This is extracts from an article written late 1950’s as part of this article was burnt many years ago, I have no idea the name magazine or author and thanks to them for me seeing the wisdom in their writing many years ago their words live on.

Note do remember prices & wages back then were pittance to what you can be earning today.

My own wage at this time for a 15 year old was one pound and eighteen shillings about $3.80Au and with paying my family board at one pound per week.

Spend a Little … Look Great

What is the cost of being a beauty? Can be as little as five shillings per week.

A pittance buys a wealth of beauty – If you spend it wisely.
Pounds-a - week buy very little – if they tossed around without a plan, and without a care.

Here is a three point course in clever spending; makes you a new year gift of ready worked out budgets to suits your purse to follow.


Another No spend day here

One thing that I did find in these boxes was the first magazine articles that I cut out on saving money over fifty years ago. It funny what you do keep, Spend a little - Look Great, it's on save on beauty products & how to use them in three lessons not much has changed but some brand names and Prices. The other one is "How to dress well on 2 pounds per week". Not that I had 2 pounds a week to spend then on clothes or 5 shillings on beauty products per week either. As 15 year old, I was lucky to have train fare to go to work and keep myself in shoes and pay board at that time but one could dream and plan. Once I did put them in the fire by accident as one has burnt corner on it but its still readable. I don't know which magazine they came out of or if it's still in print. They don't write articles like these any more. I will never be throwing these away now that I have kept them for so long and information still works for today.
Weekly Main Meal Menu Sunday ~ Omelet with Shredded Cheese and Salad Monday ~ Tuna Salad with Rice Crackers Tuesday ~ Steak & Vegetables Wednesday ~ Soup & Crackers Thursday ~ Spaghetti Bolognese Friday ~ Steamed Fish and Salad Saturday ~ Chicken Kebabs with Salad No spending today

Today I decide to de-clutter some of the papers & items that I have boxed in my dining room.

I have a wall that is behind the table that I have been putting plastic boxes against for a while now, last week I needed one for storage in another area instead of going out and buying another one.

It’s mostly paper that I collect for some reason at the time on my sideboard and when I get visitors it get put into these containers I’m not talking about small ones either 57 litres on rollers and stackable ones too!

So I have decided to cull these boxes big time, so my dining room table is full of items out of these boxes and the boxes have now been removed. I do keep papers & information for others, this has to stop. It’s just a small step one I will be happy to see the back of. So here is my challenge for next few weeks and list of questions for me to think about too!

Declutter Paper Challenge

• Is it out of date?
• Why have I kept it in the first place?
• Do I need this piece of information for ME?
• Do I want it now?
• Can I live with out it?
• Can I replace it with information on the net?
• Ask yourself will I miss this piece of paper or booklet.
• Does it have any value?
• If it’s a heritage document and do I keep it?

What to keep
• Is this item a Tax or budget data for my benefit?
• Past medical Information needs to be kept in a file.
• Keep all pension information for my benefit.
• Is this Information on general topics of interest for my benefit or has historical value? # Can I replace it with information on the net?

File all papers that you are keeping in filing cabinets that are in the house.

The last two days have been, No Spending days.

Just got my first water tank rebate back! I open my online account to check if my debit had been taken out and found that my first rebate of $1000 has been debit credit to my account. I quickly transferred it to my ING account so that I won’t spend it and save it for one of my major project later this year like a new computer as my computer is very outdate now and 8 years old but still working very slowly and can’t be upgraded anymore.

Owing to the rain my ground was soft enough to work on last week. So I start tidying up the pumpkin patch area. When my handyman friend arrived and started to help out. I had three wheel borrows of dirt from putting in the tank area plus two other piles of dirt. So we got to and clear this area and mowed the whole yards lawn. My mower is about to be replaced very soon. So will need to put as side about $500 for a new one. I may get three more mows out it if I am lucky I had plan to replace it last year so its not to bad that I got another year out of it. It was bought in mid 70’s so it time for a new one, I hope the next one will be my last one.

