Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Blackcats

Sounds like a productive day in the garden. Your story of the acquaintances who squandered their money reminded me of some friends from years ago who were the absolute opposite. They carefully meal planned which myself and OH found so amusing - planning 2 meals from a box of fishfingers and cutting cake into slices for their lunchboxes. We were so disparaging of their approach and bizarrely smug at our completely haphazard approach to shopping and spending. I finally recognise what they were doing back then as what I'm aspiring to do now. Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn't it?

foxgloves

Oh yes, Blackcats, hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing. I identified immediately with you thinking that frugal couple were a bit weird. My debts started two terms into university when I was 19. I recall shopping with a fellow student when she announced she'd get a later bus back than me because she was going to a different supermarket for a particular item because it was 3p cheaper. I told her that as that was almost a whole mile away, she'd save more than 3p in shoe leather by NOT going! She went anyway & arrived back at Halls on a later bus by which time I had told everyone about the 3p! But she wasn't heading for decades of debt like Yours Truly, was she?! We didn't stay in touch, but I bet those pennies she watched so carefully did turn into pounds.
F x

Kantankrus_Mare

Thanks for the info on Fish box Foxgloves. That sounds really good value!! Might have to have a look into it.

Not been on here for a few days which isnt like me. Was my birthday on Saturday and the plan was to go out for lunch or later on but Ive not been feeling brilliant so we didnt bother. I put it down to my period coming a week early (wish they just bloody well stop!!) and some months it just drains my energy. Last night though when I got in from work, OH asked if I could smell gas in the cupboard under the stairs. I could faintly and our son confirmed there was a leak by putting some washing up liquid on the pipe which bubbled so we called British Gas who came out within the hour! Impressive!!

Confirmed we had a leak and sorted it there and then so Im wondering if my lethargy might have partly been down to that? OH has constitution of an Ox and nothing much affects his health so maybe so.

foxgloves

Gosh, what a hassle with the gas leak, Kantankrus. Yes, it's possible that's what was making you feel poorly. Or it could, as you say, be the monthly joys. I had an awful perimenopause. I felt poorly the week before, during (including headaches which pole-axed me) & tired afterwards. My final period was 3 months before my 52nd birthday. I remember it well because I was in Sainsbury's when the damned thing arrived!! I'm lucky to have very few menopausal symptoms. I think I did all my suffering in the preceding decade. I don't miss feeling so rotten every month one bit! Let's hope you soon no longer have to put up with it.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers - What a soggy old day. It feels as though it has barely even got light. Thankfully Mr F was off this morning, so I was able to get to my breast screening appointment at the hospital by car - I think otherwise I'd have arrived looking like a desperate & very drowned rat after cycling in.
It suddenly feels as though Autumn has arrived. Our garden crops are coming to an end, our trees are golden now, & as I dig over the flower borders I'm conscious of digging up little bulbs which are just starting to sprout. I love spring bulbs - so much hope inside such a small brown ordinary thing.
Another sign of the summer's passing is that I had to use the heated airer overnight for the first time in absolutely months. As the forecast was for a week-long wazz-down, I decided to do 4 loads of laundry yesterday. All were pegged out & all got fairly dry, but the bigger items did need finishing off inside, so out came my trusty winter laundry friend. I switched it on before bed to maximise time on the cheaper tariff & everything was toasty warm & dry this morning.
I've got our dinner bubbling away in the slow cooker too - another autumnal happening in our house, as I like that little bit of warmth as it simmers away by itself in the kitchen almost as much as I like having a non-cooking day (you can't really call putting everything in your crock-pot 'cooking' can you...) & eating it! I've done lamb stew today. Mr W have their stewing lamb in stock again - the bone-in sort, which means you do have to be wary of bones while eating it, but you get a nice rich gravy & all the benefits of bone broth too (Did you see me getting all 'Gwynneth Paltrow' there?) I've packed it with veg too.....onions & garlic, as I'm sure I've been fighting of some unspecified lergy this week, leeks (apparently our good gut bacteria positively gobble these!), our home grown potatoes, rosemary & all my usual flavour ingredients, including a generous tablespoon of my friend's fab raspberry vinegar. I'll do a bit of extra veg for the Beloved as I picked more beans yesterday & they need using or freezing & I've identified some use-it-up cabbage which would be better on his plate than on the compost. So yes......the slow cooker, which admittedly I do use in summer too for things like pulled pork & BBQ sauce, is out ready for duty.
And finally today, I went round popping a new tealight into every holder. It is so dark & grey today that I shall pull the curtains early & when we sit down to watch GBBO later, I'll light them & we can enjoy their cosy flickering while I try not to go off on one about why on earth this or that contestant would attempt to make a whatever it is that way instead of how I'd do it!
We passed a local river today (not the major one our village is situated on) & it had over-topped. I know some areas of the country are worse affected than our region, so I do hope everyone is dry & not at risk of flooding.
Must get a few birthday gifts wrapped now......must see what I've got in my recycled wrappings stash as I only very rarely buy paper & ribbon and I make my own gift tags.
OK, I'm off,
F xx

