Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Sunday Savers,
Busy pleasant day. Mr F did an early tip run while I got some gammon into the slow cooker. 
Productive garden activity - Mr F sawed the elder 'Black lace' into submission & cleared & dug over a veggie bed ready for chard & courgettes. I potted up lettuce babies, sowed sweetcorn, sorted more bedding plants for hardening off & planted out a tray each of echium 'Blue bedder' (v easy & bees love it) & calendula & 3 of cornflowers. I had leftover lettuce seedlings so have potted them up as 'cut & come again' leaves on the kitchen window sill. Also sowed more mustard & cress while I was at it.
Lots to do over the coming week & will also have the decorator here after tomorrow. Will need to put my best foot forward! 
New week here we come! Let's give it some serious welly. 
F x

scandimore

I need to have some of your energy this week Foxgloves, so much to do and little inclination!! Enjoyed reading about the oven and can understand how you're glad to see the back of it. At least you're all sensible now and If it lasted 18 years with all the cooking you do I'm sure it could have been worse. We are looking for a new cooker and notice all the big range manufacturers seem to have quite poor reviews. Interesting!

Blackcats

Sounds like a very welcome new oven purchase.  My previous oven took so long to get up to temperature - it nearly needed a day's notice of intent to use it.  Even now I'm always amazed by how quickly my current oven beeps to tell me it's hot enough.  I bought a very expensive range cooker about 20years ago in a previous house.  Goes without saying that I couldn't actually afford it, but I also added loads of extra features - pizza stone (I think the pizza stone was about £100), wok burner, custom made rail for cooking utensils.  If it was in that shiny brochure i justified to myself that I needed it.  I moved about a year later - I think I'd used the pizza stone once 🥺

foxgloves

@scandimore - Yes, the oven we originally intended to purchase had some surprisingly poor reviews (considering the manufacturer is widely associated with good quality) & we changed our minds when we kept reading that due to flimsy controls, people were finding it tricky to tell which gas no. the oven was on. I do quite a lot of baking, & while 'could be a 6 or could be a 7' might be ok for some things, it isn't sufficiently accurate for cakes, so we went back to a model we'd seen back before the pandemic but which had then gone out of stock. Still getting used to it (I've got a batch of bread rolls in as I type) but so far so good & it looks fab.

@Blackcats - Ah, range cookers. Yes, if the kitchen in my old house hadn't been tiny, I think I would have been sorely tempted in just the way you describe. No room for one here, either. Bigger kitchen, but I only have 2/3s of it fitted so as to be able to accomodate my big dresser along one of the long walls. Pizza stones.....<sighs>....at least the whole range cookers & their tempting accessories was something I wasn't able to access for space reasons. Though I was quite busy enough spending money on other things, of course.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Frugalistas,
Oh well today started well, but soon morphed into one of those days when you take a step forward followed by a definite backwards one. I won't bore you with all of these, but it culminated in this annoyance:
Had forgotten our new stove is due for servicing this month so had not budgeted for it. However, needs doing or warranty is invalidated. Had just finished my Monday budget updates - no flex in it for stove & boiler service (cheaper to have both done together). Decided to book it for end of the month so it will now defer to June's budget. Problem solved. Got up to close french doors & lock them, & could simply not get the lock to budge. Absolutely jammed. Squirted WD4* into every possible part of door mechanism. Nope! Stuck fast. Mr F was fairly confident he'd beat it into submission on his return, but he couldn't do it either. So a locksmith has been duly summoned. He thinks he knows what the problem is & he told us roughly what it will probably cost....... which is more than the gas servicing I'd just managed to defer to next month's budget. No such luck with this, as we can't have an insecure door. So I shall have to raid the relevant savings pot or redesignate it as a 'Home Improvements Budget' expense. But back in the day, this would have had to go straight on a credit card, so I should probably quit moaning & feel grateful I am able to pay. 
Several other annoyances today but I am pleased to report that I am finally on my 100th bedspread square, which means 44 more to go!
Piano time now,
F xx

foxgloves

Hi Diary readers,
Busy morning. At one point I'd got the decorator working upstairs, a locksmith in the conservatory & another workman on the front doorstep in full apology mode to arrange returning to do a fix. The locksmith confirmed that all the handles on our exterior doors are in need of replacement - they are certainly very stiff & it can be tricky to shut a couple of them. I've booked him to come back & fit new handles, so have decided to add this to the home improvements project & pay from that budget.
Got ahead with a bit of food prep - the two little hams I did in the slow cooker provided Sunday dinner with parsley sauce & veg, a ham & sweetcorn pizza yesterday, two pasta bakes (one is a spare for the freezer) & 2 lunchbox salads. I think that's a decent stretching of the £5 paid. This afternoon has been so rainy - absolute wazz-down, so I was unable to have my planned gardening session & ironed instead (bah!) I defo intend to be out in the greenhouse bright & early tomorrow.
All the paper now stripped off my little HQ room to reveal a hideous bright yellow paint...... it's even on the ceiling!
Ah well, time to knit bedspread square no. 101, which is pale grey with a textured hexagon motif. Another 6 of this colour/design needed.
Love to all,
F x

Blackcats

Goodness - your house is a hive of activity.  

I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished bedspread - probably nearly as much as you are! 

foxgloves

Yes, I'll be glad when it's finished @Blackcats, not least because I am bored with knitting squares, but also because I have some gorgeous gifted sock yarn. I am looking forward to knitting myself a couple of lovely pairs of socks. I also like to knit a few items for the presents bag over the summer -often socks, & I also purchased a pattern download for some nordic-style mittens. They are quite intricate, patterned in 4 different colours, & will make a change from squares. Never mind, finished bedspread should look good when it's finished. 
F x

foxgloves

Morning Wednesday Money Warriors,
Sooooo wanting to get out into the garden today. I am backed up with jobs out there & need to see progress. Looks to be dry this morning, so as soon as the decorator has arrived & got cracking, I am going to head to the greenhouse for some serious planty action. One of those mornings where I feel I need to see some progress. 
Chat later, 
F x

foxgloves

Hello m'dears,
Well, fresh from a hot soak in the bath before my gardening muscles siezed up. Productive day - planted out two trays of my hardier bedding plants, did a bit of weeding, potted all my chilli plants up into their final pots, potted on outdoor tomatoes, courgettes & squash. Also got everything out ready for tomorrow's jobs so I can get off to a flying start.
Dinner in slow cooker (chicken jalfrezi) & got an extra portion for the freezer. Made a batch of garlic flatbreads to use up some rather elderly yoghurt. Did meal plans for next week & wrote shopping list.
Sofa time now, knitting needles out while watching 'Sewing Bee'. 
F x