Saving as Earning

I've slowly been making my way through a seemingly endless list of travel and expat blogs, just to see what is out there. Some I know I'm not likely to ever visit again, others I find interesting and could spend hours just reading through the posts, and others inspire me in a variety of ways. Friday evening, P-daddy and Pooh went to bed early and I had the living area all to myself (with the exception of our sweet puppy Elvis, who was curled up next to me), and I decided to check out some blogs. In the midst of it, I came upon a blog that I'm sure to refer to numerous times: Down to Earth appears to be a wealth of posts on simple homemade goods written by a woman in Australia. While the wealth of topics she covers is enough to make the blog great, this line caught my eye and completely convinced me that her blog *must* go on my forever list:

A saved dollar is 100 cents; an earned dollar will have about 30% tax removed, so it really is only 70 cents. I prefer now to spend time doing things that will save us money instead of working to earn it. Cooking from scratch, shopping wisely for groceries, growing food, making our soap and laundry liquid, using green cleaners - all these take more time to do but they save so much money and give much better quality, it's worth the effort.

This attitude is one that we are fully in support of. Learning to make the most of what we have, and do better with what we have, and produce simple alternatives to many consumer goods is part of our goal as we prepare to move away from the US. While yes, part of our reasoning is the lack of availability and expense of imported items in El Salvador, the pure pleasure we get from doing it ourselves is enough to make us want to continue!