Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Oh the glamour of my life..... am slarmed in stinky pond mud...... chat later. 
F x

foxgloves

Helllloooooo!
Am I starting to get a tiny glimmer of festive feeling? I don't want to over-egg the pudding here, it's very much at the teensy sparkle stage, but we have just watched the virtual Christmas light switch-on for our town & I am now thinking that one of my target tasks for the week ahead will definitely be writing my Christmas cards. Mr F has skipped a stage & has gone off to the kitchen to make a spag bol, singing 'Frosty the Snowman'.......though he has forgotten the lyrics & appears to be singing 'Frosty the Snowman is a snowy, snowy man!' Never mind, the festive thought is there, I'm sure!
We've had a physically very busy morning, the downsides of which were 50% soggy & 50% smelly. You see, our much-loved wildlife pond had developed a leak. We couldn't attempt a repair, because although we knew the level of the hole from where the water loss stopped, we couldn't see the damaged part, so we bought a new pond liner & effectively started again. .....not quite from scratch as of course we didn't have to do the hardest part, which was digging out the original crater. It was a mizzly morning, enlivened only by our garden robin singing his ears off from the top of the pear tree, but we fortified ourselves with coffee & bacon rolls & just got on with it. It involved lifting all the surrounding flagstones, pebbles & aquatic plants, then bailing out all the water, rescuing critters as we went. Then the new liner could go in, be trimmed to size, & as re-filling got underway, we replaced the flagstones, pebbley 'beach' bit (for hedgehogs to climb out & bird bathing), plants & had a general tidy-up. We started the job at 8.55 am & finished at 2.10 pm. I can't believe we got such a big job done so quickly, but we have done it before & we are a good team when we plan properly, don't over-think things & just get on with it. 
Well, we were proper soggy when we came in, & as I was sipping my nice warming mug of home made soup, I couldn't seem to get rid of a sort of swampy smell from my nostrils........until of course, I realised it was me!! I was practically still swallowing my last mouthful of toast while running a hot bubble bath to de-pond, I am feeling a bit stiff from all the bending but am intending a lengthy sojourn on the sofa this evening - I'd like to finish my book, watch yesterday's episodes of the Scandi drama we didn't get round to seeing after all, & knit another bedspread square. Had not intended or budgeted for a new pond liner, but there is money in our House & Garden Savings Pot to cover it. Not sorting out the problem wasn't an option as I love our pond & our garden birds, frogs & assorted critters depend on it. The pleasure I get from sitting reading with a coffee on my pondside bench on a sunny day makes this expenditure doubly worthwhile. It's simple pleasures these days, isn't it?
Peace & Love,
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

What a busy day you've had Foxgloves. Sorting out the pond sounds like really hard work but definitely worth it 👏. 

I'm starting to feel a bit Christmassy now that all our decorations are up 🎄 but I couldn't face writing any cards this weekend so it will have to be done next weekend.

Does anyone else think that travelling within the five day window allowed by the goverment would be a total nightmare? I can just imagine nose to tail traffic jams for miles 😳. 

foxgloves

It was definitely worth it, HHoD, as like you, I really do like to sit out in the garden with my coffee.....even just ten minutes of fresh air, birdsong & being among green things is such a mental tonic.
It's a coincidence that you raised the issue of whether the roads will be crazy busy on those 5 days where people are allowed to mingle, as Mr F & I had been discussing that very thing. My initial thought was that while it is bound to be busy, it mightn't be as bad as usual, because not everyone will choose to spend time with their families. For instance, I haven't seen my sister since last Christmas & would love to see her & my B-i-L & nephews, but we are not meeting up because it remains safer not to do so. I think there will be plenty of people who just decide to do things differently this year to be safer.....it's only one year (hopefully) after all & as a nation, we have suffered greater privations than this. However, Mr F reckons that the roads on those 5 days will be mad, with all those who are desperate to see their relatives obviously having to travel in such a narrow window. It's not enough of a window to see some people before Christmas, some during & some at New Year, so he thinks I'm wrong, that the roads will be congested & he says he's read that the AA is already 'on it'. So I don't know. I think I'm coming to the conclusion that he could be right. I haven't been very helpful, have I?!
F x

