my girls - tightwadding it up with mama

I have two sharpei dogs that are a big part of my life.  Basically, my tiny house is just a huge kennel now, what with the hair and the smell and the ongoing battle to remove the dog poo from the backyard...

First there is Madge, who'll be 7 in March.  I've had her since she was a puppy.  She's big, butch, dominant, hates exercise and loves to eat.  Mrs Possum says she's a lot like me. She might be right.  This is Madge, exhausted after a walk :

And then there is Meg.  Meg came to me 4 and a half years ago from the SPCA.  She'd been really horribly abused - starved and left outside by her owner.  She had mange, no hair, back legs and tail had been broken, and was severely underweight.  They weren't sure whether she would survive when they picked her up.  A friend of mine was a volunteer there, and when Meg got better my friend suggested to the SPCA that I might be able to adopt her.  So, I went down and fell in love with her straight away.  She was just adorable, and so loving.  I guess I hadn't factored in the difference that two dogs would make compared to one!  Anyway, Meg came home with me.  They weren't sure how old she was, but I was told that she was really sickly, and probably would only live for 18 months, that I should take her home and give her a good last year or so.  Luckily we've had at least three times that now.  Here's Meg.  We reckon she's probably about 7 or 8 (given the twisted stomach saga).  She's our lemo.  Mrs Possum loves Meg the most, i think she relates to her lemo-ness and passive nature.

I've been trying to involve them in my frugality exercise.  It's working!  I'm trying out some dog food combinations to see where we can make some cuts without compromising their health or nutrition.  They eat different things - Meg had a twisted stomach last September, so is only allowed "dry food", whereas Madge eats biscuits.

I had a look on some websites about homemade dogfood, to see if there's anything that would be good to make, cheaper or with ingredients that I can come by easily.  Nothing yet has inspired me (or them), until I came across something that suggested including rice in their meals would be good for them.

Previously, Meg used to have a tin of dogfood each day, about $2.60.  I've checked with the vet, and I can substitute half of that for rice.  We've been doing that for about 6 weeks, and it's really working.  She likes it, her coat is glossy and it doesn't seem to be a problem.  I but the big 2kg bags of rice, about $2.50.  I make it in big amounts which lasts for three days.  A bag of rice lasts around 10 days, all up.  So, before I was spending $18 a week on food for Meg, now it's $11.  Madge is on a diet, she's a fat bastard like her mama, so we've reduced the quantity of dry food we have by about a quarter.  She's doing well too!  Her food works out to about $2 per kg, we were having just over 5kg a week.  Now we're down to about 4.  So, that was $10 down to $8.

Total frugal savings for the girls = $9 every week.  It definitely adds up, I'll be putting that into my ongoing indirect savings calculator to the right each week, that's for sure!

men in my house and many lists

Well, right now I have many men in my house fiddling about in my bathroom.  To my untrained eye, they do not appear to be achieving much.  Apparently my shower will be usable "by the end of the week" and my toilet will be "in and out on Wednesday."  Fingers crossed.

It's funny to have them here, and to see how they interact with me.  I work from home, on my laptop which is on my knee in the lounge.  The bathroom is off the lounge, and so I'm in close proximity to them all day.  I think it disturbs them that I'm here, obviously they're used to working in empty homes where the owner's out all day!  Perhaps that's why they're attempting to look busy all the time.  Who knows.

It does mean that they get to have lots of cups of tea though, because every time I make one for me I feel guilty and offer them one.  Tea lady extraordinaire.  I make the best tea, you've got to use tealeaves or else it just isn't right.

As predicted, I spent the weekend shopping for bathroom things and shovelling dirt.  I have shovelled so much dirt that I have now decided bugger it, I'll just spread the dirt around thinly and try to grow grass on it instead of getting rid of it to cover with stones / pavers. It's cheaper, easier, and puts me in less of a grumpy monkey place.  The benefits are endless. 

