Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Yes, Tescodealqueen, the filters are looking very clogged, so we will be sorting them out. The builders have all been very good at vacuuming every day before they left, but there is so much dust in the air still to settle, that our vacuum cleaner been really hammered this year.
F x

Onebrokelady

foxgloves said:

Hello Frugalistas,
A pleasant day. The last remnants of yesterday's snow had gone by first thing this morning. Went into town nice & early to get our fresh fruit & veg from the local market & posted our Christmas cards. Pottered around this morning, putting things away, annotating receipts so as to make my Monday morning budget update nice & straightforward. Mr F took the Dys*n to bits to find out why it had lost all its suction. Well, it soon wasn't a mystery. It had picked up 2 little twigs which had jammed in a curved bit of pipe from the 'foot' to the main tubing. They had formed a cross which has started to form a blockage with hoovering up my long hair. Then, the final straw.....Mr F shaved his head this week, vacuumed up all the hair & that had completely failed to get beyond the already blocked tube. The offending bird's nest was poked out with a cheap knitting needle which I've always found a bit too bendy for knitting. Perhaps it has now found its true vocation. Anyway, the upshot of this tale is that I was starting to worry about needing to buy a new vacuum - it has been sounding so awful - but it is now sorted out & I will be testing it soon with a blitz round the rooms I couldn't do yesterday.
Not a low spend day, however, as I made an executive decision to buy a new dehumidifyer, Our old one was truly ancient & held together with brown packing tape & string! It still worked, but nothing like its original efficacy. I bought it in about 1996, to try & sort out a damp area in my old house. It never did manage that because it was rising damp, but it has been really useful in our current house to keep condensation levels down. Since I got rid of it, I've been using a very small el cheapo one & although it does suck water out of the air, I feel that a small vole could achieve about as much with a straw & a tiny bucket. When I was talking to our builders about damp, he said that when they are called into people's homes to look at 'damp problems', it is almost always condensation, not 'damp' at all. In winter, when it is too cold/wet for laundry to dry outside, I always use our heated airer in the conservatory & recently, I've really noticed how bad it makes the condensation is in there. We have been working hard on improving our home, decorating, etc, & still lots more to do & I'm damned if I'm going to have black mould blobs re-appearing on the lobby ceiling, etc, after it's all been newly painted. So a new de-humidifyer has been duly ordered & I will charge it to my home improvements budget. Hopefully collecting it tomorrow. This will also be a good purchase for marital harmony, as I have been moaning a lot about condensation this week & each time I mention it, Mr F launches into an explanation of what causes it. By the third or fourth time, I really could have clumped him one around the earhole! He, in turn, was taken aback by my eventual reaction that I didn't give two sh*ts what causes it, I don't want it running down the windows & seeping into the walls every time I do the s*dding washing!!
Well, we are planning to watch a ghost story tonight, then 'Valhalla murders', then maybe a bit of comedy - we've been enjoying a re-watch of 'Early doors'. The candle arch is on in the window, the fairy lights are on over the fireplace, all I need to do now is light a candle & a few tealights. 
Hoover blockage & condensation - I know how to pull the riveting topics out of the bag, don't I?!
Be cosy,
F x

😂laughing about the vole comment 😂 my house get lots of condensation and of course it's worse in the winter when I'm drying my washing indoors, we don't get it in the living room but do in the hall and all the upstairs rooms, when I had my new windows installed they told me it would put a stop to condensation on the windows but they clearly don't know what causes it because my windows are running with it when I get up, I know it's mostly lack of ventilation so in the spare room the window is on the latch because thats where i dry  my washing ,it's sees to have solved the problem at the moment 
Which ghost story did you watch, I do love a good ghost story but nothing too scary or I can't sleep 😀

foxgloves

Hi OBL, At the moment, we are re-watching various of the classic M. R James ghost stories. I might jump out of my skin in a ghosty film if there's something designed to do just that, but I don't find they scare me enough to affect my sleep. I think I find what human beings are capable of doing to each other much more scary. If I was out after dark on my own & was contemplating a short-cut through a graveyard, for example, I wouldn't find that spooky, it would be the thought of being being jumped from behind, robbed, assaulted, etc, which would be my major fear. I don't think that being a Weirdo Magnet helps. For some reason, I have been a magnet for weirdoes for pretty much my whole adult life. People tell me it is because I look friendly, but I don't know. There have been times I've worried that they may see me as some kind of kindred spirit!
Re condensation - according to our builders, it occurs in every house, it's just a matter of how you mitigate it so that it doesn't cause problems. I always dry laundry outside if I possible can, but it is rare at this time of year, unless it's a very blowy day.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Sunday Savers,
I have done virtually no exercise today, so I really must get the increasingly ample backside moving this week. It's been a bit of a planning day, really. I got the rest of that yellow stickered lamb shoulder into the slow cooker nice & early for a big stew. Mr F says he's doing some mash & veg, so I shan't have to do anything else to it :-) 
We sat over a coffee & mince pie this morning & did meal plans from Christmas Eve through to New Year - of course we'll be quite flexible, as we will be using up our leftovers, but I wanted to make sure we got everything we need for Christmas food & drink onto a list. So we did that, then I went through & crossed out everything we don't need or actually already have in the pantry. Then I copied it onto two different lists - one for Christmas groceries which can be bought any time now & the other for fresh stuff which we will pick up as near to Christmas Eve as possible. Mr F has about £20 of nectar points from petrol purchases & as he works near a Sains*'s, says he will sort out the main list on his half day. We have about £25 of Co-op divi so have decided to use that for the wine & other bits. I bet we're all doing this, aren't we....seeing how we can cut costs a bit with vouchers, etc? Well,, we were on a roll after that, so I also emailed the dairy & changed our milk order for Christmas & wrote a list of all the things I am going to bake. I think the caffiene must have helped - my snowy Christmas robin mug seems to hold a ton of coffee!
I received a ping at lunchtime to say that the new dehumidifyer was ready to collect & we set it up straight away, as I had washed a load of towels, put them on the heated airer & the conservatory windows were already very steamy. I popped back in about an hour ago & they were completely clear! I hope this means we will get on with it. It looks so neat & modern compared to the big cumbersome one I chucked out, which I bought in the mid-1990s. I think I am lucky that one continued working for as long as it did, really, especially as I had to tie it with new string every couple of months to hold it together! I think it had become a dehumidisaurus & was long overdue for replacing.
I feel I would like to achieve a lot over the coming week so am hoping to be leaping out of bed tomorrow morning, hitting the coffee & cracking on like a good'un.
Stay cosy, m'dears & keep well,
F x

