“Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food.” Hippocrates, 460 BC – 377 BC

Garlic is not only a delicious (one could say essential) addition to many meals, it is also one of the most widely used medicinal herbs in history.

Garlic has a whole host of health benefits: it is anti-bacterial (the original antibiotic) and anti-fungal; it is anti-viral and can boost your immune system; it thins the blood and can help prevent heart disease; it can help control blood sugar;  it helps lower cholesterol, atherosclerosis and blood pressure; it helps relieve arthritis; and it may help prevent cancer.

A lot of good reasons for eating garlic regularly.

While eating cooked garlic is beneficial to your health, some studies show that raw garlic is better. This is because heat destroys the beneficial enzymes and reduces it’s medicinal magic.

The downside is that chewing on a clove of raw garlic doesn’t taste that great. Many health gurus suggest shooting a clove of garlic straight down the hatch every morning, maybe with the aid of a little honey.

There are much more enjoyable ways to consume this great natural medicine.

Here are ten tasty ways to incorporate raw garlic into your everyday diet. Make them fresh at home to get the best taste and the most benefit from the ingredients.

1. Pesto

Fresh pesto is a delicious way to eat raw garlic, and you’re getting the goodness (and anti-odour properties) of the fresh herbs as well. I like to eat pesto tossed through some zucchini noodles.

2. Guacamole

Garlic cuts through the creaminess of the avocado beautifully. Serve as a dip or as a topper for a variety of Mexican dishes.

3. Salsa

Garlic and tomatoes make an excellent paring and salsa is a great way to enjoy the two. Add a good amount of chilli if you’ve got a cold, to help with decongestion.

4. Bruschetta

Another tomato and garlic paring, add some minced garlic to chopped tomatoes and basil for a fresh toast topping. To make a complete meal, add some sliced avocado.

5. Dips

Freshly made dips like hummus and baba ganoush are a great way to eat raw garlic. Dip in some fresh veggies or use as a spread.

6. Salad dressings

Add some crushed garlic to your salad dressing. For a simple cold-fighting vinaigrette, mix together some finely minced garlic, fresh lemon juice, a little mustard and a good lug of olive oil (taste and adjust). For a twist, add a little raw honey to taste.

7. Aioli

Aioli is simply mayonnaise with crushed garlic. It makes a great dipper for fresh seafood or to serve with tuna rissoles.

8. Gremolata

Gremolata is usually chopped parsley, lemon zest and garlic, although there are many variations. It is traditionally served on osso bucco. Use with any meat dish to give a zesty flavour. It is also great with fish or tossed through steamed vegetables or boiled potatoes.

9. veggie booster

No lemon and parsley? Simply toss some minced garlic through freshly steamed vegetables or boiled boiled potatoes with a little butter to give them a tasty lift or stir through mashed potato (I have a decided fondness for garlicky mash, although I usually boil an unpeeled clove or two with the spuds before squeezing out the flesh and mashing it into the potatoes).

10. Compound butter

Compound butter is an easy way to add flavour to any dish. Spread on toast, add a pat to cooked vegetables or go retro and top a good steak with a pat of flavoured butter. Flavoured butter can be frozen for a quick and easy addition to a meal. Here’s a great post with ideas for different flavour combos.

Garlic is a frugal yet effective medicine and preventative. But this medicine doesn’t need a spoonful of sugar to make it go down. Instead, use it in these recipes to enjoy not only the medicinal benefits, but also garlic’s great taste.

Have you read these articles?:

1. tasty vegetable fritters with tomato relish
2. six frugal ways to boost your immune system in time for the sick season
3. roux the day: Basic white sauce

Convenience food does one thing really, really well: it saves time. Or more correctly, it allows you to spend your time doing something other than cooking.

But that’s about all most convenience food is good for. Most convenience foods are not very tasty (at least in my opinion), not very nutritious, are more expensive than cooking from scratch and often generate more waste in the form of packaging.

So how do you balance cooking from scratch with saving time in a busy, modern world? After all, most of us work outside the home, are involved in all sorts of extra-curricular activities, are raising kids or would just rather not spend a whole lot of time in the kitchen.

