Frugal times...

I am with Di about our affluent society. For the last couple of years, we have been pretty comfortable financially and have just spent money when we wanted (to a degree). However we have made the decision to go to Finland this year. We are going with my parents and I have lots of personal reasons this trip is important to me - one of which is to spend some quality time with my Mum and Dad. However we have recently purchased more shares in the company and had a trip to NZ, so we are going backwards right now as we try to pay off the $6,000 in airfares we purchased before Christmas.
I have always felt strongly about the sentiments Di has expressed (spending on consumables, etc) but purchasing these tickets has pushed us financially (I know I am probably contradicting myself by saying I I am strapped for buying air tickets and don't believe in the consumables guff, but like I said there are lots of personal reasons this trip is important - a finding the roots kinda thing). So I have started re-visiting the simply spending website. If anyone is interested they have a calender for 2008 to help you save money.

Anyway the upshot of all this talk is that I cooked a quiche from scratch tonight. The idea was to make a ham and egg quiche (Super Food Ideas page 20 - Xmas issue)- using what I had at home. I did not have frozen pastry so I was very proud of myself for making the pastry from scratch using Ally's recipe from Toowoomba Quilters. It worked too - I am not good with pastry usually. Then I was going to use the left-over ham from Christmas, but it didn't smell so good, so the dog got that and I used a tin of salmon in place of the ham. I also did not have the mozzarella cheese so used Colby cheese. Also did not have chives so used parsley and spring onions from the garden (Hubby is really enjoying his gardening now that it has rained a bit). So anyway I am hoping it will taste good but I am so proud of it I am putting a photo of it up - I like the way Caity puts in photos of things she has made - cooking should not be relegated to second place - take pride in making thing from scratch and using the ingredients to hand! Anyway this is one of the small things I intend to do to save money and live a simpler life!