Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

OK, so today, Mr F was keen to try the new BBQ again, as there was an issue with it last time,, which he wanted to resolve, so off we went to the local butcher. We'd identified that we'd already got some chicken in the freezer to use, he'd dug a bowl of lovely home grown potatoes & I would pick plenty of salad, so we didn't need to buy much. Since he fell off the vegetarian wagon, Mr F can barely pass a butchers shop window without getting the red mist. So at the counter, when we'd already picked what we wanted, he suddenly spotted a tray of huge ribs & before I could say we didn't need anything else, he'd chosen one (& it was the biggest) because his greedy tummy got the better of him.
Now, we've all seen 'Jurassic Park', this was no ordinary rib. It was massive, like the result of some secret DNA experiment to bring the woolly mammoth back to life. It was placed on top of our other purchases like an extra special treasure, despite the damn thing taking up most of the width of my shopping bag. Back home, it was carefully unwrapped & admired. Would he marinate it? Yes, No, Hmmm, Maybe, Actually no, he'd just leave it plain & 'let the quality of the meat come through'.
So later, he cracked on with the BBQ, & it was lovely. We've shared a bottle of wine, played some good sounds, sat out & watched the bats & enjoyed the food........ but when it came to the piece de resistance, the colossal rib going on the BBQ.......guess what.... he was too full!! He just couldn't believe it! But he's so used to our zero food waste policy these days that he re-wrapped it & froze it for next time! I was amazed....... but not quite as amazed as I was at myself for managing not to say 'I told you so'.
But he'll do it again. I swear if there'd been a four foot long rib at that butchers, he'd have bought it!
Ah well, at least nothing is wasted, & while he was finding a premium space in the freezer for the rib, he found some leftover crumble, so that's tomorrow's dessert sorted.
F x

Honeysucklelou2

What a lovely evening...watching bats is fascinating, often have them flying n the garden, usually around the trees .

foxgloves

I know, Honeysucklelou, aren't they fascinating creatures?

foxgloves

Greetings to all frugal diary readers,
It's a bit too hot for me today, so I'm enjoying a lazy afternoon on a shady garden bench reading.... alternating between my current library book & a luscious big pile of magazines recently gifted to me.
I've been reading an article about mindfulness. While I like the concept of 'mindfulness', I've decided I don't much enjoy reading about it. The exercises would be impossible for me. I know I can't 'focus on one tiny area of my body at a time, noting how it's feeling, etc, & how it feels as I let any tensions go'.....
Even the thought of that exercise made me feel tense. My mind is difficult to slow & this kind of meditative exercise just invites mental intrusion & clutter. Then there's the mindfulness books which can be bought, the apps - Love the concept, but this guided path full of opportunities to fail isn't for me.
A little later, I sat watching a small dragonfly balance balletically on the pinnacle of our bird feeder pole, while two stunning red admiral butterflies tucked into the nectar in my deepest purple buddleja nearby. So perfect, there was nothing in my mind but the enjoyment of them. Tuning into the soundscape too....... birdsong, buzzing & a contented muffled croaking from beneath the loose edging of our courtyard, where I think a toad must have taken up residence.
And all those simple repetitive garden jobs..... taking out a trug of weeds, hoeing the earth, deadheading flowers with a snip here & a snip there, sitting by the pond with a cup of coffee watching it ripple & spark with life....... or earlier in the summer, lying on my back on the grass, watching the swifts soaring, swooping & diving overhead. And blackberry picking.... just the joy of those glossy berries plopping into the tin as the purple juice stains spread from fingertips up to my elbows, already thinking ahead to the molten jam pan which will surely follow. Or taking a walk on a frosty morning & loving all the pavement sparkles?
Isn't this Mindfulness?
I think it very much is.
In that case, I CAN do it, but it happens naturally as I go about the simple outdoor tasks which make me happy.
It's only when I try a scripted exercise & introduce 'trying' to reach a state of mindfulness deliberately, that I am utterly unable to empty my mind.
But finding stillness in the natural world, in doing simple things, I think that's what we are all crying out for. These opportunities are free & can be found anywhere.
Love & peace,
F x

Kantankrus_Mare

Hope everyone is having a great Bank Holiday weekend?

Been a bit crazy here the past 3/4 days. The plumber came Thurs and Fri to get things in place for the new heating system which he will fit this coming Tues and Weds.

In the midst of all this I still had the urge to clear clutter from my loft and spent most of Friday lugging all my crap/unwanted/useless stuff from out of the loft. I was sooooo hot but as I wanted to do a car boot sale yesterday......it had to be done.

There was that much stuff that we borrowed our sons camper van to get it all in. OH helped me which was a bonus and we managed to shift quite a bit of stuff and came home with a profit of around £70 which I was very pleased with. Amazes me what people will buy.
The thing I really didnt think would sell was a ball and half of wool. Not even in the same colour! :rotfl: 50p

I have been up in the loft again and after getting a decent price for the meccano yesterday, I have decided to sell the lego, Tomy train set and K'nex. I wont let them go cheap though as I know they are so expensive to buy new.

