Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams!
A grey start & my early arrival out at the greenhouse meant I actually needed my coat! It soon warmed up though. Useful day so far. I've pegged out the overnight laundry, made a spelt loaf.....it is on its 2nd proving & needs to go in the oven very shortly, I've sown the first lot of climbing beans - 'Fasold' - using big recycled yoghurt pots as they provide lots of space for root development. I've also potted up some teddybear sunflowers & morning glory as both were getting a little too big for their modules. As soon as the sun came out, I stood the first trays of pot marigolds & cornflowers out on the lawn to begin hardening off. These are usually the first of the summer bedding I plant out. They seem a little hardier than a lot of annuals, but still wouldn't be too happy if a frost arrived, so they'll be brought back into the greenhouse at nights for a little while longer.
Mr F got the shredder out for another noisy session  - still no complaints from 'Victor Meldrew' - I kept expecting his head to pop up over the fence at any minute! He has cleared a walkway right around the shed now. This is a bit of an ongoing saga & the background to it is a bit of a saga too, but it stems from us having an opportunity to enlarge our garden by about another 5 feet at the far boundary. This space, however, was an overgrown jungly mess & also full of fragments of the previous owner's dumped plastic tat, so it has been (& still is) a lot of work. Mr F enjoys a big project though & he has almost made sufficient space for a patio table & two chairs to go in front of the shed. This would mean we'd have somewhere to sit down to pot up plants, have a coffee break while working in the veggie garden or just to admire all the hard work we put into growing veg!. Another nice thing is that the tiny rectangle of paving outside the shed is the absolute last place in our garden to get the evening sun before it finally sinks. I have plans to put a glorious red geranium on that table & some pretty coasters, but first he is intending to paint the outside of the shed. ......I said he liked a project! 
I've done a little bit of admin too, but don't intend to do any more jobs today. I just need to pop that loaf in the oven, then Mr F can listen out for the pinger because I'm off down to my pondside bench with my book......still reading the Camilla Lackberg novel. Am starting to form a little bit of an idea of who the murderer might just be, but not how the two murders decades apart link up with the part of the story set in the 1670s........I'm really enjoying it, anyway.
OK, m'ducks, stay safe.
F xx

BalanceBy50

Thanks foxgloves. I don't have a slow cooker but I do have a very large stewpot so will use that. We like risotto as well as tasty gravy so it will be very useful for that too.

Me BB50 likes a project too and we have a long sloping garden.  It was extremely overgrown when we bought the house so we are still excavating the bottom third. We have been very ruthless with the fruit trees as they were growing at off angles trying to get to the light! Good job we like it here as it will be a long time before they fruit again! 

Xx

HairyHandofDartmoor

The patio area by your vegetable patch would be a lovely place to sit in the summer . Do you have a patio area nearer to the house too?

foxgloves

Balanceby50- Your garden sounds very much like ours was, when we moved in nearly 18 years ago.
HHoD - Yes, we do have a patio area near the house but it is very shady most of the day. Great for sitting reading on a hot day, though.
F x

Onebrokelady

Loving your plans for the garden Foxgloves, my patio is in front of my house and normally gets the sun all day so it gets a bit hot,the are a bit overgrown though  at the moment so it's got partial shade I have a huge lilac bush that has got way out of control so that needs a trim, it's got lovely flowers at the moment though so can't do it yet,I was going to do it last year but missed my moment, it's definitely getting the chop this year though,I'm just hoping I don't kill it 

foxgloves

Hello Diary readers, 
I've had quite a gentle day today, which has been nice. I've spent most of the day on leisure activities, apart from watering the greenhouse plantlets & outside seed troughs, 🍓 bed, etc, & making a batch of BBQ sauce in my slow cooker.
Tomorrow is my Big Budget Day so I've also had half an hour sitting with Mr F making notes of things I need to factor into my calaculations. He has to go in to work tomorrow, so it's much better that I make a few notes rather than have to text him to ask 'What's this £30?' or a myriad of other small queries.
But I've enjoyed some reading time too.
F x

