Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Oh, that was an odd little thing with signing in......had a message telling me I'd used the wrong sign-in & had got x more attempts, so tried again, same thing happened. But then noticed it had signed me in anyway.
It's my Big Budget Day today & I'm just having a little break after reconciling June's accounts & doing all the number crunching to set July's budget, & clearing a big pile of filing.
Thought I'd pop on to say that regarding June's grocery budget pledge to stick to the sum of £200 for the month (that's for 2 people, a large greedy cat & basic toiletries plus cleaning products, loo roll, etc). Well I'm pleased to say that we pretty much did it. We were over on the final shop of my June budget cycle simply because we decided to buy a bottle of wine for our little summer solstice celebration meal last Saturday. The wine was under a fiver & we were over our budget by just less than £4. I was pleased with that. I'd been concerned about the number of preceding weeks we'd been sliding over budget with groceries & while I think that rising food prices (& not having increased grocery budget) is definitely a factor, I wanted to have a squeaky clean month to see if it is still possible, as I felt that there would be some 'human factor' also involved, such as popping little extras in the trolley. For June, we deliberately bought fewer snacks.....I'm talking about the kind of things to go in lunch boxes, picnics, etc....& have baked similar instead. I baked a batch of Cranks' country biscuits - they're like digestives, not too unhealthy as are wholemeal plus oats not too sweet & also 2 batches of cheese oatcakes. We also used up half a dozen home-baked peach & ginger mini-muffins from the freezer, which I baked a while ago. I didn't have to buy anything for baking these snacks. I had all the ingredients in, so they were pretty much shopped from home.
When that bottle of wine went in the trolley (placed within by my own fair hand!), I knew it would take us slightly over the month's budget, but frankly I wasn't bothered by it by then. I fancied a drink that night & knew from my careful tracking of June's food spending that we would be sufficiently on target to enjoy it.
I've set the same amount - £200 - for July too. It doesn't include the fish box I've just had delivered as I'd already paid for that separately, so factoring some fish into our weekly meals during July should help with the overall target spend.
OK, I'd better crack on with that filing now, then I can get on with some gardening jobs. I found yesterday's weather so depressing.......the national & local forecast said it would be a dry day, but if rained here until late morning & then didn't really seem to get properly light all day. By the evening, I'd fetched my snuggly robe out again, got big socks on & you'd have thought it was 26th March, not 26th June! It's brighter today though, so I shall get the vegetable garden fed, before lunch, then see if I can reach deep inside myself to find the will to do all this week's ironing (my worst domestic job....well, excluding unblocking drains & cat sick duties, of course).
Oh & cat has had sun cream on his ears this morning, so isn't talking to me.
Filing time, Frugalistas,
F x

foxgloves

Evening Campers,
Well, I am completely knackered. It's Mr F's cooking night & I am sprawled in an old armchair in our conservatory deciding whether I've the energy to have a bath before dinner. And I think not! But once fortified with food, I will jump in & have a lovely soak.
Busy morning, as baked bread, cleaned the house & did all the bins, did next week's meal plans & put a colour on my yukky roots. But it was this afternoon's jobs I enjoyed. Finally after so much rain, I managed a really productive session in the veggie garden. I've tied in the climbing beans & made my annual supply of sparrow scarers from old CDs & recycled string, side-shooted & tied in all the tomato plants, staked all the peppers & chillies and generally tidied the greenhouse. Then a bit of hoeing & a fingertip weed of the spinach bed. I thought I'd have lost all the spinach, as having all that rain at seedling stage is so tempting to molluscs. They have defo scoffed quite a lot, but there are enough plants left to thin out when they are a little bigger, so I'll be able to fill the gaps in the rows. We are lucky that the local blackbirds & thrushes gobble up heaps of slugs & snails, so they are not our worst pest. Then out with the secateurs to take some annoying bits of hedge back to get more light onto the beans, all the veg watered & another fab bunch of sweet peas picked, which are smelling gorgeous up on the lounge windowsill.
We're apparently getting to A*di at 8.00 tomorrow morning, whizzing back home to put the shopping away, then heading off for a walk in Derbyshire. So I'd better get a shopping list done & enjoy an evening of doing very little, so as to recover a bit of energy!
Oooh, picked first home grown tomato today! And 5th cucumber.
Love to all,. F x

takingcontrolatlast

Sounds a lovely day you have planned:)

