Journey to Future Freedom

Tag: blog

  • Slowing down and keeping it Simple.

    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.

  • The Many Onion layers of 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.

  • Why did I choose a Friday?

    What was I thinking when I decided to stop drinking on a Friday…The one day of the week that I have almost always had a drink. I definitely can’t say that it was an easy weekend.

    I have had weird cravings for things that I have never wanted before. I bought myself a can of ‘V’. I haven’t had an energy drink in probably 20 years but felt I really wanted it. The first mouthful was nice but then I struggled my way through the rest of the can. I won’t be buying that again.

    It got me thinking about my alcohol drinking. The first glass is always lovely but after that I just keep drinking it because it is open and I have no self control.

    My sleep has been terrible, although a sick dog really added to that. So I can’t really assume that that is the fault of not drinking, They say you sleep better when you don’t drink so I am hoping that my sleep will improve over the week.

    I need to find some things to occupy myself in the evenings. I have about three books I have started and not finished so I will begin there. But I will happily take on suggestions- No crafts please.

    Hopefully the 5pm cravings die down soon.

  • What do you do when you don’t like your job but you can’t leave?

    We own a collision repair business…so you crash your car we fix it. I kind of landed in it when the business started to grow. I left my job as a teacher and came to work with my husband and I am now the admin person. It’s been this way for 10 years now.

    Surprisingly we get along really well 99% of the time and the 1% is usually caused by outside influences. Working together is fine although I would love at the end of the day to ask, “How was your day?” and not already know the answer. It would be great to add to the list of things we get to discuss.

    The problem lies in the fact that neither of us really like the job. I am not a lover of cars and never have been. There is also the fact that the customer that comes to you has crashed their car or someone else has and therefore they are in a slightly heightened state of emotion over it already. Insurance companies take their time. Parts take forever to get to NZ if they are overseas and I am generally the bearer of shit news for the customer. Which I cop it for. I get that! But the reality is…I didn’t crash the car. I am the one trying to help get it fixed.

    There are very few decent staff available in our industry and therefore this limits the amount of work you can get through and creates a world of problems in itself. When you have shit staff you have a hard time getting rid of them and when you have great staff you feel constantly pressured to keep them happy.

    So where does this leave me. Sadly I have bills to pay and I feel kind of stuck so I guess the only way forward is an exit plan? It needs to be fairly solid as it’s not like one of us is walking away from a job we both are….
    What would you do?

  • Meet the Frugalwoods & Why/

    This book spoke to me! I am currently reading it again after getting to the end on Friday. It basically told the story of what I want to achieve. Having a why as to where you are heading on your journey is so important. Sometimes I feel as though my goals are just not even realistic and so to read about others achieving it really helped me focus on yes. This is achievable. It won’t look like their journey did as the cost of living in NZ is completely different from where they were. It will be our journey.

    My husband has worked every weekend for the last three and juggled kids sports in between so he can try and be there. This morning he said, “I don’t want to go to work today”. I could hear in his voice how much he meant it and I thought this is why we are on this journey. He very rarely complains about having to work and is the hardest worker I know by far. I am so proud of everything he has built up with our business and how hard he has worked to get us here but we can’t continue to work at the pace we are doing something that we really don’t like doing.

    This is my why. This is what keeps me focused. It’s what keeps me saying “No” when the kids are nagging for takeaways or treats. Don’t worry they aren’t completely deprived. They get plenty of treats…takeaways not so much.

    When you have a strong why then it makes staying the course so much easier. Especially on those days when you question whether it’s all worth it.

    When I started this journey I had no idea where it was heading and therefore decided to learn as much as I possibly could. Read everything I could find. Take the information that spoke to me and discard what didn’t. The journey is slowly becoming clearer. At the beginning I knew there would be a financial aspect to it but I didn’t realise it would .be the glue that allows the freedom to all come together.

  • Ramblings…#1 because there are probably many to come.

    When I started this journey I had no Idea where it would take me or how quickly my thinking would escalate and dart all over the place. 

    There were so many aspects of change that I felt needed to undergo that I really didn’t know what to expect and nor where it would head.  I think that is what I am loving about the journey. 

    I actually don’t know what is ahead of me.  All I know is that I am chasing some version of freedom, yet to be determined or evolving and that each day I want to be a better version of myself.

    At this stage I feel as though I am mostly achieving this with slips ups along the way.  I think the difference is I am not aiming for perfection I am aiming for progress and I am really not concerned about the tiny blips I am just learning from them and continuing to plough forwards.

    I think the greatest aspect of freedom I have found so far is the concept of being at peace with myself.  Not overthinking, beating myself up, feeling as though I am never good enough. 

    Yes I still walked into a knee high washing pile in the laundry this morning and I had kids that couldn’t find this and that…probably because they were yet to be washed but it’s only washing.  And truth be said there are 3 other people in our house capable of doing it.

    In the past I would feel like a failure because I wasn’t running the house the way I felt it should be run but if I am honest they were the expectations I put on myself. So I am finding this new way of kinder thinking towards myself to be much better for my mental health and in many ways very freeing.