The $550 a month challenge

I am putting myself (and family) on a strict budget. We shop fortnightly (every 2 weeks) so my aim is to spend no more than $225 every 2 weeks to feed a family of 6.

Some may say it's impossible especially since I'm going down the clean eating/healthy path, I don't even know if it's possible but with 2 children in private school by the start of next year (still cannot believe my Miss 5 is going to school!) I am going to need to cut back and stick to a strict budget and this is where it starts.

We have a great fruit and veg store which is super cheap you can often pick up carrots for 19c per kilo, bananas for 89c per kilo so we save lots by shopping there. If I bulk our meals up with veg rather than meat not only will it benefit our health but our pockets too! 

So here is our first meal plan. I make everything in bulk so what we have this Monday we will have next Monday too, if the recipes serves 6 I buy ingredients for 12, it saves time and money.

BREAKFASTS

M- Breakfast Berry Crumble

T- Breakfast Smoothie (banana, pineapple, kale, blueberries and strawberries)

W- Peanut Butter Strawberry Parfait

T- Yogurt & Fruit

F- Sweet Potato & Brussel Sprout Hash

S- Eggs Benedict with Asparagus

S- French Toast with Berries

LUNCHES (here is where it is a little repetitive)

M- Crunchy Asian Chicken Salad

T- Summer Wraps

W- Crunchy Asian Chicken Salad

T- Taco Salad

F- Summer Wraps

S- Quesadillas

S- Sweet Potato & Asparagus Soup

DINNERS

M- Baked Fish with Carrots and Zucchini

T- Pumpkin Soup

W- Tacos

T- White Chicken Chilli 

F- Brown Fried Rice

S- Baked Sweet Potatoes with White Chilli 

S- Quesadillas

SNACKS

Blueberries frozen in yoghurt

Frozen banana slices with peanut butter

Celery with almond butter and sultanas

Fruit 

Seeing it written like this I must admit, I am a little worried about the budget! So it is time to write th shopping list and get an average from the supermarkets online shopping carts.

I get free delivery with Coles so have decided to go with them for the bulk. Here is my total:

I still have to do fruit and veg usually I spend $40, I have put aside $75 which equals $212.08 so perfectly in budget!

I presumed healthy eating was costly this shopping list includes wholegrain flour, coconut oil and lots of other things I don't have here and nothing in our list is processed. An amazing feeling!

Blinded by the spiral

The spiral of self destruction, hate and anger. I hate the lows of bi-polar, I feel like I am suffocating on my own life. My husband hates me, my kids are scared of me, is this the way I planned my life? Far from it, I wanted to be that perfect mum, the one you see on TV, the one who always has her shit together. Instead I never have my shit together.

To make matters a bit more complicated my husband also has mental health issues and is currently on a waiting list to see someone to help him, like me he gets angry. Two people both with mental health issues trying to raise a family, some days I just want to drop my kids of somewhere and walk away, not because I don't love them, the very opposite. I love them so much I don't want them to hurt anymore, don't want them to see the lows, be on the receiving end of the monster that is me. I don't want them to hate me.

When I'm angry, I scare myself, I don't see triggers, I don't see any warning that it's coming, just bang here's the monster. It gives me horrendous stomach aches, headaches, I'm left feeling dizzy, numb and empty. I never used to be like this and I hate that I have become this.

So what is the point you may ask in this post of self pity? The point is I want to change, I want to be happy, I want a stable family, one that doesn't walk on egg shells constantly.

How am I going to do this? I already see a therapist once every two weeks and whilst I feel better there it doesn't change anything when I get back home. I twist everything to be my husbands fault, like my hate against the world is because of him, deep down it's not and I thank him for staying with me when I would've walked away a long time ago. Back on track to this I am in combination with seeing my therapist going to change my life for the better through exercise and healthy eating. I'm actually quite disgusted with how I look, it could be a lot worse but it also can be a lot better. I weigh 57 kilos and that's the heaviest I have been (except during pregnancy), since my c-sections thanks to today's chop happy medical system I've always had a muffin top but not it's bad. I can lift my gut up and drop it back down. Before my twins I've always had a flat stomach, laughed about how I could eat anything and not gain weight, well now all those lollies, chips, fried food, chocolate and soft drinks are all having a big hard laugh at me.

I've always been very self conscious when it comes to my weight, I was 19 had met my husband and just moved in with him after leaving domestic violence, I was under weight, I weighed 43 kilos. My husband helped me start eating properly again (not so much properly it wasn't healthy food but it was food, I ate maybe 3-4 meals a week back then) as soon as I hit around 47 my own mother started saying I needed to exercise and walk more because I was fat.

This "project" for me isn't about weight loss though it's about becoming healthy, mind, body and spirit but I certainly won't complain when my body looks better! 

So what's the plan? Workout 4-5 times a week and eat 5 healthy meals a day (breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner) by eating these smaller but more regular meals I will feel fuller for longer and not feel the need to snack/binge.

This set of photos is very embarrassing but what is this journey without being able to document progress? Excuse the huge crack in my mirror and one of my twins who can sense a camera anywhere! 

Who am I?

Good question .....
I know the basics; name, age, where I live, occupation etc, but WHO am I?
I suppose this is where I should tell my story which lead to this blog.
For my own sake I need to do it stages, so here is where I think it began
4 months after my 15th I lived in the UK in a quiet cul-de-sac, England gets dark really early, way too early, we would leave school sometimes and it would be getting dark. I had gone to a friends house for dinner and had to be home by 9pm, I was walking along my street at 8.50pm, my street had a hill, it was straight to begin with then a sharp 90 degree turn to the right, a steep hill, then another shap turn to the right and about 2 houses after that was mine. I hated my street when it was dark, I always felt like I was being followed or watched, it turns out I was.
That night as I turned the first bend my life changed forever, I was raped. He was 20 and had lived on my street for years, I walked past him everyday. Obviously I got home late and was grounded, I didn't tell anyone what happened, I didn't want to, I was too scared, too ashamed, too numb.

After that night, I changed a lot, I didn't care anymore. I became isolated, I thought if I told anyone they'd judge me, I felt dirty enough without judgement. I broke up with my boyfriend A for a few reasons, stopped being around my friends, stopped listening to typical boy band music and started listening to Korn, Slipknot etc. I couldn't focus at school anymore and was getting quite a few detentions for my attitude.

This is also when I started cutting myself, the only thing that seemed to release the pain inside. Self harm is scarily addictive, I still have moments to this day where I think about it.

There was another boy I was seeing his name is D. He was my neighbours grandson, he wasn't what I usually went for he was rough around the edges and I knew my dad would hate him, so with all my hatred towards the world now this seemed like a perfect idea. 

I was sick, really sick, losing weight, couldn't hold food down, just horrible. I presumed it was stress from this secret I was holding, the effects of no sleep and if I did fall asleep the nightmares.

D's mum said half joking one day when was your last period? Gosh, I don't know, what 15 year old tracks that? 

The only time I'd had sex was when I was raped so being pregnant wasn't even an idea in my mind. D's mum went to the shop and came back with a box of pregnancy tests, to shut her up I took one into the bathroom with me.

No denying the result of that. So not only did he rape me, he got me pregnant too, I spent the next 3 hours continually vomiting, not because of morning sickness but the shock, the disgust, the fear.

How could I tell my parents I was pregnant? Would I tell them I was raped or let them assume the baby was D's? How could I have a baby? 

More on the pregnancy next post. Thanks for reading something so incredibly hard to talk about, this is the most detail I've gone into in 12 years.