It's a Classical Life

Last year my son got his first job. It paid about $11/hour. He quickly learnt that the things that he bought were paid for, per hour of work. For example, lunch with friends might have cost $20, which he saw as two hours work. He didn't particularly like his job and two hours work just to pay for lunch wasn't worth it in his opinion. I was amazed at how quickly he learnt that important lesson - ie, our money is worth our time.  Henry David Thoreau said, The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. My current job is a real pay-cut from my teaching job (but I love it so much more!) and yet I found that I was spending as if I were still on a teacher's income. I was dipping into my savings to pay for things I didn't really need. For the last two months I have realised just how frivolous my spending had got. For the last couple of years I had been tracking my spending (on clothes only). L...

  Happy 2025! The New Year was welcomed quite gently this year with family visiting, dinner eaten outside, cricket, an evening stroll, movies, games and finally watching the fireworks at midnight on the television. It was relaxed and joyful and I am hoping, will set the tone for the coming year. 2024 ran away with me. I lost a lot of direction, felt overwhelmed and fell back into old habits that did not improve either my mental health or my bank balance. I stopped blogging, which saddened me and enabled me to move even further away from the intentional and slow lifestyle that I so craved. In the last couple of months of the year I decided that I needed to make a change. I began to wake early and meditate. I watched the sun rise. I tried to consistently take an evening stroll once the heat of the day had passed. And I began to research the concept of a no-buy year for 2025. There are more than a few articles, Youtube videos, blog posts and personal accounts on the internet that disc...

Are you a tea drinker? With winter coming to an end (and endless cups of tea drunk), I can truly reflect on how special this tradition is. We've chatted about the ritual of tea here before on the blog, but I thought it was worth mentioning again. It seems that coffee around the country (I'm not sure about the rest of the world) is going up in price, like many other groceries. Visiting a coffee shop isn't always an affordable option for social visits anymore, with some studies suggesting that the future of coffee is quite bleak due to climate change. I love coffee, but ultimately tea is my drink of choice and today I want to share some of my favourite ways to enjoy a cuppa. These are all free or cheap ways to enjoy tea, and with everyone watching their budgets closely I think it's important that we still find joy in this old-fashioned tradition.  1. Sunrise tea This is my favourite way to partake in tea. I get up early in the morning, before the rest of the family wakes...

With the cost of living affecting people all around the world, the increased climate crisis, and the terrible abuse of underpaid workers in developing countries, buying second-hand can be the answer to these problems. I'm a big believer in shopping second hand, and have loved searching through op shops (thrift stores) and antique stores since I was a teenager. I loved finding something unique or knowing that I wasn't supporting fast fashion (yes, that was a thing all those years ago!) or compromising the lives of workers in developing countries who perhaps had made their products for a lower than acceptable wage.  However, there are many people who really don't like the idea of shopping second-hand or perhaps don't know where to begin. Not to worry, I'm here to help! Here's a list of some things to start looking for second hand. That can be in-store (which I highly recommend), or from online websites such as eBay , Poshmark , or  Gumtree . The joy of searching i...