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Secret stash
Jul 25, 2008
We're baaaaack! Here I am, back in my little spot by the fire having just polished off a bowl of soup. Just three days ago I was floating about in a saltwater pool surrounded by palm trees! What a wonderful, hectic trip we've had. One of those holidays where you need to come home for a rest! Not that we're complaining, mind. We all absolutely loved it and fear not, I shall tell you all about our trip as soon as I get my brain back! First however, I must tell you about the other, somewhat smaller trip I made this morning – to the supermarket!
Usually I really don't enjoy going to the supermarket at all, but today was different. Not only did I have to replenish our empty fridge and pantry following our two-week absence, I was planning to STOCK UP. I've been dying to do this ever since we had the pleasure of hanging out with Fiona and her family in the Sunshine Coast last week. We were determined to have a great holiday, while still remaining as SS as possible and I think we achieved this really well. We made sure our accommodation had a fully equipped kitchen, as we refused to spend a fortune on food and wanted to do as much of the cooking as we could ourselves. A main concern was catering for the boys' wheat/corn/gluten intolerances too, so as soon as we could, we went grocery shopping.
Normally, dragging my three grumbling males around the shops is a truly dreadful experience but this time we actually found it heaps of fun! Everyone loved checking out all the different products and couldn't believe the huge range in variety compared to little old NZ. Although, as Liam pointed out, this may not be necessarily a bonus. 'You can see why Simple Savings is so big in Australia', he said as we left Maroochydore's Sunshine Plaza. 'There's so much stuff here to buy, everyone would be broke if Fiona hadn't started it!'
We couldn't believe how fresh and delicious all the food was on the Sunshine Coast. Everything just tasted better and far from being hard to cater for, Liam absolutely thrived on all the glorious 'nude food'. In fact, he never stopped eating the entire holiday! One thing I do admit to being envious of is the larger quantities available in Australia. Even in the supermarkets, things are much easier to buy in bulk. Learning how to bulk buy has been on my 'to do' list for some time. There are some things I routinely buy in large quantities, such as bread and milk for freezing and all our meat comes in bulk. Then of course there's toilet paper! But until now, that's been about my limit, although I did pick up 15 kilos of rice the other day. Thank goodness the Savings Forum made me aware of the global rice shortage! On my last trip to the supermarket before our holiday, I was stunned to see there was no rice whatsoever, just bare shelves and an apologetic sign. So I went to Bin Inn and picked up three 5kg bags quick smart!
Anyway, it wasn't long before we caught up with Fiona and Matt and their beautiful kids. I loved wandering around the garden together and couldn't believe all the different fruit, vegetables and herbs all happily growing in their lush environment. Some of them I had never even heard of! Fiona very kindly offered us some meat and pantry supplies, which I was very grateful for but I was somewhat bemused when she led me to the garage to get them. She opened the doors to a large metal cupboard and – WOAH! So that's what a bulk pantry looks like!
I don't know why but I had always put bulk shopping in the 'too hard' basket. Daft really isn't it? I mean, we grow our own food, enjoy a wonderful 'nude' diet and have taken pretty much all our SS changes in our stride apart from that one. I've also become so accustomed to the $21 Challenge way of using up everything first, I hadn't even really thought about building stocks up. For starters, what was I supposed to buy? Looking at Fiona's cupboard, it all made sense. I could well believe it when she told me she only has to go to the supermarket every two months. Instead of taking her little ones off food shopping every week, she and Matt get to spend time with them at home instead. That thought really appealed to me, I had never thought of the effect that the physical act of going shopping has on your family life before. As Matt said, so many of us are just 'too busy being busy!' The bulk clincher for me came a couple of days later, when after an unbelievably hectic day, Matt almost singlehandedly served up the most delicious dinner for SEVENTEEN people, with barely an hour's notice! Egads, if that was me I would have been running around like a headless chook, or have just given in and gone and got takeaways but not after seeing that. I want a bulk pantry of my own! It just goes to show how much my mindset has changed since becoming a Simple Saver. I used to covet things like shoes and handbags – now I covet pantry storage!
Fiona uses a lockable metal cupboard from Bunnings to store her bulk goodies in. Both pest proof and kid proof, I've been dreaming about getting one ever since. The only problem is – I've got nowhere to store it, although I'm still nagging Noel to help me find somewhere. We don't have a garage and there's no room in the laundry or even in the back porch. Still, undeterred I picked up a few extra things at the supermarket today – nothing too major and only if they were on special but at least it's a start and will add up to a valuable saving in the long run. Even the fact I now have six packets of rice crackers instead of the usual one or two means I won't have to run off to Mr Patel's so often when Liam runs out of snacks. I even bought my wine in bulk! I figured it made more sense to stock up when it was cheaper and got six bottles for $30, rather than three for the same amount had I waited until we ran out. I finally 'get' bulk buying – and I learned it from the Miser Extraordinaire herself!