Below are four ways  that help save time in the kitchen while still reaping all the benefits of cooking whole foods from scratch.

1. Simplify

Simple meals using basic ingredients are quick and easy to make but tick all the right boxes: nutritious, tasty and inexpensive.

For instance, you can serve a meal of pan fried fish with a side of salad or steamed vegetables in under 15 minutes.

2. Plan

Menu planning saves you time, money and mental energy. It ensures you have what you need for each meal on hand, without the need to pop into the shop every day for the night’s meal or to pick up a forgotten ingredient.

Menu planning also helps you to prepare food in advance, saving you time in the evenings when time might be tight.

3. Preparation

Preparing in advance may involve chopping a week’s worth of vegetables while you’re cooking the Sunday roast (even easier if you do it with a food processor). Or it might mean cooking enough rice for tonight’s meal and Thursday’s tuna rissoles.

I like to buy meat in bulk and pre-cut and portion it before freezing. This makes stir fry night that much easier as the meat is already sliced. 

4. Efficiency

You’ve probably seen Jamie Oliver whip up a whole meal in under 15 minutes. One of his secrets for creating meals in such short time is to work efficiently – to boil water in the kettle, for instance, or to have the pan hot and ready, or to use time-efficient appliances or to prepare one part of the dish while another is cooking.

Besides the food processor, the other efficient appliance is the slow cooker. It allows you to come home to a meal that is already cooked. Make a double batch (efficient use of time and energy) and freeze it for an easy reheat meal at another time.

Another way to be efficient is to have hot water in the sink to clean as you go, saving you the big cleaning job at the end of a meal.

Efficiency comes with practice. Meals that you are most familiar with, will be the most efficient.

The trick to becoming more efficient is to spend a moment writing out a plan of action – what you will prepare and when, what order you will cook each element and how long each element of the meal will take to cook. This is particularly useful for complex meals or when you are entertaining. The more familiar you are with a dish, the less you need to write out a plan of action.

You don’t need to spend all day in the kitchen to cook healthy, tasty and inexpensive meals from scratch. Just a little planning, preparation and an efficient work flow allows you to have wholesome meals on the table in next to no time.

Have you read these articles?:

1. save money with convenience foods
2. cooking for one on a budget
3. cooking in a small kitchen–and an announcement

I’ve been walking around feeling like the elephant man lately. Sporting the worst cold sore I’ve ever had – the worst in the history of the world (at least, it certainly feels that way). It’s given me the opportunity to write about the effectiveness of two natural cold sore remedies.

If you’re a fellow sufferer, then you know just how awful these things are. Painful, unsightly and smack bang in the middle of your face at the least convenient time.

While it’s difficult to avoid getting a cold sore if you’ve got the virus, the good news is that you don’t need expensive creams from the chemist to treat the sore, and these rarely work anyway.

There are two effective natural and inexpensive remedies that help reduce the severity and speed up the healing of cold sores, which you probably already have at home: tea tree oil and coconut oil.

The important thing with a cold sore (and something I failed to do this time round) is to treat it as soon as you feel one coming on – at that first ‘tingle’ or throb.

Stage one – tea tree oil

Tea tree oil is antibacterial, antifungal and helps dry out the cold sore.

During the first stages of a cold sore, at that first tingle and before it dries out/ stops weeping and ‘scabs over’ for want of a less offensive turn of phrase, apply tea tree oil undiluted directly to the affected area using a cotton tip three or four times a day.

I’ve found that using tea tree oil can reduce the first stage of a cold sore from two or three days to 12 – 24 hours, especially if you treat it quickly.

Applying tea tree oil can sting a little bit and it’s not something you want to be licking, but it’s one of the most effective remedies I’ve ever used (including Zovirax) for reducing the duration of a cold sore.

stage two – coconut oil

While tea tree oil is my tried and true remedy, I recently read that coconut oil (the extra virgin, unprocessed stuff) is also useful when treating cold sores due to it’s anti-viral properties, so I thought I would put it to the test.

