When to be frugal and when to say "Hang the expense!" - Buying school uniforms.

My eldest starts school next year so this week I went to a parent orientation night at the school. One of the items on the agenda was uniforms, and they had a small display there. There are two options - you can buy the school uniform from the school or buy standard uniforms from department stores and just buy the logo from the school to sew onto the clothes. Another option would also be that you could make the clothes yourself in the approved colours and put the school logo on.

If I wanted to be really frugal I could have gone with the option of buying cheap imported clothes from a department store or made them myself. However, this was one time when I went "Hang the expense!" and bought the clothes from the school.

There are many times, when we are trying to save money and avoid waste, that we chose to go for the more expensive option. My husband and I decided to buy the school uniform and school bag (a backpack designed by the school to suit the needs of their students - they even gave a demonstration of what items go where in the bag) for the following reasons.

1. Time factor. Yes, I would love to make the clothes myself, but I don't envisage having the time to make the items I can make between now and the end of January when school starts, what with Christmas in between and having a younger child at home. I may get to make one pair of shorts to have as a spare pair in his bag, but to make three pairs of cargo shorts with zippers in that time might be a big ask.

2. Capability factor. I can make the shorts and bucket hat myself, but the particular style of the polo shirts would be beyond what I am capable of making, so the only option would be to buy the shirts anyway. I certainly don't have what it takes to make the fantastic school backpack that they have on offer, either.

3. Value for money. I was impressed with the permanent pleat cargo shorts, although imported, looked good quality. The polo shirts are made in Australia. The bucket hat also imported. The bag is very good quality (I don't know where it was made). I bought the bag, one hat, three shirts and two pairs of shorts, and it cost $154.00 which I thought was pretty good. The individual items were priced not much more expensive than the department stores, so I wouldn't have gained much by shopping elsewhere by the time I would have had to buy the school logos and sew them on. I'm hoping that when my second child starts school, these items will still be good enough for her to wear to make it even better value for money. Unfortunately I don't know anyone with older children at the school to have been able to have uniforms handed down to us like some of the other parents waiting at the uniform shop had.

4. One stop shop. I got all his uniform needs in one place, without then having to head off to a department store and then back to the school to buy logos. Time is money, as they say.

5. Blending in with everyone else. Standing outside the uniform shop waiting for it to open (it's on the school site) I noticed all the students wearing the regulation school uniform shirt. At least by buying the uniforms there, my child(ren) will be wearing the same as everyone else. Shorts are not such a big deal, as they don't stand out as much as a shirt, so even if I do get time to make a pair in the right colour it won't be noticeable.

My son has always been excited about starting school next year, however after our trip to the uniform shop, he skipped the rest of the way to Kindergarten!

Book review: "Backyard Self-Sufficiency" by Jackie French

I love my local library. It is such a wonderful resource, not only for the great range of books and cds, etc that you can borrow from it, but it has a toy library and runs lots of general interest activities as well as programs for kids. But enough of that...here's a little gem I borrowed from my library last week, and will be reluctant to return it when it is due.
"Backyard Self-sufficiency" by Jackie French is inspiring right from the first few pages. Lately I've been reading quite a few books and magazines about self-sufficiency, permaculture and other related topics and the thing that impresses me the most about this book it that it's realistic. Many people wanting to aim for a more frugal and/or self sufficient lifestyle want to take small or realistic steps in achieving that goal, unfortunately many books and magazines can frighten you off by demonstrating models of total self sufficiency. Jackie mentions having to make her own soap, toothpaste and other products when she didn't have much money but says if you don't need to make them then why would you? Having looked at quite a few methods for making soap with the notion of making my own, but being dismayed that all soap making methods require wearing a mask and gloves at some stage in production, I decided it was best left to the soap makers.
It is such a delight to read that within the first few pages it had me wanting to rip out large sections of my lawn in the back yard and planting more "stuff". Reading what she does with her vegies and fruit has filled my head with ideas.

I also love her 'no-dig' method of gardening. It certainly fits in with my 'lazy' attitude to gardening. I have already been out in the yard and spread sheets of newspaper covered with glass clippings. As her book is Australian, the information in it is certainly relevant to our conditions. Often books are written overseas where the conditions and climate are different, and plants behave differently.

There is so much more I could say about this book, but do yourself a favour, and pop down to your local library and have a read yourself!