On the first day we worked on getting the ground cleared and lawn mowed. The 2nd day we made two gardens area. Still need to do a third area. We recycled all the soil and ran it through a sieve that I had too! I had bought a few years ago some garden edge that were never used. So had that also five bags of potting mix to replace the soil in the large pots that I have a Neen, Bay, Curry Trees in, these can’t go into the ground but must stay in pots. They are on a cement slab so the roots will not go into the ground as they will grow too high for the area that I have here. Another problem is next door has Cocos palms that’s a weed in our area, I have to keep on the look out for these as I don’t wish to pay a fortune to have them cut out in the future. I did find four young plants when we were clearing the areas too! I the new garden I have used only plant that I had in my garden taking some from others area and cutting of other plants. Any plant that dies before the drought end will be not replaced. On the three day I work on my own planting all the under plants using want I had around the place, Iris, tee tree native, rosemary, geraniums, a lot of bromeliads, gladiolus bulbs (that I had laying about) & snowflake. All have lasted in my garden as well as the crotons that I have in the front yard for many years with very little watering at times. So there is one more area to work on and the pruning in late July of the trees & the hedge until this time next year when I will need to clean up again. I don’t do any gardening but mowing in summer and our summer starts around late October temperature wise. We got a first cool weather after the 1st June this year until then it was over 28 C everyday.

Four days of no spending days here.

I have been a bit lazy with this blog of lateas I have been watching the Big Brother program here, too much TV anyway. I will try get a little more with it and blog a bit more often and I will post a full update tonight.

On the rain front, we end up getting one & half days of good rain here. My tank & all the tanks that were in stalled are now full. But elsewhere in the country (NSW) have been in trouble with a low of the coast and flooding and tanker running a ground in the height of the storm. A whole family of five was washed away when a road gave way. Another couple lost their lives when a bridge gave way, such a lost too! Just before that we had train crash in Victoria with eleven people dead when a semi-trailer ran into a train at a level crossing.

Weekly Main Meal Menu

Sunday ~ Vegetable Soup with Toast
Monday ~ Chicken Mustard with Rice.
Tuesday ~ Devilled Sausages with Mashed Potato & Peas
Wednesday ~ Pasta with Pasta Sauce & Tuna
Thursday ~ Beans Rissoles & Salad
Friday ~ Poached Fish with Steamed Vegetables
Saturday ~ Garlic Chicken Schnitzel with Tomato Salsa & Steamed Vegetables.

Gone shopping or bought something. 10 times

Went to the city by bus 2 times

Drove my car only. 5 times

Had food bought or had for free away from home. 7 times

And had 17 No Spending Days.

Lets see what next 28 days tallies will be.

Seeing that I didn’t post my menu plan this week.

Weekly Main Meal Menu

Monday ~ Minestrone & Salad
Tuesday ~ Chilli Con Care & Corn Chips
Wednesday ~ Devilled Sausages with Mashed Potato & Peas
Thursday ~ Beef Stroganoff with Rice
Friday ~ Poached Fish with Steamed Vegetables
Saturday ~ Spaghetti Bolognese
Sunday ~ Beans Rissoles & Salad

I have been having a few gremlins on my computer of late, so I will have just to post a little now and then for the time being. My anti-virus program tried to download but I didn’t have enough RAM for the download, as I am working on an old computer. Now it has righted it self again with the new downloads so far. I was told only 10% of computers are now working on 128 RAM or less these days. I see this will be a problem in the near distance future with most old computer pre –2000 models. I try not to allow upgrade of any programs for this reason. This is one of reasons that I am saving for a new computer 1G RAM it possible. I had to turn the power off for hour and then reboot so that I could get the mouse to copy & paste anything in Word, I could copy & paste on internet but not into or on Word. Plus other little things were happening.

It’s another No spending day here again.

I made it tonight; it's very tasty with the pineapple pieces & chunky tuna that I drained. As I only made up a half recipe making two serving, I use 1/2 can of chunky tuna drained, 1/2 can pineapple pieces reserving the juice, 1/2 can cream of the chicken soup plus small 1/2 cup of mushroom in butter sauce. I used some of reserved pineapple juice as the liquid in this dish keeping it on the thick side.. Heated in all a frypan served it with noodles. Being careful not break up the tuna too much. The chicken soup kept it yellow with the flecks of mushrooms in the mixture. I will make it again.

As I was going though an old handwritten recipe book today, I found this recipe which I will put into my pantry recipe file. What do you think of it?

EASY TUNA DISH

1 large 425g can Tuna in springwater
1 small can mushroom in butter sauce
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can 440g crushed or pineapple pieces in juice

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and heat through.
Serve with boiled rice or fried noodles

Ideal if you need to just mixed a few cans together and you have no refrigeration.

