Counting the Cents in an Organised Way

Kinetica’s Katy MacPherson suggests ways to save money by being organised and counting every cent spent:

Are you fed up hearing of doom and gloom … of the tough economic climate? Why not turn the thought around and think positive? Positive-thinking is far healthier for the soul. How about starting with how you can save money? Being more organised is one way. But how?

Being organised saves you money and looking after those cents certainly helps the dollars look after themselves. The purchase of a new fridge of say $1200 requires thought, time and investigation but when you go to the supermarket and spend a third of the amount, do you give that task a third thinking time … NO and that’s where the saving can be made. Not so much on the larger outgoings, as we give them more thought, but on the smaller costs – $15 for lunch here and $20 for the trip out there.

We all need help and support to move forward in life and Katy Macpherson from organising solutions company, Kinetica, is able to give just that. Twenty years in the UK corporate world of pharmaceuticals along with an inherent love of organisation, lead Katy to take a new career direction in Professional Organisation, once arriving in New Zealand five years ago.

Here are Kinetica’s top ten organising tips to retain those notes in your wallet:-

1. Plan your week. Now you might be thinking how does that save money? Well think about how many trips you have to make into town – if you diary the date/time to go to town and list all the things needed to be done, you can maximise your time and reduce the petrol costs and have that business meeting whilst you are there. Car pool where you can. Organise rosters for taking children to after-school activities.

2. Plan your meals. Similarly planning what you have to eat over the week means less trips to the supermarket (reducing petrol costs and saving time), less wastage and more economical meals. Put thinking time into your grocery shopping – it’s a huge expense.

3. Check your bills. Careful checking of an invoice can reveal miscalculations and errors. Check your power bill, especially at rate-change times. Or read the meter, because the power company may not, and waiting until the bill eventually arrives may cost you tens of dollars.

4. Use both sides of paper. If you don’t want to print both sides, then tear up into quarters and staple for use as a notepad by the telephone. Use every piece of paper and recycle when done.

5. Think multipurpose. If you need to purchase a new item, think how else it could be used. Be creative with your ideas so you can save space, time and money.

6. Make your own lunch. How much does it cost you to buy that prepared sandwich in the plastic non-recyclable wrapping from the deli? How much healthier and more delicious would lunch be if the sandwich was home-made at a fraction of the cost and the re-useable sectioned lunch box also contained scrummy home-baking (made in the time you saved by planning your week) and yummy fruit (bought at your weekly supermarket trip)? Start tomorrow.

7. On-sell unused goods. Declutter your home and sell all the items you no longer use. Today there are so many outlets online, through local fundraising groups and local businesses. Take every opportunity you can and strike the best deal. Recycle the rest.

8. Make your own gift cards. Re-use cards sent for special occasions and birthdays, Cut out the graphic and spend your winter evenings sticking to blank card. Make sure the size stays within the dimensions of the lowest postal rate!

9. Get creative in the kitchen. Dig out three tins of food that have been in the pantry for too long – and get creative in the kitchen.

10. Use your diary. Your diary is your key to organisation, whether on paper or electronic. Use it for reminders to save you money. For example, order firewood early, send overseas Christmas cards using economic rate and read the power metre on the rate change day.

Now that is all so easy to keep some of those well earned dollars in your wallet – it’s just like a pay rise! Visit the Health in Harmony website for more details.

Kinetica offers bespoke packages to suit clients’ individual organisational needs whether at home or in the office, offering flexibility for everyone’s budget. Free help and support is available outside the organising sessions by monthly email organising tips. Sign up today by visiting www.kinetica.co.nz

To help you keep those dollars in the wallet, Kinetica is offering a 22% discount on a Needs Assessment. A representative will visit your home or office for a one hour organisation assessment. The visit will be followed by an action plan and six weekly telephone calls as you work through the organisation process. All for $140+gst. Offer is valid for August & September 2009 and for Wanaka area residents only. Show this page to qualify for the discount.

Keep counting those cents.

Author:Katy Macpherson runs office and home organising consultancy Kinetica. She’s available to help you get your paper in order with a personalised consultation. Contact Katy today: 03 443 6224, 021 154 5511, katy@kinetica.co.nz or check out www.kinetica.co.nz

What is Prana Flow Yoga All About?

Prana flow yoga teacher and owner of www.pranaflownz.com, Kara-Leah Grant explains what prana flow yoga is and where it originated:

Whenever I tell people that I teach yoga, the first question out of their mouth is: ‘What kind of yoga?’

And when I answer, ‘Prana Flow Yoga’, they stare at me blankly. ‘Huh? Never heard of that…’

Taught by Master Yoga Instructor Shiva Rea, Prana Flow is a liberating, evolutionary, rhythmic, vinyasa-flow class that encompasses mudra, mantra, bandha, pranayama, meditation, asana, kriya and a whole lot of fun. As Shiva states on her website, “It is an energetic, creative, full-spectrum approach to embodying the flow of yoga.”

Prana Flow is all about a balance of opposites – strength and fluidity, skill and intuition, vital energy and relaxed being.

So in class, when we do sun salutations, we’re mindful of the integrity of our alignment, while tuning in to the innate intelligence within our bodies that will guide us into the postures. Downward dog doesn’t have to be static anymore, and the spine may undulate, or the hips sway, as we find release and openness from within.

Most of all, Prana Flow emphasizes connecting to the breath and awakening the flow of Prana within. Defined as “the life-force of creation”, prana lives within each of us. When we practice Prana Flow Yoga, we are practicing getting out of our minds and moving down into our bodies, and letting our breath guide us.

