Trying to Move....

Hello All....The Porter's are looking to move. Our owners are letting us out of our lease early in order to find a place that is more affordable. As you know money has been tight and we have things we would love to get done this year. The first being getting our residency here in NZ. That will open doors for both Mike and I and also for the kids. Namely, Kelsey will be able to get a school loan here and we won't have to pay the out of country fees for schooling. Then you know...I would like the niceties of life like a dryer and a microwave. I don't think that is asking for much.

Finding a new home has been just horrible. We have tried to stay near Auckland but any place that we would even think of moving into really isn't going to save us money. So, I we have put in an application for a home farther north. Even with the extra public transportation fares we will be saving almost $1K a month. You can't argue with that. Here is the link to the area we wish to move to. It's beautiful, still on beaches and really has much more of a beach town feel than St. Heliers. Reminds me a lot of where I grew up. A lot. On top of the pricing issues the agents here don't make it easy on you to find a home. Most of them don't return phone calls, if they do they want you to drive by the house first (like I have time to go out to a place not once, but twice and like I am likely to make a decision based on the outside...PUlease), then if you do drive by you can't get them back on the phone to make an appointment to go IN the house. Then if you are one of the lucky ones to actually get an appointment...they are either always late or don't show up at all. It's mind boggling and very frustrating. I realise that there isn't much money to be made in the rental business...but then....get out of it if you don't want to offer proper customer service. Eh...just my point of view. I will let you all know if our application is approved or if we have to start the rat race all over again. (Lord help me)

MedAware is starting off pretty good. We have had a few orders with very little...and I mean very little....marketing. Mike is almost finished with my flyers and we will get those printed. My goal is when we do move that I am going to start hitting the doctors offices to put these out and then possibly start using Facebook as my other marketing tool. I am both nervous and excited. I know this is going to do very well here. We are getting ready to add some running/biking vests and I am working on some additional rubber bracelets. I am also in talks to have someone make pump gear for me as well.

Mike has been coming up with some cool shirts for his Cryptolicous site. He has already made some sales and is excited to be creating images on his fascination with Big Foot, the Moth Man and any of that other stuff.

And just in case you thought I was reigning in the crazy....I will offer you some info on something new I have been doing. (don't worry...I am still out there) I was chatting with a cousin of mine a few weeks back about how we are working to save money. Like baking our own bread...and I was telling her that the biggest portion of my grocery budget still goes to laundry and soaps. We all have skin issues so I have to buy the non-perfume dye free stuff. Well, just like in the US you have to pay more to have less ingredients. She told me about how she had made her own laundry detergent and starting to use vinegar for softener. Ok...stay with me here....so I haven't been able to do the laundry detergent yet because I need to buy in bulk since the ingredients are not readily available here in NZ. BUT I have been using white vinegar for over a month now. I am amazed. Simply amazed at how well it works. Let me answer two questions that I know popped right into your head. One, YES IT WORKS...AND HOW. Two, no your clothes do not smell like vinegar. There is no smell at all, just nice and clean. I was also surprised to realize two other things by switching to vinegar. I have less lint on my clothes and it lifts stains. Ever since I figured out that it lifts stains, when I do Marty's clothes I add a little extra in the washing cycle and it works miracles. I was paying upwads of $8 for a 1litre bottle of Huggy sensitive softener. I would use about a bottle and half each week. I bought a 5 litre bottle of white vinegar for $12. So, I am saving about $5.80/litre. About $20 per month. Not a lot...but it does ad up. And now I don't have to buy stain remover either. You can find the recipes for liquid and dry detergent and a couple of laundry softeners here. The recipes come from the Duggar Family who have a show in the US. (side note...I don't use the food recipes to save money. They are mainly processed foods.)