Wow, can you believe it’s the middle of the year alread? I’m sure I say this every week but I don’t know where the time goes!

We had a bit of a dodgy week last week with meal planning. Firstly the Hubby’s boss was in town and took everyone out for dinner. Not being ones to miss out on a free meal, we lined up the in-laws to watch the two big girls and had the most delicious steak. I could have eaten two they were that yummy. I was out Wednesday night at a meeting, and I’m still not sure what everyone else ate. Then Friday we  had forgotten about organised a surprise dinner for my father-in-law’s birthday on Wednesday and my mother-in-law’s birthday on Friday. We even forgot to get presents and had to buy them at 5:15pm just before the shops shut remembered to get them presents and everything!

But a quick check has revealed only two meals that weren’t prepared (although two are being prepared today - one for lunch and one for dinner/leftovers), so those two will be recycled this week as well. This is very much a “cooking from the freezer/pantry” week, and in actual fact I don’t need to buy anything for these meals. Hubby complained pointed out that the freezer was full of meat, so the next couple of weeks we’ll eat our way through that. I take no responsibility if I find some really great meat specials though…

But on to the plan:

Monday - Corned Beef, mashed potato’s and vegetables

Tuesday- Spaghetti Bolognaise

Wednesday - Pork Green Curry

Thursday - Sausages & Mash

Friday - Apricot chicken

Saturday  - Hungarian Goulash

Sunday - Leftovers

Laura from Heavenly Homemakers is hosting Menu Plan Monday this week in Laura from Organizing Junkie’s absence. Head on over to see what everyone else is eating, and have a poke around Heavenly Homemakers - I’m sure she won’t mind

It’s that time of year again. It starts in May with the Federal Government’s budget, and filters down through state and local governments, as they realise their income and plan around it. And now it’s time for me to review where we’re at. At let met tell you, I’m failing miserably at my goal for 2008 to spend according to our plan. I think my plan is too complicated, and too simple at the same time. Are you confused yet?

Because I’m really not into tracking where our money goes (I’m more of a big picture person) I use a more “gross” spending method. For example, if I allow myself say $200 a week to cover fuel and groceries, that’s how much I will give myself access to. The rest gets put in various places til it’s needed. I guess my problem is I haven’t even been staying on top of those weekly “needed’s” so things are falling apart all over the place.

I’m taking the opportunity to thank Mr Rudd for our extra $15 a week thanks to tax cuts, and quarterly 50% child care rebate, as well as saying goodbye to $180 a fortnight in family tax benefits and take another look at our budget to see what I can cut down on, and how I can put a bit more away each week.

And I’ve come across an unexpected “problem”. See we’ve always been terrible at long term saving. So any “bonus’s” we get from the government tend to go towards larger purchases. A fridge, washing machine, TV etc have all been funded thanks to these in the past, and due to my poor savings history, had planned to continue doing this in the future.

With the 50% child care rebate being paid quarterly I’m faced with a bit of a quandry. Do I take the money and sock it away to go towards larger purchases, or do I filter it back into the budget for larger annual bills (ie car rego, insurance etc) and take those smaller weekly savings amounts (that I have difficulty hanging on to) out of the budget altogether? Do I just take this change and utilise it to compensate for my weak points, or persist in something I’ve not yet managed to master?

I guess what I really need to work on is a cash flow plan, that will hopefully allow me to achieve my goal of following my spending plan.

NB I wrote this on Monday night, intending to publish it Tuesday. It got lost somewhere in the ether, and published itself on the 4th June instead of the 24th of June. Ok, so I probably put in the wrong date. But it still applies. Yes, it’s been 10 days now.

I’m sick. Again. Still. Whatever. It’s driving me insane.

Not sick as in, dying in bed, can’t get out of bed or even function sick (although if I was male….), but sick enough that it’s annoying. I won’t go off on a rant (again) about the lack of medication available for breastfeeding women (this time!).

See I understand that Miss Moo is taking my immune system from me, or at least drastically lowering it’s effectiveness. I know this because despite the fact I’ve been sick for over a week, she’s barely had a sniffle, and is as happy as ever. M&M & Kiki as well as Hubby have had brief flirtations with a cold, but nothing like the ongoing snot explosions that are still coming from my direction eight days on. And the headaches. And the general feeling of “blurgh”.

But I want it back!

This is a classic case of not appreciating something you have until its gone. I never truly appreciated my immune system until 3 pregnancies and subsequent breastfeeding in 5 years left mine in tatters. I’ve always had an excellent immune system. I recall missing one day of primary school due to illness, and if memory serves that was one afternoon with a headache in the office (Mum worked at the school) that was probably the result of the heat at lunch time. All the time I missed in high school was related to *ahem* “women’s issues” or glandular fever, which both form whole other rants. I’ll spare you those today.