foxgloves

Hello m'dears,
For some reason I woke at 4.30 this morning & by 5.15, there seemed little point in staying in bed when I was wide awake, so I got up, put a load of laundry on, put the heated airer up, mixed up some bread dough & got on with putting a few dates in my diary before they disappeared out of my head. Fortified with a boiled egg, toast & marmalade & two coffees, I waved Mr F off, then got on with my regular Monday morning budget check-in. If I don't do these - & they are not very exciting, so potentially easy to 'forget' - it makes for a much lengthier procedure when I do get around to it, as it isn't so fresh in my mind. At this point, I'm going to say 'Let's hear it for the good old-fashioned humble till receipt for keeping our finances straight'. I always refuse emailed receipts when given that option. I have found these are usually a means for getting customers on electronic mailing lists while pretending that it's all about saving trees. I do all my banking online, am perfectly IT literate, it isn't an old-fogey, refusenik thing, just that paper till receipts actually play quite a significant role in my budgeting process. When I have been into town or anywhere which involves spending money, I take the receipts out of my purse when I get home, & just pencil in on each one what budget it was & what actions need taking to keep everything straight. So a £30 cash withdrawal at the post office on Saturday for a nephew's Christmas gift.....the receipt would have a little pencil note saying 'X's present, transfer from Presents Pot'. The supermarket receipt from our weekly shop would say 'Update grocery tracker sheet & pay across to CC' (we always use our 'just for point' credit card for groceries & petrol) It takes me seconds to write a little note, then when I sit down on Monday morning to do my budget update, I can just whizz through the receipts & deal with them. It's a low-tech system but it works for me & I know that emailed receipts wouldn't. I want something I can write on & which has a definite point in my system at which I can throw it away. Anyway......budgets all updated  - a Monday morning job chez Foxgloves.
I've also written ALL our Christmas cards - well except for any Mr F will send to his work colleagues - I have left a couple open, as I want to enclose a letter to two friends I virtually never see - & I haven't stuck the stamps on yet, but I do have a sheet of Christmas stamps, & will aim to post everything at the weekend. 
Mr F's cooking night tonight. He made a lovely spag bol last night & made plenty of bol so that he could magic the leftovers into a chilli tonight by adding kidney beans, jalopenos, etc, so we're having that with jacket potatoes. I intend to do my piano practice shortly, then it will be knitting, reading & TV time for people with Christmas card writer's cramp!
Hope everyone is still keeping well - my youngest nephew had to have a Covid test last week, but was thankfully clear.
I'm loving the dark outside our windows tonight - don't know why - maybe it's that whole thing of we need the dark to appreciate the light.
Peace,
F x

Onebrokelady

That's such a good idea with the receipts,I do keep mine but then don't do anything with them🙄 I'm going to adopt your idea though as it will make things easier,I'm another one who doesn't like email receipts for exactly the reasons you have said, I am sure it's just a way of getting access to our emails for marketing, I did it last year with a few things thinking it was a good idea and was then swamped with loads of junk emails 😡
I also woke up at around 4ish but luckily I managed to fall back to sleep,I was very surprised to wake up feeling very energetic this morning

Baileys_Babe

Like you @foxgloves I make notes on my till receipts to say which pot the spending should be allocated to. Usually just a couple of letters/initials F = food HE = home education H = health for example. I then know if a spend has been applied to a category the cost needs to come out of the corresponding savings pot and be paid off the just for points credit card. I only bother making more detailed notes if I need to do something different from usual like splitting the cost with my sister.

When shopping all the receipts go in one section of my purse. When I get home I can easily retrieve them and quickly add my notes. I try to add my spends to the spends spreadsheet on the day they happen if I keep up with it it is quick and easy. 

foxgloves

I completely agree, BaileysBabe. So much easier to keep accounts/budgets straight if we can deal with updates straight away. If not, then little notes on receipts are even more useful.
Try it OBL..... the simplest methods are often the best. 
F x

foxgloves

Evening Frugal Friends, 
I think my posts are often too long, so am just popping on to say quickly that today looked like this: No money spent, letters written to go in with cards, all cards now stamped rtg, did the ironing, stewed big pan of rhubarb from freezer, fed sourdough jar, re-hung curtain, knitted a bit more sock (bday gift), skyped my sister, checked stored apples, tidied & received £19 Co-op dividend.
A useful, rather than exciting day. 
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

I like your long posts Foxgloves.