Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Blackcats

Another good day here. I had to go to nearest town to do some banking. Remembered to take my coffee shop loyalty card so had a free hot chocolate. Now, of course, this means I had already purchased 9 other hot drinks to qualify for the freebie ...but ho hum for today I shall treat it as a victory. I also resisted buying strawberries. Whilst the looked delicious and I really, really thought I needed them I didn't need them at all because I have an orange, a banana and a nectarine per day in the fruit bowl for each day until I go shopping again . Then I will buy more strawberries.
Hope everyone else is having a good eeek and enjoying the challenge.

foxgloves

Oooooh, a free hot chocolate, Blackcats, How lovely on a soggy chill day like this!

Just a couple of weeks ago, as a keen gardener, I was longing for rain. The ground was so dry & hard to dig, but oh my days, the rain today.....on & on & on it went, lashing at the windows, beating on the conservatory roof, overtopping the guttering & coming down like a water spout........I thought I'd better go & run some liquid off the worm composter, as torrential rain can drown the whole wiggly lot of them. I ended up standing out there getting soaked while I ran off almost a whole watering can full. At least that will be plenty of free liquid plant food when anything actually does need watering. Anyway, I digress......
Another decent day on my planned frugal & productive week, as I really cracked on with resuming my major clear-out of Foxgloves HQ. Despite making a great start on this a while ago, I kind of lost my momentum, & I've been walking past piles of stuff on the floor which I heaped up pending decisions on where to re-organise stuff, & every time, it was like I could hear their little voices saying 'We're still here, you still haven't done anything with us.......which means this jobs is nowhere near finished, etc, etc'. I've re-organised quite a bit of storage today & chucked or recycled anything I didn't require. It always surprises me how something that has sat in a pile on the floor being an 'annoying item' suddenly turns into a resource when viewed in a different way. I had decided I had no use for a folder, so had put it in the bin, but I kept looking at it, thinking what nice green card it was made from, & what shame I couldn't use it for anything. Then I suddenly thought 'It's Christmas tree colour!". And before resuming the rest of my clear out, I'd made a template from another piece of waste card & cut out a pile of trees. With holes punched in the tops & a length of gold ribbon yarn from my yarn stash, I now have 24 stylish-looking Christmas gift tags. All packed away in my wrappings stash now, for a shopping from home opportunity later in the year.
On the subject of shopping from home, I wrote another two birthday cards today, both from my stash. I also wrapped a family birthday gift using recycled wrappings from my stash, & re-purposed a box mr f brought from work for storing my A4 'clean-on-one-side' paper stash. It looked a bit dull & 'spare box' like sitting on my shelves, so I cut it down to a better size & glued a nice cat picture on the front, which I received as a birthday card. All the other reorganising was done using folders/box & magazine files I already own, but in a better way, to make more space & to facilitate getting rid of some very old ones. I found somewhere better to store my basket of music, & by the time I'd done all that, plus some general filing & putting away, I had actually uncovered the piano, so stopped for a coffee & a little play. I hadn't quite finished, but everything is off the floor & put away & there are no more annoying piles of stuff pending. I need to have a good go at it with the Dyson now, as I can get to all the nooks & crannies much better.
Back in the day, any reorganisation always involved a not insignificant spend of some sorts, often at that well-known Swedish Emporium.....I used to live just 5 miles away from the most local branch, which was not good for all my naughty levels of spending. On this occasion though, I really have spent nothing. I did bring a nice hand painted chest of drawers back from Mum's house, which she used for her yarn stash, & I now use it for exactly the same purpose, but no money spent. I quite enjoy changing things around these days & getting a new look for now't.
I gather there is loads more rain on the way for tomorrow & Thursday, so I may well get the finishing touches done. I am planning more of a kitchen day tomorrow, though, including an audit of the pantry, particularly to check the dates on my modest Brexit stash, & hopefully a bit of baking for the freezer, depending on how sidetracked I get up the ladder in the depths of the pantry.
But another day with an absolute zero spend.
Yay to that, anyway
F x