Once the cold sore had reached stage two (scab stage – sorry to the squeamish), I applied the coconut oil each evening to one half of my top lip (yes, the cold sore covered most of my top lip– blame it on all the nose blowing due to accompanying cold) to see if it made a discernable difference to the healing time.

And the result?

The side that I applied the coconut oil to healed days before the other side. While all trace of the cold sore had disappeared from the coconut oil side, it was still there in all its unsightly glory on the non-coconut oil side.

And thus, I can confirm with my little experiment that coconut oil does encourage the healing process.

If you’re unlucky enough to be infected with the cold sore virus, then the occasional outbreak is inevitable and something to be born stoically. However, you can reduce the severity and duration of the cold sore by applying tea tree oil and later coconut oil to the affected area.

Have you read these articles?:

1. preparing for the cold and flu season
2. how to make your own massage oils
3. frugal (and natural) cleaning

Apples are in season at the moment, and this recipe is a decadent way to enjoy them. We enjoyed these caramelised apples on our Sunday morning pancakes for something a little special and out of the ordinary, but they would also make a lovely dessert, served with a little cream or ice cream. The total cooking times is about 8 minutes, making it a very quick and easy dessert.

The caramel sauce has a few little twists to the usual mainstay. Instead of using cream I added yoghurt – the tartness gives a nice balance to the sweetness of the sugar and apple. The almonds give the sauce a little crunch, contrasting nicely with the softness of the apple and the hint of cardamom gives the whole dish an exotic undertone (something a little different from the usual cinnamon and apple pairing) without overwhelming it. Just remember, a small amount of cardamom goes a long way.

I didn’t actually measure any ingredients, just threw them in, so the measurements below are guestimates. Taste and add a little more or less sugar or yoghurt or cardamom to suit your own tastes.

Method

1. Melt the butter in a pan, add the apples and cook over medium heat for a few minutes until softened to your liking.
2. Add sugar and cardamom and cook stirring for another minute or two. Turn the heat to very low and add the yoghurt and almonds and stir for another minute until sauce is thickened slightly.
3. Serve over pancakes or ice cream.

Have you read these articles?:

1. Quick Apple Crumble
2. caramelised onion frittata
3. apple and cinnamon oatmeal

The other day I sent DH out to the bin with a bag of rubbish and he returned with a broken roller blind that one of the neighbours had thrown out.

“I thought you might be able to make something with this,” he explained.

Several thoughts flashed through my mind:

How am I going to reuse this blind?

Where am I going to put this blind in the meantime?

Hmmm, my penchant for keeping junk is rubbing off on DH.

This blind looked brand new. Apart from the broken retraction mechanism, it was in perfect condition. Such a shame for it to be thrown in the bin.

So I stashed it in the downstairs toilet along with:

• Seven empty vinegar bottles
• Two bags of empty toilet rolls
• A roll of old carpet
• Half a bag of cement
• a bag of 10 year old tax returns and bank statements that I had yet to shred
• a mattock
• a box of out-of-date vegetable seeds
• a bucket full of bibs and wipes, soaking

Somewhere in there, there’s also a toilet.

Despite the fact that we buy less ‘stuff’ than your average Joe, and despite the fact that I find myself decluttering constantly, we do struggle with clutter.

Just a little bit.

A lot of the stuff that clutters our house is ‘just in case’. The bag of bubble wrap – just in case I need to send something. The egg cartons – just in case they come in handy for kid’s craft. The jars – just in case I need them for storage (actually, I never seem to have enough jars). The used gift wrap, the empty toiletry bottles, the old, torn clothing…

Reuse, repurpose, recycle: that’s part of the frugal way of life. But at what point does repurposing become hoarding and the clutter hinder your attempts at simplifying life?

The answer to that question will be different for each of us.

Here are four ways that I’ve found help bring balance between hoarding things ‘just in case’ you need them and keeping the clutter at bay.

1. Set limits

Two or three egg cartons kept for impromptu craft or seedling planting is probably enough. Twenty or thirty becomes a hoarding issue, unless you have a specific purpose for them and you know you will use them.