marionmgcars

It must be hoover repair week.  Ours was working ok, but stank to the high heavens.  However after googling & u-tubing it all we have ordered new filters- much cheaper than taking it to get serviced 🙂

foxgloves

marionmgcars - It feels like appliances always decide to be awkward at testing financial times of year, doesn't it? Thankfully a blimming good clear out has sorted ours, at least for now. I reckon our next thing to cark it will be the oven.....hopefully not while it's got a turkey inside!
F

foxgloves

Hello Monday Folk,
Not a lot to report today. I've done 2 loads of laundry - that's it completed for this week - & it is all on the heated airer next to new dehumidifier. It's so much nicer going into the conservatory & not finding the windows running with water. I am hoping it will continue to be a good buy.
Did my regular Monday morning budget updates, which is where the annotated receipts come in useful. Updated 'Personal Spends' spreadsheet & checked my 'just for points' credit card account to see what transactions are going to be on the statement I expect to receive this week. Had a good filing/desk-tidying session, then got on with sticking all the components of Mr F's birthday card together. Everything shopped from my craft supplies....in fact, most of those were things I was given for free, so it has been a money saving option for sure.....not that I begrudge the Beloved a bought card, of course! 
As I've already meal planned for Christmas Eve through to Jan 2nd, I've decided that when I do next week's meal plans, I'm actually going to work right through my diary & do them until 23rd. It will mean being more methodical & having a really good look at what meals I can make between now & Christmas with what we already have in store. I do still want to keep a good emergency stash for the New Year, but I also want to free up more space in the freezer ready for when I turn all those lovely turkey leftovers into meals, so I think meal planning right through the rest of the month is going to be a winner for me on several counts. I've already 'gained' a meal, as I had planned to do pasta tonight, but Mr F said there was enough cauli left for a cauliflower cheese, so he's making that to go with jacket potatoes tonight. I was going to do the extended meal plans this evening, but we need to sort out some questions for a mock interview we've promised to help a family member with tomorrow, so must put the time into that instead, so that it is hopefully a helpful experience.
Looking forward to baking my Christmas cake - I think I will aim to get the fruit into soak on Wednesday,
Hope everyone's got off to at least a reasonably decent start to the week.
F x

Blackcats

Just caught up with your diary after a busy week in real life meant that I was too tired to enjoy diaries.  It's a big fat no from me for marzipan - please could I just have a normal walnut whip?  No need to add marzipan on my account 🙄.  Did you see the walnut whip challenge on Bake Off?  That looked very complicated, although the resulting walnut whip was very large which might have made all the effort worthwhile. 

Your festive decorations sound lovely and it's a great idea to do the Christmas/twixmas meal plans.  I'm off work this week so I might take an afternoon with a nice cuppa to follow your example.

Sayschezza

I have just been through my freezer and identified meals until the end of the month. I separated vegetables into portions for the  2 of us and put them with the corresponding meat/fish. I have then used a drawer per week. The top drawer will be empty by next weekend so can be filled with Christmas stuff. OH thinks I have lost the plot but it means I know exactly what needs to be bought to complete a weeks meals. 

Onebrokelady

foxgloves said:

Hi OBL, At the moment, we are re-watching various of the classic M. R James ghost stories. I might jump out of my skin in a ghosty film if there's something designed to do just that, but I don't find they scare me enough to affect my sleep. I think I find what human beings are capable of doing to each other much more scary. If I was out after dark on my own & was contemplating a short-cut through a graveyard, for example, I wouldn't find that spooky, it would be the thought of being being jumped from behind, robbed, assaulted, etc, which would be my major fear. I don't think that being a Weirdo Magnet helps. For some reason, I have been a magnet for weirdoes for pretty much my whole adult life. People tell me it is because I look friendly, but I don't know. There have been times I've worried that they may see me as some kind of kindred spirit!
Re condensation - according to our builders, it occurs in every house, it's just a matter of how you mitigate it so that it doesn't cause problems. I always dry laundry outside if I possible can, but it is rare at this time of year, unless it's a very blowy day.
F x

I'm ok in the dark anywhere outside, when I owned my last horse I would have to go up and see to him in the evening which involved walking through woodland in the pitch black with just a torch, it never bothered me at all, but get me in a building in the dark and I am scared stiff, I've been known to go and stand outside during a power cut until the candles were located 😀 I am also a weirdo magnate especially when I'm on the bus or waiting for the bus, my poor DD is the same, I told her they sense kindred spirits 😂😂
I try to dry my laundry outside but it's just been constantly damp here since September, I can't remember the last time I was able to hang any outside, we have had some lovely windy days but they were also rainy 🙄