Menu Planning

Its hard fighting the culture of eating out and the escape from the office it provides during a tedious work day. Most meetings are held in a cafe (unless you are telling someone off or being told off), and you can't really sit in a cafe without buying something. Yes, it is generally put on expenses, but it also goes on the waistline, and creates a habit that you continue at your own expense.

When lunch comes around, the act of going to buy your lunch gets you out of your chair, down the lift  and outside, and its a great way to catch up with people away from work. Lunch becomes a de-stress session which I think is really important, especially in the tough times we are trolling through at the moment.

So how can you get the same benefit, while bringing your own lunch? Here are the issues:

• Eating in the 'cafe area' at work is a straight out no. What's the point? You might as well eat at your desk.
• You can't sit in a cafe without buying something.
• Its really cold at the moment, and usually raining. Besides, there aren't a lot of nice outdoor spaces around my end of the CBD to eat your lunch in.
• You cant eat in the library.

Hmm you see my dilemma. I guess you could go and sit in a food court and bring your own lunch. You might get kicked out, but bringing it in a paper bag or styrofoam cup would probably help. Maybe I'll suggest that to someone for next time. Any ideas? I guess my next problem is that a lot of my BYO lunch ideas require a microwave. I will have to be more creative with my lunches.

Farm Shopping

I had a really exciting day on Saturday, I went farm shopping. Well, it was actually farm window shopping, but still pretty exciting. We looked at four little farmlets around the Whatawhata area with a very trying real estate agent. Aside from having to try and ignore her steady stream of irrelevant chatter, a good time was had by all. It really opens your eyes to the possibilities when you start to look at properties and get a feel for the size of places and the potential for improvements or business opportunities.

My theory (probably coming form my training) is that you always start with the land and go from there. That means that you look at what you have got and make the most of the opportunities that it presents. Hilly? How about goats? Wet? Duck ponds and flax for weaving. You get the picture. So it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation, but I guess that is part of the fun.

The weekend has definitely presented a lot of food for thought. Family farm-buying syndicate? Good house on run down land, or run down house on good land? How much land? and for that matter, how much house? Lots of things to think over, and definitely a plan in the making. Because at the end of it, it all comes down to money - how much you can get, where its coming from, and how much you need to pay. Mortgages aren't cheap. They are saying its a buyers market. They are also saying house prices are likely to continue to drop. But what if they aren't? Should I just close my eyes, buy a lotto ticket, and hope for the best?

Future Planning

I had one of those 'I feel trapped in a little glass box' days today where you don't feel like you are going anywhere and you are just stuck there watching the world go by. So I went and had a chat to one of my favourite mental-health-coffee-catchup friends. He listened to me for a while and then offered some advice. 'You don't know what you want. You need a direction. You need a plan'.

Now I love to plan. I usually have about four on the go at any one time. But in this case we were talking particularly about my work and it just so happens that due to several factors at the moment I don't have a plan. In fact, I don't really have any idea what I want to do with my career. There are so many paths I can see in front of me, so many opportunities. Each has its own challenges and rewards that need considering. But they are almost so diverse,  so numerous and so ill-defined that I am still cowering inside my glass box not sure which way to go.

So my wise and understanding friend told me to write it down, draw a diagram, whatever, just get it out of my head onto some paper. He then offered his services and that of his wife as sounding boards for me to test my thoughts on. Knowing me as well as he does he recognised I need to talk myself around to what I want to do. What a wonderful friend!

So now I am off to dump all of my thoughts onto paper. I am armed with post-it notes, paper, pens, and coloring pencils, so I can follow whatever whim helps me to purge myself of all the thoughts whizzing around in my head. One thing I know is as long as I am still walking, and not just hiding in my box, I am getting somewhere, and it is never too late to change direction.

Budgets and cost cutting

I was just marveling at my bank accounts. I may only have about $270 in all of them combined, but thats all mine. I don't OWE anything. Well, we don't count student loans because in New Zealand you have minimum payments and they are interest free so I like to just pretend it doesn't exist. But I don't have an overdraft, a credit card... I haven't been in this situation since, well, I'm not sure, but its a nice feeling and I'm going to enjoy it for a while.