Myth busting.... it costs more to buy local

I've long held a belief that it doesn't really cost more to buy locally produced products. Not much more, anyway. I remember hearing an interview with Dick Smith when he talked about a jam producer he was helping whose product cost 30c more than the imported competitors product on the shelves in supermarkets. I always prefer to buy Australian made and owned using Australian grown produce, as I find the quality is better, taste is better, etc. So I don't really think I pay much more for Australian products than imported ones generally.

We went camping this week in the lovely Riverland in South Australia. We stopped by at a roadside fruit and veg vendor between Berri and Glossop and I was pleasantly surprised to find they grow their own nuts. Often I find it hard to buy nuts that say 'Australian grown'. So I bought one bag of almonds, one bag of cashews and one bag of pistaccios. We bought some dried fruit as well and a butter nut pumpkin, all of the produce was grown on that particular farm. I handed over the money and realised I paid probably the same for the nuts as I would for imported ones in the supermarket. And to top it all off, the lady gave us two large grapefruit as a thank you.

I slept well that night knowing that I not only supported a local farmer, but my dollar was staying in the area and the food miles were low as the stall was right out the front of the farm.

New life for old towels

We like to go camping, but everytime we go I have to get hand towels, etc, out of our linen cupboard to take with us. I read an article in a Grass Roots Magazine edition about using old towels to make hand towels and face washers. I had some old towels that I was thinking of giving to my husband as rags for use in the shed, so I got them out. This is also a great way to use up any scraps of material that you have.

Firstly, cut the towels to the size required and trim off any frayed bits. I made two different styles - on some I cut a piece of scrap material the same size as the piece of towel and layed the material and towel right sides together. I then overlocked three edges together, turned the material and towel right sides out, attached a ribbon to use as a hook and sewed the open edge together.

The other style was to use either a strip of material, wide ribbon or bias binding to create and edging for the towel.

As I was making these for use when camping, I wasn't worried if the material, cotton thread and ribbon didn't match the colour of the towel. When I make some for use in the home, I will be a bit more selective.

What I ended up with are some new hand towels and smaller cloths that can be used as dish cloths or cleaning cloths. They all have a loop of ribbon on them so they can hang up somewhere. Much better than using them as rags or sending them to the compost or rubbish bin!

Home made inspect spray for the garden

Back in October 2011 I promised that I would put this recipe on my blog when I found it. This is a really handy recipe as not only does it help to keep unwanted pest insects out of the garden, but it you can adapt the recipe to use up kitchen scraps.

Ingredients: 4 large chopped onions, 6 chopped garlic cloves, 1tbsp hot chilli powder, 2 cups pure soap flakes or pure grated soap.

Method: Combine onions, garlic and chilli powder, cover with water and stand for 24 hours. Strain. Mix in soap flakes or grated soap into onion mixture. Dilute mixture 2 parts mixture to 5 parts water. Will keep for 2 weeks in a cool, dark place.

As an alternative to using perfectly good onions and garlic cloves, I often use the off cuts from food preparation. I use the equivalent of the above measurements in onion skins and garlic skins and any bits that are cut off (such as the tip of the garlic or bits of onion that have gone soft).

You will need to give the mixture a good shake before you use it each time as the soap flakes tend to settle a bit. You could use chopped chillis if you have them rather than chilli powder.

Construction Theme Birthday Party Cake

I was really glad when my son picked out a construction theme birthday party cake from one of the Australian Women's Weekly cake decorating books as it looked really easy to do. It was pretty simple, just make two cakes and stick them together (one on top of the other) with icing. Cut into the top cake to create a hill. Cover with icing and crushed Violet Crumble, decorate with construction toys. Put some choc coated sultanas around to look like rocks. I found that this worked well for a beginner cake decorator like me, as it didn't matter if some cake crumbs got into the icing or if the icing ran a bit... construction sites are messy places anyway!

Construction theme birthday party pinata

My son is about to turn 5 and he had his party on the weekend. We made a Stop/Go sign pinata by using thick cardboard and cutting two large circles as the two sides. Then we cut a strip of cardboard and used packing tape to stick it around the edges, making sure to put a hole with some string in at the top and filling with lollies before taping it all up. Lastly my son and I had fun painting it. I wasn't sure how strong it was and was surprised to find it took quite a whacking before the contents spilled out! It was so easy to do and better still we used cardboard that would have only been thrown out and some packing tape we had at home. All we had to get was lollies and a bit more paint. Pinata's are about $20 in the shops, but I only paid about $10 for a bag of lollies and one of chocolates. My advice would be to only use one bag and it turned out we had far too many lollies/chocolates in ours for the number of kids that we had (10).The best thing about this, it didn't matter that it didn't look perfect, my son still loved it!