So, this weekend I have:

• moved the bath planter
• dug out a whole lot of tightly packed dirt  
• got some adhesive to attach some old brushsticks to the manky back wall to disguise it's mankiness (brushsticks have been hiding in my garage for ages, also means I can declutter, excellent)
• collected a shallow planter for my winter greens out the front,
• planted heaps of lettuce seeds in said planter
• cut trellis to section off the two gardening plots in the backyard so the dogs don't sit on them.  They lurve to sit in the dirt, it is crazy. 
• worked out where I'm going to put my mint plants I propogated from Mum's cuttings at Xmas
• Dug around the lemon tree out the back and sectioned it off with some old pavers that were lying around

By next weekend I will :

• put sheep pellets around the lemon tree
• get some potting mix for the mint plants
• plant out a heap of basil seeds
• transplant peas, beans, lettuces and silverbeet in the two plots - we've germinated them from seed at Mrs Possum's house.
• attempt to glue on the brushsticks to the concrete wall.  Wish me luck and give me strength that i don't get angry and throw a tantrum because it is more difficult that I envisaged
• go to the Martinborouh Fair with Mrs Possum because it is a good monkey thing to do.
• pick up bricks from my friends on the way out to Martinborough
• use said bricks to wall in the bath planter

In other exciting news, half the sage and marjoram seeds I was given for free because the packet said "use by 2006" have started to sprout!  I have learnt a valuable lesson about the amazing power of seeds. 

So, my frugal savings since last time I posted are:

• two packets of free seeds @ $3 each = $6
• no longer getting rid of the dirt = $12 (plus an unquantifiable saving on my sanity)
• using old brushsticks on hand to make my backyard look better so I can rent it out = $70 for new ones
• free marrow from my neighbours = $1

Whoa, I just thought I'd lost this post and was about to get pissy.  I'm posting it now quickly before I lose it again!

i heart newtown

Beautiful morning when i woke up, so off to the plumbing supplier down the road to get a new vanity unit for the bathroom - the plumber will be ready for it on Monday, so I need it asap.  We'd been out looking last night, so we had a good idea of what was out there, and what would fit into the very specific space.

In the old days I would've taken the car, but hey, I'm on the economy drive, so footpower it is.  Well, it was really lovely.  I walked through Newtown, forgot how much I love it.  Only took me about 10-15 minutes, and excitingly I found not one but TWO apple trees on council land on my walk.

Free apples! I reckon they'll be good for picking in maybe 6 weeks?  Awesome.

In the old days I would've stopped for a takeaway coffee (best coffee in Newtown = People's Coffee) or even a coke but no, I'm being focused.

Got to the plumbing place - what a disappointment. They totally ignored me as I walked around, sadly I guess they didn't know I was a keen customer who knew what I wanted with a pocketful of cash ready to buy something there and then.  Finally got their attention, they grudgingly showed me a catalogue, only one unit in there (same as I saw yesterday).  I asked how much, it was more then the other one... and then they said that it would take 10 days to order it in.  WTF?  So, won't be getting it from there, will head back to the other place this afternoon with Mrs Possum.

Walked back through town the longer way and stumbled onto a new veggie market I didn't even know was there! Every Saturday in Newtown Primary School. 

Had a look round, no 99cents / kilo tomatoes, but ended up with 3 butternut pumpkins, a huge broccoli, a pound of green beans and half a pound of mushrooms for $6.  Happy Monkey.  I might make Mrs Possum mince and mushroom pie for dinner, she might like that.

This morning's savings... $4 no coffee, $3 no petrol, $4 cheaper veg.  $11 by not taking the car, with additional savings to come when the apples are ready.

buggered

I spent the first half of the day clearing up the bathroom mess and shovelling dirt from the backyard into 20kg bags, then carrying those bags 100 metres and unloading them into the skip bin.  The bin was 3/4 full when I could face no more.  It doesn't look like I've shifted much out the back, but I know I have.  I'll finish it over the next few days.

After that I went and looked at vanities for the new bathroom - finally found one that's 750 by 400.  It's exactly the right size, but I want something that looks a little less cheap and nasty.  Sigh.  I'm not usually fussy, but somehow I'm a little bit weird about this.

Mrs Possum came over for tea, I gave her the tour of the new backyard, showed her where planters and veges would go.  She wasn't as excited as I'd hoped, but she's got other stuff on her mind.  That's cool.  She's gone home... no shower :-(

I'm in bed now.  Buggered.  This weekend will involve more dirt and more shopping. 

I'm also on the lookout for bricks, to build in around the new planter...