Last night I had a review of my budget. Previously I was scrimping on everything and putting every spare cent into paying off my cards. So now I have a whole lot left over and need to allocate it somewhere else. I decided in the short term, I will just redirect that money straight into saving for a couple of goals. The first is the reward I promised myself for paying of my card, and the second saving for a house.

So after rent, phone, power, and internet, my biggest monthly costs are the $140 I need for travel (petrol and public transport) and $120 for food ($80 groceries, $40 eating out), with $20 allocations a month for cat food for my temporarily adopted friends, clothes, and the  garden. Its a simple life. Obviously these are just day-to-day costs and I need to have some put aside for irregular costs such as car fixing, warranting and registering, insurances, doctors visits, and that sort of thing. I try to pay these annually where possible to pay the least amount.

I still think I can save money on both food and travel. Travel-wise, I get paid milage for use of my car for work, so in some ways the gas and parking money I have to spend on that pays for itself. Living so far away from work (20 mins drive in good traffic - when is it ever good?) also is a bit of a challenge, with a return bus trip costing $11. However, I have found if I buy it after 9am it drops to $7.50. If I can manage my work day around that, it might be a saving there. That sounds a little tricky though, I wouldn't arrive at work till just before 10.

In the past few months I have been spending my whole food budget on eating out and getting no groceries. That is why 'eating frugally' is a big focus for me at the moment. The plan is to first try and get in the habit of eating at home, and then when I've mastered that, trying to get the food costs down and the healthy living up by changing what I eat. So for the moment if I need to by nasty convenience foods to get in the habit, then that is what I do. At the same time, really focussing on trying to get the veggie garden as productive as possible as quick as possible will help too. Along with any kind donations of meat from my hunting man, I could really drop the amount of food I need to buy.

The only problem is I will have to find the time to cook it! One habit at a time.

Community Engagement and Goats

Today I was on a course. Its the second part of a certificate in Community Engagement (IAP2) which I'll finish tomorrow. Basically it is all about how to engage groups in a decision making process, and this last part is about the tools or techniques that you can use - workshops and brainstorming sessions for example. This isn't really hugely related to the point of this blog, although I guess the facilitation type skills will always come in handy, but what is relevant is that you never know when you will meet like minded people.

We did a 'getting to know you' type exercise where we had to pick an object we had on us and tell the group what that thing said about you. I picked my keys and talked about how I am house sitting and that I was in it for the veggie garden, that my raggedy car key and alarm button showed the raggedy nature of my car but that it represented my new-found independence, and the performance car key ring my brother gave me and my Mum's house key, which shows that my family is important to me. So you can see how this simple exercise gave a lot of insight into what sort of people were in the group. Well I found I had things in common with most of the people there. In particular, I found one lady who shared a love of gardening, and another lady working in the corporate world but living on a farm and wanting to move more towards her 'second life'. Well, I just had to have a chat with her at the break.

It turns out she runs meat goats and a few steers on her farm in Kaukapakapa. Thats just north of Auckland and I happen to have an aunt and uncle who live in those parts. So I had a very interesting chat about different breeds of goats, whether they were o.k. on boggy ground (not really is the answer but you can work around it), goat milking, goat rearing, and the good and bad things in general about farming. When I told her a little bit about my farming ambitions, she said 'So it sounds like you can hear the rural life calling'. She is so right! I think I have always heard it calling. Sometimes it definitely gets louder.

Weekend Adventures

This weekend I went down to Hamilton to share some free range pork I have in the freezer with my Mum. The roast was amazing, much better than what you get at the supermarket, and has made me even more enthusiastic to get sorted and get on a farm. We finished it off with some delicious tapioca pudding which is such a lovely pudding to have on a cold night.

We visited the Hamilton Rose Gardens, in particular the 'Sustainable Backyard Garden'. I try to visit it regularly as it is such a good example of what you can do on a small patch of land. The Hamilton Gardens website tells you that it was established in 2001 as a demonstration of permiculture and what can be achieved in a average suburban garden. It has worm farms, a chicken tractor that moves around a cluster of vegetable beds, a range of fruit trees, and water recycling, but my favourite feature is a pergola that has a grapevine growing over it with beehives sitting on top. It is such a good idea and keeps the bees flight paths out of the 'human conflict zone'. I'm going to build something similar when I get a house.

