Lose weight, save money and reduce waste with friends

Our group of friends have learned there are many more benefits to being health conscious than just losing weight! We first started getting together to try and lose weight after Christmas. My friends went with the keto diet and I chose intermittent fasting. Of course, everyone needs to make sure they are medically safe and that whatever you choose suits you, as well as being mindful that children have different needs.

Having company certainly helps with motivation as we meet for coffee most mornings and compare notes. A bonus from this however, aside from losing weight and feeling much better, is that our grocery bills are a fraction of the usual. I am so pleased to see money left in my account on pay day! One friend reported that for her and her husband the usual spend at Harris Farm was over $200. Now it is under $40. I am single so used to spend around $100 a week on groceries and another $100 plus going out. Now I am down to $60 a week all up!

The other issue for me was waste. I would regularly buy whatever took my eye and it would go off in the fridge. Now I make a list (amazing how that works) and only buy enough for my meals. For example, I buy one zucchini instead of a bag full. I find grating some colourful veggies such as carrot, zucchini, yellow squash and red capsicum makes the meal interesting and seems bigger somehow. I get the ALDI salmon OR the chicken thighs - not both like before! - and either of these will last me for over a week.

Buying fresh produce is much cheaper and better than packets. The diet has reduced my appetite, so I can afford to buy smaller pieces of meat of higher quality. It takes some organisation but is so worth it. Training yourself to eat less certainly helps the budget. There are some good resources on intermittent fasting on the Internet and Dr Michael Mosley's book. My friends are using The Power of Protein. I also found a guy who appeared on The Doctors, who has created the Snake Diet, although that's a little extreme for me!

Keep nail biting (and vampires!) away with garlic

My mother put an end to my nail biting using this inexpensive trick. She simply rubbed a freshly cut piece of garlic onto my nail tips. Whenever I would be tempted to nibble my nails I would get a raw garlic taste in my mouth. Gross! It didn't take me long to be cured!

Live smart and have it all

Our wonderful daughter is a saver on the grandest scale. At 29 years old and earning a modest wage, she is building her first mortgage free home on five acres; as well as flying out to Bali for a holiday! She has had several serious health problems but is amazing in her efforts to follow her plan, thanks to the support of her equally admirable husband. Their two horses and two dogs are greatly loved and their lifestyle is totally free of unnecessary expenditure. They own their block of land, furniture and vehicles as they need them to drive to work.

To save rent while rebuilding they bought a duplex then removed junk, scrubbed, painted and renovated by finding the best way to build fences, roof a pergola and fix the faults. Meanwhile they have fenced their own block of land, installed gates, had a bore sunk, built open stables themselves with salvaged material and negotiated the big expenses of shed, driveway and site costs.

They are not without experience as she purchased her first property at 19, a unit which she and her father gutted and renovated. Her husband joined in and renovated a property, then they renovated a joint property before they purchased five acres, built a house and developed it for resale so that they could buy their current land. Recycling has included rescuing old baths for horse water troughs, finding a kitchen sink for a fish cleaning bench and rebuilding an old horse float. They planted and watered tube stock trees, had family members grow cuttings and even used the horses to mow the lawns. In fact one horse was purchased for the knacker's fee and the other was free.

No, she hasn't benefitted from a first home buyer's grant as she was too young at the time of her first unit, or from family gifts. Just planning, following her dream and sticking to the budget. It works!

Confessions of a stay at home mum

I can hardly believe it but we have an extra $2000 sitting in our savings account! I have been a stay at home mum for 18 months. My husband earns a slightly above average salary, which allows me to stay at home with our son. We have a modest home, with modest furnishings and modest tastes. We haven't really had a financial plan since we got married two and a half years ago and have just been cruising along, saving a bit some months and spending it other months.

When I first left work I had full intentions of making a budget, planning our meals, organising our lives and generally being on the ball with our finances. Each month when pay day rolled around, I would say 'this is the month where I get organised!' But it never happened. I am the first to admit that I have been lazy, unmotivated, complacent and ostrich-like. I have been a member of Simple Savings for over a year and always thought we were doing OK and didn't really need to know all these ways to save money. I had heard of the $21 Challenge but wasn't really motivated to try it and we were ticking along as usual - until last month.

With baby number two arriving in three months we needed extra storage space so we extended our garage to make room for all our stuff. This extension made a dent in the savings account which although we knew it would, was quite depressing to see the balance dropping and dropping and not going back up. Lo and behold, motivation began creeping in!

I downloaded all our bank transactions for the month and was horrified to find that I had spent an average of nearly $260 per week on groceries for two adults and one toddler. There were lots of other things I was also horrified to see but I started with the groceries as it seemed easiest. Motivation knocked harder. I decided to take charge!

I read the first two chapters of the $21 Challenge on the website, put a copy of the book on my library request list and did a stocktake of my pantry, fridge and freezer. Imagine my shock when I discovered I had enough ingredients to plan meals for the next 19 days! That's not counting meals like scrambled eggs, pumpkin soup and the emergency baked beans on toast. We had enough food in the house to live on for over three weeks! We just needed fresh fruit and veges and that was about it. I didn't quite make $21 but my first grocery shop after doing the stocktake came to $61, down from $258 per week the previous month.

From then on I watched the bank account like a hawk and knew where every cent went. In previous months when the bank account got low, I would simply pull out the credit card and pay it off on pay day but not this month! This month it stayed in my wallet.

It's pay day again tomorrow and guess what? I have spent an average of $160 per week on groceries, saving us nearly $100 per week. By being aware and thinking to myself 'do I really need that?' and deciding 'no', the savings account has increased by a whopping $2250! That figure makes me weak at the knees! I can’t honestly say where the money has been going before now. We don’t have the latest gadgets, appliances or clothing. I am truly at a loss BUT I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself right now! At the same time, I feel a bit sick that I didn't do this 18 months ago, or even 12 or 6 months ago, but I've done it now. I am motivated to change my ways. I have goals. I have the energy to do this and I have Simple Savings to thank for giving me the tools to continue saving. THANK YOU!