It's another No spending day here.

Today I thought would put away all those painting & carpentry items that were still out on the workbench and cleared the floor of the workshop. So that two zones are now done for this month.

Another No Spending Day

Today the son of another neighbor that I keep an eye on from time to time. Came over and put water diverter on drainpipe for my washing machine water, he is a plumber for free. Now I can use my grey water hose, as it never fitted before to my machine. It’s a little slow, but I can now put my soapy water straight on the lawn near the fruit trees.

Week before he went on holidays interstate and left his mother alone with his teenager son the only contract here. So each day I had to check on her to make sure that she was ok. As she has had a fall before and was on the floor for over 12 hours so everyone was a little nervous about her at 87.

Weekly Main Meal Menu

Sunday ~ Poached Fish with Marinated Pepper & Steamed Green Beans Topped w’ Chilli Sauce
Monday ~ Devilled Sausages & Mashed Potato
Tuesday ~ Beans Rissoles & Salad
Wednesday ~ Thai Satay Chicken with Steamed Rice & Green tea
Thursday ~ Beef Bourguignon with Basmati rice
Friday ~ Pasta with Pasta Sauce & Tuna
Saturday ~ Curry Ground Beef & Rice with Sambal

Another No spending day

As I have finish my Mirror Image Challenge and now it’s time for a new style format and challenges.

As the Major Projects are still on going and I need to find the money for these without taking any money from capital investments as there is not enough money invested for me to live into the future only a few just years not a lifetime. (Lifetime = 30 years more plus) I do need to get the compound interest working on this when I don’t have even six digits in my investments to last a lifetime. So I plan not to touch it and try to live without it for next few years if possible. Without any income (other than my pension) and keeping my house livable on my pension is my goal for now. - Major Project reports

$20 Challenge on Senior Card Discounts and loose change.
I am hoping to bank my entire Senior Card Discounts amount but not Government Pensioner Rebates that I get. Along with any loose changes that I get in the way of 5c –50c coins. ING –EF - $20 Challenge.

Adding to my EF –ING online account updating progress on this. - Money banked.

What I am keeping from last year’s format.
$$$ Strategy & useful tips found.
In the last 28 days
Bi-monthly Goals & Planning Ahead
Monthly Summary of how I am going (I may change the timing on this one) - Bill & Budget.
Weekly menu with Grocery Challenge on using my stockpile up. - All Food /Bulk Assets
Recipes from time to time. - Recipe
My Garden & Our Water Problems – Garden / $Saving on Utilities
Whatever – Small Stuff Challenge
Frugal Memories

I may not post everyday from now on but will still post a few times per week.

I’ll also add this post to my pages.

It’s another No spending day here.

Today is my blogoversary. 28 April 2007

Just twelve months ago I started this blog asking myself a question that I been wondering about for sometime. My Question was this “What is the true value of my lifestyle now that I am living on a pension?” and still living within my means.

I have posted my summery of this Mirror Image Challenge in Pages.

The Answer to My Question

It’s Another No spending day

Gone shopping or bought something. 10 times

Went to the city by bus. 2 times

Drove my car only. 6 times

Had bought food or had for free away from home. 5 times

And had 16 No Spending Days.

Lets see what next 28 days tallies will be with a new beginning?

Well it’s the last day of this Mirror Image Challenge, keeping up with the tally sheets and doing all the Maths did take sometime and at times days. Especially when you find after 28th weeks that the numbers are out by around 1000 dollars because you were adding in the wrong column into the totals at times and had to do the figures again and then go and fix it in the blog. Until I made up templates, it did take time to work it out and to keep it going for whole year. But it was worth it in the end, as now I do know that I can save money on what I am doing and where I am saving it. I will do a summery of my senior card discounts and pension rebate discounts and give you all and idea what different if I didn’t have this extra.

Some of our pensions here aren’t allow these discounts. So not all get them, our Age & Disability Support Pensions do but the others don’t to my knowledge, depending on the age of the person (60 plus) with different rates for couples than singles but with all pensions and allowances do get Pharmaceutical Allowance and some other benefits. All my figures were for a single household on Full Age or Disability Support Pension and in 60 plus group.

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Turkish Bread with Hummus Lettuce Tuna Marinated Feta with Marinated Peppers
DINNER Poached Fish with Salad Coffee

Another No spending day

Well I may get a few no spending days this time, as today is another one.