The only thing is, like I said I don't have anywhere to put it really. So while the boys were at school and I was putting the shopping away, I gleefully created a 'secret stash'. Don't laugh, but it's in the office filing cabinet at the moment, plonked on top of all the paperwork! It's a start and I guess it will do until I get my dream bulk pantry. If Noel sees I'm serious and notices how much less frequently we need to shop, hopefully he will come around to the idea quicker and help me create some room for it. Failing that, he could always build me a garage, we do need one!
Noel and I were surprised to find that overall, Australia is more expensive than NZ – apart from cheese and fuel, that is. Seems like it's not just us who thinks so, according to new reports about the world's most expensive cities. In that case, Aussie $21 Challengers should be extra proud of themselves for their efforts to stay within budget! Talking of the $21 Challenge, get this! The National Budgeting Federation of NZ have printed an article in their Budgetline magazine this month. Even the Federation national office have given the $21 Challenge a go! While the information they had been given/taken on board regarding the rules of the Challenge was not 100% accurate, overall they did find it a positive and empowering experience and encouraged budgeters to get their clients to give it a go. Wow!
Apparently the weather was absolutely dreadful the entire time we were away but the sun has been shining non-stop since we arrived home. However, not for long! Apparently a particularly nasty storm is due to hit our shores tomorrow, so I am going to sign off for now and get our huge pile of holiday washing dry while I can. I promise to update with more details of our Aussie adventure very soon!
Going nude on the Sunshine Coast
Jul 28, 2008
Woah! What a stormy weekend we've had! I've never seen anything like it. Trees were falling down like dominoes in 130km winds as we watched in awe out of the window - and we got away lightly compared to many places. What a welcome home! Apparently there's more of the same to come this week. Take me back to Australia - please!
*Sigh*, this time last week we were sunning ourselves in Queensland. I just don't know where the last fortnight has gone. Unfortunately I ended up being sick with the flu for most of the trip! Noel said that was typical, he reckons it wouldn't be a holiday unless I got sick. The cheek of it! I stuffed myself full of expensive vitamins for weeks trying to keep it at bay, so determined was I not to catch it. So much for that, it still caught up with me in the end! Still - ill or not, a wonderful time was had by all.
Although for a while I did wonder if we were actually going to make it to Brisbane as planned! After a smooth start, our plane got delayed and we sat on the runway for a good hour past take-off time while maintenance men went back and forth to the back of the plane. As you may know, I am NOT a good flier so it really didn't fill me with confidence when the captain's voice came over the loud speakers explaining that we couldn't take off due to a technical hitch but hopefully it would be fixed soon. I sat frozen to the spot imagining all sorts of dreadful things happening such as doors flying off, until I could stand no more and asked in trepidation if the 'hitch' was a major one. Imagine my relief when I was informed it was just the ovens that weren't working!
The flight, once we eventually took off, was not one of my favourites. We bumped our way across the Tasman in our little flying cigar and were not permitted to take off our seatbelts for the entire journey. However, we did eventually make it and excitedly picked up our hire car. Sunshine Coast here we come! To tell the truth, I was a little concerned about letting Noel choose our hire car company. I'd much rather go with the Vault recommendations thank you very much. However, after shopping around for countless quotes, he settled on a company called Letz. We saved $280 for the fortnight compared to all the others we looked at. At least I got to choose the type of car, picking a nice, eco-friendly Hyundai Lantra over the flipping great Commodore station wagon Noel wanted. He grumbled at the time but he was very glad for that little car several times throughout the trip, not least when it took us about 45 minutes to get out of the airport carpark. We had a pre-pay ticket to get us through the gate but every time we put it into the machine we got the message 'WRONG CARPARK'. How could it possibly be the wrong carpark?! Round and round and round we went but it didn't matter what we did, we got the same message. Just as we thought we could stand no more, Noel had a brainwave. With a tweak of the wing mirror, our little Lantra was small enough to squeeze past the barricade! Soon we were on our way! Letz by the way, turned out to be an excellent hire company, we would definitely use them again. Our car was immaculate, had only done 7,000km and they didn't even request that we fill the tank with petrol before dropping it off, unlike most companies, due to petrol being so expensive. What nice guys!
As mentioned before, I had been a little concerned as to how we were going to keep Liam sustained with allergy-free food throughout our holiday. As it turned out, the hardest part of the whole trip was keeping him fed on the plane and in the airport. There was basically nothing for wheat/gluten intolerances. I explained he was a coeliac and asked the air stewards if we could possibly get something like a piece of fruit or yoghurt. They were lovely and well-meaning but turned up shortly after with a tray containing a muesli bar, a scone and a muffin! Consequently by the time we finally got out of the airport poor Liam was just about keeling over, having been on the go for seven hours already. Barely 10km down the road we had to stop for our first Australian meal - McDonalds! Thank goodness for chips!
