“Budget Cook Grow”, my first book which has taken me two years to research and write has finally been published.  I have written an Australian prepper book from an analytical economic perspective.  This information and strategy filled book is available for purchase by visiting the links page on this site and also through the shopping cart on this page.  Thirdly, I am offering copies of this book for sale during the Bass Coast Edible Gardens Festival in Wonthaggi, Victoria, on 10-11 February 2024.  Please take the link at the bottom of this page for further information on this valuable festival that goes a very long way to addressing the rising cost of living through the agency of growing food at home.  I am offering a limited quantity of my book for sale on this site.  I can customize any message you wish to have included in the book, along with my autograph.  Please contact me via this website when you order this book if you desire a specific message you want me to write on the inside cover.  I am happy to oblige in this regard.  If you are intending to purchase this book for a loved one, I can offer a free giftwrapping and card service to accompany your purchase.  The giftwrapping/card service is not available anywhere else except this site. I also offer free local delivery.  Best of all, you are welcome to visit my studio and purchase this book in person.  “In-studio discount” is available for face to face purchases.

WHAT’S THE BOOK ABOUT?
The back cover (written below) delves into the book contents.  I am including a full transcript here for your information and consideration.  There are 20 chapters in total. There are a whopping 389 pages in this A4 sized book.  The book contains a lifetime of experience in making do with less and being happy.  Whilst the concept of frugality has been harshly judged by people who are well off, this way of life is gaining in popularity in this day and age with the rising cost of living biting into many peoples’ incomes. I was brought up in a poverty ridden migrant household but my resilient parents brought an ingrained work ethic along with life skills with them when they disembarked from the Lloyd Triestino up in Brisbane in 1953 where they lived for a year before moving down to Victoria.  I am fortunate the life skills of my parents and their ancestors have been passed on to my brother Robbie and me.

The first six chapters really sets out our far from conventional way of life and how we live outside mainstream society and are very happy as a result.  Essentially, we do not care what other people are buying/saying/doing as we live life on our own terms.  I also share cost saving preparations you can make at home, how to shop and how to see beyond the product advertisement to calculate the true cost of the product.  I also share pantry, shopping and prepping strategies that save us money, along with how to create a simple household budget that ended up being the cornerstone to change in our house to eradicate debt totally.  I also provide insight into our way of life in “A Prepper’s Year” chapter where I lay out a seasonal analysis of what I plant and how I read the climate/flora/fauna for maximum crop yield.  This chapter also lays out general prepping activities we carry out every year to our great benefit.  I also examine our current economic situation here in Australia as this was also a catalyst in writing this book because all of us tend to internalise our financial situation.  If you think you are comfortably well off in financial terms, my best wishes to you because you are not the majority in this country.  Our rising cost of living, spiralling inflation and mortgage interest rate rises will certainly test just about everyone in the “lucky country”.  Included in this book are comments from fellow preppers, all of whom share a concern for the economic wellbeing of their families.  We do not live the highly stereotypical “Doomsday” prepper style of life.  We merely live a life that has economic planning and household management strategies in place to save us money along the way.  This is what being a prepper is all about.

The remaining 14 chapters of this book share easy to follow, cost effective recipes that have saved us a lot of money over the years.  My mother came from a long line of competent cooks and even ran her own trattoria in post war Trieste up in the far north eastern corner of Italy after the war.  The unbending oral tradition of learning how to cook was a feature of my childhood.  I wrote this book in response to the alarming economic situation which has placed a lot of Australians in financial stress as the tenets in this book saved my husband and I from potential bankruptcy.  Here is the back cover transcript:

jane shares her personalized blueprint plan that has fostered financial resilience in her household over recent times. jane utilizes her horticultural qualifications and experience in providing a vegetable garden focus as an integral part of the process, along with a prepper based, life-long repertoire of ancestral and modern recipes from her family as a way of providing the reader with cooking alternatives to save money along the way. jane also works through the budget plan that saved her family from bankruptcy nearly four years ago to now owning the family home mortgage free. All that stood between these two states of being was $100 in the bank and a mortgage to service whilst living on a military pension. The outlook was stress ridden and bleak.

 jane also aims to lay the dated and highly stereotypical image of a “Doomsday” prepper to rest in this thought provoking and timely book. jane’s approach to the persistently negative and ridiculing attitude towards preppers is to examine economic elements in Australian society that are increasingly steering people towards this way of life to help them manage spiralling cost of living stress. jane rationalizes that “Doomsday” is a highly personal concept that may include illness and unemployment as motivating factors to adopting this far from conventional way of life. jane has been fortunate enough to include comments from fellow preppers; all of whom share concerns for their financial well-being in the current economic climate.

Other topics in this interesting book examine ingrained shopping habits that perpetuate spending too much money on groceries and other life essentials and provide easy to understand ways of seeing beyond the product advertisement, packaging, packaging size and calculating value for money when considering purchasing. “Wants” and “needs” are closely examined for what they are – costly life choices that have a profound financial impact over time. Unlike the ignorant comment jane faced recently of preppers living on “tins of beans” and in a “sewer hole in the ground”, this book demystifies this very old way of life all our ancestors lived from a modern, practical, judgment-free economic perspective as to why it makes sound economic sense to reassess the way we live in a time of less money and higher cost of living. Preppers are nothing more than versatile projected management people who plan for the future to ensure security for their loved ones.

I am currently working on a second related book in between my art and design business.

This book is an ideal wedding gift for couples starting out in life as it provides a practical approach to household management via a prepper framework.

Shipping is subsidised.

Local pick up is available from my studio – you don’t pay postage at all using this method.  Please contact me through this website to arrange a visit to pick up.  Only available while I have copies on hand. EFTPOS FACILITIES AVAILABLE IN MY STUDIO.

ALSO LOCAL PICK UP FROM THE BASS COAST EDIBLE GARDENS FESTIVAL – 10-11 FEBRUARY 2024  Take this link to the festival site to read up on our open garden, including address:

https://www.basscoastediblegardens.com/jane-jonathan-garden