I also attended some Spaniel Hunting Dog Trials, which was a new experience. It was amazing watching how the dogs worked the cover, flushing out pheasants. It was a pretty cold day but the sausages at lunch made up for it, they were delicious! I also managed to sneak some kowhai seeds I saw on the ground, and am soaking them now to be planted one day on the farm.

We visited my Brother who was home alone with his partner and kids off visiting family, and it was well worth the visit! I brought cakes and doughnuts for breakfast (which he wasn't too impressed about since he is on a health trip) but left with a big bag of lemons, grapefruit and oranges off his tree, and a rhubarb plant! Fantastic deal! I've stewed up the rhubarb stalks that were on it already with some apple to pop in the freezer for future rhubarb crumbles, and the citrus are destined for marmalade. I promised my brother a jar, and made a deal with my Mum that I'll swop her a jar of marmalade for a jar of lemon honey. I guess thats how all barter systems came to be.

Finally we went and drooled over some rural properties for sale out west of Hamilton. I wont talk too much about it because I am trying not to think about it or I will just get depressed about how far away it is until I will be in a position to buy one. Baby steps.

Taking Control

Ok so enough thinking, what have I been doing? Well as I said I have been in a convenience guzzling tail-spin lately which is a bit poor. But what I have been doing is whipping my finances into shape. So while I feel like I have been indulging in terrible wicked consumerist ways, I can't have been that bad because I have managed to save a whackload of money. Or reassign it anyway.

So what have I achieved? Firstly I rationalised my bank accounts. I had at least 7 different bank accounts with 3 different banks. Lets not go into how I got myself into such a state. So what did I do? I decided to get rid of the lot and startup with a completely new bank, kiwibank actually, which I chose because of its NZ'ness - whether its just a marketing ploy or not I don't know but it worked on me. Hey, I'm not perfect!

It was quite a process but eventually I got there, and an outcome of it was that I consolidated my two credit cards onto one new low-rate debt consolidation type card with a very low interest rate for 6 months. So I made a plan to pay that off in 6 months.

I didn't get off to a fantastic start as the first hiccup was that I needed a car so that bumped up my debt by $2000 right off the bat as I didn't quite have enough saved. But the best thing I did was to brag to a guy at work that I was going to pay my card off in 6 months. He is an engineer. They always think they are right :) Guess what his answer was? 'Well, statistics show that it will actually take you 2 years to pay it off'. Well, right there and then, I made  a bet. Five bars of chocolate (big kingsize block ones) that I would pay it off in 6 months. This guy is very food motivated. The bet was on - I had till 22 August to pay it off.

I am now very pleased to announce that today, on this 16th day of July, 2010, one engineer who shall remain nameless, owes me a swag-load of chocolate! Oooh it feels soo good to win!!!  :)

I'm not normally particularly competitive, or have gambling inclinations for that matter,  but the particular stupidity of this bet, considering he didn't even know how much I owed, really appealed to me. So I wanted to be damn sure I won, and win I did.

I'm going to make myself soooo sick on that chocolate.

Working for Satisfaction

A real issue nowadays, I believe, is that work has become something you do to earn money to live.

Don't get me wrong, I have built a great career for myself and am doing very well and enjoy it. I enjoy the satisfaction of doing a good job. Of working on bigger and better projects, of climbing that ladder and getting that next pay rise. Its almost like a game. But when I ask myself if I love working in my chosen field, if I get a sense of satisfaction and sense of fulfillment from it, the answer is no.

Why did I choose my current career path? Because I knew I had to make money, but I wanted the opportunity to help people, and make the world a better place. Sounds cheesy but thats how it is. Do I actually achieve that at work? Well I make money. But do I really help people and make the world a better place. No. Could I? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe if I worked in a different company, for a local authority instead of as a consultant. Maybe if I worked for a not for profit company. There are options. But the bigger question is, is that the best way to help people, and for me to be happy. Again, maybe not.

Even bigger than that though is why the focus on working for money? Because thats how it is. Because thats how society is, you cant survive without money. You have to pay the bills, the mortgage or rent, power and phone, buy food. But also you need money to drive your car, to buy that $200 dress that you will look great in at work, to have the latest tv, go out for dinner, keep up with the Jones's, whatever it is you 'need' to be happy. But does it make you happy? It doesn't make me happy.

