I know - I suck at blogging.

I've had a few things I've been focusing on lately. The main one being saving money. Cutting costs. Living more cheaply. I have joined a website called Simple Savings. It is an Oz/NZ web site that has a wonderful forum, many, many tips on how to save money, live more frugally, repay debts more quickly. Simple Savings also helps with challenges and motivation.

I have joined a couple of challenges. The babysteps, mortgage, cc savings challenge - my challenge is mainly to save for a holiday next year with all the boys before they don't want to come with us any more. Not very SS, I know, but it's family, ya know?

Have also joined the Weightwatchers and Organised Chaos threads.

Consequently I have a new dream. To become more self sufficient. To buy a little patch of land, either relocate an old house on to it or build a garage and live in that for a while. Get some chickens. And a few grass grazing quadrupeds. Have a veggie garden.

To do this we would need to reduce our mortgage. It's currently fixed, so can't make too many extra payments towards it. But next year when we are due to renew it, that is the first thing I will be looking for - the chance to make more extra payments.

In the meantime - we have tomatoes against the back fence; plenty of cherries on our two trees, strawberries in pots and a few sickly looking lettuces. Over the next winter we will make raised veggie gardens and be all set for NEXT summer.

We will get extra tomatoes when they are cheap and make relish and spaghetti. Cheap stone fruit will be bought to freeze to keep us going through the winter.

On the grocery front I have cut my spending back from around $250 per week to about $220. That is still far too much, but I know that more can be saved. For me it's all about baby steps. I'm back to baking again. Muesli bars, muffins, biscuits. I love the muesli bar recipe I got off SS. It's so, so simple.

Time is usually against me - but it's all about using it wisely. I'm going to attempt to do that. Can't always guarantee that I will keep it up, but I'm going to try.