Six months ago Lynn Webster set herself a challenge - to spend no more than $100 a week on groceries for her family.
She set that goal because she realised she was spending three times that and heading for financial trouble.
Every Tuesday Lynn holds classes in her kitchen in Waitara Taranaki showing people how to make household basics for a fraction of the cost in the supermarkets.
“A lot of the time people say, ‘I haven’t got time to make my own dish washing liquid, I haven’t got time to make my own washing powder’, and that’s what I would have thought before as well,” she says.
“But you’ll see just how easy it is to make. Like the washing powder, you can make it in 30 seconds – and it’s quicker than going to the shop and buying it.”
In between being a share milker running a herd of 175, and looking after her two daughters, Stevie and Danny, Lynn hasn't got much time to herself.
But she always has time for budgeting, and that means meeting her aim of getting all her groceries for no more than $100 a week.
“I spend most of it on food because I’ve worked out how to make these home cleaning products,” she says.
“I'm making a lot of stuff at home like laundry powder, dish washing liquid and toothpaste. Stuff that used to be down the drain is now money in my pocket.”
Saving money is new to Lynn.
She has always earned good money as a share milker, but she never seemed to have any left at the end of the week.
At the start of this year she almost lost her business after spending way too much on a holiday.
“I lived outside my means without really realising it,” she says.
Lynn went back through her old bank statements to find out where her money was going.
Most of it was going on groceries - more than $300 a week.
“It was really embarassing. This was takeaways, trips to the dairy, a little bit here, a little bit there.”
So Lynn set herself the $100 a week challenge.
“We were a little bit hungry at the start but I’ve got better and better at it. So I get good value from my $100 now and I know where the bargains are,” she says.
“We've saved over $200 a week for six months and I’ve got thousands of dollars that I would have never seen.”
It is paying off big time - since January she has saved $17,000.
She has honed her skills as a bargain hunter – buying in bulk, looking for sales and shopping at butchers and green grocers.
“A big tip is stay out of the supermarket if you can,” she says.
“I find those homemade cleaners allow you to stay out of the supermarket and come somewhere where you maybe be getting more bang for your buck.”
Now Lynn has become a master at the weekly shop and sometimes only spends $30.
“We get a lot of cheap stuff like creamed corn and make fritters and tuna pasta for tea, that’s 70c a meal.”
She is so passionate about her quest to save money she writes a weekly column called Pig Tits and Parsley Sauce.
It features on the Taranaki Daily News website and she gets mail from around the country.
“I just thought if I’d told Taranaki I was going to do it then actually that would give me an incentive to stick to it. And that's worked out really well because people have been quite supportive and talked to me about it all the time.”
Lynn is not doing this for the hell of it – she has set herself a goal.
By January next year she wants to have the deposit for a rental property.
“I said to my oldest daughter Danny, ‘I’m a bit peeved that I’ve wasted so much money and I’ve only just got onto this in later life’, and she said, ‘don't worry mum because you've set me up on the right path’. And that is true because they've learnt such good habits because they'll make their own washing powder and all the money will always be in their pocket.”
Lynn's advice is there is no time to start saving like now.
“I don't think I’m a great saver or anything but if I can do it, honestly, anybody can. Cause I was never any good with money, and it's money that you've already got. You don't have to get a better job, you don't have to beg your boss for a better pay rise.
“I think it's really good to know how much things are worth because I never did and once you know what something is worth you're not going to spend 10 dollars on something you know you can get for five, or make for two - why would you? So you’ve already saved eight dollars by switching your brain on.”