All set for another car boot tomorrow morning and hopefully will get rid of some of the crap that didnt go yesterday.

We have done a tip run as well and will probably need to do another later next week when the boiler installation is all done.

Amongst my crap was loads of magazines which I thought would sell but OH said they wont so I have saved all the sainsburys magazine and good food ones and got rid of the rest.

I will slowly go through all the foodie magazines as I am a keen recipe saver. You know the kind? You see a recipe you fancy, cut it out, put it in a file and never actually make it?? :rotfl:

Anyway the theory is , I will have a good sort out of said recipe file at some point as well and get rid of anything I will never make and replace them with new recipes which I WILL have a go at.

I love to find recipes that makes use of something I grow and therefore making a cheap meal.

Right.....just the K'next to get out the loft now and some new price labels to make.

Wish me luck for round 2. Not feeling it at the moment as we were out last night drinking and as |I dont do that often these days, its taken its toll but there is no way I am putting carp back into loft as it will be another three years before it sees the light of day again. :D

foxgloves

Well, it's defo 'Good Luck' for round 2 from me. What a stonking bit of decluttering. As pretty much all car booters I've encountered in the past as an occasional seller, have been intent on trying to get something for nothing, you came home with a decent profit!
Hopefully your K'nex, etc, will sell, but don't let people take the p*ss with stupidly low offers. I can recall one buyer offering us a breathtakingly low amount once at a car boot, while already putting the items in his bag. I made him get them all out again & said if we wanted to give our stuff away, we'd go & stand on a street corner somewhere & hand it out for free!
Re recipes. Yes, I'm forever snipping them out of magazines & like you, particularly for stuff we grow. I have a little wooden file box & they go in there & if they become a regular part of my cooking repertoire, they graduate to being copied into my current recipe book. This year, I've copied in little pork pies, tuna & sweetcorn wedge melt & a now very much tried & tested rhubarb & ginger jam.
Back to decluttering toys. I don't have children, but there are still two toys I really regret my Mum getting rid of when we got too old to play with them. One was an amazing dolls house my Grandad made for my Mum in the late 1930s & the other was my circa 1974 big Barbie campervan with all its many accoutrements. The dolls house should really have been kept as a beautifully handcrafted family piece, & the rather psychedelic campervan I like to think could have been sold for a nice little wodge of cashola. Still, to be fair, neither my sis or I wanted to store either of them & Mum was decluttering so she gave them to some younger children on our street.
Hope you have a worthwhile day tomorrow. Look forward to hearing about it.
F x

Elnora32

A little later, I sat watching a small dragonfly balance balletically on the pinnacle of our bird feeder pole, while two stunning red admiral butterflies tucked into the nectar in my deepest purple buddleja nearby. So perfect, there was nothing in my mind but the enjoyment of them. Tuning into the soundscape too....... birdsong, buzzing & a contented muffled croaking

[FONT=&quot]This is such a beautiful description – I can picture the scene[FONT=&quot].[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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Kantankrus_Mare

Only kids stuff left up there now is daughters Dollies and box full of clothing for them. One is Baby Annabel......another Baby Born which has some absolutely beautiful clothes which I can remember werent cheap!!

My mother has insisted I dont get rid as she has kept my brothers two girls baby prams in her loft and they would all go together at some point.

My mother and father are such hoarders!! The garage itself is full to bursting with things that "Will come in handy" but I can see into the future and know its going to be me that gets the job of sorting when anything happens to them. Dread to think what is in their loft!!

Thats a good idea with the recipes!! The only new one I have really used out of my stash this year is a courgette, lemon and pistachio drizzle cake.

I have lots of recipes for curries but will get rid of those as we love the gousto box curries that we have had and recreate quite a few of them.

Other stuff to sort in loft is son and daughters school stuff that is all rammed in a corner. We home educated daughter from age 11 and all the stuff we did with her is up there and really dont need to keep it. Would like to sort a box each for them with school photos and reports. Son said he doesnt even want the reports keeping but its one thing I wish Id kept from my own school life.

Honeysucklelou2

I totally agree with finding a sense of peace and relaxation from the beauty of the natural world. I find drinking a cup of tea, sat on the bench in the garden at dusk, is great way of destressing after work. The bats flit around, sometimes I can hear the owls calling to each other and the view of the stars on a clear night is beautiful.

I remember once, going to a birthing class where the midwife was intent on getting us all to try mindfulness. She asked us all to envisage a nice clean blackboard and picking up the chalk and thinking about what we would write on the said blackboard. Since I was doing that on a daily basis as part of my job, I didn't find the exercise as useful as the midwife had hoped .

Dottles1

Yes Foxglove that definitely mindfulness. It's such a shame that we now need to be taught how to be in the moment and enjoy what we see, feel or experience. As a society we are so used to being bombarded with brightly coloured, noisy stimuli that we often don't recognise the beautiful subtleties of the world around us. Added to that businesses and marketers have taken to using the term mindfulness as a route to make quick money. All this makes me sad.