Taking roast dinner as a work lunch

Roast beef with pumpkin, mashed potato and peas

This is the work lunch (dinner) that I am sending with Mr Techno today.

It makes a change from sandwiches, and with the cooler weather, it is warming to have something hot for his meal at work.

It is leftover roast beef pumpkin, mashed potato from the recent evening meal and then I add some frozen peas.

I have found that if I spoon some leftover gravy over the meat, it prevents the meat from drying out when it is reheated at work.

Gravy keeps the meat moist when the meal is reheated.

I put this in Mr Techno’s insulated lunch pack with 2 pieces of fruit and a homemade banana muffin.

Mr Techno’s insulated lunch carrier reminds me of Fred Flinstone’s lunch pack!

Homemade Bread

Secret Women’s Business

For women only .

I have no affiliations or interest in company Diva Cup. I have not been paid for this post- just sharing information with others in the interests of greener, more sustainable living.

I have just discovered the Diva Cup, after reading about it on The Minimalist Mom.

I feel that in the interests of simple and sustainable living, I need to pass on the word.

I will leave it to The Minimalist Mom to explain it. She posted about it on her blog a little while ago and I really liked her post.

So I sent away for a Diva Cup online and have now used it. It took a few days to get used to it, but I persevered and now I am never going back to tampons and pads.

Click here to read the post by The Minimalist Mom .

And if you are interested here are some FAQs from the Diva Cup site.

Making laundry powder

Every few weeks I spend 15 minutes or so making my own laundry detergent.

Here is how I do it.

1 bar (125g) grated laundry soap ( I use Sunlight and an old grater kept just for this purpose)
250g of borax
250g of washing soda

Mix all of the ingredients thoroughly.

Store in a plastic container with a lid. I use an old ice-cream container with a flip lid.

I use 2 tablespoons of the laundry powder for each wash. You will notice that there are no suds during washing, but this is perfectly fine.

I have noticed since using this that my clothes are cleaned just as well as with commercial bought laundry detergent powders. In fact I love this powder more because it doesn’t seem to fade my clothing.

How I saved $720 per annum in 30 minutes!

Yes its true!

I was reading one of my favourite blogs Move to Portugal, where Laura wrote a post about small budget tweaks to save money.

I decided it was time to review my health insurance premiums.

I went to iselect which is a free online service in Australia to help compare the different health insurance providers and the benefits that they provide. I typed  in the information and the level of health cover that I required for my family, and the service does the  comparison for me. This is quite simple and doesn’t take very long at all, maybe 10 mins tops.

My current health insurance premiums were $167 per month.

I found a health fund that gave me the coverage that we required for $107 per month.

This was a saving of $60 per month. So voila, $720 savings for the year.

The policy was completed online, and then I was sent an email confirming my new policy together with a one page form to fill out to cancel my existing policy.

A stamp and an envelope later, and I am signed up for my new health fund, and my old one is cancelled.

All in less than 30 mins and  2 cups of coffee.

Simple.

(Thanks Laura!)

Simple hair conditioning

This has been something that I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

I’ve road tested a new hair conditioning treatment.

I mashed up half a ripe avocado, an egg, and about a tablespoon of olive oil.

Then I “plastered” the mixture straight onto my dry hair.

This was more weird than it sounds.

Fortunately I had the foresight to put on my “hairdressing cape” to protect my clothes first.

Then I put a plastic shower cap over the salad in my hair so that it didn’t drip or drop off while I did some reading of my favourite blogs.

After about 40 mins, I washed the mixture out of my hair, and shampooed as normal.

My hair has really benefitted from this. Usually my hair is very fine, lacks shine and tends to frizz. However, since this treatment, the texture is thicker and has some shine to it. And it feels much nicer.

For my hair, this was a success, and I would like to have this treatment a couple of times a month.

It is messy, so with some preparation ( hairdressing cape and shower cap) it can be much more manageable.

I’ve just rinsed the cape off and rinsed out the shower cap for reuse next time.

Mr Techno says he found a few bits of mashed avocado in the shower cubicle afterwards, so I’ll need to be more vigilant with the rinsing out next time.

 

Saving money by not going to work!

In 2 days time, I will be finishing working 5 days per week.

After that, I will then only be working outside the home 2 days a week. As a result,  I  will need to adjusting my family’s expenses so that we are living within our  income.

I will be ‘losing’ about $690 per week  after tax.

So there will be quite a lot of trimming to to do and reorganising our expenses and lifestyle to live comfortably yet smarter within our new income level.

On the positive side, as soon as I stop work on those 3 extra days I will no longer have these “going to work” expenses which total $145 ;

1. Before and after school care for my daughter  $75 per week
2. Cleaner $40 per week
3. Travel 6 trips@ $5= $30

Total direct expenses saved $145

So the my actual decrease in net income is $545.

Buying back 3 days of my life to do things that I would like to do for $545 is a bargain!