foxgloves

Good Morning Frugal Land,
It's NOT RAINING!!
I've had two cups of coffee, a bowl of porridge with pear & blackberry compote & while not exactly raring to go, I do feel I've a bit more energy than the last few days.
So I'm off down to the shed for my gardening tools before the feeling goes away. Am determined to do a proper garden 'shutdown' this year, events prevented this the last couple of years and I do love to be able to hit the ground running at seed sowing time. Also, I still like to enjoy the garden over winter even if its just wrapping up in layers & popping out to the coffee bench. It will be so much nicer to be able to enjoy a bit of wintery structure rather than a soggy tangle desperate for a hack back.
So that will be my task for the next couple of hours. Little & often for gardening...... or accept that you will probably be an achey old crone for the next 2 days!
Wishing all my readers a peaceful & productive day,
F x

foxgloves

Felt absolutely virtuosic this morning for clearing the ironing basket before going outside for more autumn garden jobs.
And what fabulous sunshine after the deluge of the last couple of days. It felt like midsummer in the greenhouse, where I started off by potting three dozen baby winter lettuces into modules. A bit of end of season clearing next..... all the spent tomato & sweetcorn plants pulled up & conveyed to garden waste wheelie bin.... found a little corn cob I'd missed, so that was an extra ingredient on tonight's pizza, with lots of other home grown stuff. Potted up another dozen self-sown foxglove plants while clearing - I've got loads of stuff ready now, for filling gaps in the borders without going to the garden centre, which is good as they have very much featured as Centres of Spendyness in the bad old days. Two courgette plants are still producing - I picked a couple of small ones today - but two of the others I have left have stopped, so they were chopped into the compost bin today. That freed up the raised bed we made by knocking the base out of a wooden underbed storage box. I've weeded & dug it over this afternoon, as I think it will be a good place for my new strawberry bed. I haven't sorted my strawberry plants properly yet. I think there'll be too many to fit, but I could use a couple of long plastic troughs at each side & a strip of earth at the front if necessary. That will be a job for another day.
Not much kitchen witchery today, but I have been good on the zero food waste front. Discovered some out of date white pastry fat in the back of the fridge. As it looked fine & didn't smell weird, & I had butter & flour in, I decided to make it into pastry. So half an hour later..... 4 blocks of shortcrust pastry bagged, labelled & frozen. It'll be useful if I fancy making a quiche or a pie, or even for mince pies or sausage rolls in December. So another food item saved from the bin.
Need a knitting night tonight. I am behind now with my Christmas present knitting because of my recent discovery of fundamental errors in the pattern. I need to find something good to watch on TV while I get my needles clacking.
F x

