Not Sure I’ve Mastered the Self-Help Advice

If you are going to write a book I reckon self-help is a pretty lucrative sector of the market. While the authors in the literature genre struggle to make a dollar from their beautifully descriptive, emotionally challenging works of fiction the self-help crowd have the mighty dollar flowing in. They have learnt the skill of a multi-pronged approach – take one great idea, whip out a book, package up a seminar, hold private consulting which you can charge a bomb for ’cause you are a best-selling author, develop on on-line members course – there is no limit to the marketing options.

To this day I find myself drawn to the self-help section of the bookstore. The titles suggest ways to solve my financial problems, create happiness, unearth my life’s passions, fulfil my secret ambitions, manage my relationships. The solution to each one of my life’s dissatisfactions seem to lie on the shelves of the self-help corner.

I’ve spent a fortune on the books and here’s the result of my attempts to live their advice.

Mothers of young children can find some “me time” by losing their perfectionist tendencies – ignore the dishes in the sink and take 30 minutes to yourself.

I may have embraced this one a little too enthusiastically. A bio-hazard team remains on constant alert to fumigate our house due to my neglecting household duties to blog, read and write the great Australian novel.

The Power of Positive Thinking

Like Pollyanna I’ve tried to think happy thoughts, always looking on the bright side of life. Unfortunately bad, sad and shitty things happen even when you are sitting in the garden chanting to yourself “I’m feeling positive we can overcome these challenges”.

The Law of Attraction

You attract success to yourself. Yes you do and then you proceed to question whether it’s the right thing for you and decide you just really can’t manage with all your other responsibilities and then wave it goodbye while you fluff about.

A Budget is the Key to Retiring With Millions In the Bank

So help me the budgets I’ve written. Unfortunately, they never seem to add up so I tend to forget about them and go back to juggling. Retiring with millions in the bank is no longer an option – unless my blog suddenly goes viral and develops millions upon millions of followers and I figure out what the whole “monetising your blog” is about. Retiring at all is looking doubtful. Meanwhile the children’s inheritance is a mortgage-from-hell with the hope they can sell the unfinished house for as much as the bank is demanding. Note to self, don’t die until you’ve built up some equity in Shambles Manor (and at least got the flooring down).

Discover Your Passion And Your Life Will Be Perfect

Really helpful if your passion could be something that brings in some cash.  I, however, managed to acquire a passion which doesn’t pay well. Hello to the other trillion wanna-be-writers out there. My failure at the budgeting rules (see above) means mortgage-paying activities are ahead of the passion every day.

Communication is the Key to Relationship Harmony

This one assumes you spend time with your significant other in a setting not involving interrupting children, misbehaving dogs, and a to-do list stretching metres.  Communication tends to involve dealing with the current crisis, tossing a coin to see who is cooking dinner while the other collects a child from band, sorted, moving on. We do communicate though  – just this morning there was lengthy discussion over who forget to buy milk.

Are you a self-help junkie? Has any of it worked for you?

Diary of the $120 Food Challenge

Well we’ve got through the week trying to live on the one grocery shop, how did we do? Probably not a raging success.  I was attempting the $120 Food Challenge.

Saturday

Pantry clean out. Inventory of supplies. Plan the menu. Do the shop. Go over budget by $50 by adding in way too much expensive fruit and other breakfast/lunch treats. Not a sterling start.

Go to cook the spaghetti with roasted tomato and garlic. Really need to read these recipes better, it takes an hour to roast the tomatoes. It’s already 6.00pm. Ooops. Luckily my oven is super-sonic fast so bung it on high and get it done in 40 minutes.  Unfortunately I have to go and pick up Hippie Child from a party before I’ve finished cooking. Leave Mr Shambles to boil the spaghetti -he puts in way too much which results in a dish heavy on spaghetti and little light on sauce. However, it is very nice, and I get to eat it for dinner tomorrow and lunch for the next two days as well.

