Dusty's Frugal Fortnights

dustydigger

Here's this fortnight's budget,better late than never! This is the saving fortnight,with fewer bills,so I will be able to allocate £90 to the various savings funds:T

Income:£285 from Mr Dusty,plus £69 my pension total - £354

outgoings 19th Mar - 1st Apr
life insurance - £20
fares to airport - £14
Passport fund - £10 (now £30)
Birthday fund - £10
Water Aid dd - £3
Save the Children dd - £3
phone top up - £5
Asd@ home delivery - £69
total : £129

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household budget - £135 (in cash)

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total income - £354
total outlay - £264
surplus to bank - £90


What a difference moving to online banking makes,having full control of balances,being able to move stuff about etc. No trotting up to the ATM to see my real financial state aftergetting my bank statement which is already 11 days out of date!
I have set up monthly direct debits to Water Aid and Save the Children,and will of course continue to put donations in charity bags that come through the door,and take things to the charity shops occasionally,but charity has to begin at home,and my daughter and granddaughter need my help. I have got an Asd@ Xmas savings card for each of them,and will secretly save up through the year to give them a surprise boost for their Xmas food shopping. Even £30-£40 will be a help,and I wont notice a few pounds each fortnight.
still to sort,easter eggs for the young grandkids,

dustydigger

As for my diet,poor news. Put on 1 lb second week running:(
Over the last stressful 8 weeks I have bounced back and forth losing and adding the same 3 lbs in weight,and basically am the same weight I was in January. Very disappointed,I so much wanted to be able to tell the diabetic nurse that I had lost 4 1/2 stone, now I'm back to 3 st 10 lbsand they have me down for the checkup April 11th. I've lost all confidence in my ability to lose weight. Also I have checked out so many diet styles that I might start off with a low carb day and halfway through find I am doing a high carb low fat day,and the results are dire! :rotfl:
The proponents of the various diets are so partisan,so emphatic that their way is the only right way,and everything else is useless at best,dangerous to your very life at worst that the poor dieter is left totally bewildered and unsure just what to do. It seems that the only common ground is that veggies are great,but the rest? chaos.:D
Well,at least the weather is improving,for now,perhaps I can get back into the walking habit once more.It may have minimal weight loss value,but its great for cardio,building muscle,and lowering stress.I look forward to doing more,but I have a foot neuropathy test on Monday,and I am aware my feet are not in good condition because of the diabetes. I dont seem to have hypos as a rule but my feet are a different story. Doesnt help that after misaligned walking patterns for many years because of the arthritis, after the knee replacements my foot bones have realigned to some extent and its caused a bit pain,callouses etc. If its not one thing its another! lol.
Looks like from now on I am going to be in the hands of the podiatrists and I DETEST anyone touching my feet,even myself! :eek::rotfl:

beanielou

I loathe anyone touching my feet too:eek:

dustydigger

beanielou wrote: »

I loathe anyone touching my feet too:eek:

:rotfl: i sometimes come across women in romances who delight in their lover masaging their feet,or you see them in films luxuriating in the procedure. I would be more likely to kick that man in the face as I squirmed away!:D:D

dustydigger

Sunday,lot of cooking but I pretty much ban housework on Sunday,a quick tidy downstairs to put away the last of the rubble leftover from my 4 kids,5 grandkids and two greatgrandkids (darent look yet in the spare bedroom which the Angel and the Imp commandeer as their centre of operations.They were in there at least 3 hours,I may screw up the courage to go in tomorrow:)
I am going to designate Sundays from now on as gentle decluttering days,since there is not much action on my groups on Librarything or here. I will be watching some of the programmes taped during the week,but will have fun using those numerous 4 minute ad breaks to do a little clearing out.
So the plans for today
+ cook dinner,wash up,clear benches and mop floor
+household task - our outside drain sink has been overflowing for a while during all the bad weather for about 6 weeks. I had told Mr Dusty I would def sort it while he was away,but of course it was snow,rain,freezing cold or nosebleeds and vertigo all the way.
+I am doing a digital declutter today,getting rid of junk etc on various machines
+Try to finish the last 80 pages of a library book that has to be returned
+ cut my toenails and generally tidy my feet before the podiatrist visit tomorrow:(
+lovely spring day,I will try to fit in a 15 minute walk.( Just round the streets of course,I imagine the fields and lanes,only 7 minutes walk away are likely to still be a quagmire!)

apart from that I am going to watch my weekly ration on the googlebox,with the declutter in the breaks..

