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One of the aims for this year is to slow down! While it sounds so contradictory I am so much more productive when I am not rushing. When rushing I tend to miss things or get overwhelmed and just don’t do the 5 minute things that make a real difference to our lives and budget. When I slow down I feel more in control I logically move through things and so much more gets done.

I am really working hard to keep the feeling of urgency that I have created over years of feeling overwhelmed in check. One thing at a time.

I decided for the month of January that we would shop from home and use what we had at home first before any supermarket shops. We have allowed fresh fruit, vege, eggs and milk as a top up if we need. Luckily we tend to get a fair amount of produce gifted at this time of the year when it is in abundance. Often swapped for fish or game. I love bartering and feel it has a solid place in building a community of support around you.

This has encouraged me to allow more time to cook and I have been trying new recipes and finding that I am enjoying creating simple meals from scratch. Interestingly I am finding it a nice wind down at the end of the day and much more effective that a glass or two of wine- which does not fit in the budget this year. A story for another day.

I labelled the year, “The Year we go back in time” for the kids. We let them know there would be none of todays “conveniences”. The Uber eats, the millions of streaming sites ( we let them keep one), the stops daily at the supermarket because we didn’t get meat out, the bought lunches when we can make it. The millions of apps on our phones designed to make life easier, the packaged snacks and instant meals. The hours lost on social media.

I feel as though all of these things that are available to us to make life easier just create brain clutter. The reality is that by the time we all agree on what to order from Uber eats and it arrives, I could have cooked dinner for a quarter of the price and in less time. Takeaways in New Zealand are super expensive it could easily be over $100 for the 4 of us to have takeaways.

This is not to say we will not be having takeaways they definitely have there place. I have no issues stopping for drive through at 7pm on a Sunday night when we still have two hours of travel ahead of us.

The reality is if you have taken the time to be organised and have kept things simple it seems easier. I was of the belief that my life was so busy and I had very little extra time, however since I dramatically reduced my drinking and my time spent scrolling social media I have plenty of time to be organised. I was just wasting it before.

So lets see how the year we go back in time works out for us. Simple, quiet, slowing down.

We are ow a couple of weeks into 2026 and I decided it was time to have a look at the Year that was.

There was a lot of learning and growth made in the year.

I spent a lot of time getting our finances in order reviewing them and making changes and this means that going into the New Year we are pretty much set up. It certainly takes the pressure off feeling as though the processes that we have in place are finally working for us. As long as we stick to the budget. I love budgeting and being frugal and this is something I would like to share more with others. How this will look I am not sure.

This year the focus is on building our investment accounts with a future view on being able to make changes to our lifestyle over the next 4 to 5 years.

A bathroom renovation is on the list and will be the only major spending this year.

I spent much of my time last year reflecting on things that had happened in the past and processing how this has shaped me and the decisions that I have made. I have decided to leave this in 2025 and move forward. We make decisions with the knowledge that we have at the time. As long as it is the best decision in that moment then that is all you can do. I am refusing to stress this year. It literally changes nothing and it steals the moment. The only thing that changes a situation is action.

I did very little exercise last year and so this year I am focusing on my health and wellbeing. Exercising and getting my body moving and stronger. Our diet last year was meh. Too many takeaways and not enough fruits and vegetables. We are focusing on what we put in our bodies and how they react to that. Trying to educate the children on what they put into their bodies as well.

Last year felt like a rush. I want to slow down and keep things very simple this year. I want to spend more time writing, reading and cooking and making sure that I am enjoying the moment when doing them.

We have just had three weeks off work and I feel as though we did very little with the time off. We achieved a few things that were on our list but I really missed the family holiday that we usually take and creating memories. So thins year we will definitely be planning a holiday somewhere.

In regards to our business the plan is still to walk away in about 4 years time. So every decision that we make will be with that in mind. This year will be about thinking about what we want to do with our time after that and looking at what we need to do to make those things happen.

Goodbye 2025 you were a busy but good year. Here’s to 2026 and all the things to come.

This is a word that for some reason lately keeps popping up in my life. It is so crazy how that happens.

I watched an instagram post where a mother was going through her daily protocol that she used for her child with terminal Cancer. She called it her miracle. I am certainly praying it is for her. However, it got me thinking about the protocol that she follows maybe some of it is working who knows but it is giving her some control in a situation that is out of her control.

So I began thinking about my own daily protocol and I realised I didn’t really have a consistent one. What are the things that I do everyday to help my life function better? It seemed I was all over the place.

So I decided to start. I started simple. I added 2 tablets of MSM to my daily diet and 2 litres of water- everyday!