So what I’m saying is I now truly appreciate my immune system. I recognise its value in allowing me to function without catching every bug my children bring home from daycare, and eventually school. I appreciate that it allows me to get through the winter without the need to buy shares in the tissue manufacturer. And now, more than ever, I appreciate the drugs that work with my immune system to fight off bugs while allowing me to get through the day and keep my children fed and alive.

So can I have it back now? Please?

Today I can be found blogging some pictures from our camping trip over at the Aussie Bloggers Blog.

If you’re an Aussie, or a blogger, the Aussie Bloggers Blog features some great Australian Bloggers, and some great Non-Australian Bloggers too. The blog and forum is coming up to six months old, and if you’re looking for helpful advice on all things blogging related, Australian or not, it’s definitely the place to be. Everything from helpful ideas about what to cook for dinner, how to monetize your blog and friendly people willing to help with whatever technical issue you’re having.

So pop on over and say hi, we really are a friendly bunch over there, even if we are a little bit loopy sometimes

Well, I had a fabulous post prepared for today. Unfortunately the internet ate it and it has disappeared from my computer forever. So I’m just going to have to make something up as I go.

Camping was absolutely awesome. I have come back a completely calm slightly calmer woman than when I went away.  I’m yelling less at the kids, things aren’t quite so overwhelming, and I just feel, better.

As always there were the fun parts of camping. I mean camping isn’t camping without some disaster stories, right? We planned to leave here around 11am. So it was 12:30 when we left. 90 minutes late isn’t that bad, right? We stopped off in the park for a brief feed of Miss Moo before getting lost several times due to bad directions from Hubby. I mean, I know he was saying (for example)  to “take the turn for Blah road” as in the road to Blah, and I took that to mean “take the turn for Blah Road”, which was not the turn I was supposed to make.

Anyway, we got there in the end, which is the important thing I spose.

Then the drama of setting the tents up started. Up, down, up for both of them. Hubby is insisting I tell you that the reason ours went up, down, up was because of a pole issue that needed to be fixed. Excuses, excuses.

So, once the tents were up we turned our attention to the campfire. Well, that was another disaster. Thankfully we had a gas stove to cook dinner on, otherwise our dinner would have consisted of baked beans and bread.

The second we arrived M&M and Kiki made friends with the girl in the campsite next to us, and they would disappear for hours into one tent or another, or down to the beach with the older sister or one of the adults. On Saturday morning we discovered the girls friends from daycare a few campsites down who were also there for the weekend, so between all 6 kids they had a ball running up and down the campsite and getting very, very dirty.

But despite all the dirt, everyone had such a good time we booked ourselves back in for 2 months time with hopefully a bigger party.

I have heaps more stories to tell, but I’ll save some for another day. Plus it’s late and I should be in bed.

Well, we’re back from camping and back into real menu planning with real food. M&M and I sat out on the back patio this morning and  went through recipe books and magazines to find things to eat this week. I did get one of my own choices in there - see if you can guess which one a 4 year old wouldn’t want to eat

Monday - Pasta and stir through sauce

Tuesday - Celery & Silverbeet Pie

Wednesday - Lamb chops, mashed potato & beans

Thursday - Pork Green Curry

Friday - Hungarian Goulash

Saturday - Chicken Stroganoff

Sunday - Mini Hotdogs

No recipe this week, sorry. Things are still recovering from the epic camping trip, which I’ll share with you over the next few days. Camping is great for relaxing, but not for rebuilding energy levels!

For more menu plans head over to Laura’s I’m an Organizing Junkie and see what everyone else is eating this week.

Well, not really. But we are going camping. Like, with tents and everything. Although there will be toilets. Thank goodness.

I haven’t been camping in two years, since we went two Easter’s ago with the in-laws (there was 10 of us!). This time a slightly more sedate trip is planned. For starters it’s a mere 90 minute drive from home, not the 7 hours of the last trip. 5 minutes from civilization,  30 minutes from a city, and across the path from the toilet. I’ve got my priorities right!

But the best part is that the only thing that will be between us and the beach is a few trees. The kids can run around on the beach and at low tide the water is nearly 1km out, so they can do LOTS of running. We’re going with friends, so there will be 4 adults and 3 children - pretty good odds I reckon.

So we’ve spent the last two days digging out all our camping equipment, and picking up what we didn’t have from the shops. But there’s only one minor problem. We’re missing some stuff. To be precise, a sleeping bag, a bed roll, a kettle and some campfire utensils. We have checked every. single. box. in the garage, and they just aren’t there.

To be fair, those things aren’t the most expensive to replace, or we could even borrow them I suppose. But how can you lose things like that in your own home? I mean they’re not exactly small and could be hiding somewhere could they?

So, I guess maybe one of us will be roughing it with a borrowed sleeping bag and straight on the stretcher rather than on a comfy bedroll (shotgun!).

And now for the fun part. Packing. But in reality all I’m thinking about is lounging on the beach, perhaps a spot of fishing, and some late night card games with friends. What better way to spend a weekend?