In the near future.

Be firm (if the hoarding voice is loud and strong) and limit yourself to collecting just a couple of things and recycle or donate the rest.

Use space to limit your collecting too. Once your gift wrap box is full, then it’s time to stop collecting used gift wrap and start reusing what you have.

2. Have a place for everything and everything in it’s place

A little bit of hoarding can be beneficial, but collections of junk soon get out of hand if it’s not organised. A ‘junk box’ for recycled items that can be used in kid’s craft is contained and tidy -  a landslide of empty cartons and containers every time you open the dunny door is not so ideal.

3. Have and end use in mind

I’m the first to admit to breaking this rule – the blind is a good example. And things that we’ve kept for no reason have come in handy.

Eventually.

But you’ve got to be ok with the clutter if you break this rule.

And every six months or so I’m not ok with the clutter and it’s this kind of stuff that get’s cleared out (see rule number four).

Because if you harbour vague notions along the lines of ‘this might come in handy someday’, then it’s more than likely that you wont use it someday.

4. Use it or lose it

So, you’ve got a very good reason for holding onto whatever junk it is you’re hoarding. It’s just the thing for that project you’ve been moodling over.

And eighteen months later, it’s still sitting there, waiting for you to start, and you can’t quite remember what it was you had in mind.

At some point you have to be honest with yourself about whether you’re really going to make use of what you’ve collected. Or whether you’re better off giving it away and allowing someone else to make use of it.

Stuff sitting in cupboards for years is wasted. Set it free and allow it to fulfil its usefulness.

We did actually use the blind that DH rescued.

Not as it was originally intended, instead we cut the fabric part off and used it to build a sliding baby gate for the kitchen.

The gate is sturdy, does the job and was free – the blind being stapled (and taped) to a frame made from scrap wood. Because the blind is plastic, the rest will make an excellent drop cloth under the high chair or art table. And I’m sure it will be reused in other ways as well.

There’s nothing wrong with having the ‘keep it just in case’ gene. Repurposing is a frugal art form. But it needs to be tempered with a certain amount of restraint, lest your stuff takes a hold and clutters up your life.

Have you read these articles?:

1. how am i supposed to live without you? emotional attachment to clutter
2. tip tuesday – three habits that stop impulse buying and reduce clutter
3. frugal footwear – another case of spending more equals saving more?

“The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” Abraham Maslow

This article is part of the “Getting it Together” series.

One of the key skills for happiness is to be mindful and aware in the present moment.

But unless you’ve been practicing your zen, this is often easier said than done.

There are many thoughts that tug our mind away from the present moment but worries about things that need doing or that have been left undone are often the loudest (at least, that’s the case for me).

If you’re like me, and you find yourself thinking more about what needs to be done, and less about what’s going on right here, right now, these three practical tips can help you get your to-dos under control so that you have the mental space to live in full awareness of the present moment.

simplify

It’s impossible to slow down and savour each moment if you’ve got too much to do.

If your to-do lists are longer than there are hours in the day then you will always find yourself rushing from one task to the next.

This is something I personally struggle with. Partly because I was raised to be always busy and I feel guilty if I’m not being productive, and partly because there’s so many things I want to do on top of all the things I have to do.

Prioritising what is important and letting go of the rest (media, perhaps?) is the first step to being more mindful (and happy). Your stress levels will plummet and you will be able to enjoy the things that you do do.

At the same time, simplifying your environment (aka decluttering) also helps. Sometimes our busyness comes from dealing with all the clutter we have around us. Less clutter = less work = more time.

Brain dump

Do you ever find yourself spending time with your kids only to be thinking:

“I must hang the washing out…oh, and I must remember to pay that bill, it’s due tomorrow, and darn the library books need to go back…”

This is where lists (and routines) come in.

A list is like a second brain, an external hard drive where you can jot down all these things that need doing and then forget about them until it’s time to do them. By writing things down, you no longer have to worry that tasks will be forgotten and instead your mind has space to concentrate on the present moment.