Yes, it's my old bath that's been removed from the bathroom!  I have it earmarked for zucchinis. 

sundried tomatoes FTW!

I love to cook, I love to eat things I've made myself and aren't processed.  I think it just tastes better, and I get a real satisfaction from doing it. It's cheaper too, especially if you're organised.  I really enjoy preserving things when they're in season, so I can use them all year round or give them as gifts.  I've hoarded hundreds of glass jars for this purpose, as well as using my big chest freezer.

At the moment it's tomato season - they're 99cents a kilo at the Sunday morning market... so last Sunday I bought 7.8 kgs of tomatoes and turned them into:

Yep, that's a hella lot of sundried tomatoes.  I made enough for 11 jars - just did two for now, with the rest to go in the freezer in jar-sized packs to top up the jars when they're used up.  They're just in oil.  Two jars = 1 for me and 1 for Mrs Possum.  The rest are in my freezer, Mrs Possum has no space.  
Cost me $7.80 plus $5 for the oil.  Plus 20cents for the drying rack.  Plus probably $5 for all the gas it took to cook them.  Given that jars of sundried tomatoes are about $7 each, I've saved $59 on all these tomatoes.  I know you're thinking that I could just have normal tomatoes, and that would go a long way and so your calculation about saving $59 is a bit off... but me and Mrs Possum LURVE sundried tomatoes, and you only need a few of them for heaps of flavour. So I'm cool with that.

If they're still cheap next week, I'm going to get heaps more and make pasta sauce.  Courgettes are 99cents a kilo too, I'll get those and put them in the sauce for bulk.  Noms. What I'm really looking out for is cheap red peppers (less than $2 a kg) so I can make roasted capsicum sauce. It's like tomato ketchup, but tastes like roasted capsicums.  It's truly delicious.
 

day in auckland = $61

Well, I managed to get an earlier flight, which was great.  hooray!  Ate up large at the Auckland lounge so didn't need any lunch ($10 there I reckon.  Is this getting stupid?) I also secreted some more sprite ($3) and other bits and bobs.  Excitingly, on my way home I became the proud owner of another large plastic plant pot and a huge roll of gutter guard for free ($10).  I'm planning on using the gutter guard as either trellis for Mrs Possum's peas and beans.  Perhaps I may even use it as gutter guard.  Stranger things have happened.

So, final total for today = $38 + $23 = $61 indirectly saved by my stealth frugality.

In other news, the plumber is coming at 8am tomorrow.  8am!  Two early mornings in a row, I'm such a moaner.  This does mean that bathroom things are all happening, and happening really quickly.  Yay!  That is good, as Mrs Possum is not into the no-shower action.

She's talking a day off work on Monday to help clear stuff from the backyard (while the skip is here) and turn it into a veggie garden.  I'm really excited, but still a little unsure about how the dogs will cope.  At the moment it's their loo.  Hmmmn.

I should do a post on the dogs soon.  They're a big part of my life :-)

live from auckland

As the title of this post suggests, I'm blogging live from Auckland.  It's a beautiful sunny day, I'm outside right down by the quay killing time before my 11am meeting.  There was a time when I would've gone into a cafe, bought a coffee and read the paper to pass the time away.  Not now.  My awesome new frugality has meant that I'm drinking the free Sprite Zero I nabbed from the Wellington Koru lounge and enjoying the outdoors.  Auckland is definitely sunnier and less windy than Wellington.  On days like this it makes it hard for me to remember why I don't like Auckland.

This is the view from the board room where I had my meeting today.  You can see Rangitoto in the background.  Sigh.  I live in a beautiful country.

So, my free haul today consists of breakfast in the lounge, a can of drink, the Dom Post, the ODT, the healthy food magazine, some napkins I can use instead of handy towels back home and my in flight muffin, which I've secreted in my handbag for later (or probably freezing, who am I kidding?),  So, my total savings so far are:  breakfast ($2), free sprite not cafe coffee ($4) and the $32 worth of airpoints for this trip that work pays for, which I'll put to travel to Nelson at Xmas.  I'm not counting the papers and magazines, cos I would'nt normally buy them. 

Look at this - by leaving my home office for the day I've actually saved $38.   My return flight is at 5pm, maybe I'll score dinner out of the Auckland lounge as well!