The most important thing I did today was watering my garden after 4pm until 7pm. It is taking about 70 –80 minutes to water my whole garden beds with a bucket or watering can. I trying to use as much grey water that I have each time I do water. I do like to have it finish before the daylight goes but soon it will be dark at 5pm here. Some parts of my garden don’t have any lights so will need to do these areas first in the future.

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Pumpkin & Carrot Soup with bread & Hummus spread.
DINNER Spaghetti Bolognese Coffee

I went to visit my Greek neighbor’s place for morning tea and chat. I had some Greek Easter bread that was leftover from Easter. I don’t go as often as I do to my other neighbors.

After I came from to work in my computer as always doing something and exploring Internet after over 7 years on net. Other than picking some fruit off my Persimmon tree, I have been eating them as my fruit for weeks now, and I am on my third tree. DF-M has two trees and has had every large crop this year but the bugs did get to it so you couldn’t give many away but I ate them any way. Mine have been netted since December so the bats & bird are still keeping away, it has about 30 Persimmons on it these are different variety more like a Fuji fruit from DF-M. They sold here for around 99c to $2.00 each. My Meyer lemon tree has a lot of lemons on it but it under stress so I am pruning it a bit so it will have less stress on it. I also have passionfruit vines but they are only now starting to flower & set fruit.

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Crackers with Ham, Hummus & Tomato Fruit Coffee
DINNER Curry Ground Beef top with Mashed Potato in Shepherd Pie Style

Today I did very little in the way of saving money. But I did tidy up my garden and start pruning a few trees & shrubs in the front yard. The way I look at it, the less branches & leaves the tree has to feed the better. As we have very little water too water our gardens. I am doing my best to use only grey water.

Now by June 2007 Federal Government (Canberra) is going to stop allowing irrigation of our food crops in Murray Darling Basin which runs from north of Brisbane to all of NSW, Victoria & (South Australia which is they main water supply.) Only water for humans allowed.

Here are two links on this topic.

I have always watered in the early morning at dawn. Now I have to water only after 4pm until 7pm with a bucket only. But I can water at anytime if I have grey water or tank water. As my tank has not arrived yet! We had no rain for a month now, so it will have no water in it until it rains next when does arrive. We are on a odd & even house numbers as before. So now I have to change my jobs around so I can water in the afternoon before sun goes down, that only gives me about one hour to water the whole area. Some plants only need watering once per week so I will do them on the odd day. As I only water twice per week now. I will have to change my strategy on which plants to water and when. With the view that we may not be able to use buckets or water our gardens at all when we get to the next level in about September at 15% dam water level. My daily water use is only 129 litres per day. So I am saving money on my water bill. $12.50 for 3 months is not bad!

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Macaroni & Cheese Fruit Coffee
DINNER Stewed Lentils & Tomato Sauce & coffee

In a few weeks time I will be coming the end of my Mirror Image Challenge. I am working on summery of my Senior discounts against my other $-t-r-e-t-c-h Savings ways of saving money. So to see how much being a senior on a pension with discounts that are available here.

So at the end of this month I will be able to post this summery answering that question that I asked in my first post in April 2006

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Chilli Tuna Salad & Crackers Apple Coffee
DINNER Curry Ground Beef & Rice with Sambal

I did the mowing today that alone saved $35.00 DIY. It was mainly just weeds but it needed to be done as I would a lot of weeds to get rid of later on if I didn’t as they are going to seed. On of my strategy is to not let them go to seed or pick the flower off before they go to seed. This does cut down on the number of weeds in the lawn by doing this. Areas that I haven’t cut the weeds out are now I have a problem in.

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Soup & Toast Fruit Coffee
DINNER Bean Patties with Salad Fruit Coffee

Today’s Full price Tally $35.00
Today’s Savings - $ 35.00
2007 Total $-t-r-e-t-c-h Savings Tally $10605.86

Today was a no spending day as I worked in de-cluttering a work area downstairs for 3½ hours.

I found a few things that I had forgotten that I had like, two ‘The Illustrated London News’ 1948 & 1950 still in good condition so I will be reading these again one day, along with some Natural Geographic that are pre-WW11. I love old things. So I had a good day in my treasure hunt.