foxgloves

Greetings O Frugal Ones,
Another busy day here & I'm just starting to feel a bit achy from all my garden endeavours. An early start too, as I like these cooler crisp mornings. Tackled a job I've been putting off for ages, & dismantled my strawberry growing construction (5 long troughs sort of built up Jenga-style). The plants have been there a while, needed a good hair-cut (much like myself....am starting to get that ageing 70s rock band look again....), as well as dividing up & I also needed to separate the new runners & investigate which ones looked viable. As a grumpy "I'm not going to grow any more, why should I, you can't make me' courgette plant was uprooted & composted yesterday, I finally had the new strawberry bed empty,so could crack on. I've planted 36 into the raised bed (the one which I think I mentioned is actually an under-bed storage drawer from the Swedish Emporium with the base bashed out by Mr F). With one of the long plastic troughs on either side of it taking another 18 between them, that should produce a few bowlfuls next summer, all being well. I've also divided up my alpine strawberry & planted a row of those in front of the raised bed. I really enjoyed getting this task done. Our little robin kept swooping in to gobble anything tasty I unearthed, then singing his socks off from the apple tree. I've planted about 20 new runners up in the greenhouse. I've found someone who will take a dozen of these to start her own strawberry pot, & I'll keep the others under cover to fill any gaps if needed in Spring. They are in the shelter of a thick hedge, but just in case we have a longer cold snap at any point over winter. With the digging, filling big troughs with compost & administering rather a lot of short back & sides, I didn't get much else done out there. I did bring a few geraniums under cover though, as it is a little cooler today & I don't want to lose them if there's a sudden frost.
Very little kitchen witchery today. Had intended to sample my gingerbread gin to see if it's strong enough yet, but didn't get around to it. I did bake bread though & cut another bunch each of oregano & golden marjoram - now tied & hanging from the kitchen beam for drying.
I have also swallowed a frog today......now that I have established that my adaptation of the knitting pattern I'm doing actually seems to work (I'm going to measure it again as soon as I sign out of here just to double-check), I had no choice but to pull out the first version, as it simply wasn't big enough. I couldn't use the already knitted part as a nice chunky fabric to make something for myself because if I do that, I won't have sufficient yarn to complete the corrected version. It's bad enough that the pattern is colour work, which instructs the knitter to cut off each yarn at certain points in the pattern to join in the next colour. So the yarn I've pulled out is in very small balls. I've just about got past the stage of feeling so angry about the error in the pattern & I think I've found a way I can use the small balls of pulled out yarn in the proper sized version. If I order new, the likelihood of being able to get the same dye-lot number is fairly slight, as I bought it a while ago. Grrrrrr........if anyone reading this is not a knitter or a crocheter, I realise this last paragraph is probably reading as gobbledigook. Suffice it to say that once I've subbed in one of the small balls as planned & know that it works, I'll feel a lot more confident about being able to finish the project. It was expensive to buy & I'll be gutted not to be able to complete & gift it as planned.
Anyway, I must stop rambling about knitting travails & go & find the spicy chickpea burgers I'm supposed to be cooking tonight. They are the last of the ones I batch-cooked a few weeks ago. I must make another batch while I've got all these green peppers to pick.
I might pop a warmer cardi on too - still no heating on.....unless Mr F cracks tonight & lights the fire, but he's usually quite a hardy beast, so I'm hoping to hold out for a few more days yet.
Cheers all,
F xx

crazy_cat_lady

Foxgloves, my heart is breaking for you just reading about your knitting. What a nightmare!

foxgloves

Thanks, CCL. It is because the magazine from which I cut out & saved the pattern said to use DK yarn used double, & size 5mm circular needles. The exact pattern, same photo & everything, is on Ravelry with some other afghans from the same designer and it quite clearly says to use aran weight yarn used double & size 10mm circular needles. That is a pretty fundamental error on the part of the magazine. It wasn't a pattern for a smaller version either, as the dimensions of the finished item were exactly the same. I just hope I have enough yarn now, so I must incorporate as many of these small pulled-out balls as possible.
I thought I'd be casting my new jumper on this month, but it'll have to wait!
Bah to stupid wrong patterns!
F x