Am I crazy?  Maybe obsessed?  I dunno.  I keep reading in all the other frugal blogs online that the little bits all add up.  I hope so.

no turning back now

The new bathroom started in earnest today, with the builder taking out just about everything, save the toilet and the handbasin.  It's kinda scary, but at least I can still brush my teeth and have a wee.  This is what it looks like right now:

The plumber and the builder are back on Friday (I'm away for work in Auckland tomorrow) and more will happen then.  Hopefully.  It's hard without a shower.  Mrs Possum is not staying until the new one is back in.  Fair enough.  I'll be washing in the kitchen sink tomorrow morning.  I might shave my legs now in the lounge in front of "Supernanny".

Having the builder in has been a learning experience.  I have learnt that when a builder is coming over, I should ask ahead of time if they have any plans to remove the rubbish left behind... because I now have this:

and this:

all up in my entrance way and front yard.  (There's also a bath that was taken out, but I have a cunning plan for that which I'll cover in another post). I'm kinda pissy because there's bits of plaster all mixed in with the woodchip path.  I think I'm going to have to pick them out by hand.  Yeah.  Awesome.  And there's dust EVERYWHERE indoors.

I should note that I'm getting this done for cheap, so I should stop my bitching now.

Anyway, the upshot is that I've got a big skipbin coming on Friday for a week.  It's $129, but I'll be able to fill it up with the bathroom rubbish and all the crap I've removed from the backyard.  Because I have the skip for a week, I'm going to make a really huge effort to get rid of all of the "Bad Dirt" in the backyard, so that I can replace it with yummy nutrient rich potting mix for the veggies, as well as getting rid of as many weeds as I can deal with.  At the moment I'm relying on Mrs Possum's benevolence to take me to the dump with bags of rubbish, but I should just do it now once and for all.

While the builder was here I spent the day with the dogs out in the backyard digging more dirt and sorting out river stones (that's another post too!).  It was productive, but I'm buggered now.  I was so busy that I forgot to have lunch.  This is not like me at all.  I'm a big girl who likes her noms.  So, I defrosted a huge container of pasta salad that Mrs Possum brought home from her work's Xmas do and has been in my freezer since. It was fantastic - pinenuts, smoked chicken, capsicum, spinach.  (I reckon at least $2.50 to make).  I washed it down with a beer.  Perfect end to the day.

And I found two more pegs.  God is providing.

new bathroom excitement

I'm getting a new bathroom put in, as my current one is in such a state that it would be hard to get good tenants in with a bathroom in that state.  I mean, I could use it for me (and Mrs Possum), but really, it needs to be done.  So, I took a deep breath and decided to JUST DO IT. 

I ordered a 900 x 900 shower (new) off TradeMe.  It arrived today.

Three boxes are sitting by the front door.  Shower doors, floor and liner.  $555 delivered right to my door.  Delivery is important as whilst I love Dolly, she is the smallest car in the world and not so practical.  I was looking at Bunnings over the weekend - they were over $850, plus delivery, which I guess at around $50.

So, in excitement, I took out the tiles surrounding the bath.  I tried to get them all out in one piece, so I could use them for something... it worked, sort of.  I have a bunch of semi-broken tiles now that I'm going to use to strengthen my home made garden border in the backyard, and maybe "crazy tile" the back door where the dogs have scraped it.  I need to think about it some more.

I also unscrewed the hand towel holder, it's still real clean and shiny and not chipped or manky, as good as when I bought it six or so years ago.  They sell new for about $15. 

I reckon that the shower mixer, elbow and head will be used again, because they're in good nick, definitely good enough for a rental.  They had basic ones at Bunnings for $90, if I remember right.

The builder is coming tomorrow morning.  I need to talk to him about a vanity and a new toilet - the current toilet is old and sometimes dodgy with blockage.  I might get them myself, could be cheaper.  I dunno.  Yeah, I need to talk with him.

The three boxes also arrived with about 3 metres of strong tape for ease of carrying.  I don't know it's proper name, but it looks like this:

I don't know what to do with it, all I can think of is keeping it to us when my plants are big enough to require tying up to stakes.  I've asked Recycle This for help, so maybe something exciting will come from cyberspace.