I read a book by Eric Brende called Better off: Flipping the Switch on Technology. Basically he asked himself if technology was actually making life worse for us and went to live with an Amish community for a year to see. What he learnt in that year was very interesting and really gave me something serious to think about. One of the things that stood out was that while they were working really hard, hard physical labor as well, the work was a social interaction. Before long the work wasn't really work, it was just living. But you did it with your family, your community. Everyone worked together for the common good. I suggest you read the book to get a better understanding of it rather than rely on my poor attempt at explaining it. But why don't we do that anymore? Money tends to make everyone so individualistic and selfish.

A part of my slowing down aims are to minimise the amount of money I need to survive. Or really rationalise what I do with my money and only use it for things I really need or that will really make my life better and that way minimise the amount I need. At the same time finding ways to earn that money by doing fulfilling and enjoyable work. What a challenge I have set myself.

What is slowing down?

So what is slowing down? I think it comes in many forms and guises. It's often called simplifying, downshifting, going green, hippyfying (I made that one up), you can get the picture. Its basically going basic. Step by step, eliminating all the consumer driven nonsense from our lives or 'shedding the fluff'. It also seems to involve a re-centering of your life too, looking seriously at what is actually important, what makes you happy, and what your true values are.

I read somewhere that a good thing to do is to imagine yourself at your own funeral. What would you like people to be saying about you? Your partner? Your children? Your friends? This can be a really big wake up call if you then stop to think about how you are living now and if you are actually living up to you own values. I have tried to do this a couple of times but shied away from actually applying what I discovered to my life because it was just too hard to even think about, I would need to change so much! Not a great thought. I think I will leave that one for, say a years time, when I am further on my fluff shedding journey.

For me slowing down means a change from my current way of life. Yes, I am one of those people who rarely (if ever) cook or even eat at home, who work stupid hours, feel like I have really achieved something spectacular for the week when I have actually managed to get up to date with my washing for once, and recently about the only exercise I get is walking out to my car in the morning. I have to admit I have been in a bit of a laziness spiral for the last few months on those fronts but am going to drag myself out of it!

Its a sort of horrible disease that you catch when you live in a big city. Laziness is so EASY. Why take your lunch when there are 5 cafes within a 2 minute walking distance with a range of tempting hot or cold delights? Why walk or bus when its so much faster to drive? Plus you don't have to wear sensible shoes or clothing if you are only outside fro a maximum of 10 minutes a day. Easy. One little act of laziness makes the next one so much easier, and everyone else is doing it!

But laziness leads to needing more and more money. Needing more money means more work, in a job. More working in a job leads to more stress, leads to less time, leads to a desire for convenience, more laziness.

I want my life to be simpler. More basic. But less convenient. Convenience is bad.  I'm going to write a list, I love lists, and this one is going to be my big picture aims for to starting to simplify my life (in no particular order):

• Make as much as I possibly can from scratch
• Grow as much of my own food as I can
• Strengthen my sense of family and community
• Minimise the amount of money that I need to live my life
• Maximise the fun in every day, and share it

That gives me something to work on!

Beginnings

Not wanting to bore anyone, including myself, about my reasons for starting this blog, I thought it is still  important to at least briefly explain myself. I have been consciously over the last two years been trying to simplify my life after my then-partner discovered peak oil and opened my eyes to my unconscious desires to change my lifestyle. His discovery consequentially led to my discovery of a whole world of people on the net who felt and thought like I did - Why do we live like this in this crazy consumerist society? Surely there is a better, simpler way? Perhaps if we go back to the 'old' ways of doing things and living our lives will become so much simpler, our relationships better, and our communities stronger?

My career as an urban designer has in a way been an attempt, despite what seems like all the forces working against us, to try and influence development of our cities and towns into more sustainable forms. The motives behind this have no doubt been pure, to help recover the sense of community and family that seems to be rapidly disappearing form our society and to reduce our negative impacts on the environment. However the longer I pursue this career path the more I realise the futility of trying to achieve any great deviation from the path of self destruction so many of us seem to be on, particularly working as a consultant as I currently am!

So now I am at a crossroads. There are so many possible paths ahead of me. The ultimate dream of my 'Old MacDonald Farm' seems so far away and almost unachievable, but I can see the trace of a long forgotten trail that, if I follow it carefully, just might lead me on a wonderful new journey. Who knows where I might end up if I step off the beaten track?