foxgloves

Evening diary readers,
Another soggy day here. Squelched down the garden to cut some lambs' lettuce & a bunch of coriander & that was it for excursions today, which means another day where I've spent absolutely nothing.
Another frugal & productive day. Well, the morning was productive, this afternoon was frustrating because of having to wade my way through a legal letter which obfuscated what I actually needed to do in legalese. Think I've succeeded with it now.
Anyway, less moaning, what about the positive productive stuff? It was kitchen-based today. I've baked a loaf, baked a dozen cobs for the freezer (or 'rolls' for people who haven't decamped to the Midlands for as long as I have), as well as a batch of little wholemeal sultana scones to provide a bit of variety for work snacks, etc. A quick triage of the vegetable baskets revealed some onions which needed using up to avoid having to compost them later in the week, so I got out my faithful old falling to bits 'Cranks' book & made a batch of creamy onion soup. One portion in Mr f's pack-up for tomorrow, the others frozen. Lots of washing-up & fortifying of self with caffeine, then out with the stepladder to reach the back of the pantry, where I did an audit of my emergency supplies stash. Swapped a few items for better 'Use-by' dates & made a list in the back of my diary of useful additions, some of which I was able to shop from home.... i. e a bundle of candles, matches, etc.
I did intend to vacuum my nearly cleared HQ room to within an inch of its life, but this dropped off the list as I realised I'd need to spend longer on responding to the solicitor's letter/questions than I originally intended. Never mind, because guess what?! It looks as though tomorrow is set to be every bit as rainy as today, so I can catch up then, with a new job list. I sat at my desk in 'Foxgloves HQ' this afternoon typing my responses to the solicitor & I must admit to feeling a real glow of satisfaction about how tidy & decluttered it now looks. I'm enjoying being in there again. I bloody love decluttering!
Take care all,
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

At least the rain is stopping you from spending money and your indoor jobs sound very useful . The weather seems bad all over the country at the moment.

takingcontrolatlast

My frugal and productivity challenge this week has taken a nose dive

I did meal plan and shopped accordingly - no ys

I did make a small saving on the shopping but this has been eaten up by hospital parking costs.

I did have a free pot of tea bought for me by a friend and a good catch up which was nice.

My spreadsheet is all updated so on track with that.

Washing and drying is never ending and it irritates the life out of me with clothes everywhere, but at least they are getting washed and are drying so that's productivity

I had to buy a stamp to send a birthday card (used from my stash) but they didnt sell them individually ... therefore it cost £4.... something - I cant remember now - so its been quite spendy so far for me this week

foxgloves

Awww, Takingcontrolatlast - Try not to feel too despondent about yesterday, as none of that spending sounds like frittering. Sometimes, there are just no YS reductions, & if there are, they are not always useful. When I look, it mostly seems to be expensive ready meals, which even at a yellow sticker price, I can make for cheaper. Or it's YS plastic pots containing about 5 pieces of mango.... why on earth wouldn't someone just buy a whole mango & avoid the plastic plus get more fruit?
I agree it is annoying when you can only get to somewhere that sells stamps in whole books. I try to tell myself that my need for stamps would be the same whether I buy one a week or a book of 6 every month or so.
Sorry to hear your life is currently involving lots of hospital visits. This has also been a sad feature of my life last year & the year before, as I lost both my parents barely with a year between. Dad was in hospital for a while & the parking charges defo add up. Because we were so worried about Dad & working flat out to get a care plan in place to allow him to come home (we knew he was terminally ill), we didn't really notice car park costs until bank statements. It's stressful too circling round & round hospital car parks trying to find a space & not knowing what developments you're going to find when you get up onto the ward. Mum was in ICU, then in palliative care so we were given weekly car park passes & told we didn't have to pay. We weren't bothered about the money then, we just wanted Mum's surgery not to have failed, but I think it is ethically right that people are not charged in those situations.
I found all the hospital visiting very stressful & was just so very grateful to the NHS staff who kept Mum comfortable & pain free during her last weeks.
Anyway, it's a new day today m'duck.... you haven't spent yesterday frittering cash on new fancy frocks, so don't be too hard on yourself. Some spends are unavoidable.
F x

