Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

HHoD - My Dad wasnt a gardener, but my Mum was a fine plantswoman. She was so knowlegeable & could work miracles on houseplants I'd given up for dead! Apart from us having a veggie plot, my style of garden is heavily influenced by my Mum. She had something in flower pretty much every month of the year & trained me well in her tactic of examining every pot of whichever plant she wanted to buy at the garden centre to find one which could be divided into at least two if not three plants once she got it home!
F x

foxgloves

BaileysBabe - Yes I agree. A garden is a blessing. Our current house was built mid-1930s & I often wonder what food crops might have been grown by the owners during wartime. I'm sure a decent sized garden was even more of a blessing then with food shortages. Our veggie plot inc greenhouse & my herb bed is about a third of our garden. I would think with lawn & flower borders turned over to food production, we could be fairly self-sufficient..... not that I have any intention of doing that, though.
F x

foxgloves

Loopylupin - Hello & welcome. Thank-you for your nice comments about my diary. I started it hoping I could show people it is truly possible to change even very longstanding bad habits.
Debtbusting really does involve heaps of small tweaks & changes, which combined, can add up to decent overpayments. I can remember that each time I'd saved £10 or £20 of 20p pieces, into a cashbag they'd go & off to the bank to knock a bit more off what I owed on my vile flexiloan. Five regular products bought at the pound shop for £1 each rather than £2 each.... that's another fiver which can be paid off a card. Any ebay or ziffit sales? That's another overpayment. Then all those money saving habits can be targeted at building savings.
Hope your baby veg plants flourish. 
Good luck with your debtbusting. 
F x

loopylupin

You have certain helped keep me keeping on. I have made a little progress, and think twice before making any purchases. A lot of the stories you have shared remind me of myself and why I needed to change. I completely agree with you it’s tiny changes. I have started a £1 a day jar, which is growing nicely. I have adopted your ‘waiting until I get home for a coffee’ would have lots i means loads of coffees every week (not so easily available at the moment). 
I sell a few handmade items on the Bay of E this all goes into paying something off. By making these tiny changes I paid off my overdraft in January! Something I had learnt to live in for 35 years!!! I cried when I made the final payment. 
So again Thank You for inspiring me x

foxgloves

Evening Careful Money Fairies, 
Today has passed by rather quickly, despite a good early start. Mr F had to get into work at Silly o'Clock to let a boilerman in, so I jumped in his bathwater (Mr F's, not the boilerman's) & enjoyed being up a bit earlier. I've done a bit of tidying, two loads of laundry dried on the line, came up with a bit of a plan for lockdown birthday, did next week's meal plans & did my usual Monday morning budget updates & banking.
This afternoon, I decided to be brave & to start making my new top. Oh my days..... I was soon reminded why I am a knitter & not a dressmaker! Cut out the pattern pieces.... well you can' t really go wrong with that. Folded fabric in half ready to start pinning pattern pieces. Oh. Fabric has to be folded sides to centre first so as to cut two of the pieces on a fold. Re-did it. Pinned pieces on. V neat. Took ages. Then realised I'd pinned them the wrongvway round. Re-pinned them. Decided slightly to alter style......which involved re-pinning again.
Took a photo of my pattern ammendment & Whatsapped it to my sister (v good at dressmaking) to see if she thought it would work. She said it would, but it would hang better if I did it another way, cutting the pattern pieces open along the grain line. My pattern didnt have a grain line so I drew one on....... & this extra stage of faff meant unpinning all the pieces then re-pinning yet again. At this point Mr F said he'd do dinner..... it only involved turning a cottage pie base from the freezer into a cottage pie & doing a bit of veg, so he got on with that & I FINALLY cut out two pattern pieces. The sleeves will have to wait till tomorrow. 
This, EXACTLY THIS, is why I'm a knitter. I've done a bit of dressmaking in the past but I tend to lose confidence & heart mid-way, more often than not ending up with a garment destined for the charity shop bag. But I dream of finding a couple of good versatile patterns I can turn out in various fabrics until I can make them really well & confidentally.
Window. Look. Past. Oh. There's. Pig. A. Flying. My!! 
Ah well, if I get time after constructing rustic bean wigwams tomorrow, I'll have another go & heaven forfend, might even progress as far as getting my sewing machine out!! 
Night all, 
F xx