Sunday

Baked Fish with Ginger and Soy big hit with Mr Shambles, “as good as a restaurant, you’ve got to cook this when my brother comes for a visit”. Actually did look really good, I’m not big on fish and usually have something else when I cook it for the family but reckon I could have had this one.

Unfortunately, leave house to get Sunday Papers and Princess Child and I fall for a box of six lamingtons ($2.99).

Monday

I make the fruit salad for breakfast. Children impressed. I spend too much time chopping fruit and I’m almost late for work. Ham and salad wraps fresh and nice.  Chorizo, fennel and potato tortilla for dinner was relatively quick and easy and family enjoyed it. Hippie Child off sick from school, eats half an avacado – she’s messing with my menu plan.

Tuesday

Can’t remember what happened for breakfast. Ham and salad wraps still looking good for lunch. Get home tired from work and discover meatloaf takes an hour to cook, decide to do chicken parmigana, however Hippie Child still off sick from school has eaten all the ham and drunk all the orange juice. Head to supermarket (ham $3.98, juice $4.99). Get home now can’t be bothered crumbing chicken so end up doing the chicken, feta, tomato bake, which is very nice.

Wednesday

Get distracted blogging before work.  Children get themselves yoghurt for breakfast. Running late throw a bit of ham on a couple of slices of bread (we’ve run out butter) children look at sad looking sandwiches in horror.

We’ve got parent/teacher interviews at highschool this evening have to call in Nana Shambles to do soccer training pick up/drop off. We run late for the meetings. When we get home Nana Shambles has done dinner (thank you thank you). She turned the chicken into a tomato hotpot dish – she bought a can to tomatoes (probably a couple of bucks).

Thursday

Vegemite on dry toast for breakfast. Still got no butter, rest of ham falls off bench and dog eats it, children convinced dog is going to die, he, however looks relatively happy at his achievement. Discover the fridge has turned off – new fridge probably just out of warranty – Princess Child and I try to move it to see if it’s still plugged into the wall – nearly give ourselves hernias but fridge doesn’t budge. Give up. The kids get money for canteen lunch ($10) and I go to work.

Busy trying to finish a report at work, get home late to discover I’ve forgotten to pick up Mr Shambles from work (he’s car is off the road now). Back in car find him wandering the streets in an attempt to walk home.

Get home still trying to sort out what is wrong with fridge. Princess Child needs to “take a plate” for morning tea at school tomorrow, she also demands butter for her toast tomorrow. Head to the supermarket, cave  in and buy butter chicken and rice meals for all of us for dinner ($5.99 each that’s – gulp – $24). Buy a packet of biscuits for the morning tea ($5). Forget to buy butter. Princess Child can’t believe she’s been born into such a disorganised family, firmly convinced she’s adopted.

We heat and serve the butter chicken, Mr Shambles turns the fridge off/on and it magically starts to work – if only we could have MOVED THE DARN THING this morning. I cook the meatloaf with the now defrosted lamb mince for dinner tomorrow – was going to do the lamb curry in the slow cooker as well but discover I’m now out of onions. Give up.

Friday

Another disastrous morning. At the parent/interviews Mr Shambles had asked textiles teacher for help with Hippie Child’s new sewing machine – we can’t get it to work. Teacher suggests she brings it in to class. Hippie Child completely embarrassed by the idea of lugging sewing machine to school, Mr Shambles insists. Of course he then goes to work and I’m left trying to find a box for her to take it in. Takes about four boxes/plastic containers before we find one that it will fit. I carefully explain to Hippie Child that it’s a parent’s role in life to give their children something to talk about in therapy when they are 30 – she just needs to note this down it should fill a couple of sessions.

No time to sort out lunch. Money for canteen again ($10)

Mr Shambles knocks off early on Fridays (and it’s my day off) so we end up having lunch out ($30).

We are out of tomatoes and onions so it’s another trip to the supermarket ($5). But I get the sweet tomato and onion chutney made to go with the already-made meatloaf. Mr Shambles loves the chutney, Princess Child thinks it’s too spicey but I may have been a bit heavy handed with the chilli powder. Meatloaf is very nice.