foxgloves

Well, another soggy day. I did take advantage of about a 40 min break in the rain to trot down the garden to put a few things away in the shed, cut a lettuce, drain off another can of free plant food from the worm composer, put the sweetcorn out to harden off & feed the greenhouse veggies. Our beautiful thrush has been doing awesome mollusc patrol. Almost every stepping stone all the way down from the back door to the greenhouse had a bashed up snail shell.
As for being frugal & productive? Well I've been productive, but mainly with hobbies today, which has been nice & relaxing, even though I've been using my brain a lot.
What about frugal activity? Well, I have washed & stored some more useful items...a nice empty jam jar ready for preserving season, a meat tray & clear plastic cover which will be a great free seed tray with cloche. I've cut down two more clear plastic bottles to use as bottle cloches & I've fed the garden birds a pot of scraps today, to stretch their seed out till the weekend.
Despite the chill weather, no heating is being used.... in fact I'm about to go & find some snuggly hand-knitted socks to warm my feet up!
And the legal letter I was fretting about yesterday? I got up at 6.10 am to get my reply finished & to be assertive over the next stage of the process. Yep, good letter. Pleased with it on the whole. Clicked 'print'. And nothing happened. Well, there I was effing & blinding like a docker because Mr F leaves at 7.30am & had promised to post it for me. Well, he got an earful of my choicest Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, tried to help but despite him being a tech-head, the printer was having none of it. In the end I hand-wrote it. I just got it all into the envelope & taped up (there were lots of docs plus a contract) as he was going out of the door. I worked hard on that reply. I had to define a fair bit of legal-ese first, then liaise with my sis, then liaise with mr F, then proof-read some of it..... & what nearly stymied my efforts??? Bloody technology as usual!! Anyway, it'll be winging its way south now for my sis to add her signature to everything. Let's hope it doesn't arrive back on my doorstep in a few days because the solicitor thinks I've side-stepped some of the questions.
Tonight I intend to:
a) Loll on the sofa
b) Watch Springwatch, which I love.
c) Eat some chocolate
Item c) did involve a very small spend, as I went halves with Mr F, as long as he only bought a bar of 'whatever their £1 offer is this week', so a massive 50p spend today.
F x

foxgloves

Every time I type 'composter', my phone changes it to 'composer'. A 'Worm Composer' sounds like something I'd like to meet!

takingcontrolatlast

foxgloves wrote: »

Awww, Takingcontrolatlast - Try not to feel too despondent about yesterday, as none of that spending sounds like frittering. Sometimes, there are just no YS reductions, & if there are, they are not always useful. When I look, it mostly seems to be expensive ready meals, which even at a yellow sticker price, I can make for cheaper. Or it's YS plastic pots containing about 5 pieces of mango.... why on earth wouldn't someone just buy a whole mango & avoid the plastic plus get more fruit?
I agree it is annoying when you can only get to somewhere that sells stamps in whole books. I try to tell myself that my need for stamps would be the same whether I buy one a week or a book of 6 every month or so.
Sorry to hear your life is currently involving lots of hospital visits. This has also been a sad feature of my life last year & the year before, as I lost both my parents barely with a year between. Dad was in hospital for a while & the parking charges defo add up. Because we were so worried about Dad & working flat out to get a care plan in place to allow him to come home (we knew he was terminally ill), we didn't really notice car park costs until bank statements. It's stressful too circling round & round hospital car parks trying to find a space & not knowing what developments you're going to find when you get up onto the ward. Mum was in ICU, then in palliative care so we were given weekly car park passes & told we didn't have to pay. We weren't bothered about the money then, we just wanted Mum's surgery not to have failed, but I think it is ethically right that people are not charged in those situations.
I found all the hospital visiting very stressful & was just so very grateful to the NHS staff who kept Mum comfortable & pain free during her last weeks.
Anyway, it's a new day today m'duck.... you haven't spent yesterday frittering cash on new fancy frocks, so don't be too hard on yourself. Some spends are unavoidable.
F x

Thank you for a lovely reply Foxgloves and you're right - some spends are unavoidable. I think I need a good night's sleep and to try to keep things in perspective x

Glad you're getting lots done in the home ... so satisfying :T

Blackcats

Good morning. Unfortunately I write with a formal complaint from a pair of cats from down South. Yesterday was time for flea treatment which usually is administered in tablet form hidden in a delicious, expensive luxury meal of tender chicken slices in a delicate broth. However as I had neither the tablets or the tins of luxury food I shopped from home. I had 2 pipettes of the hated drops for the back of the neck. My cats seem to have a built in radar to know when these pipettes are in my hand. I don't know if it stings them or it's just the affront of liquid on their skin but they loathe the processes. In the interest of frugality they had to suffer yesterday. They sulked and skulked for a couple of hours and would like it to be known that they hold me and you responsible for the ignominy of the process.