Regular readers will recall me being intrigued by dumpster diving. I still hadn’t found the courage to give it a go, when an opportunity arose this week. I walked past the bin in the tearoom at work and saw two bananas and two apples! I initially thought ‘what a waste - they should be composted’ – but then I realised they looked almost edible…I checked…no one was looking…so I grabbed them. They were perfectly edible! So I snuck them into my lunch box. The bananas were just a little brown and the apples had only slightly wrinkled skin. The bananas... Read more →

It's all about food round here at the moment. My mind wanders throughout the day thinking about how we can eat a balanced healthy diet without spending any money. So far, dairy and fruit have been my main challenges. But then today all my Christmas's came at once. Little Eco loves her yoghurt and we were about to run out. I prefer not to make yoghurt with powdered milk, so I contacted the lovely Kate at Purple Pear Organics to see if she was happy to trade me some of the delicious yoghurt she makes using milk from their own... Read more →

We started on the powdered milk this morning…It wasn’t the disaster I suspected. My coffee wasn’t quiet as nice as usual – but it did the job. I also hadn’t given much thought to the fact that public transport costs money. We’re a one-car-family for the next week or so after an ‘incident’ on the weekend…… Daddy Eco has no option but to drive to work…so I’m the one left without a car. With public transport off-bounds, I begrudgingly got onto my bike this morning. I actually needed this. I hadn’t ridden to work since Christmas. No excuse – just... Read more →

I was inspired last night when reading about Eileen’s no-spend week. She’s starting this Friday and I was considering joining in. I decided to sleep on it. I woke and thought – why wait! Lets start now. We’ve had a busy few days and only four days into our fortnightly budget cycle we had spent ALL our grocery budget and all our ‘miscellaneous’ money. We’re trying hard to stick to a budget so starting today made sense. Daddy Eco agreed - so we’ve started…with no last minute spending or pantry stocking. We're going to aim for just over a week,... Read more →