Audit Update...

Time for reflection...

I thought I would take this opportunity to just let everyone know how our family went in last week's audit...

It started on the Saturday with the Family Plan being created just for us. This has given us great focus for the next 12 months at least. We have done everything that we set out in our plan to do during this week. This included:

We collected chicken and cow manure for the compost.

I reduced the amount of milk that I take from Lorray so that we don't have any go off anymore.

The boys started to regularly collect kindling from a kind neighbour and we are giving her milk in return.

I have asked another neighbour about fixing our tractor and that hopefully will be done within a month.

I have asked another person from our village about helping plant our seedling trees when we get them in spring.

Other things that we continued this week were:

Monitoring our electricity usage and putting the information into a spreadsheet.

Wednesday we only used 0.3kWh for our Low Electricity Day.

We spent no money this week at all as per Rhonda's blog. We are rather proud of that one and ended up saving over $140 for the week on groceries alone.

Made a monthly menu plan.

Yesterday I had a day to myself. It was lovely and I went to the Beaudesert Dexter Breed Show. Yes it started two hours later than originally scheduled but I had a ball. It was lovely to see our breeders and show them pictures of our three. I nearly sold my single milking machine. Shame, could have done with the room in the shed... I will actually get a little more serious about it soon as I would rather see someone else using it than it just sitting there.

Really this week has been very productive. I am still working on things as we go but today is a stay-at-home day, which I love and am really looking forward to. I will milk, cook, bake and do some cleaning probably. Washing will also be done. More firewood needs splitting as well for the coming week. I like Russell to do a whole heap so that the boys and I don't have to worry about it as much during the week when he is not here.

One thing that I am really excited about and can't believe that I have not done it years earlier is my monthly Menu Plan. Wow, how easy is that. All I did was sit down last Sunday night, think of all the dinners that my family likes and then fit them into our days accordingly. I have picked up some lovely quick but nutritious ones in the last two weeks as well so have incorporated them in as well. I must say, I am loving my Menu Plan. Why did I wait so long? I will never know but realise now that the time spent one evening collating it all and putting it all down on paper is sooooo worth the effort. I don't stress anymore about what is for dinner. I already know I have the ingredients and just make sure meat is out in time to defrost. Time management wise it is brilliant. Until I did this plan, I didn't realise just how much I stressed about dinners. I implore anyone and everyone to try this. If you want a copy of mine just let me know and I will email it to you. You can then customise it to your own needs.

My biggest hurdle this week, being holidays has been to limit the boys on the computer or with the DVD's. I usually allow two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon but this has not worked at all this week and shows with my electricity usage. I must admit I have not stuck to it either. Bad, bad, bad. This will improve I am sure as we go back to school and I can implement it starting this school term. Wish me luck...

So this is what happened for us during the last week. Has been very busy but very productive.

Cheers Damaris