Now we were all refuelled and on our way again I figured the next stop was our holiday home but Noel had other ideas. After the stress of the day so far he decided a beer was in order, and he knew just where to get one - the Ettamogah Pub! The kids thought this was rather strange - why were Mum and Dad so excited to go to a pub? The Ettamogah Pub holds fond memories for us from our trip to the Sunshine Coast 10 years ago and we were delighted to see that it hasn't changed a bit. However, everything else in the vicinity certainly had! We were gobsmacked to find the place crawling with people. There was a whole string of shops which hadn't been there before and where years ago we used to park right outside the pub, this time we had to park three blocks away!
Curiosity abated, we finally made it to our holiday home for the next week - Kalua Holiday Apartments in Maroochydore. The building is actually much nicer than it appears on the website. I'm not a fan of high rises and we loved our ground floor apartment in its quiet street. You may recall we booked it on Wotif and we were delighted with our bargain. The facilities were excellent, fully self contained and it was safe and sheltered for the kids, with room outside for them to play. That had been another thing I had been a bit concerned about actually - booking with Wotif. Even though I had heard a lot about them on Simple Savings, I was still a bit nervous about booking online. I had visions of turning up to find our booking hadn't gone through and we'd be stranded with no place to stay! However, we had nothing but positive experiences the whole trip, everything from our accommodation and car hire through to theme park bookings went without a hitch. Don't you just love the Internet!
I've kind of done my blog a little backwards, as I mentioned in the last one how we caught up with Fiona and Matt already! Now I have to admit, while we did enjoy a lovely holiday into the bargain, the real reason for going to Australia in the first place was to take care of some top secret Simple Savings stuff. Now don't ask me what it is, 'cos I can't tell you! It was lovely to hang out with the SS team, some of who were meeting for the first time. Naomi B, Fran Sheffield the Homeopath, Debbie Eustace, Steve Panozzo the Sally and Hanna cartoonist, Kirstin and fellow Kiwi Sophie Gray (who I took to straight away, being someone who actually hates flying even more than me, if that's possible!) We thoroughly enjoyed our week of eating 'nude food' on the Sunshine Coast, discovering the most awesome fresh fish in Mooloolaba, scoffing bowls of Fiona's delicious home made soup and eating what I think was the best steak EVER fresh off the barbecue a la Matt.
A most anticipated event for Master Ali was his 'Zookeeper for a Day' program at Australia Zoo. We had booked this months ago as part of his upcoming birthday present. As far as Ali is concerned there are only two possible career choices he will consider - rock star or zoo keeper. Having heard him play the guitar I am gently coaxing him towards the latter! He had an unforgettable day and made lots of friends. I was expecting him to say his favourite animals were the elephants, or Aggro, the crocodile he sponsors but the ones he loved most were the kangaroos. I think most of his holiday money has since gone on kangaroo books! We also paid a family visit to Australia Zoo, which I was really looking forward to. Noel and I had been there 10 years before, when Steve Irwin was just getting well known and we remembered an enjoyable day strolling around. In fact, we were pretty much the only people in the zoo. Not so this time! Boy has it changed. There were so many people it was hard to move! I'll be honest, the sheer volume of people really did dampen the experience for us but I love what the Irwins have achieved and continue to achieve. I'll even admit to coming over quite emotional as I watched Terri and Wes in the Crocoseum, carrying on Steve's work. What a courageous woman. Through Bindi, they are reaching kids all over the world just like mine and getting their conservation message through. Watching the show, I would like to think they are making a big difference to the fate of some of our endangered species by educating so many, particularly the younger generation. I couldn't help wondering what the future holds though - at present, Steve has been gone for less than two years and he is still everywhere at the zoo. What's it going to be like in 10 years time I wonder?
Of course one of the things I was most looking forward to was our Simple Savings get together in Cotton Tree Park in Maroochydore. I couldn't wait to meet other members and put some names to faces! Unfortunately the day before it became clear I was really coming down with something and by the time I got up on Sunday morning my head was hammering and my throat was so sore I was struggling to speak. What timing! There was no way I was missing out though and the first face I recognised was that of the lovely Vonnie, aka Fairy from the Savings Forum, who wondered how I recognised her until I reminded her she was on the front cover of the GO Crazy cookbook! It was also lovely to meet Natalie from the SS team and her family for the first time, as well as the Sue's, the Julia's, Zoe, Kym, Sarah, Sara-Maree and Sandra K to name a few! To anyone I had the pleasure of meeting that day, I do apologise if I came across as a bit vague or aloof, I was losing my voice and terrified of breathing germs on you all!