How can I grow food without a garden?

Although the logo for Enrichmentality is a sprouting seed, symbolising the growth of new ideas and a better outlook on life, I am a terrible gardener.

I began this blog over five months ago with an anecdote about my failure to grow a money tree from planting my pocket money as a child. It should come as no surprise, then, to know that I’m also a failed gardener when it comes to growing actual plants from seed too!

I never managed to grow vegetables when we had a yard, but living in a small apartment with no balcony or external window sills posed a particular challenge.

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Why should I keep a financial journal?

New Years is often the time we start thinking about resolutions and goals – and reflecting on the year gone by.

For several years, while we were working towards our financial independence, I kept a Financial Journal in which I would write down all of my savings goals, and notes from the (many!) finance books I read. Of course, you can use an online solution, but studies have showing that writing down your goals leads to greater conviction, and handwriting what you learn helps you to remember it.

I kept my Financial Journal in a gorgeous ‘Money Planner’ I had been eyeing off for some time (although naturally, I waited until I found a slightly dented copy reduced to half price!) but you can use pretty much any notebook you have on hand.

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How can I make cheap = tasty?

If we play a little word association game, and I say cheap, what springs to mind?

How would you fill the gap: ‘cheap and ……’?

Collocations are two or more words that often ‘go together’. The term is used in corpus linguistics to indicate ‘a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance’.

According to the Ozdic Collocation Dictionary, the most common collocation phrase for ‘cheap and’ is ‘cheap and nasty’.

Google’s predictive search has a slightly nicer suggestion, ‘cheap and easy’, as in the top recommendation, ‘cheap and easy meals’. But even ‘cheap and easy’ can be a nasty jibe depending on what – or who! – it is directed at.

So how can we turn ‘cheap and nasty’ into ‘cheap and tasty’?

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Can you enjoy Christmas without worsening debt? | Guest post

The holidays season should be a time of joy and togetherness, not financial stress, but it is also the time of year that, more than any other, we hear those messages to ‘buy, buy, buy‘. With pressure from not only the media but social expectations  – at work, among family and friends – it can be hard to remain focused on not only the real spirit of the season, but our financial goals.

According to some sources, almost two-thirds of shoppers do not save anything for their holiday spending, and around a third finance the holiday entirely on credit card.

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Are you a shopaholic?

“Ok. don’t panic. Don’t panic. It’s only a VISA bill. It’s a piece of paper; a few numbers. I mean, just how scary can a few numbers be?”- Sophie Kinsella, Confessions of a Shopaholic.

One of my favourite lighthearted reads is the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. Although I could never really relate to the main character, Becky (who lacks control shopping for designer clothes and shoes, whereas for me, books are more my bag), I’ve always appreciated the warm humour and gentle finance lessons – even if Becky never seems to learn from them (I guess if she did, the series would have come to an abrupt finish!).

But what is a ‘shopaholic’? Is there really such a thing as an addiction to shopping – or is it a word people simply use as an excuse? And how do you know if you are a shopaholic?

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Should we have a basic income?

Over 400 years BC, a massive seam of silver was discovered in the mines in Athens. Naturally, how to distribute this new-found wealth provoked great debate. Aristides, a statesman of the time, proposed that the profit be distributed among the Athenian citizens.

The way in which natural resources – not only mining, but water, natural forests, arable land, and the sea – are allocated has always been and remains a major concern of humanity. In Australia, a combination of the mining boom and the global financial crisis is said to have caused a two-speed economy that saw some grow very rich while others became poorer.

Even more alarmingly, there exist companies who have designs on natural resources which everyone should have a fundamental right to – those resources needed for survival.

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How can I get my family on board with saving?

When it comes to spending, it’s easy to get excited. You don’t have to try hard – advertisers do all the work for you, making the acquisition of shiny new things look and sound fun and appealing.

Spending, however, requires a little more creativity on our part. But even if you manage to get hyped about saving yourself, your family might think you’re a grump if you’re constantly reminding them to switch off the lights and close the doors and buy the cheaper detergent.

So how can you get your family on board with saving? How can you use the same sorts of tricks advertisers do to make spending seem so appealing to convince your family – and perhaps yourself! – that saving is the best course of action?

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Are you neglecting your finances?

Piles of unopened bills. A wallet full of receipts and ATM statements. More accounts than you can remember the balances of. Cards you can’t remember the PINs to. Waking up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, thinking of your pension plan, tax return, or credit card statement. Sound familiar?

Certain words – like ‘bank’ and ‘statement’ – can grip us with anxiety. So much so, that Cambridge University researchers have declared ‘financial phobia‘ a bona fide psychological condition, affecting as many as 9 million people in Britain – mostly women and young people.

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