I rarely make cakes or banana bread, and generally make muffins since they’re easier to judge if they’re cooked, already portioned and yeah, just easier.
Today I made Banana Muffins since I got a lot of bananas free yesterday. I was going to put some coconut in, but I couldn’t find a hammer, so that can wait for another time.
I didn’t really use a recipe or fixed portions, but they have 3 bananas, 1.5 cups of sifted SR flour, some melted butter, 2 eggs, some brown sugar, cinnamon and some vanilla essence. Cooked for 20 mins @ 160 Fan forced.
Still going three times a week to support mum at the rehab hospital. Brought Maxi in again on the weekend to cheer people up, which is seemed to do. Petrol is crazy, isn’t it? Saw the first 91 for 264.9 today on the app! Just waiting for the diesel to tick over $3, have also seen a few stations around with only one kind of petrol left on sale and all the other numbers blacked out.
Last Thursday I was anxiously watching the petrol prices go up in Morisset as I was preparing to take my stepson to his Employment Plus appointment – that they cancelled just before we were about to leave.
Obviously not an economist, but I can’t see how pushing up the amount people with home loans have to allocate to that, while petrol is also up, isn’t just gonna lead to a severe drop in spending. Food prices and prices on other goods are also still going to keep going up due to increased transport costs, and everyone’s going to suffer. And I feel like that’s gonna lead to recession in the precious little economy? But again, not an economist, just someone surviving the cost of living crisis with a hotch potch of strategies.
My main cost of living strategy is living off free hot cross buns of varying flavours. Good thing I’m not diabetic, only fat. Apparently the free quiches I have stashed in the freezer were also good, and I used the Latina pasta I had in there for a good few months finally last night and it went down well too.
So, the RBA is choosing to add more people to the unemployment queue. Pawns in their little game of economics. Pawns that will suffer, but whether that continues to be quietly since they’re too busy surviving, remains to be seen.
“Indexation” day this Friday, I’ll be seeing $20.50 “extra” go into my account on pension days from later next month, but it won’t stay there long. Watched the Margaritaville ep of South Park again last night from 2009, and it’s feeling like it’s going to be relevant again soon.
Indexation amounts were released last week, and I’ll personally be getting $10.25 more a week in my DSP and rent assistance. See all the details in the tables here.
Pensions from March 20Rent assistance amounts from March 20
As always, they start accumulating from March 20, so no one sees the full increase pain into their account until at least April, and not til mid-April for some. Standard single JobSeeker is getting a $15.10 a fortnight “boost” (*voms*) as the gov and media love to call it. $7.55 a week isn’t exactly a powerup.
Jobseeker rates from March 20
Of course, the ACCC had been “asked” to keep an eye on fuel prices, but that’s just about all they’ll do – watch. I can do that too. Which is why when taking the recycling this morning we went to the lil servo and garage at Mirabooka for fuel. I handed them the $50 note Dad had given me and the 5c coin from my Gudetama coin purse and topped it up.
They say we might see an interest rate rise because of the extra inflation of fuel costs and the impact that will have on food and transport costs. I’m sure that in itself will put brakes on already stretched waged-households spending, but sure throw an interest rate hike on top. Gotta play the numbers.
Nearly paid off the power bill, then it’s rego for the Corolla next month. Our household spending is certainly not all that wild. but as long as Maxi has food and treats we’re going fine.
In the featured image for this post you will see Maxi looking pleased with himself because he got to tag along for a 2km drive to the end of the road with his head hanging out the window, past the cows in paddocks and the construction for the new twin servos off the M1, to get petrol before the prices jumped on Tuesday with the news about conflict continuing in the Middle East. Obviously, Maxi didn’t care about the oil prices, but I was pleased to say I got $50 of fuel into my tank at $1.65 before it went up 25c overnight at that particular station. The ABC was reporting that households could see an extra $14 a week needing to go to petrol over the coming months, which to some isn’t much, to some a lot, and to me who’s still making 3 80+km round trips a week to see mum in hospital (she’s moved to the rehab hospital which is AWESOME) it matters that I was able to work it so I put petrol in Tuesday instead of tomorrow when my pension goes in.