If there was ever a subject to cause tempers to rise then this is it. Every time there’s an election we hear about how the Government gives more per student to private schools than state schools. And then there’s this from ABC News:

Revealed: Australia’s $2b school funding gap

That’s right, a new study has found that the government puts $2b a year more into private schools than public schools. I have so many issues with this story it’s hard to know where to start.

1. The report only looks at FEDERAL government funding. We all know the federal government puts more money into private schools than state schools. Because they’re STATE schools, funded by the STATE government.

2. The “new report” commissioned by the Australian Education Union tells us nothing new. A comment I made that was left unpublished on the story told how I searched for “state funding per child for state school” turned up this brochure from the Federal Government. If you look at the graph on the bottom of page one you will clearly see that the Federal Government funds state schools at a cost of $3b a year, while it funds private schools at a cost of $5.5b a year. Wait. Hang on. The Education Union commissioned a report into something they could have found out by doing a search? And these people are educating our youth?

So, we’re all clear that the federal government puts more money into private schools than state schools? Good. Wouldn’t want to lose anyone.

But what about total funding? It is clear from the graph on the brochure that there is nearly $13b difference between combined government funding of private ($7.6b) and state schools ($22.7b).

And the question that always comes up: Should governments fund private schools at all? To this my answer has to be yes. Ignoring fear inducing theories about what would happen if all the students currently attending private schools turned up at the state schools on Monday morning, it is clear that those parents who choose to send their kids to a private school are SAVING the government money. What’s that you say? How? Here are my calculations. All figures are taken from the Federal Governments Schools Funding Brochure

Federal & State Government funding for a private school student = $5092

Federal & State Government funding for a state school student = $9908.

Thus every parent who sends their child to a private school saves the state and federal governments $4816 in funding. Wow. So not only do parents who send their children to private schools take pressure of the public system, they actually save the government money?

And why is this so different to the Private Health debate? You get the nice 30% rebate and medicare funds some of your medical expenses, so how is it any different to the government funding approximately half the cost of a state school education to the private sector?

As is my way when something finishes (that would be my exams - yay!) I have so many ideas swirling around in my head of things to do with my 6 weeks off!!

Of course some plans have been made for me. My friend is celebrating her 30th birthday in July (she comments here as “the Friend who visited”) so a trip to Brisbane is on the cards. This weekend we’re off camping with friends to a beautiful spot on the beach.

Other than that I’ve been thinking some knitting might be on the cards. Something I haven’t done for a while and it will keep me away from the computer. As is usual I have a list a mile long of things I want to do, but the first tasks have to be getting the house in order after 3 weeks of neglect. To that end tonight I swept the floor. Go Me! Oh did I mention I’m sick too? I really should go to bed, but between the house and camping this weekend, well, I can relax when we get there.

Anyway, ideally I’d love the house clean and tidy before we go, but in reality I’ll settle for the 20 loads of washing that need doing, a presentable kitchen/lounge/dining, and everything organised that we need for camping.

But before I attack all that, I do need some sleep

Last August I published a post on buying reduced meat. With the current economic climate and people looking to save money wherever possible, I thought it a subject worth revisiting.

Buying reduced meat can be tricky. Meat near or on it’s use by date can be fickle, and if there’s one thing that WON’T save you money, it’s getting sick from eating off meat. And yet (for us anyway) meat is often the item that costs us the most in our weekly shopping. I have a target of $5 per meal for meat. If you mulitply that by 7 meals a week, that’s $35, and about 30% of our weekly budget. Clearly this is one area that’s prime for cost cutting. Following these simple steps I can often save half our meat budget, and minimise the risk of consuming off meat.

1. Find out when your local supermarket reduces their meat. If your shops are closed on Sunday, it’s likely to be Saturday afternoon. Our shops are open Sunday, but the big meat delivery comes Monday morning, so that is the best time to snaffle reduced meat as they are clearing out the “old” stuff for the new fresh stuff. It also pays to be friendly with your local butcher. While flirting chatting with the young fellow at the butcher one day he let slip that both the butcher and supermarket get their meat deliveries Monday.
2. Check the use by date. If it’s yesterday or today, you should be ok, but double check it doesn’t have yesterday’s date on it. Even supermarket staff can make mistakes.
3. Always go for meat as far back in the case as possible. Yes the meat at the back might not be reduced, but always try and get one that’s not been sitting at the front of the case all day.
4. When you get home, open the packet and sniff the meat. There’s nothing worse than freezing meat and defrosting it only to find out it was off when you bought it. If it is off, take it back straight away. You should still have your receipt and the packaging which will make getting a refund easier.
5. Freeze the meat as soon as possible. If you are not eating it tonight, it goes in the freezer. Freeze it in a container or plastic wrap. Label with what it is, and the date you put it in. I also add the amount which helps when I’m deciding what to do with it.

Buy following these five simple steps you’ll have a much less rocky relationship with reduced meat, and hopefully save a few $$ on your weekly shopping bill.