But lists have to come second to simplifying. Long to-do lists don’t get at the heart of the problem. They just become another cause of stress when you can’t get through all the tasks on your list.

A short list of four or five things that need doing each day is a good balance between being mindful and getting things done.

a time for everything – create working routines

Just like lists, routines help you stay focused on the present moment because you know that what needs to get done has an allocated time and it will get done then.

Again, it is important to simplify before developing a working routine, otherwise you may find yourself not allocating enough time to get through each task. Rushing is the antithesis of being mindful.

Without a routine, it’s easy to fret over what you should be doing with your time or worrying that you should be doing something else.

A routine reassures you that there is a time for everything and everything that needs to be done will get done in good time.

These three steps can help shift your thoughts away from worrying about what needs doing so that you can focus on the present moment. After all, life is a series of present moments. To be fully immersed in the moment is to live life to the full.

Have you read these articles?:

1. getting it together for a thriving life – it starts with you

Traditional foods are currently making a come back. Not only does eating real food taste great, it is arguably better for you than processed foods.

One food that foodie traditionalists are particularly fond of is old fashioned animal fat for cooking.

If you’re frugal, that’s great news because you can take something that is often thrown away (in this case chicken skin) and use it to make free cooking oil.

Along with brewing the bones to make stock, you are using more of the whole animal, reducing food waste and saving money at the same time.

Rendered chicken fat is called schmaltz and is common in traditional Jewish cooking. The process to render your own chicken fat takes about an hour and is a similar process for any kinds of animal fats.

We buy meat in bulk and I usually get a kilo each of chicken breasts and thighs – skin on. I  trim and cut the meat and divide it into portions before freezing – this makes cooking dinner quick and easy.

And the chicken skin goes straight into the fry pan to render.

Here’s how you do it.

First, chop the skin up into smallish pieces, no need to be too particular about this. Throw these in a fry pan (I’m using my trusty cast iron pan) and turn the heat to medium / medium low.

Now all you have to do is wait, maybe give it a stir every now and then. Here’s what it will look like after about 10 minutes of cooking:

And then after about 20 minutes, you can see the fat starting to render out and the skin gain some colour:

Now after about 30 minutes of cooking, just about there:

And after 40 minutes or so off cooking on medium heat, the chicken skins are golden and the fat is fully rendered.

Let the fat cool and strain into a jar or container.

And pop it in the fridge, ready to use for cooking. The rendered fat is very stable and will last months in the fridge.

What do you cook with chicken fat, you might ask?

Use the rendered schmaltz as you would cooking oil, particularly in hearty recipes like stews and roasts. Use it instead of butter when frying onion or doing skillet potatoes. I can tell you that roast potatoes are completely different when cooked in the chicken fat – so crispy on the outside and delicious. And of course, many traditional Jewish recipes demand schmaltz.

But wait there’s more.

Don’t throw the leftover crispy chicken skins away. These are called griebenes and are a kosher alternative to pork crackling. You can let these drain and use them as you might crispy bacon – sprinkled through some steamed greens or used as a crunchy topping on salad, for example.

But they are also nice simply salted and snacked on, just like pork crackling, which my father used to snack whilst drinking home brew. I know, you may be thinking heart attack waiting to happen but just occasionally, it’s a tasty snack, although a little goes a long way.

And that’s the point really, of eating foods cooked in real fat. There’s nothing over-riding the “I’m full” signal from your brain, which is what processed vegetable oils can do. You cannot over eat this stuff, you just start to feel ill if you over-indulge, unlike processed oils, which allow you to eat and eat and eat before you feel full, if you feel full.

So if you’re accustomed to throwing away chicken skins (or any other kind of animal fats), render then down instead and use them for cooking as these frugal fats have been used for thousands of years.

Have you read these articles?:

1. slow cooker roast chicken and slow cooker chicken stock
2. cheesy potato topped chicken
3. ginger chicken stir fry

Winter is nearly upon us once again and along with getting out the winter woollies (ok, I’m with you in spirit on that one, it doesn’t quite get that cold here in Queensland), it is also time to prepare for the cold and flu season.