I got my first “weird hot cross buns” of the year yesterday at my bread collection – Carrot Cake Inspired ones from Aldi. I microwaved one for 15 seconds and it was awesome! Little bits of cream cheese icing inside and nice and soft and spiced.
Been perfecting my “getting a car park at the hospital” strats. Yesterday I let all the cars go off ahead of me and waited where I was since there was noone behind me needing to go. And I lucked out a Mum and her twin boys came out of the elevator and indicated they were going to their car just in front of me. Score! Sadly, I was charged the advertised parking price for pensioners of $6.80 for the day rather than the $5.60 they have been charging me. Swings and roundabouts I guess.
Mum’s been getting assessed and set up with physio, occupational therapy and speech pathology goals and activities to get her moving again. It’s exhausting for her but she’s hopefully going to make good gains. I’m still aiming to go in Monday, Wednesday and Fridays to see her and support however I can. Yesterday we got outside for a little walk around the grounds. It was super humid! No wonder there’s mould in so many of the local hospitals :/ Nothing is drying anywhere!
That said, I’m attempting to get the sheets and towels washed today, whether they dry or not is another story!
Google photos decided to show me pics from my Canberra and Brisbane trips from the first half of the year, so guess it’s time for an annual recap of sorts! 2025 was huge for me, brilliant in many ways, lots of good things, but lots of realities of working as me with other people so I also put myself through a lot of hell for those results.
I finally got to meet Avery in person, catching the train with them to Canberra for the 5 years since the covid supplement presser. Thank you to Kristin and the Antipoverty Centre for herding us cats for that one! “We call that social murder” was one of my favourites, as well as me being brave and doing ABC Newcastle on the morning of the press conference at parliament house.
I went through several burn out phases this year, and am currently in I’ve quit everything and am trying to resent mode. I loved working with and for AUWU and Antipoverty Centre this year and met some amazing people and learned some amazing things and talked about my pet projects a lot.
May saw some exam supervision for the selective schools and opportunity class tests – high pressure for such little kids! (Year 6 and year four kids). Fortunately ours went well (no riot police like in Sydney) with them being all done online on laptops in the venue these days. And I got to catch the new trains which finally started running after so many delays. Gonna miss the old V-sets.
Conference was frikkin intense and I presented on the hidden harms of foodbanks (slides) and ran around like a nutter and yeah, it was a lot and was a lot of positive things, but I’m not putting that much of myself into something like that again. *dies*
It took a bit the recover from the Conference, and then I had a birthday and ate takoyaki. Then a week later I broke both my wisdom teeth and needed one out which was a painful and bloody saga which also took the best pat of a month of the year.
I got heavily into Hello Kitty Island Adventure in that time, which was a good relief from some of the other stuff I was then working though while trying to do my annual Liptember fundraising. Which I made it through but wasn’t able to push nearly as hard as my good years.
Did HSC supervision again. And while doing it and also helping my sister with NDIS and other things were great for feeling like a useful adult with skills, I fell into not being able to maintain it unfortunately.
So we’ve gone into the festive season in home focus mode – back on all my meds including Antabuse, focused on my daily tasks around the home and to look after me. Routine and basics. With festive flair.
I’m running the #PoveratiXmas threads over on Twitter and Bluesky again this year, with the impending age-restriction on the internet looming over the heads with my friends who don’t have ID for whatever reason (cost, being housebound) worried we’re gonna lose them to the whims of the government. Remember that law they only gave 24 hours to respond to? They one-upped themselves in the dying weeks of this year’s parliament with Section 5 being pushed through after being not whispered about in the consultations. This is despite over 40 organisations calling for it to be scrapped and Lidia Thorpe, and others in the cross bench voting against it and fighting to have it removed from the main bill. Now THAT was a flurry of activity that I’m proud of my friends in the anti-poverty sphere for their pushing after dear Tom raised the alarm on Michael Klapdoor’s keen spot.
Despite the seriousness of these crimes, I am utterly unconvinced that this is how the problem should be addressed, or that the welfare system should ever be used in this way.
Punishing criminal offenders is the job of the courts. An arrest warrant is certainly not a conviction. pic.twitter.com/6FXfcYSCCr
Thank you all for another amazing year, through all its highs and lows. I’ll hopefully continue to see you all in some form of this weird internet space as society continues to turn in on itself.
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