Onebrokelady

foxgloves said:

I hope you can find some soon, OBL. Do you not eat any pulses at all? Mr F said stocks of those (tinned) were much improved when he last went shopping. Would you make a nut roast or bean burgers? I'm just thinking about protein options. We're having spicy chickpea burgers tonight. I batch cooked some a while back to freeze. They're tasty & cheap to make, plus filling & nutritious. It's a Delia Smith recipe.
But meanwhile, I hope the quorn fairies are on route to your neck of the woods for some swift restocking. 
F x

No I don't eat any pulses Foxgloves, I really don't like cooking so sauces come from a jar, the only recipes I make from scratch are Leek Croustade which does contain nuts so has a protein source and the Butternut squash green bean pesto gnocchi bake that I like, I buy nut cutlets from Mr S, my diet is not good,I go for weeks without eating any veg and would happily live on toast, I'm wasn't hungry tonight so just had two crumpets for my tea, I make bolognese using Vivera mince and a jar of sauce and I make a curry using Quorn chicken pieces and a jar of sauce, I'm making that tomorrow and have gone a bit crazy and bought a pepper to go in it, I would love to be one of those people who liked to cook and I'm a good cook but I really don't like doing it 

foxgloves

Oh, well it must be quite tricky for you in the Quorn shortage, OBL, if you don't eat any pulses. I once knew a vegetarian who didnt't eat vegetables. He lived on cheese & onion pasties, crisps & toast and marmalade!
I didn't realise that you don't like cooking. I always think of you cooking from scratch, as you've mentioned cooking sufficient portions to last a few days. Well, each to their own likes & dislikes, eh? There are only a few foods I won't eat, but I REALLY dislike these: brussel sprouts, mashed swede & carrot, horseradish, TVP the dried chunks, mince or any other form, whisky, chamomile tea & horlicks! 
F x

Onebrokelady

I do make enough meals to divide into four portions but if it's bolognese the sauce is from a jar 😀 I love Brussel sprouts,mashed swede and carrot ( prefer it roasted though ) Whisky so long as it's Irish or from the USA and Horlicks is one of my all time favourite drinks 😂

The funny thing about this situation is I have been looking for Quorn chicken pieces for weeks so I can use the curry sauce I've bought and yesterday I found half a bag in the freezer 🙄🙄🙄tomorrow I'm making the curry and shall add an onion and the lone pepper I bought 😀

I sometimes make a root veg curry but I still use a jar of sauce, I'm also fond of using microwave rice 😊

DawnW

foxgloves said:

 I once knew a vegetarian who didnt't eat vegetables. He lived on cheese & onion pasties, crisps & toast and marmalade!
F x

When I was a postgrad, I shared an office with a vegan who seemed to subsist entirely on oranges and brandy

foxgloves

Lol, OBL, I've never owned a microwave oven & am absolutely hopeless with them. It's a constant source of hilarity to Mr F when we are in a holiday cottage. We once bought a supermarket ready-meal curry kit while we were on holiday. I have never known such a faff for basically just heating a load of stuff up...... different settings & timings for different dishes, not being able to fit it all in at once, messing about with plastic film, having to stir each container mid-way before resetting timer. Mr F came in to see what all the chuntering was about & I was stomping around saying that from the point of starting to open the box & read the instructions, I could have made a veggie or prawn curry from scratch! Needless to say on subsequent holidays, I don't choose to cook anything which involves microwaves! I seem to remember I once used one at work circa 1994 to cook a jacket potato 🥔! 
I do have a nice quorn curry recipe from a vegetarian Indian book I once borrowed from the library. We both really like that. It makes 3 good portions so one goes in the freezer because I also like it on a jacket potato or in a bowl with a side of jacket wedges. 
Good to hear you came across a bit of Quorn in your freezer. We did a freezee list recently & found things we'd forgotten about too. 
F x