Any tips for greenfly on my hanging basket? I have been spraying with diluted washing up liquid but they seem to have doubled in number!!!

foxgloves

Hi TakingControlatlast,
I sometimes use washing-up liquid solution on aphids too, though I tend to make it up in a little bowl & sort of wash the aphids off with it, kind of squidging as I go.
Mostly I find the problem clears itself, as predators move in. Lots of things eat aphids.... Hoverflies, ladybirds, ladybird larvae, lacewings, even wasps. I would be gently moving any ladybirds or their larvae (which are easily recognisable & not yukky to touch) to your affected hanging basket & hoping that they tuck in. Our greengage tree is covered in aphids but the lacewings, birds, etc, are starting to make a move on them.
Good luck, F x

takingcontrolatlast

Thanks for the advice Foxgloves - i was inundated with ladybirds last year... not as bad investation this year .. typical just when i need one !

foxgloves

Hopefully they'll start rocking up when they get a whiff of all those naughty aphids x

foxgloves

Evening diary readers,
I'm all out of my routines this week, as Mr F is on leave & we've been having days of jobs alternated with days out.
So I haven't been updating my diary, which if I had, would have been about my decluttering project for July.
I can't take credit for the idea, as it's a watered down version of a minimalist challenge someone on here posted a link to years ago. I've done a version of it before, tailored to my needs & I'm doing it again. I'm not a hoarder, but I've noticed lots of little annoying bits of stuff building up lately.... documents, recycled stuff, lots of things in the shed, airing cupboard full to bursting, a kitchen cupboard which barely shuts.... you know the kind of thing.
So, I'm doing the challenge where you declutter one item on the first of the month, two on the 2nd, three on the third, right up to 31 items on 31st July. I thought this would help me focus & just nip a few cluttery little areas in the bud. So far:
1st July - 1 magazine (given to friend)
2nd July - 1 plastic pot with no lid & 1 plastic lid with no pot (& before anyone suggests it, no they defo weren't a pair,!)
3rd July - 2 titchy little pencils barely visible to the naked eye (I know my thrifty Grandad who lived through 2 world wars would have recycled these into rawl plugs!)
4th July - 1 ripped bag for life & 3 really irritating rubber bands.
Five more pieces of tat will be on their way tomorrow, I promise. I felt so good last time I did this challenge. I last did it in February some years ago, so this time, I should potentially shift an extra 61 items because of the longer month. It doesn't matter how small or insignificant the item, & I will make sure I recycle anything viable too, rather than throw it into landfill.
Hope I don't lose my momentum mid-month. At the moment I feel focused.
Let's see how it goes!
F x

wishingthemortgaheaway

Oooh, I like this idea. Might join you. Will need to play catch up tomorrow though.

foxgloves

Go on, WishingTMA, you can do it! You only need to do 15 items tomorrow & you'll have caught up. It doesn't matter how small the item. If it's cluttering up your life, you can count it as it wends its way out of your house.
F x

foxgloves

Greetings sunny diary readers,
Just cooling off after house cleaning & cutting back a chunk of garden border.
The July decluttering challenge is done for today. 6th July, therefore 6 items:
1 defunct carbon monoxide detector which had been sitting on the kitchen dresser for 3 months.
1 sheet of money-off vouchers which, realistically, we are not going to use as it's cheaper still to buy supermarket own labels.
1 glasses cleaning cloth which was utterly incapable of performing the single task expected of it... namely cleaning specs! Replaced with unused one found in drawer.
1 unrequired toiletry item donated to food bank bag.
1 bottle of hair straightening spray. A waste of money as my hair straightens much better without it.
Seven more items tomorrow.
Hope everyone seeing a bit of sunshine today,
F x