Cutting down requires tough love,,,,,even for Hubby lol

Now that all my little cherubs are back at school (yes even Mr9 who went back yesterday :-)  he is feeling much better, still has a little pain but he wanted to go to school and see his friends and managed quite well), I finally can get back into my routine.  The word routine is very loose in my life lol but I try!!

Like so many people around the world, money is tight and we are needing to cut back as much as we can in order to get by.  On the home front I do what I can and for the most part my family haven't even noticed.

I make my own laundry powder, which saves us alot considering the amount of washing I do.

I have made my own spray and wipe by using vinegar and citrus peelings.  I can't remember where I first read about this but I know that yesterday Tania over at Outback wrote about it (Thanks Tania :-)  ) and it is great stuff.  You can find it here: 
Easy Peasy Citrus Cleaner

I have, much to my boys horror, cut down on the amount of meat that we eat.  Most of us in the family could do with losing a few kgs so meal sizes in general have been cut and for the most part I no longer make enough for left overs.  While leftovers are great to have, I did find the boys would often sneak a second helping of the meat rather than leaving it to create my leftovers lol.

I have started cooking from scratch more.  I always have when it comes to main meals, but cakes and biscuits I would often get lazy and buy them when they were on special.  While sometimes this works out pretty cost effective, most of the time it doesn't and I know that cooking these treats from scratch is so much healthier for us anyway.  (Besides lol, I have a cooking blog to fill up and I certainly have the recipes to do it with!)

I am starting to shop at op shops more regularly.  It seems to very hit and miss in my area, particularly with kids clothes but I plan to expand my op shop list and make sure that I explore more op shops when I go to areas I don't normally frequent.

We are watching our water and power usage and I aim to cut this back as much as I can too.

I have been making sure to do my errands in groups rather than flitting in and out during the week, thus saving on gas.

Decluttering our house has become a regular thing and listing things online to sell has become my job of sorts.  As I have mentioned before we have heaps of stuff that we can get rid of and we won't even notice it gone.

Now we also have a computer overload in our house.  Yes we have a large family but I hate the fact that we have/had 3 computers plus my eldest got a laptop for school for his birthday, hubby has his work computer and we also have an old laptop that is just purely for the internet as it can't handle much else  lol.  Our original plan was to get rid of the 3 desk top computers and just use the laptops to help save on power.  This was a good idea in theory but I have to admit I tend to love the desk top as I just find it easier. 

Now getting to my point lol,,,,,,,Hubby's precious laptop that he plays Call of Duty on (the only computer in the house that will run that game, don't ask me why lol) has died.  My idea was to just get rid of that computer, but hubby refuses lol.  He has spent $25 trying to fix it, didn't succeed.  Now he is waiting for some guy he vaguely knows to get back from holidays to give him a hand to try to fix it.  I have had endless conversations putting my point across that this computer has now been out of action for 2 months and seriously, no one has really missed it.  Yes it was the computer that the younger kids had their games on, I know this, but hey, they haven't complained yet.  The only person to truly complain has been Hubby.  The kids can use this computer provided they stay away from my folders lol.  I keep pushing the power usage it takes and how it will cost more money to fix it and we will survive without it.  His response is, "well I will only turn it on when I play my Call of Duty, so that will be fine"  (Can you tell he isn't the one that has to dust and clean in this house???)

So the stand off continues.  Right now this is the main computer.  The other desk top is a dinosaur that is very slow but it is fine for my second eldest to do homework on.  I would be happy to cut back to just this computer but I guess in this house, that will never happen.  I told hubby that once the kids have all left home I will expect us to be a 1 computer house, he laughed and said "yep one desk top.......and a laptop for me, its all about portability u know hun" lol Sheeeeeesh MEN!!!