My total budget for the bathroom is $10k, including plans, building, design, hardware.  I've saved this much already, so I know I have this money and it's okay.  I'm steeling myself for when they get the stuff out and there's damp. 

I'll burn that bridge when I come to it :-)

dump shop glory

I love going to the dump shop out at Happy Valley.  Every time I go there I see so many things I wish I could take home and fix up.  I have to stop myself from doing it.  At the moment I'm looking for planters for the garden, and the dump shop did not disappoint.

This is my $8 haul.

• The green ceramic herb planter will be for Mrs Possum.  She was looking at one last weekend to grow her herbs in, it was $30! I am the best monkey ever for finding this. 
• There's also a teracotta pot in there which will fit into the ugliest pot stand in the world, which lives outside my front door and keeps my herbs happy.  I'm thinking marjoram in there, from the free packet of seeds I scored the other day.  Pot would be maybe $10 if it was new?
• 17 red tiles.  I'm collecting tiles that size in random colours so I can tile a splashback for my oven.  This now makes 81 tiles I've collected - I need 78, but I'll hold off starting it for now, maybe I'll fund some more colours...i also have to many projects on the go.  hmmmmn.  Tiles you can get on special this size (10x10) for $1 each... so it's like $17 worth!
• The white cube will make a flash planter for out the front.  I have heaps of plastic buckets, but they make my front yard look random.  I don't really want my front yard to look random, so this is nice and tidy.  These sell for $9.95 at the Warehouse.
• 2 ceramic saucers for under the plant pots.  These have never been used.  Will also make the front look less like a plastic bucket explosion.  I'd say they'd be $5 each at California Gardens.  At least.
• The big green tub at the back is one of the local council's recycling bins - managed to pick this up too.  They have holes in the bottom perfect for planting.  Mrs Possum has a courgette that's ready to plant out this weekend, this will do nicely.  I've put compost and potting mix in it already.  You can buy replacements from WCC for $10, I think.
• the other blue bucket is just handy.  More plants!  More buckets! 
• I also got 1.3 metres of embroidered ribbon for my ribbon box.  You know, for when you really need a piece of ribbon but can't find one.  I never have that problem.

So, I reckon this has saved me $80 all up.  Winner is me.

warehouse glory!

Made it around the warehouse without cracking open my wallet.  Nearly spent $2.99 on pegs to use with the clothes airer, but realised I'd dug up four from my backyard the other day and that would do. 

Avoided the electronics department to not be tempted by looking at wii games, avoided the kitchen department to not be tempted by kitchen porn.  I love kitchen porn.

I did find a big two door cupboard for $99 which I'll put in the new bathroom for towel / linen / random crap storage when the renovations are complete, so that's great.  I love storage.

In the end, Mrs Possum paid for 4 x 40 litre bags of potting mix and 15 litres of seed growing nutrients.  I would've put in for it but I was elsewhere.  Truly!

clothes dryer abuse

I've always been a lazy bastard with laundry.  Years ago, I took down the washing line out the back of my property because I didn't like the way it looked.  Things have been stuffed in the dryer since then, no matter what the weather.  I have had the dryer on even when it was 29 degrees outside.  But now - look at this!  I have a load out in the sun on the clothes airer I found cowering in the spare room.   

I think I remember reading somewhere that a dryer load costs $2.  So, I've saved myself $2 today.  Win!
This may be offset by going to the warehouse this afternoon with Mrs Possum to get potting mix and compost for vege gardening.  Sigh.  Mrs Possum is expensive.

First Post

So... retire at 40.  By my rough calculations, that's 4 years, 7 months and 20 days away.  Gulp.

There are many things I need to do before then - renovate my house so I can rent it out, buy somewhere cheap in Nelson (destination of choice) and save money like a demon over the next few years.   I've already started by quitting the job I hated and taking one that lets me work from home. I figure this saves me oney and makes me less likely to spend money on stupid things to cheer myself up!

Hopefully this blog can track my progress.  I want to talk about how I'm saving money, how renovations are going, searching for a Nelson home, what I'm doing to cut corners and related things. 

Penny pinching, frugality, general tightness with money.  Growing some food.  Recycling things to use again.  Getting stuff for free. Going without.

And the difficulty that this raises with Mrs Possum, who is into very few of these things, except for the gardening.

This could get embarassing.  Please don't judge.