Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

A late post from me today. I've been quite busy, then we had a visitor & I got very involved with knitting my new jumper. It's the most lovely shade of heathery purple. Still loads of it to knit as yet, though.
Lergy is still much in evidence & the cough is sounding like an expiring sheep, but I've had more energy today & felt more cheerful. I cleared the ironing pile, did some batch cooking, tidied the kitchen, wrote next week's meal plans & did some sewing.
I'm pleased to say there have been a few nice little shopping from home wins today. I went to fetch a new bar of soap & as it was the last one in the cupboard, I wrote it on my shopping list. Then I remembered my lovely shampoo bar...... gorgeous fragrance but just impossible to get on with for hair washing. Tried it on my hands. Fantastically moisturising. Popped it in the soap dish, returned new bar to cupboard & crossed soap off shopping list.
Ditto sewing. I was gifted a set of exquisitely stitched decorations at Christmas & decided to string them onto natural coloured cord to hang as bunting. No suitable cord in my craft stash, so made a note to buy some in town. Then I thought, hang on a minute, I've got a huge ball of natural jute string. What about making one of those cords we used to twizzle when we were kids? I used exactly that method...... one end of the strands tied around a door handle while I turned the other end on a pencil propellor. Success! One jute cord! Stitched the decorations in place & added a little pearly button from my button jar to cover my stitches. Sadly it's had to go away in the Christmas box, but it will look fab strung across the wall next year & will be ready to go.
I nearly fell out with Cat while I was sorting out the string. He would keep walking through it, getting it stuck round his paw, trailing it everywhere and as soon as I freed him, he did it again several times, meaning I had to keep starting all my measuring again. Then I felt a bit mean for getting cross with him & cut off a spare piece of string so he could have a little game. Well, despite me making all sorts of little scampering mousey noises & dangling this string at him in a series of ever more eventful ways, he sat there looking at me as though it was time to call the dementia nurse & was having none of it.
Well, I'd better get a shift on. I want an early start tomorrow as we've planned a city centre trip & like to arrive before the traffic queues start to build. I must pop any relevant vouchers in my purse & also make sure I remember the shopping list, as our plan is to call at the supermarket on our way home & do as much of our weekly grocery shop as possible with our annual nectar points.
So I shall say goodnight & talk to you tomorrow,
F x

foxgloves

Well, all I can say is that lergies are definitely money saving. City centre trip postponed because I awoke at 4.20 am with such a banging headache, I had to get up to take some codiene. The lovely Mr F brought me some coffee & toast in bed before setting off to do the grocery shopping. Bah! Not how I envisaged spending today at all!
I can move around slowly now...... no sudden moves........ so I think I will find a peaceful sitting down task I can do before I start feeling sorry for myself. Hopefully I will have at least a tiny bit of something positive to report later. I suppose not being able to spend any of my January 'Personal Spends' cash is a win of sorts. I never really get the same buzz from online shopping, which is just a 'means to an end' for me.
My first lergy symptoms appeared exactly a week ago, so I think it is now high time they disappeared.
Foxgloves-the-Moany x

Kantankrus_Mare

Aww not good. Have a lazy day.......keep warm and hydrated......and keep thoughts on the positives. You can get more with your extra spends next visit into town.

Onebrokelady

Oh no sorry to hear your lurgy has taken a turn for the worse and I hope you feel better soon xxx

