Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Pixiehouse55

Hope you are feeling better after your vaccine now foxgloves. Is this your 1st one? You now have to still keep safe for 22 days then. We have our second one on April 7th.
Not a lot happening here. Ive got over the fall on the beach so not so much back pain now. John back on liquidised food, goes in again next Wednesday for another Dialation.  I'm keeping busy with knitting and sewing. Need to go out and check on my fuchsias soon.
Stay safe and take care X 

foxgloves

@ladyholly - Oh dear, that was an expensive garden centre trip. I was surprised at you finding all those franchises open at the garden centre. Seems very unfair on non-essential high street shops which have had to shut.
@carolbee - I have tried to sow a bit less this year. I used to take my Mum some bedding plants but even when she died, I still sowed plenty of extra for my sister & to swap with my best friend. Not seeing anyone has been tricky for offloading my surplus plants, so I am reigning it in a little & sowing what I can use.
F x

ladyholly

I was really shocked the franchises were open. The pond is done so now I have to start on sorting out the rest of the garden. I am glad its not very big as I am a fair weather, very amateur gardener.

foxgloves

@HairyHandofDartmoor & @Pixiehouse55 - Yes, I am feeling back to normal now, apart from my arm, which is still sore.
Yes, it was my 1st dose. My next one is at the end of May. I am not relaxing my Covid safety precautions at all. I know I can still get it, even after the three weeks & the 2nd dose, because nothing is 100% successful, but if this happens, the severity of the disease should be a lot less. You know, I think it's going to be a long old time before many of us let our guard down.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Daffodils,
Busy day so far, but 'useful busy' rather than faffing around. Went into town for the market where we got all our fresh fruit & veg (fresh produce has defo gone up. Routinely spending £23 to £25 a week now, where it used to be £16 to £18 pre-pandemic & pre-Brexit). Also bought bird food, remembered to withdraw cash for paying workman if he appears, went to the butcher's & called in at village garden centre for potting compost & more pepper seeds.
Mr F also had his Covid jab this morning.
A useful garden session this afternoon. Mr F continued removing problem ivy & I re-sowed peppers (1st sowing failed as old seed), sowed chard, watered all my greenhouse seedlings, litter-picked & set the worm composter up for the year. There was a tray of compost ready so I distributed that around a flowerbed, before starting off a new layer with plenty of bedding (shredded old payslips!) I also added a scoop of additional composting worms from our ordinary compost bins to widen the wriggly gene pool.
Mr F's cooking night. He is making tuna chipotle wedge melt, which may have originally been a Waitr*se recipe, I can't remember, but it is easy & tasty for a Saturday night. Intend to finish my library book now & continue watching 'Nordic Murders' later.
Take care, m'dears.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Frugal Friends,
It's quite chilly here today, but there has been some very welcome sunshine & I was able to do my greenhouse jobs without my coat. I've potted up my tomato seedlings, bottle cloched them & also moved all my baby chilli plants down to the greenhouse. I potted up aubergines too, but as they can get distinctly sniffy if it's too cold, I brought them back into the conservatory for another week. I watered all my seedlings & started decluttering my shelves in the shed. I also did a big laundry load of towels, household linens, etc, & pegged them out, as I really don't want to be paying to dry washing now that there will be some viable pegging out days. I've shopped two items from home today - one was a spray bottle - I meant to buy one in town yesterday but didn't get a chance to have a proper look as had to meet Mr F from his Covid jab (he has got a bit fainty in the past with needles, but he is usually fine these days). I'm glad I didn't buy one, as I found a recycled one in the shed I had completely forgotten I'd even saved. I'd also intended to see if our village garden centre had any horticultural fleece in stock as ours is years old & has lost its integrity....full of holes, etc, but I then remembered an old sheet I was intending to cut up for cleaning rags. It is going to stay in one piece & I will use it to cover my veggie plant babies in the greenhouse overnight until the weather warms up a bit more. I shall still need to buy some new insect mesh, but that's a different thing & it will obviously save money to buy a length of just one product instead of two.
Other stuff: Have completed the Census, asked Mr F about a weird techy problem on our budget spreadsheet, finished reading my library book & tidied. Mr F has been de-scaling things......the coffee machine looks brand new as he cleaned it all out too. He has also made up some eco algae-busting solution & sprayed a test area of our courtyard & is planning to cook a roast dinner. You know, I am so glad he hasn't suffered any vaccination side effects, but at the same time, I can't help but wonder why it is so random. My side effects kicked in after 24 hours & while I only felt grotty for the next day, I still have a sore arm 6 days later. Mr F not only has no side effects whatsoever, he can't even feel any tenderness on his arm where the jab went in! Of course, he is now convinced he is made of special stuff.
OK, shall wish you all a pleasant evening & go & find some socks.....my feet are chilly & I have no intention of lighting the stove just yet. Am convinced there is an monthly direct debit reduction waiting in the wings if we can just keep things tight on not wasting energy.
Cheers m'dears,
F xx

