SIMPLE HEALTHY FRUGAL

When I was trying to work out some frugal activities to do with the kids these school holidays, I remembered how I used to love making my own chocolate as gifts. So what better way to spend a lovely day with the kids and save money than to make our own chocolate bark. Yes chocolate is not exactly healthy but it is unavoidable at this time of year unless you go to the moon for your Easter break. I just wanted a way of giving a high quality gift rather than mountains of grainy, cheap Easter egg chocolate. We had 12 people to give Easter gifts to and we gave ourselves a $40 budget. That works out at a cost of $3.33 each. However, the benefits of the savings pale in comparison to how much people value and thoughtfully hand-made gift. Not to mention how much my kids loved the making process. The thing with making chocolate bark is that it is so easy it really doesn’t require a recipe but I’ll make one up anyway just to make me look smart. INGREDIENTS Dark, milk or white...

Meal planning One thing I have learned on our frugal and simple living journey is that meal planning is one the most effective ways of saving a staggering amount of money. And not only is it fantastic for saving money, it is also one of the best things you can do for the environment. A great resource A study done by Foodwise Australia has found that in Australia our household food waste is as high as $8 billion dollars. Each family is discarding up to 20% of the food they purchase. The average household is reportedly throwing away $1036 worth of food away each year. However, it is costing us far more than that if we are not planning our weekly meals. Without a meal plan, not only do we waste food, but we are also more inclined to rely on takeaway and eating out. Take away and eating out can cost upwards of $100 per week! I suggest visiting the Food Wise website at www.foodwise.com.au . They have many awesome and interesting facts related to food waste in Australia. But the...

A couple of years ago a friend of mine buttonholed me to tell me how High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) was the absolute best exercise for EVERYONE….yes absolutely everyone. And indeed in my professional life as a Naturopath people were banging on about it like it were the best thing since Jazzercise.   Yet something just didn’t sit right for me and it’s not that I was anti-HIIT. What didn’t sit right was the claim that one type of exercise is good for every single person on the planet. A little while later I was lucky enough to be sitting next to a personal trainer who had qualified for the Olympics at my Uncle’s 70 th Birthday. I asked him one very simple question “What is the best exercise for health and fitness?” and his very simple and fantastic answer was “Any exercise you love”. He said basically the difference between people who maintain an exercise regime through their life and people who don’t is that they have chosen to do what they enjoy. Agreed sir, agreed...