dustydigger

Sunday was quite a productive day.
I managed to get the drain outside to stop overflowing at least,but it is still running very slow with water in the bottom.All I had available to try to clear it was ordinary soda crystals and hot water,since I was unable to get any caustic soda in our little town.:( The last hardware store closed down 6 weeks ago,couldnt compete with the Wilko that was opened up a few years ago.Very sad,I have memories of that store going back many decades.:mad: The Crazy Clearance shop used to sell caustic soda for a very reasonable £1.50.but had none for now,another shop wanted £2.99 for a very small bottle.,and the Wilko shelf was completely empty. Will need to go to the city to get something,as such a narrow channel could block up again quite easily.
The digital declutter went well. I sent a huge number of emails to the trash ,and unsubscribed from quite a few sites ,including Bonmarche,Pinterest and a health site which sent me a daily newsletter. They really piled up! I am going to read through them all and only keep interesting ones. Took a bit of time,but I read and removed about half a dozen,leaving perhaps 20 left to read and assess.I will do a couple a day.I need to check out a lot of old starred emails too which I may no longer need.
I also sorted out my box of letters ,bank statements etc I keep in the kitchen drawer,removed an awful lot of old useless stuff,and will probably do this every other fortnight to keep the bumph down to manageable proportions:).
Also cleared away old text messages on my phone.and unbookmarked some sites on my laptop.I have a HUGE number of bookmarks,since I use a lot of book sites,family history,banks,health, and shopping etc etc. Looks much more manageable now
Also decided if possible not to record anymore programmes on the DVR till I have watched and deleted some of the stuff on there.It was nearly 70% full,and recently I have got it down to around 47%,but thats still an awful lot of programmes still to watch.I am not going to watch anything on demand till I clear away some of the recorded stuff.
I was very annoyed when recently the Channel 4 on demand was removed from my Freesat,you can only watch online now. I had more than100 episodes of drama etc stored on there to watch,and could only watch online now,which I dont enjoy much.Picture quality on my little notebook is poor,and the sound is tinny. Not amused.:mad:
And I got in a 30 min walk,3000 rather wobbly steps. :T:TGot home afterwards with rather sore calves and thighs,but after years of inactivity,what could I expect. Enjoyed the sun and views(I did make it out of the houses into the fields after all),I think I still need the walking stick perhaps for balance for a while,but it was great to be out and about in the sun(and wind!) Everyone apparently needs at least 15 mins a day in the sun for vitamin D.
So all in all a very nice varied useful day.
Off to make Mr Dusty's supper now,not sure if I'll get back on to talk about today. Oh well,if not,there's always tomorrow.

dustydigger

At last I have got online,if only for a few minutes. Mr Dusty's body is still telling him its breakfast time 8.30 even if the clock says 9.30,as I stood making his African maize porridge for 40 minutes and he ate it at 9.30!:D You need to stir it constantly or it burns,even though its only on mark 3.Then afterwards it has to soak for at least an hour before you can scrape it off.:eek: As you can guess I am not a fan of making this,I only do it one in four days these days,omelettes two days,and cornflakes once(for the calcium in milk),but back in Africa I had to make it everyday.First you had to light the charcoal stove,quite difficult,it takes a good 15 minutes to get the charcoal red,then 40 mins cooking,so it was a very time consuming labour intensive meal! At least now I can switch on the cooker and get instant heat:rotfl:I do my good old Scotts porridge oats for 3 mins in the microwave!:)
Then I helped him with his football coupon. Being away he was out of touch with the results and team form etc,so I have had to look back at the form of each team over the month. It took forever,50 odd teams to look at. :mad: And I started off the dinner preparation.....the whole morning has gone,and all I achieved was a bit washing up.:D Planned several jobs,and intended to have an afternoon in town to get myself a few items with some money from my birthday,but no chance now. And anyway its teeming with rain,no fun squelching from shop to shop!
I'm off to make my meal now,I had intended salmon fishcakes but I'm running late (!)so I'll just poach the fish and have a big salad with it.Still not back into proper slimming ways,so difficult to fit in with Mr Dusty's meals till I get my head sorted once more. I'll get back on here this afternoon.

dustydigger

Never seem to have time to get on here now Mr Dusty is back and needing attention.
I went to the foot clinic,and the nurse only checked that the blood flow was in good nick,and I was OK,no poor circulation which can cause foot problems for diabetics.:D She did say when I go to the diabetic clinic I should ask to get regular appointments for cutting toenails etc. My toes are literally curling up right now at the thought.:eek:
If the DN doesnt say anything I wont either,and see how long I can avoid it. But I do remember her last year telling me about it,and I put it off till after my trial D&E (diet and exercise)year,so doubt if I will be so lucky:)
My appointment with the DN is April 11th,and I assumed I would be having my HbA1c blood test then. I intended to put off the appointment for a couple of weeks while I struggle to reach that elusive 4 stone loss,but unfortunately the nurse yesterday did the blood samples,so they will be ready for that appointment,I had better go and learn my fate.
I have been very apprehensive about this test for several months now as it loomed nearer,and that has I'm sure contributed to the lack of weight loss,as I sometimes succumbed to comfort eating.Add all those birthdays and Mother's Day etc and its obvious why I havent lost weight in two whole months:eek:

dustydigger

A little info about the HbA1c test,very important for diabetics
Haemoglobin, a protein within red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout your body, joins with glucose in the blood, becoming 'glycated'. Because red blood cells in the human body survive for 8-12 weeks before renewal, measuring glycated haemoglobin (or HbA1c) can be used to reflect average blood glucose levels over that duration, providing a useful longer-term gauge of blood glucose control.
This is important as the higher the HbA1c, the greater the risk of developing diabetes-related complications.

HbA1c mmol/mol % Normal Below 42 ( 6.0%)
Prediabetes 42 to 47 6.0% to 6.4%
Diabetes 48 or over 6.5% or over

Trust me to be 49!!!!!:mad::mad::mad:

dustydigger

I actually managed the 10 min walk to Tesc* Express yesterday for Mr Dusty's fave Maris Piper potatoes,got 3bags and a couple of other items - and WALKED back home,UPHILL carrying 2 bags (and no stick):T:T.Must be 7 years at least since I could do that .
I smiled as I sailed past the two different benches that previously I would have had to sit on for several minutes to catch my breath and wait for the knee pain to subside enough so I could walk home without crying.I think I am truly on my way to better health.:j:j