Onebrokelady

Sometimes the side effects are a bit delayed so Mr F might still get some, of course I hope he doesn't but just thought I'd warn you. 

foxgloves

Thanks, OBL. I did wonder if this might happen, but he's actually just phoned me & was still sounding distinctly bright-eyed & bushy-tailed. He has the constitution of an ox (built like one too, lol!)
F x

foxgloves

Hello m'dears,
Hope you've all got off to a decent start to the week. Decorator rocked up at 7.50 & I think he must have had intravenous caffiene for his breakfast, as he over-coated the woodwork, re-furbed the door, fitted a curtain rail & did some other little finishing-off jobs & declared the first room finished by 10.15! It looks lovely. Will deal with the invoice/budget update tomorrow morning & also peruse his quote for doing the next room. 
I'd like to say I haven't spent any money today but it would be one fat lie. As it will be another Easter without seeing family, we have decided to exchange small gifts (one each), so I decided that as I will ideally want to be posting this parcel off to London at the weekend, I'd better order said chocolatey gifts on click & collect. Was shocked to see they came to £60, but then I remembered I'd got £30 of vouchers, so I threw those at the total & it came down to a much more acceptable amount. 
Other stuff - Well, very Monday-like routine stuff: 2 loads of laundry pegged out & dried for free, read energy meters & uploaded, tended vegetable seedlings, divvied up yesterday's leftover roast pork (enough for hot pork cobs & apple sauce tonight, a curry tomorrow & an Epic Man Stew at some point), fed & watered all the conservatory plants so that they all look lush in a few weeks & I don't get garden-centre-temptation, baked a multi-seed loaf, did a survey & dealt with our Grimsby fish box when it arrived. All now cut up & frozen. Finished one bedspread square & cast on another. I feel more motivated to crack on with it now I have a date for the decorator making a start on the main bedroom. Have curtains to make too.
Not the most exciting of days, but it's been sunny, I've been busy & in a positive mood. Arm still sore after a whole week! It is getting less though, & is decidedly better than bloody Covid!
Chins up! And keep your pence in your purses.
Cheers, F x

foxgloves

Morning Money Savers,
Useful day so far.....no money spent & have been out for a teensy bike ride for some fresh air. Have done Monday morning's budget updates - yes, I am fully cognisant of the fact that it's Tuesday, but I wanted to be able to include the decorator's fist invoice, which I received last night. I have also perused his quote for the next room (main bedroom) & booked him to start work on it after Easter.
I am now going to drone on about energy bills, so do skip to the bit that says 'Bye, Love from Foxgloves x' if you think this is going to be as tedious as it sounds (it will be!). Right, so I uploaded our meter readings yesterday & received March's statement almost immediately afterwards (that's one useful thing about the 8-tentacled provider.....). Our energy account (elec & gas combined) is currently £180 in credit. I've been keeping a nerdy log of charges since we switched on the new central heating at the beginning of October last year. We currently pay £102 per month dd, but this figure is based on our old electric heating. From looking at usage charges from October 2020 to March 2021, it has only been Dec, Jan & Feb that we used more than our dd's worth. (Dec £109.57, Jan £136.06 & Feb £133.83) During March we have used a lot less. So my reckoning is that as usage will continue to fall away - GCH will almost certainly be switched off at the end of this month - we will start to build up the sort of surplus which should trigger a dd reduction. If this doesn't happen, I will chase it. It will help to offset other payments which have risen i.e Council Tax.....although oddly, our water bill has decreased very slightly (I mean, extremely slightly, but still most unusual, not sure what's come over them tbh!) & I don't think we can deny that food prices are definitely rising, especially fresh fruit & veg, which I guess could be down to climatic reasons in those countries which supply a lot of our produce or brexitty reasons. So I am hoping for an energy dd reduction sooner rather than later. If it is a reasonable amount, I would also consider adding a portion of it to our Regular Savings s/o as I am very motivated by saving atm......it's the thought of living near the sea.....& the only way it's going to happen it for us to build up a bridging fund between the sale price we are likely to get for our house here & what we will need to shell out for a downsize where we want to go. 
OK, next task is digging out the curry recipe I have put on our meal plan for tonight, then thinking about a creative meal plan for next week, as our grocery budget is £20 lower than I'd have liked for this final shop of March's budget. Yeah, I could sub it from the account, but what have I just said about prioritising savings? All 'subs' have to be accounted for......they don't come from a magic purse. And they add up, too. 
Cheers m'dears,
Love F xx