foxgloves

That's very true, Kantankrus. It can sit safely in my purse until then. I've felt rough all day & my headache still hasn't gone, so I'm glad I made the decision to stay home.
Had to laugh at Mr F. He decided he'd still drive to outskirts of city to get our weekly groceries, particularly as we'd decided to use our annual accumulated nectar points.
Well, he came through the front door with all the shopping bags, just about chuffing his head off & calling himself all the numpties under the sun. Turns out he'd got to the till, then completely forgot about the nectar points & paid using money! It did make me laugh, as this is more the sort of thing I'd do, but no damage done, we can pay with our points next time.
To be fair, he did a good shop. We have resumed meal planning now that the Christmas holidays are almost over & most meals will be from stores. Despite using a more expensive supermarket, he came in at what would have been just a £3 overspend on our old grocery budget, but £17 under now that I've increased the amount. The higher monthly grocery budget is still a work in progress, as I'm expecting it to work harder, so I'll be interested to see how it pans out. I think we will need to try it for a few months first though, to get an accurate picture.
I've achieved virtually nothing today as have felt completely poleaxed by the headache. Luckily it's Mr F's cooking night. He's making a lovely Quorn curry recipe, which I really like.
I did manage one little shopping from home win though. Had we got into the city this morning, I'd intended to look for a nice notebook to use as my healthy eating & exercise tracker this year. As we didn't go, I had a look around Foxgloves HQ to see if I had anything which fitted the bill & found a very nice hardback red & white polka dot notebook I received as a gift ages ago. It's perfect for the job in hand, so I will use that one & doubtless save between & £7 & £12, as I am a bit of a sucker for stationery.
But apart from that, it's been a day of the most tedious poorliness. Bah to headaches & lergies. I honestly expected to be hitting the shops with genuine new year relish today.
Hope everyone else has had a better day.
F x

foxgloves

Thanks, OBL. I am feeling a little better, but extremely tender around my temples, always the aftermath of a bad headache for me.
F x

1LuckyLady

Sorry to hear you're still unwell Foxgloves, hoping that you feel better very soon.

Blackcats

Hope you feel better soon. A good night's sleep might help kick the lurgy into touch.
I like the sound of your shopped from home notebook - I love stationery. There is some irony that your healthy eating/exercise notebook was discovered when you are feeling very unhealthy.

foxgloves

Lol, Blackcats. Yes, most ironic! Those of us who have been big spenders must never underestimate the untapped resources still lying around in our houses ready for shopping from home opportunities. It wasn't the only notebook I found up in my HQ by any means. There was also a flowery one, two paperback ones & a big A4 one with purple cats on it. And there I was (not even a spendy person any more) going off with the intention of buying a new one!
F x

foxgloves

Greetings Diary Readers,
Well m'dears, thanks for your well wishes. I am still lergyfied but I don't think I have coughed as much today and oh, the JOY of waking up this morning to discover that yesterday's headache from hell had completely gone. I almost skipped out of bed! I was washed, dressed, made-up & was slapping dinner in the slow cooker in no time, so as to be able to get outside & start my day!
It has been a low-spend day on the whole. We went to a beauty spot over in the next county for which we have an annual parking pass, so my only spends today was a coffee & scone in the cafe and a magazine & some chocolate later on - all from my Personal Spends so no effect on the budget whatsoever, which is how I like it.The scone & chocolate were 'Last Treats for the Condemned Woman', as I am well & truly back on my healthy eating plan tomorrow. I also intend to add a rhubarb gin to the treats mix tonight....but who cares? Rhubarb? That's a fruit isn't it? Or actually, as a gardener, I'd have to say I believe it is actually technically a vegetable.
I have enjoyed using my 'shopped from home' notebook to write up my diet plan, exercise targets & monthly tracker charts today, especially as it was an opportunity to get my tin of coloured pencils out! Mr F is all set to go back to work & I have designated tomorrow as 'Get back to normal day'. I have really enjoyed Christmas - seeing my family, spending quality time with Mr F here at home.....everything apart from having the lergy, actually, but I am really ready now to get back to my normal routines. I have loads of new stuff to start progressing asap, esp the work on our house, but first, I want to get everything straight, from budgets to my usual levels of organisation with admin, you name it! So tomorrow, I shall be tackling all of that, then on Tuesday, I intend to draw up a tentative plan of how we might go about the building & other works. I also need to do a bit of fridge triage. You know we have a zero food waste policy here & I had to compost half a red cabbage the other day. I was so annoyed! I could easily have used it or prepped & frozen it, but because of being out of my routines, I hadn't even spotted it was there!
So expect to hear that I have gone through the house like a dose of Grandma's liver salts tomorrow!
Cheers all,
F x