Our family is just getting over another bout of gastro. I understand there was quite an epidemic of gastro that swept across the northern hemisphere this past winter, and we are to expect similar here in Australia.

Yippee!

The last couple of weeks haven’t been fun, and trying to get all the bedding and towels washed and dried in all this pouring rain (on top of the regular washing) has been a challenge.

Getting sick is not only not fun, it can be costly. There is the time off work which can reduce your income if you don’t have any sick leave. There is the cost of doctor’s visits and medication. There is also the cost of the conveniences you fall back on when sick (disposable nappies in our case).

While most of us can’t avoid ever getting sick, it pays to take steps to strengthen your immune system especially if you put into practice the following six frugal immune boosting tips that won’t cost you anything extra but may just save you from the worst of the winter ills.

Rest and relax

As I mentioned in the article on the importance of sleep, lack of sleep depresses the immune system. It is during sleep that pathogen-fighting killer T-cells are produced in abundance. So getting regular sleep is the first step to keeping your immune system strong.

Stress also depresses the immune system. A good night’s sleep can help reduce stress along with relaxation techniques but the best way to de-stress and boost the immune system is to socialise with friends. A good laugh will lighten your mood, reduce stress and depression and improve your immune function.

Get regular exercise

Regular, moderate exercise gives a boost to your pathogen-fighting T-cells, helping them to work faster and more effectively. Too little exercise and these cells work more slowly and you can get sick more often. Too much exercise and you can rundown your immune system.

30 minutes or more of moderate exercise (something as simple as walking) 3 or 4 times a week will not only see you fitter and healthier, it will help you ward off illness.

Soak up some sunlight

Make the most of your exercise time and exercise outdoors to get an immune boosting dose of Vitamin D.

Your killer T-cells need adequate amounts of Vitamin D in the bloodstream to go to work and work well. Without Vitamin D, these cells remain inactive.

A few minutes in direct sun each day is all that is needed to get enough Vitamin D. It’s important to note that using sunscreen blocks Vitamin D production. The Australian Cancer Council advises that for most people, when the average UV indicator is below 3, sunscreen is not needed (check their page for more info).

Eat the colours of the rainbow

“Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food.” Hippocrates, 460 BC – 377 BC

Not surprisingly, a healthy diet is good for your immune system. Fresh fruit and vegetables provide you with the vitamins and antioxidants (particularly, for the immune system, Vitamin C) your body needs to stay healthy. Eggs and lean meat provide zinc, which is an important immune boosting nutrient along with other necessary nutrients.

On the other hand, simple sugars like table sugar and white flour (and products made from these) depress the immune system and reduces the responsiveness of pathogen-fighting cells.

Autumn is a time of abundance when it comes to fruit and vegetables, so check out what’s local and in season, and eat a variety of colours each day for maximum nutrition. Check out the guides to what’s in season in Autumn and what’s in season in Winter, to help you pick produce at it’s peak and at its cheapest.

Bacteria – get plenty of the good ones

80% of your immune system is located in your digestive system, so keeping your digestive system healthy is important for overall health.

And those killer T cells? They come from the gut. The bacteria Lactobacillus casei Shirota enhances the activity of your killer T cells.

Probiotics help keep your digestive system healthy and by extension, your immune system. Aside from supplements, other sources of good bacteria include good quality yogurt (no sugary stuff – check the label for bacteria present), miso, tempeh, sauerkraut, pickles and any food that is lacto-fermented or cultured at home.

dose up on the medicinal food in your pantry

While a healthy diet will strengthen your immune system, there are some foods that will give it an extra boost. These include garlic (especially raw garlic), ginger, onions, mushrooms (especially shitake), citrus fruits (in season in winter!) eggs, raw honey, green tea, spices (like turmeric and cinnamon) herbs (like thyme) and good old chicken soup.

Medicine never tasted so good.

While you may not avoid getting sick this winter, these immune boosting tips will cost you nothing and may prevent the worst of the Winter ills.