At it’s most simple, while breathing in child’s pose, if we can maintain our concentration on the internal processes and follow our breath around the body, we will sense blocks, or restrictions. These can be physical, mental, emotional or energetic. Just by being aware of these blocks or restrictions, and breathing into those places, we active prana to guide us into openness.

In this way, true Prana Flow Yoga practice will unfold breath by breath on the mat, with the practitioner having no attachment to where the practice might go, or even what the postures might look like. The body is freed to move into the exact asana it needs in that moment to find the greatest release and the greatest balance.

In a Prana Flow class, this might translate into asana where the teacher guides you to explore your body within the context of the alignment. If hands and feet are grounded in downward dog, and internal focus is maintained, where does the breath go? How does the body want to move? At first inhales are likely to move up the spine, tilting the pelvis forward and lifting the hips to the ceiling. Exhales travel down the back of the legs, releasing the heels to the ground. But in time, the breath will begin to travel to other places, finding other blocks to release.

This style of yoga was most famously taught at Kripalu Ashram in Pennsylvania, and written about in the books Yoga and the Quest for the True Self, by Stephen Cope, and Self-Awakening Yoga – the Expansion of Consciousness through the Body’s Own Wisdom by Don Stapleton Ph.d. Both men were senior teachers at the ashram, and with one a psychologist and one an art teacher, each brought their own emphasis to the effects of prana awakening within the body.

“The structural details of any yoga practice can be alluring, but practice comes alive with creativity when you commune with your body’s sensations,” writes Don Stapleton.  “Being true to the intelligence of the body requires leaving the known as a jumping off point and venturing into unknown territory to allow prana to truly guide you. Taking your yoga learning to this level of personal ownership frees you from the illusion that ‘truth’ exists outside of you – in the authority of an expert or a teacher.”

Prana Flow classes focus on developing students’ connections to their own internal yoga teacher, to the flow of prana within them.  It’s not about the teacher telling you what to do, or doing set postures (although both of these things do happen in class). It’s learning to trust your own body’s intuition, and learning to listen to the subtle energies within. And then having the confidence and the commitment to take that connection home to your own yoga mat, in your own time, to explore your own body’s needs.

Once prana is awakened, and a student has learned to surrender to it’s flow, yoga asana will spontaneously arise from within – even asana or kriya that the student has never learned before. It’s a magical process that is inherently natural. We all contain everything we need to know within us, and Prana Flow Yoga reminds of us this buried wisdom we carry.

And it does all of this while reminding us of the simple joys of moving in the body, of finding lightness, of playing. Prana Flow is nothing more and nothing less than life as creative energy, where we celebrate our essence of being.

Author: Kara-Leah Grant, once a Queenstown-based yoga teacher, now teaches in Wellington where she’s discovered the joy of Prana Flow Yoga. Read more of her articles on yoga and the art of living at Prana Flow NZ.

Swine Flu a Result of Questionable Farming Practices?

Swine flu and agribusiness are linked according to Avaaz (a “global Web movement” dedicated to eliminating the gap between the world we have and the world we would like); they are asking people to take action by signing a petition demanding an investigation into the way pig factory farms operate and are regulated:

Evidence is emerging that traces swine flu to giant factory pig farms that are dirty, dangerous, and inhumane. Sign the petition to the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization to investigate and regulate these threats to our health:

No-one yet knows whether swine flu will become a global pandemic, but it is becoming clear where it came from – most likely a giant pig factory farm run by an American multinational corporation in Veracruz, Mexico.(1)

These factory farms are disgusting and dangerous, and they’re rapidly multiplying. Thousands of pigs are brutally crammed into dirty warehouses and sprayed with a cocktail of drugs — posing a health risk to more than just our food — they and their manure lagoons create the perfect conditions to breed dangerous new viruses like swine flu. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) must investigate and develop regulations for these farms to protect global health.

Big agrobusiness will try to obstruct and scuttle any attempts at reform, so we need a massive outcry that health authorities can’t ignore. Sign the petition below for investigation and regulation of factory farms and tell your friends and family and we will deliver it to the UN agencies. If we reach 200,000 signatures we will deliver it to the WHO in Geneva with a herd of cardboard pigs. For every 1000 petition signatures we will add a pig to the herd:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic

Last week the flu was all that we talked about — Mexico has been nearly paralysed and across the world leaders halted air travel, banned pork imports and initiated drastic controls to mitigate the spreading virus. As the threat shows signs of subsiding the question becomes where it came from and how we stop another outbreak.

Smithfield Corporation, the largest pig producer in the world whose farm is being fingered as the source of the H1N1 outbreak, denies any connection between their pigs and the flu and big agrobusiness worldwide pays huge sums of money for research to argue that biosafety is ensured in industrial hog production. But the WHO has been saying for years that ‘a new pandemic is inevitable’(2) and experts from the European Commission and the FAO have cautioned that the rapid move from small holdings to industrial pig production is in fact increasing the risk of development and transmission of disease epidemics. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn that scientists still do not know the extent that infectious compounds produced in factory farms affect human health.(3)

Studies abound of the horrific conditions endured by pigs in concentrated large-scale operations, and the devastating economic impact on small farmer communities of bloated large-scale operations.(4) Smithfield itself has already been fined $12.6m and is currently under another federal investigation in the US for toxic environmental damage from pig excrement lakes.(5)

But even with all of this damaging evidence, a combination of increased global meat consumption and a powerful industry motivated by profit at the cost of human health, means that instead of being shut down – these sickening factory farm operations are propagating around the world and we are subsidising them (6). In the wake of this swine flu threat, let’s hold industrial pig producers to account. Sign the petition for investigation and regulation:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic