Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Saturday Diary Readers,
Well, guess which numpty has spent all day thinking that it's Sunday! I think this is because Mr F was off yesterday & with a weird workmen-filled first half of the week, I seem to have got all out of cinque with things. Also discovered earlier when quickly synchronising our diaries for the week ahead that we have an important meeting tomorrow afternoon, which both of us thought was next weekend! As Mr F had intended to do roast pork tomorrow night, we decided we'd better have a re-jig of the meal plans as nobody wants to get back late & have to start messing around with making roast dinners. So he's doing it tonight & I've altered my meal plan so we can have something quicker tomorrow. I always do a meal plan - it's been one of the biggest savers of money since the LBM, but they are never cast in such heavy tablets of stone that there can't be a bit of flexibility if something comes up. That's what I like about the twin 'helpers' of a good meal plan backed up by a well-stocked store cupboard.
Not an NSD today, but nothing horrendous or guilt-inducing either. Fresh fruit & veg from the local market was all from this week's grocery budget, I bought some more marmalade oranges too, as I do gift a few jars & also sell to friends & family, so could do with making a couple of extra batches this week. We also bought a new cat bed. He's quite an old boy now & his bed belonged to our two previous cats before him. I noticed the other day that the base doesn't feel very padded any more, so thought he deserved a treat. Naturally he's ignored it so far, but that's cats for you! While we were in the shop looking for this cat bed (someone I know had bought one & I wanted to get the same one), we couldn't help noticing the prices. Now I don't want to mention names, but think large chain of stores which are known for their bargains. Well, neither of us use this store (I think I've been in about once in the past for a washing-up bowl) but we did kind of expect that the prices would be good & as a bargain store, would undercut other places . Well, I was so surprised.......cat food is cheaper in W*lko's which is always a bench mark product for us, & we didn't think any of the food prices were particularly bargainaceous. I didn't look at toiletries because we were on our way into town & then driving off to a localish NT place for a walk. Our feeling was that we could get most things for the same price or less by shopping around. A lot of it was branded instant food products which we don't buy anyway, so much as I do like a bargain, I didn't feel I'd been missing out at all by not shopping there.
Any more spending to confess? Oh yes, just coffee & toasted teacakes in the NT cafe & those were paid for from our January Personal Spends, so no hit to the budget.
It's been a very uncomplicated companionable day, but you know, sometimes after a weird week, that's just what you need, isn't it?
OK, dark has fallen & I must trot round & close all the curtains, then I think I'll light a few candles & see where I got up to with knitting my jumper.
Stay warm my frugal little snowdrops,
F xx

Onebrokelady

You can make crisps with potato peelings,I'm not sure on the method but I've seen it done somewhere and I'm sure it involved olive oil 😀

Blackcats

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society? I think the compost bin is probably the best place for the peelings. I'm a baby boomer too - if only they had drawn the cut off line a year earlier! I have always been quite wasteful and while my mum always cooks from scratch, she will "never eat 2nd day meat". I'm getting better with leftovers but I'm nowhere near as resourceful as many on these boards.
I love how you use up everything in imaginative and tasty ways.

foxgloves

Blackcats - Oh yes, I'd forgotten about that film, which I quite enjoyed, actually. I think I'll stick to composting my potato peelings for now though.
Agree re Baby Boomers cut-off year. I know the line has to be drawn somewhere but those of us born in the final year came of age during Thatcherism & the associated problems of high unemployment, rising property prices, runaway interest rates & no minimum wage, to name but a few. I don't think my life & circumstances have all that much in common with those born in the 40s & 50s. That might just be my view though. And although I was priced out of the housing market in my 20s, I did manage to get a mortgage & buy a little house - offer accepted on my 30th birthday. I think the people who did best with property are probably those my parents age who bought houses in the 60s & v early 70s costing around £5k, then benefitting from the steady rise in house prices ever since. That does always give the option of downsizing layer in life & stashing the cash balance.
But yes, it is odd as I dissacociate myself from the 'boomer' terminology & it brings me up short when I later see the tranche of birth years included in this group!
F x

foxgloves

Bright blue sky this morning when I popped out to feed the birds prior to doing the annual Big Garden Bird Count. I felt the tiniest little hint of Spring peeping over the horizon. All back to normal now, however, as it's chucking down with rain & feeling colder.
Have been trying to get on top of jobs today as have a long meeting this afternoon & a busy day planned for tomorrow.
Decided to tackle the leftover roast pork from last night's meal. Am pleased with how far it has stretched. There is enough for hot pork rolls with apple sauce tonight when we get back, I've done a tray of sliced meat in gravy for the freezer (for a quick 'free' roast dinner at some point) & I've frozen 200g pork in cubes ready to go in a slow cooker smoky chilli when we fancy one.
All the remaining odds & ends of meat has gone in a freezer box with leftover veg & gravy towards Mr F's next Epic Man Stew. Even the fat was chopped up & was being gobbled by a blackbird last time I looked out of the window.
I'm pleased with that as apart from yesterday & today's meal, it's also paid additional meals forward & I think that's one of the things I most enjoy about using up leftovers. It's that stashing in the freezer of 'free' meals which will impact positively on the shopping list over the next month.
Oh, I've just seen the time!! I must get myself ready to go out, rain or no rain!
Cheers all,
F x

crazy_cat_lady

Even I - hater of all things food-prep related - use sprouting tatties to make mash on ocassion. My ds says its the best thing I make - which is really high praise coming from him.