Over the next few weeks, as I get time, I will share some other natural remedies and recipes that can help during the winter months including our tasty, healing chicken soup recipe.

Have you read these articles?:

1. preparing for the cold and flu season
2. what’s in season: Australian guide for winter
3. Exercise For Free The Frugal Way

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. Time will pass anyway.” Earl Nightingale.

When I was a teenager, I would sometimes stay with my great-aunt, who is now in her 90’s. She doesn’t volunteer at the Salvos these days, but she still attends her weekly yoga class.

On these visits, my great-aunt would get out the old albums and reminisce about days gone by. She told me once that her dream before she got married was to have a house with a pink bathroom.

Before marriage, it used to be common to build up a glory box or hope chest with linens and other household items required when starting out. And a young lady’s trousseau would not have be complete without a Royal Albert tea set.

Each week, my great-aunt told me, she would put aside part of here tobacco-factory wage to buy a cup here, and a saucer there; a creamer, a sugar bowl, a cake plate…until she had her own set.

This story has influenced my own home building. Not only did I have a glory box myself (no Royal Albert for me, though), but each week I am putting aside a little money for a new set of pots and pans. The ‘last a life-time’ sort of pots and pans. At the rate I’m saving, it may just about take a lifetime to replace the cheap ones I currently own. I am, however, almost ready to purchase my first pot! (Any recommendations on brand would be welcome!)

Another of my aunt’s stories that has shaped my own frugal habits is how they paid to insulate their house. Each payday, with ritual-like regularity, my great-uncle would buy a single batt of insulation and climb into the ceiling to lay it. Over the months they gradually insulated their small inner suburban home, one batt at a time.

What my aunt and uncle did was not out of the ordinary. There were no ‘buy-now, pay-later’ schemes or credit cards when they were first married. Or for much of their wedded life, in fact.

Nowadays, saving up for something isn’t so common. We’re in such a rush to have it all as soon as possible, that we burn ourselves out on the way. We are in a race all right, a race to keep up with what we think are other people’s expectations. But by running hard to get ahead, we’re hardly keeping up with the repayments and obligatory interest.

Years after she got married, when the outhouse was put in the house, my great-aunt got her pink bathroom. Private moments are a bedazzlement of hot pink: a fluffy hot pink toilet-lid cover, hot pink bathmats, pink feature tiles, a pink shower curtain and towels to match. Even the toilet-roll dolly, those little dolls whose voluptuous crocheted gown hides the spare roll, sports a hot pink dress.

It is truly awful.

Nevertheless, her dream bathroom came true. In the absence of easy credit, a little time and a little consistent effort is what it took to make that dream a reality.

You can choose to be a hare or a tortoise. The tortoise is slow and steady, but the journey is a lot more enjoyable and satisfying.

Do you save up for things around the house? Did you / do you have a glory box or are you making one for your daughter?

[For those who are interested: the picture is is of a vest I’m currently knitting for the little lady. For Ravelry users, you can find the pattern here. The quilt beneath the knitting, incidentally, I made for my ‘glory box’.]

Open-ended materials…encourage children to play creatively and in depth. Neuroscience tells us that as children play this way, connections and pathways in the brain become activated and then solidify. [Source]

The best kinds of toys are simple objects that inspire exploration, discovery, imagination and, of course, play.

We all want the best for our children, starting from birth. And we want them to have the best stuff to encourage their development.

But spending a fortune on toys and gadgets is not only unnecessary, it can hinder a child’s natural development, engagement, attention span and love of play.

There are many parenting and educational philosophies around that can help guide the decisions we make as parents. The three covered today, RIE, Montessori and Waldorf, offer overlapping ideas when it comes to babies and play: keep it simple; no need to spend a lot of money.

I’m not an evangelist for any of these parenting and educational philosophies – I take what works for us and leave what doesn’t. What follows are some ideas that have worked for us.

RIE inspired

RIE (Resources for Infant Educators) has been the biggest influence in shaping the way I parent. It is all about treating even the newest of infants with respect and allowing babies and children the freedom of independent play and development from birth.

One of the most important ideas that RIE offers the frugal parent is about what not to buy for your baby.