foxgloves

Greetings diary readers,
I hope you are all managing to have as good a day as is possible, all things considered. I was up at 6 am today. Mr F had set the alarm for an early get-away for work. He wanted to get done & home early as we are having a BBQ tonight....the one day of birthday week where rain isn't forecast. I think that as he was raring to get going, it had a positive effect on me too, as I decided to put a wash on while still on the cheaper night-time tariff, got the kitchen tidied & was up at my desk by 8.15 ready for my Big Budget Day.
I'm pleased to say everything went smoothly. It seemed to take a bit longer logging onto internet banking & other accounts this morning - I expect more people are banking online atm & also, many people will be getting in touch with financial providers trying to arrange payment holidays, etc, with everything being such a mess. 
There were no nasty surprises from reconciling April's budget (my budget cycle is from the 27th of every month)., but grocery spend was too high. I've been able to accomodate this, but my heart goes out to those who are struggling with lack of income/delayed UC payments, because the food supply/shoppping scenario over the last couple of months has definitely made careful budgeting more difficult. I've allowed a bit extra for May as a halfway house kind of thing, but really, we are both keen to see our food spend falling back to where we expect it to be, so must see what we can do. We've had to create a 3rd Excel spreadsheet this week. I have one detailing all our regular bills/direct debits, one detailing how much money is in our various savings pots & we have now set up an extra one. This has become necessary because we usually have out monthly 'Personal Spends' allowance in cash. It's what we prefer, & if either of us want to buy anything online using a card, it's no problem, the cash is just put into the grocery petty cash purse & amounts altered accordingly. It works well......until the current crisis, when of course we are all using cards/contactless for hygiene reasons, meaning that too much cash was building up in the grocery purse when we are only really able to pay in cash at the local market. I think it will work ok though, although we will probably both want to revert back to having our allowance in cash when the situation normalises.
I did spend about 10 mins thinking I was about £100 adrift in my sums, but it was one of those things I just suddenly spotted........I had already paid off £103 (3 budgeted for purchases) made on a credit card, but had carefully itemised them in my money book as well, so on paper, I'd paid accounted for the same money twice. It was nice to spot the anomale & get the money credited back in!
I haven't paid all of our Savings Pots this time. I left 'Appliances replacement' as it was, as I reckon we should hopefully have enough in there for a new cooker - everything else has been replaced fairly recently. I also left 'House & Garden' because the home improvements work has obviously had to be delayed, so we won't need to be spending on housey things anytime yet, & I left 'Leisure & entertainment'.......because, let's face it, we're not going anywhere, are we?
But I paid the other pots - I'm aiming to get the Opticians/Dentist pot up to a level where it could sustain both of us needing new specs as when I bought my current ones (varifocals), I had to use emergency fund money to pay, & Mr F has 3 different pairs of specs, so it could potentially get expensive. I also paid the 'Meow Fund' as our old boy isn't getting any younger & although he has cost us a lot less than previous cats for vet treatment, we are aware of his health problems, & they aren't things which are going away. He is insured, but as pet owners on here will know, you pay bigger premiums, more excess & a bigger % of the balance, the older they get. We've never had anything saved for opticians or vet bills before I increased the number of our savings pots last November from 6 to 10. 
I am still sometimes struck by how different things would have looked had I discovered the empowerment of budgeting when I first started work, rather than over 2 whole decades later! Ah well, better late than never. 
Well, I shall stop droning on about the minutiae of my May budget & go & fetch a cup of coffee. I only need to make a batch of garlic flatbreads later to accompany BBQ, & to mix up a sourdough loaf for baking tomorrow, then I am done for jobs today.
Take care, Flowerpots,
F xx

foxgloves

Oh......sorry, I AM still droning on........one thing that did occur to me while we are not able to go out & not paying out as much for petrol, is that a little bit extra being paid into the Presents Pot wouldn't be such a bad idea, so I've been doing that too & this money will mostly be used to fund Christmas presents. Again, this isn't something I've really saved for in the past......we did have a Presents Pot, but the amounts I paid into it really only covered some birthday expenditure, plus a few Christmas gifts which I bought earlier in the year to put away. It does feel very positive actually to be thinking ahead.......although I don't think we spend as much as we used to, as compared with ten years or so ago, 5 people for whom we always bought gifts have died & 2 no longer speak to us, so circumstances have impacted on spending levels.....but not as much as attitude change & practical budgeting measures, of course.
OK, I really am going now......
Cheers m'dears,
F x

DawnW

My grocery spending has been ridiculous this month Foxgloves. I haven't been able to go to markets as I normally do, and think that many things are genuinely more expensive overall. And some things are not / have not been obtainable at supermarkets which has meant sourcing them from elsewhere, usually somewhere more expensive

foxgloves

Yes, you are absolutely right, Dawn. For instance, I bought a bulk order of flour from a local windmill, so that was a much bigger amount of money than my more usual 2 bags of bread flour & 1 of plain every couple of weeks. We have bought a few more treat type foods recently for lockdown birthday celebrations too, & to be fair, we would usually have gone out for a meal & paid for that from a different fund, so that is another reason why the grocery spend was higher. The main reason though, is exactly as you describe. Food/Household shopping habits are all over the place. I really must try for more control over food spend during May.
F x