Journey to Future Freedom

Tag: health

  • 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.

  • 2025 Reflections and what is to come.

    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.

  • 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.

  • Alcohol Challenges…

    I made it a week before I fell off the wagon so to speak. Where did that saying come from? I must look it up. I discovered that the weekends are incredibly hard when you are doing it by yourself. Nothing worse than watching hubby enjoy a cold beer on a Friday and wanting to join in. So I did. Did I regret it? Yes a bit.

    Moving on though he told me that he would like to cut back and get healthier too so that means we now get to do this together. Which is going to make life so much easier as we can help keep each other accountable.

    I also discovered that I need to change my habits and routines as pouring a glass of wine has become such an ingrained part of my day. In fact it became the very first thing I did when I walked in the door without me even realising.

    I have spent time lately trying to pin point at what stage in my life this change took place. When did I go from rarely drinking to it becoming a daily thing? I didn’t really drink before we had children. If we went out then I might have one but I was usually the sober driver. I remember going back to work full time when our youngest was about 8 months old. We had a beer fridge in the shed and I would unload the car and take a couple of beers inside with me. I would drink them over the next few hours as we did baths, dinner, etc. Perhaps that is where the habit began.

    I was never a big wine drinker. However my MIL and SIL were and so when we got together…weekly then that would be what I drank. I remember starting a fitness programme in 2017 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and so I wouldn’t drink the night before going. But then that evening I would ‘reward’ myself for my workout with a bottle of wine. Looking back I was undoing all my hard work but I was oblivious to that at the time.

    Life got busy when we purchased our business at the beginning of 2018 and while I managed to stick out the programme till the end of the year I then gave it away. With it the excuse not to drink three nights a week. This coincided with some terrible staff issues, lawyers visits and of course covid and so the nightly debrief that we would have became a thing.

    In 2021 I gave up for three months and then for no reason that I can recall started again. I probably just assumed I could moderate… haha.

    In 2022 I vowed I would start the year and have a year free of alcohol. I remember my Mum laughing at me and saying she didn’t think I could do it. I made it to mid April and I think it was a trip away at Easter Weekend that was the excuse I needed to start again.

    2023 We decided we wouldn’t drink during the week and we actually made that work pretty well if you don’t count the binge drinking on the weekends. Somehow a Friday night slowly became a Thursday night and then a Wednesday… so on.

    So here we are in 2025 vowing to not lose our Spring and Summer evenings to alcohol yet again. In my head and on paper it all seams so easy. Just don’t buy it! But usually come later in the week one of us will say, “I fancy a drink.” That is all it takes and the week is written off ready for us to start again the following.

    So this week it is a NO go zone. The word drink, wine, beer or alcohol are not to be uttered. We are heading away for the weekend and have decided that we will go out for a meal and enjoy a drink with dinner while we are away but we clearly cannot have it in the house. It may take a lot of work but I believe eventually we will find a balance that will work for us. For now though I need a new routine when I first walk in the door. Something simple but one I will enjoy.