I make the lamb curry in the slow cooker for dinner tomorrow (it’s without the fresh herbs – bought them last Saturday so they’ve long since fermented).

The result

We did spend less on food this week. But it’s obvious I need to be MUCH MORE ORGANISED. Sandra at the $120 Food Challenge does recommend doing the shop fortnightly and I’m sure that would be better given that with $240 you can buy bags of onions, potatoes etc so you are less likely to run out like I did.

I also need to devote some serious time on the weekends to baking – it’s hard to fill the kids lunchboxes when you don’t allow the usual museli bars, cheese snacks etc.

Time seems to be the big killer for me in this challenge I really need to try and find some really quick and easy recipes or some that can be prepared in advance. I also need to try to keep away from the shops completely. I’m a marketers dream, constantly falling for the impulse purchases. I’m in denial about how much I spend that way.

However, I don’t like to be beaten, so I’m gonna give this another shot. Starting Tuesday I’m doing a $240 shop for the fortnight. Will let you know how that one goes.

$120 Food Challenge

An expedition into my pantry this weekend turned into a Hitchcock thriller. Attack of the Moths. We seem to be harbouring a colony of flying creatures. I know that is bad. I know it makes a statement about my housekeeping skills – but hey I’ve never put my hand up for Homemaker of the Year.

So we proceeded to remove every item and do a clean out. This proved a good thing. Over at the $120 Food Challenge Sandra Reynolds has produced a blog that shows people how to feed a family of four on just $120 a week. I’m a little sceptical but given the state of our bank account it can’t hurt to try.

The first step in the process is to do an inventory of all the food you are currently hoarding. The exercise highlighted that we probably don’t need eight boxes of opened but only half used boxes of cereal. While one particular item, out-of-date in 2009, seems to have moved house with us three times – even my clutter-bug tendencies are willing to let that one go.

After the tossing finished I sat down to do a menu plan for the next seven days. Here’s what I came up with:

Saturday

Spaghetti with roasted tomato & garlic

Sunday

Vegemite on toast.

Leftovers.

Baked fish with ginger and soy

Monday

Fruit salad & yoghurt.

Ham & salad wraps.

Chorizo, fennel and potato tortilla

Tuesday

Avacado and cheese on toast.

Ham & salad wraps.

Lamb & bacon meatloaf with Sweet tomato & onion chutney

Wednesday

Museli and yoghurt.

Meatloaf & chutney sandwiches.

Chicken parmigiana

Thursday

Scrambled eggs on toast.

Chicken schnitzel sandwich.

Slow cooked mild beef curry.

Friday

Vegemite on toast.

Tuna salad.

Chicken, tomato, feta bake.

Then I hit the shops, armed with my list. Which is where my plan fell down a little. I spent $175.57. Sandra’s estimate for the seven dinners was $84.90 which I think was pretty spot-on. However, I went a little overboard in supplementing for the breakfast/lunches/fruit side of things. My family eats a lot of fruit so spent too much there,  I also bought a few things I had run out of, and I had to get a few spices for the dinner dishes which added a bit to the total.

If we take off some of the “pantry” items I brought – anchovies, baking paper, dog food, frozen peas, frozen beans, capers, dishwashing detergent, tuna, plus some of the extravagant fruit, strawberries, blueberries, then the orange juice, yoghurt, and a mystery item I can’t remember what it was but it cost $5.90 so I’m deleting it too we get the bill down to $136.42.

This still leaves in one orange juice, bread, wraps, milk, heaps of fruit, bananas, pears, oranges, apples, plums and lots of spices cardamon pods, nutmeg, oregano, garam masala, cloves, cinnamon stick (which I won’t have to buy again if I use the same recipes next week).

So essentially, I went closer than I thought possible. I’m banning myself from visiting the supermarket during the week so we will see how we go in just eating what I’ve bought. I’ll let you know the result.