As RIE encourages parents to allow babies to develop naturally at their own pace by giving babies plenty of space and time to move freely (aka independent play), RIE recommends avoiding anything that can interfere with a baby’s natural movement or force babies into positions that they are not yet ready for: bouncers, Bumbos, walkers (the ones babies sit in), Jolly Jumpers and other such baby contraptions.

I admit that I used a bouncer on occasion with both kids when I needed to, but mostly I placed them on the floor to explore and move around freely (of course, there’s not that much moving in those first weeks and months).

In the early weeks babies don’t need any toys. The world is a new and interesting place to babies.

Consider what they are experiencing for the first time: the way the leaves move outside the window when the wind blows and the contrast of colours, the green against the blue sky; the way the lights and shadows play across the wall when a car drives by; the way the ceiling fan moves and the feeling of the breeze on the skin; the undulation of the curtains; the firmness of the floor beneath them; the sound of birds outside, the traffic, siblings playing; the sound  water splashing in the shower…the world is infinitely interesting.

Babies don’t need the added distraction and over-stimulation of such things as electronic mobiles with flashing lights and sounds, especially young babies who are unable to move to escape them.

Later, a babies first toy will be their own hands. Then RIE suggests simple, open-ended objects that invite exploration and imagination, such as baby-safe household items, kitchen items, balls, cloth napkins, cars and push-toys, containers and jars. Inexpensive yet fun.

For more information on RIE, Janet Lansbury’s website is the best RIE resource on the web.

Montessori inspired

One of the great ideas Montessori has to offer frugal parents of babies is the sensory or treasure basket.

These are simply baskets or boxes in which you put a selection everyday items from around the home and let baby explore freely as the fancy takes them.

Free toys, in other words. 

Obviously, the items that you select need to be safe for baby and some supervision is required.

Kitchen items always make a good choice. It’s amazing how intensely siblings will fight over who gets to play with the soup ladle! When creating treasure baskets, try to provide a variety of textures, shapes, colours and sounds for baby to explore.

These baskets can hold a baby and young toddler’s attention for ages. Even older children enjoy exploring the interesting treasures in these baskets. If you’re looking for 20 minutes of quiet to enjoy a cup of tea, put together one of these treasure baskets.

For lots of ideas for putting together treasure baskets, check out The Imagination Tree blog.

Waldorf inspired

Nature and connecting with nature plays an important roll in the Waldorf school of thought. I have personally found that there is nothing so calming for a cantankerous baby or toddler (or adult for that matter) as a walk outside. Even a foray into our damp, sunless courtyard will calm a little one. Studies agree that communing with nature is good for our mental, physical and spiritual health.

Many of the best toys come free from nature. Leaves, rocks, sticks (what young boy doesn’t like playing with sticks!), nuts, flowers, seedpods, shells. For young babies, natural objects offer a variety textures, weights, tastes and shapes that plastic just can’t replicate.

And babies love playing with natural objects. Put a baby on a rug outside with a bunch of toys and watch them clamber over the toys to get the grass and sticks and rocks and mud.

For older kids, natural objects are great for open-ended imaginative play.

At nine months old, the stone pictured above is the little lady’s favourite toy. Maybe it’s the texture or maybe chewing on it is helping her cut her teeth. Or maybe it’s some other property that I don’t know. Either way, she comes back to that stone over and over during the day.

“…entertaining kinds of toys (such as mobiles or later on,… battery-operated toys)  cause a passive child to watch an active toy. This trains the child to expect to be amused and entertained…” Magda Gerber

You don’t need to spend a fortune on Fisher Price to keep a baby occupied and to encourage learning and development. You already have a house full and yard full of free ‘toys’ just waiting to be discovered, explored, shaken, banged, mouthed, dropped, emptied, filled, turned, scrunched, torn, thrown, understood and, later, transformed through imaginative play.

Have you read these articles?:

1. more toddler play ideas– pretend play chores for free
2. frugal toys for baby
3. saving money when having a baby part four–clothing, toys and miscellaneous