

I also strongly believe that we do need to “Live simply so that others may simply live“ as Gandhi said.

By embracing voluntary simplicity ideals, it is embracing an ethical life, that values other people, other communities, other species, other ecological communities… This is certainly connected to the third ethic of permaculture.

The three ethics at the core of permaculture are:

1. earth care
2. people care
3. fair share

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