Is there not some sort of crossover generation between being a boomer and gen X? I was born at the end of Gen X time, but there's a mini generation called the Xennials, which covers the end of Gen X and beginning of millennials - and I 'fit' much better in that category. My mam is definitely a boomer through and through...

carrielovesfanta

crazy_cat_lady wrote: »

Even I - hater of all things food-prep related - use sprouting tatties to make mash on ocassion. My ds says its the best thing I make - which is really high praise coming from him.

Is there not some sort of crossover generation between being a boomer and gen X? I was born at the end of Gen X time, but there's a mini generation called the Xennials, which covers the end of Gen X and beginning of millennials - and I 'fit' much better in that category. My mam is definitely a boomer through and through...

I fit into the Xennials category (early millennial though). I kinda like that I feel like I've had the best of both worlds technology-wise. I grew up without a lot of it, but I'm young enough to use it easily now.

foxgloves

CCL - Glad to know you are good at using up sprouty tatoes rather than wasting them. Does your son eat cheese? Just thinking that cheese & potato pie (or cheesy mash as it's called in our house) could be a quick cheap dinner that at least a couple of you might eat?
My first cat used to like cheesy mash - we'd have to make sure we didn't leave our plates unattended as he'd start helping himself.
F x

foxgloves

Ooooohhhhh, at last I've finished with the calculator. Today is my Big Budget Day & I did start it an hour later, as I decided to prep the next batch of marmalade oranges for jamming tomorrow, but all the number crunching seems to have taken me ages this time. I think it was because I kept getting interrupted........first a parcel arrived for Mr F, then a delivery man knocked to see if I'd sign for a consignment of stuff for next door.......no problem, except for his huge lorry was parked on the next street & he spent about 20 mins fetching everything. I'd fetched the wheelie bin back (bin day), dead headed my winter flower tubs, litter picked & cut some bits of an overgrown shrub before he re-appeared. Then my fish box arrived, so I had to put my pinny on & get it all cut up, bagged, labelled & frozen. I did eventually get my budget finished. No nasty surprises from last month, I was pleased to discover. So different from the Bad Old Days when my out of control spending, which always surged at Christmas, was coming home to roost in the form of truly horrible bank statements & bills. We under spent our January grocery budget by £46, so I was able to pay for our cat's big sack of recently purchased biscuits from that, instead of using the Meow Fund (one of our new spreadsheet pots). I was pleased with that, as I'm trying to increase the Meow Fund (a pot I've only started recently) now that he's older & we have to pay a % of any vet treatment as well as the usual excess on our pet insurance if we need to claim.
I was pleased to see that the three invoices I've recently paid for work done on the house are now showing on our account, so I was able to update my other set of accounts too, which are for the sum of money we have ring-fenced for necessary home improvements.
The thing I most like about our Spreadsheet Pots (I've mentioned before that we have fairly recently increased these to ten for various categories of expenditure) is that they can be flexible according to our financial needs at the time. For instance, I have saved £600 into the Pot for Opticians/Dentist. That feels like a lot of money as we've never had anything saved at all for that category before, but I'm basing it on the possibility of Mr F & I both needing new specs at around the same time, which could happen. I almost needed a cardiac massage when I saw the bill for my current specs......I need varifocals & hadn't realised how expensive they were. I had to use a chunk of our Emergency Fund to pay for them, then not all that long afterwards, the Beloved went off for an eye test for work & needed two different new pairs, so setting up this new Spreadsheet Pot was really me trying to think ahead. Once I've got enough in it to cover that scenario, I can stop paying in to that & via that pot's share into a different one, according to needs. I like that it can be a flexible system. I am really trying to get the system up & running as realistically as possible to minimise having to dip into our Emergency Fund or savings.
Anyway, we are apparently having a discussion tonight as to whether we carry on paying for 'Prime', change to the other one or don't have a subscription at all. I don't really mind to be honest, but my red line would be paying for both of them. That would be more TV than I could watch, even taking out of the equation the many programmes in which I have no interest. Mr F assures me he has no intention of paying for both so at least we are on the same page!
Well, I must get my pile of financial filing done, then I am going to light some candles, sit by the fire & read or knit or probably both (but not at once, though I wish I could!)
Hope everyone's got off to a decent start to the week - if not, it's very early in the week, just start again tomorrow.
Love F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

I'm glad your budget held no nasty surprised Foxgloves. Enjoy your knitting and reading by the fire, it sounds so peaceful .