A week later I added a hormone balancing supplement, a digestive aid and an eating window (I am still playing around with this).

This week I added a collagen supplement and a 9pm bedtime that includes a cup of tea and

I am being totally consistent right down to the times that I take these and I feel great. I am sleeping better, my skin feels better and looks better and weirdly I have lost nearly 2kg (probably fluid retention but I will celebrate it).

I am looking forward to what will happen next week when I add a daily 20 minute walk into my protocol.

It gives me a routine to follow and control that I am doing something to help my body and the way it reacts to life.

When I started this journey I thought that progress would be linear. It is not!

I haven’t posted about a book in a while. I was struggling my way through ‘The Millionaire next door’ and after a month of that I decided to leave it for now. The book itself is good and full of useful information but I feel as though the information is from about twenty years ago. I haven’t looked at the publishing date though so it very well could be.

I also feel as though I have got the budget into a pretty good place where we are doing a reasonable amount of saving for both retirement and the future, especially considering we are at the most expensive time in our lives. Children in private school and doing expensive sports, at least I hope this is as expensive as it gets.

So I decided to lean into a different area and am now reading, ‘Fast like a girl’.

So back to the layers of the onion and progress being all zig zagged and definitely not linear. I am beginning to see that there are pillars to my journey, layers as such that kind of all intertwine together to make up me and the new version of myself that I am looking for.

There is a financial pillar that is helping us towards future financial freedom. A physical pillar that is helping me find a better and healthier version of myself and mental or spiritual pillar. There may be more that I find as the journey progresses.

Last week was crazy I travelled half the country for sporting events and worked almost full time. I stayed in a house with 12 other people. This is something that 6 months ago would have sent me spiralling into a place I really didn’t want to be. Don’t get me wrong I did have my moments where I really doubted whether I could do what I said I would do. However, I actually had fun. I handled it well and I enjoyed the company of 10 teenage girls. I got to know some of my daughters friends better and I got to see them work as a team to achieve great things.

This week is much calmer and everyone is where they need to be and so I decided to focus on my physical health. I have mentioned before that I am about 15kg overweight and want to do something about it. I have dabbled in fasting before and enjoyed it so we will see where this journey takes me.

I guess one of the things that is really impacting me is the fact that I am focusing on this being a journey… there is no destination, achieve or fail, I don’t even know if there is an end goal or what that will look like. I am just going with it.

At times it feels a bit all over the place but mostly it feel empowering. As long as I am making progress towards bettering myself and my life i’m okay with it. Some things work and some don’t. I am discovering layers to my thoughts and feelings that I probably plastered over years ago hoping to never delve into again but that is okay too. I feel because I have no finite goal on the journey there is no ability to fail just to make progress…whatever that looks like.

― Søren Kierkegaard

I have no idea who the person who said this is or was. Feel free to educate me. But wow lately I have realised there is nothing truer than this statement.

I have found myself embracing what I can learn from my past. There have been many years where I felt bitter, disappointed, upset by things that had happened. Wondering why they happened. Annoyed at myself for decisions that I had made.

I would wake up at an hour where people should only be asleep and go over these things in my head. Over and over, the thoughts would overwhelm me until I finally feel asleep again…most probably a few minutes before the alarm went off.

Through this journey I have found myself letting go of the past. I still have a long way to go but I have been looking at it through a different lens. It is so easy to get wrapped up in our own version of what happened, another persons role. But we rarely stop to consider a different version of the past. I look at my childhood and lately have attempted to view it from the perspective of my parents, or my sister.

I had a conversation recently with my younger sister about the day she found out she was pregnant with her first, she was 23 if I remember correctly.

I remember the day clearly. She told me she thought she was pregnant and asked me what I thought she should do. I said buy a test and find out so off we went to the local shopping mall. She took the test in the toilets, found out she was pregnant and we then went at sat in our local coffee shop for an hour figuring out how to tell Mum without her hitting the roof.

I thought that I had done a good job of being excited for her, as we had been trying for a couple of years and had had two miscarriages. I was excited for her and for our family. Long story short, she told Mum and yes she hit the roof. To her credit she came down within a few hours and proved herself to be a wonderful grandmother with patience we certainly didn’t see when we were young.

My sisters perspective on the day is very different. She was terrified of not being pregnant but of my reaction, as I was the one married and trying for children. She thought I would be upset and disappointed, she was correct I obviously had those emotions but it was not with her just the situation. Our lens were different as they should have been.

There is so much to be understood and learned from the past but it certainly isn’t worth dwelling on or regretting. Take the learning that you can and move forward with life.