Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Teapot2 - I really did enjoy the unwrapping. Put it on the coffee table. Admired it, stroked it lovingly then packed it back in its box. It isn't coming out until the dust of Aug/Sept's building work is over so I shall enjoy unpacking it all over again.
HHoD - Yes, we felt as safe as it was possible for them to make us at the NT place this morning. So much of it comes down to people being sensible & not getting too close to each other & most people had their sensible heads on this morning, I'm glad to say.
F x

foxgloves

Morning m'dears,
Am up bright & early this morning. Big Budget Day has dawned, so I need to make a good start on that. I also need to factor in how I'm gping to fit in today's 30-day step challenge (8000 steps) when I have so many desk-based tasks to do & the forecast is set for rain.
Where there's a will, there's a way....as my Mum was fond of saying...... 
Coffee first, 
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

It's very difficult to fit in more than 4,000 steps if you don't leave the house. Gardening helps though as you seem to move around a lot more.

foxgloves

Yes, you are right, HHoD, although I do find that having quite a long garden helps on days when I'm not too far behind on my steps target. It's about 135 feet long & I find that setting off from the wall of the house right to the bottom of the garden & back (involves a couple of wiggles as path not straight & I need to go round back of veggie beds & apple tree) comes to roughly 200 steps for me. I'm quite short, just a touch over 5'3" so I don't have a very long stride. So if I get to the end of the afternoon & my steps are still short of my daily target, I can do a few lengths of the garden - even better if I can do a job at the same time, such as emptying kitchen compost bin or taking something down to the shed - & it can top my steps up nicely because 10 brisk up & downs is about 1000 steps. I'm always amazed how quickly I reach my target on days when I've been into town. I do sometimes walk back to the car to drop off shopping, so I suppose that all involves extra steps. Maybe I just enjoy looking in shop windows so I don't even notice I'm doing lots of steps!
F x

foxgloves

Hello Diary readers,
Nothing remotely exciting to report today. I did all my Big Budget Day activity & had a really big filing session afterwards. There were no nasty surprises when I reconciled July's budget & setting August's didn't throw up anything of concern, I'm pleased to say. I do think we need to be pulling back the grocery spend, which has increased since the first days of the Covid19-induced shortages. It has been falling back this past two or three weeks, so I am hoping this decrease will continue. Although we are far from self-sufficient in home grown fruit & veg, the stuff we do grow definitely makes a difference to our food spend at this time of year. At the moment, I'm picking beans, courgettes, summer squashes, lettuce, cucumber, several different fresh herbs, spring onions & tomatoes, for instance, so I have mentioned to Mr F that I think we really do need to work on the recent more 'normal' food shops & pull back from the overspending borne largely out of shortages, needing to stock up & also having to buy more expensive brands that we would usually have chosen.
The only discrepancy I found was in the Savings Pots figures. There was exactly £25 more in the Savings Pots account than showing on the itemised spreadsheet, so it was just a case of deciding which pot to put it in. I decided to add it to the Holidays Pot. I do have the balance saved ready to pay on our (UK!) holiday later this year, but we also like to budget an amount for food & other expenses while we are there because it keeps us so much more focused than just using our cards willy-nilly, so a forgotten £25 was a nice find.
Other things today? Well, free fitness as my 30-day steps challenge target increased to 8,000 steps today, so I did a 10-min aerobics type walking video then went for a walk around the village in the afternoon. I spent a lot of time on the budget & admin but I did perform some kitchen-witchery on the leftover roast beef from yesterday. I divided it up & made beef bhuna from some of it & the rest will be used in fajhitas tomorrow. My feet ache now, so I am only intending to use my knitting muscles tonight!
Hoping everyone's had a good start to the week,
F x

Baileys_Babe

foxgloves said:

I'm quite short, just a touch over 5'3" so I don't have a very long stride. 

I always think of you as taller. I'm also 5'3".

marionmgcars

well done with the step challenge, I feel like I should charge up my Fitbit to try and be more mobile.  I finished knitting a little cardigan for my grandson, which got 3 balls used from stash.  Finished off a gorgeous pair of socks for my niece, and made some orange brandy liqueur (mok Grand Marnier) which I’ll pop in her gift bag too.  

Sayschezza

Before lockdown my friend and I walked together regularly. I'm 5'2" with a reasonable stride and she is 5'3" but takes tiny little steps which are roughly 3 steps to my 1. We have to go by mileage when we walk as counting. steps doesn't work for us.

foxgloves

Yes, Sayschezza, it does vary, doesn't it? The 'received wisdom' is that 10,000 steps equates to 5 miles, but it is definitely fewer than that for my little legs! 
F

foxgloves

Well hello Sweetpeas,
It's been a bit of a humdrum day today - perfectly ok - but it just seemed to pass so quickly & by the time I was chopping stuff ready to get dinner on the go, I felt I was still surrounded by tasks which should really have been done by now. Never mind, because there is another day tomorrow & I will catch up then. Did I actually achieve anything today? Well, I tested out my new shampoo bar (having utterly given up on the last one, which I had to re-purpose as hand soap), then took a chance on pegging out the overnight laundry in the early morning drizzle. My optimism was later rewarded with a sunny-ish & blowy day, so that was a decent start. I enjoyed a long yak to my sister & a wave to my nephew via Skype over a coffee & I finished knitting the thumb of a mitten, sewed it up & cast on its pair. I made tomorrow's packed lunch & investigated the fabric samples I requested before ordering a new blind. I got the bedroom curtain fabric out ready to compare the two swatches to see which will be the better match before discovering the company had only sent one colour as the sample in the other colour is out of stock. I wouldn't have bothered in the past, but it's a wide blind so not a cheap one & I think it is worth making absolutely sure it is the right colour before I order it to be made up. I am Mrs Sensible these days for sure!
I've achieved my daily steps target, which is 8000 all this week. I had a letter to post, so decided to walk a very circuitous route to bump up my steps & it definitely worked. This included a neighbouring street at the back of ours where 'Victor Meldrew' (who complains about us) lives - I suddenly realised I was just going past what must be his house & had fantasies of knocking on the door with a hilariously ridiculous complaint - but I regained my maturity a few steps later. It's important to 'bury the hatchet' isn't it, even though I do always tend to remember where it is buried, lol!
I said I hadn't done much, didn't I?! I haven't spent any money though, so that was good & my healthy eating has been so angelic, I may actually find when I wake up tomorrow that I have started sprouting wings.
I am intending to be very much more productive tomorrow. Oh yes......
F x