Reboot.....Back to basics in life

Friday mornings are one of my RMO's (Rostered Mornings Off) and as I needed to go to town anyway I decided to drop by the Regional Aquatic Fitness Centre (aka - the local pool!) and personally check out the facilities I'd seen online. You can never judge something from photographs - try house hunting to rent or buy and you'll see what I mean!

To say I was surprised is an understatement. The facility isn't huge but the pools are under cover and heated (yay, swimming all year round) and the Gym has a nice range of machines and weights to use without it being crowded or confusing. There's a spa too and water, sorry aqua, aerobics :). The Gym also has fitness classes that I can attend as they are in my non-working hours unlike a couple of local privately owned gyms that only had classes I wanted to do in my working hours. They also do introduction to the fitness machines and plan out an initial individual program for you when you join based on your fitness level and your little quirks - like my swinging vertebra.

This all led to my needing to work out a proper budget to see if I can warrant the $29/fortnight cost which covers both pool and gym fees. Paying a once off yearly payment is a fraction cheaper but at the moment I don't have that lump amount of cash available.

I averaged out my weekly wage since I've had this job, including public hols and Christmas shutdown, so I'm not working off the current nett pay but the average which is about $120 less a week than I receive now. I've over estimated costs with everything, and not included the money ex (still) owes me as well as adding in a clothing allowance which I probably won't use much anyway as it will only be for secondhand jeans for work, and then there's the unknown tax return I will receive this year as I nominated to be slightly over taxed.

I'll definitely have to jump into the sewing now or I'm going to have a cold Winter! Yeah, yeah I know I've been trying to destash for years but now it's become a necessary reality. LOL, now I'll also have to make the cash wallet envelope on my Pinterest board to keep all my regular payments in :). It's a bit of a bugger being paid cash wages these days.

Cleaning and groceries cost will reduce from what I've budgeted for as I'm baking bread and making my own soaps again as well as stockpiling specials more often now I have the initial base stockpile set up. In the future I hope to grow my own herbs/veges again so that will also lower the grocery cost. 

Yesterday, I made tallow based soap and changed the recipe again, as I wanted to include more tallow for eventual hardness and longevity, and therefore had to fiddle with the other oils so I had less cleaning and bubbly (I'm not that dirty :D) and more conditioning and creamy. I sort of need this now I've passed the half century *roll eyes*.

Anyway, here's the recipe:

Beef Tallow 900g

Coconut Oil (not copha) 150g

Olive Oil 450g

Water 570g

Lye 206g

Fragrance 46.5g - optional - but I didn't fragrance mine as it may be used on a couple of little ones and all I have at the moment is clove or lemon myrtle oils which can cause reactions in some people as they are quite strong.

If you want to know basic soapmaking go here to Rhonda's DTE blog, as she has explained it wonderfully, and she also has her basic soap recipe there if you want to try it as well, or instead of, mine.

I can't post a soap recipe without a pic of the outcome so here they are.

When they are sufficiently dried out in about 6-8 weeks I'll weigh them and see how much I have. Should be around 2kg.

As the tallow was free, the cost was a total of $4.81 for the other ingredients as I bought the oils on great specials and the lye was regular price of $4.39/500g at the supermarket. Minimal gas used to heat the oils so even rounded up to $5 for pretty close to 2kg of all natural soap it's a bargain :D.

I made some laundry soap this evening but more on that later in the week as this post is already quite long!

Cheers,

Robyn xo