Budgeting and Insourcing...Plan ahead for everything....

Here's a topic that some of you might think dull, but for those of us who love Insourcing, it's a fabulous kind of game. Like a Scavenger Hunt of a sort.

Believe it or not, Insourcing won me a competition that allowed me to purchase my dream oven. Thankyou to those who participated in that event. I remain eternally grateful for your support. And all I really did was make a posh salad! So there's gain to be had on many levels!

Planning ahead

Planning ahead is part of life here.

We plan ahead for next seasons clothing needs, for birthdays, for Christmas, for Easter, for holidays for staycations, where you stay at home and entertain yourself and the family with planned activities, instead of going away. 

Husband built this fire pit a couple of Winters ago. That made a Staycation in the middle of the cooler months, pretty attractive!

Planning ahead means you can put what little money you have, into snapping up bargains or buying fabric from the remnants bin, or buying a sewing machine or overlocker or a robot vacuum cleaner, or setting it aside for something worthwhile, rather than frittering it away on random purchases that do little to enhance your life in the longer term. 

We renovated an old van for daughter to have her own mini-vacations, using only what we had on hand, and a few remnants from the discount bins at the local haberdashery. It turned out pretty well we thought!

And don't just look ahead one year. Try to see 5, 10, 20 years ahead. This helps keep things in perspective. That pair of shoes, or jeans or bag or coffee will mean nothing in 5 years. That money on your mortgage or into superannuation or just into the bank for a rainy day, could have the power to have a significant impact on your life.

Let's all just get on with what needs to be done. It's what our Mums and Dads did, it's what their Mums and Dads did, it's just what has to happen.

On the Home Front

One thing that I did this morning to plan ahead, was make up a huge batch of home made laundry detergent. This sounds mundane, but has the potential to save us literally a couple of hundred dollars over the next few months.

I use the one in Rhonda Hertzels book that's also on her Down to Earth website. This is my doubled up recipe for a huge batch.

One box of Lux flakes (8 cups) I have sometimes grated Sunlight soap, as its cheaper again. But the Lux flakes are particularly nice, and have a soft, comforting scent.

1 1/2 tubs Borax (4 cups)

1 packet Lectric Soda (4 cups)

Mix together well and store in a large container. I use a Hurricane lantern with a little scoop in it, that's actually a tea bag holder I got at the thrift store. It just makes doing the washing feel nicer. And the Lux flakes make the linen smell gorgeous.

This costs about $14 and at one heaped tablespoon per wash, will give me about 180 loads of washing. The other great thing about it is, I don't need fabric softener to scent or soften our laundry (another saving), and it's the only thing that doesn't give the family eczema (a further saving on creams, lotions and potions to relieve the eczema). So sometimes you have to look at where other savings might occur due to making your own. The up front cost might be the same, but other costs might be significantly reduced by using home made.

Making a house a home

I'm not an investment adviser by any stretch of the imagination. All I can tell you is that we've never bought a new home. We've always bought the house (some might say the fixer upper, or 'the dump') that no-one else wanted in suburbs that weren't yet trendy, renovated and landscaped slowly and gradually, doing almost everything ourselves from patching and painting to building kitchens to polishing floors by hand to pouring concrete, then sold for a profit and done the same thing again. 

This was sometimes a three year, but often a 7-10 year project. During that time we would live in the house, without floor coverings, without a kitchen or bathroom or other creature comforts for weeks or months. We managed. Lots of people used to do this but it's not so common any more from what I understand despite the plethora of DIY television shows and YouTube videos.

When we couldn't afford new, we bought second hand and made do. Husband built things, I painted and patched them. We made thrifting an art form in many respects. There are literally dozens of posts here on my blog about our upcycling efforts.

It can be daunting if it's not in your DNA that's for sure. Buying cheap and new often seems the simplest solution. All I can suggest is that you need to be flexible in what you think you can do, and where you think you can live. We kept an open mind and often lived in or invested in areas that made our friends think we'd gone mad, but guess who's laughing now.

The Rewards

We didn't get to where we are in our 60's by living the way many people do now. And it has nothing to do with technology or the absence thereof. It's just a different mindset. You can be frugal when you're young in order to live comfortably later in life, but most don't see that far ahead.

Do cost of living expenses nowadays make a difference? Well almost certainly, yes. But it's all proportional in the end. Your mortgage should still be no more than 30% of your income, savings should be 10%, the rest is negotiable according to your situation.

Adopting this mindset can mean that you're out of step with popular opinion. But if you do, it means that you can weather tough times in your life and not crumble in a heap, because you've practiced making the best of a less than desirable situation, whether it's illness, financial troubles, relationship challenges or job losses.

For my part, I practiced that mindset. From trying every alternative therapy on the planet when my gorgeous little son was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, to hand painting my terminally ill Mothers casket for her funeral as a last loving gesture to her, I've always remained determined to maintain a feeling of purpose in my life, even when placed in sad situations that were completely beyond my control. This actually GAVE me a sense of control, where none existed. I think thats kept me sane. It can do the same for you.

Tell me about your planning. What creates financial freedom and a feeling of being in control for you?

...Mimi...