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Salad & Light Cream Cheese on Crackers Apple Coffee
DINNER Beef Bourguignon with Basmati rice

I limited my chores to a little bit of gardening today. As we go into level 5 this coming Tuesday I charges some of my fence plants to drought loving succulents. As I like to have some plants on my brick wall so that they can’t be stolen so easily I have them in bricks with no bottoms if you move them off. I have lost plants before this a few years ago now! There were some ivy geraniums there but there were starting to look awful. Other than visiting s few neighbors this morning and saying Hi to others. I have had a very no spending day. Next week will be different I will be spending up then I hope!

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Turkish Bread with Hummus Lettuce Tuna Marinated Feta with Marinated Peppers
DINNER Poached Fish with Salad Coffee

Today list of chores was washing and some ironing. This is saving money as I am saving every bit of water for my garden in the backyard. As some of you may have read that I do save first suds load to put back into the machine for the second load thus saving 80L of water each wash day to start with. I am saving as much recycle grey water that I can now we are at level 5.in a few days time. I am getting around 240L of grey water each washday. In doing so now I am saving the second suds load too! This is for plants that if I lost them it will not matter that much. So far I am able to water for two days with water and spot water the pot plant with tap water on the days that I am allowed to use potable water. I am hoping that my tank arrives soon & we get some rain so that I can fill it somewhat! We are coming into our dry season I do think it will have not much water to fill it before next spring. It’s over month that we in the city have had any rain here and almost 2 years in catchment area, now my grass is a just a lot of weeds and dry grass with dirt patches. I will still have to mow as the weeds are still flowering. That’s on the list for next week.

I did do some of my friend business shirts today also some of my own ironing that was still to be done. I did go for a walk around the block for some exercise today.

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Macaroni & Cheese Fruit Coffee
DINNER Stewed Lentils & Tomato Sauce & coffee

Started de-cluttering the tables downstairs so that I can work on some of the boxes that I keep my stuff in. I have a bad habit, in that when I have visitors, I put all the clutter that is out in boxes then storing them downstairs. But I never get back to empty them for a while or years in some things. Found some old 35mm slides of my DS as a baby. He is now been married for 7 years. These were still in the slide viewer that is now not working. As I need to clear up most of this storage area. At the moment I am putting anything that is of value in the area that it should be in. So when I get to that area in the future it will get put together with things of the same. When you have a soooooooo large a storage area, and almost 70 years of stuff from four generations and my house is the keeper of this kind of things. Not that there is anything of great value but a lot of family memories, like my nana's shoe stretchers, washing board, old dressmaking odd 'n' ends, tennis racket's brace holder with wing nuts, and metal shoehorn that I now uses. I don't want to sell any of it for now but to keep it better and cull the trash, that is mixed in with it.
BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Grilled Cheese on Toast Fruit Coffee
DINNER Chilli Con Carne with Corn Chips Coffee

Started working on put some of my books back into order after 3 weeks at other end of the room.
I did get half of this project done today will need to find time to work on it more. Maybe cull a few books also. I will need to look at the filing in this room also. This will be put onto my future to do list and the same with the clothes that are stored in this room.

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Macaroni & Cheese Fruit Coffee
DINNER Stewed Lentils & Tomato Sauce & coffee

Gone shopping or bought something 19 times

Went to the city by bus 5 times

Drove my car only. 2 times

Had food bought or had for free away from home. 8 times

And had 9 No Spending Days.

Lets see what next 28 days tallies will be.

I did some varnishing today; this only took an hour to do. I will do one more coat of varnish on the doors themselves in the morning. I spent most of the day on the computer and resting for part of the day. I still get very tried when doing this kind of work for too long. So its another no spending day here.

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Soup & Toast Fruit Coffee
DINNER Bean Patties with Salad Fruit Coffee

Early this morning before sunrise, I worked on getting my patio back in order. While working on the door project, I had to put what plants that were there, all in one corner so they had to be thinned out and rearrange so I could put back the patio setting that belong there too! I had saved some recycle water so that I could give it a quick wash down and water the plants while I was at it. It will be along while before that corner will be sweep again.

After breakfast using what paint that I had at hand I painted the white work it’s first coat. Then I when and put away all the tools that belong in the workshop and sweep up. Gee that feel good to have all that done.

I did go for a walk this afternoon but I never bought anything. So I did have No spend day after all!

BREAKFAST Muesli & Milk Coffee
LUNCH Chilli Tuna Salad & Crackers Apple Coffee
DINNER Curry Ground Beef & Rice with Sambal