Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Welcome @MissRikkiC. We do like a bit of chat on here.
F

QueenJess

Just dropped in to say hi.  I generally hang out on the mortgage free wannabe and old style boards, but found your diary by accident through an MSE mystery tour one night!

I am reading from the beginning and so am woefully behind, but I am enjoying your tales of cooking and gardening.  I love to cook when I can and am always looking for inspiration.  I'm also a very new gardener and so am happy to pick up tips.

Anyway, thanks for your diary.  I am awake most the night every night with a naughty 2.5 month old and reading your diary at night whilst holding her is keeping me sane at the moment!

foxgloves

Hello @QueenJess & welcome. Glad my diary is helping to entertain you during those tiring nights up with your new Tiny. To think my ramblings about the Spendy Decades are assisting anyone to keep their sanity made me smile. Quite a few people seem to be taking up gardening, which is lovely to hear as it can be really beneficial both to our mental & physical health, our diets if we are growing food & also the environment. Contributions always welcome on here.
F

QueenJess

foxgloves said:

Hello @QueenJess & welcome. Glad my diary is helping to entertain you during those tiring nights up with your new Tiny. To think my ramblings about the Spendy Decades are assisting anyone to keep their sanity made me smile. Quite a few people seem to be taking up gardening, which is lovely to hear as it can be really beneficial both to our mental & physical health, our diets if we are growing food & also the environment. Contributions always welcome on here.
F

I started gardening 6 years ago when I bought a house, but only started growing veg a couple of years ago (I already had fruit growing from the start). But I have no idea what I am doing and am very slowly assimilating knowledge!

Fruit seems to be fine in my garden (blueberries, red currants, gooseberries, strawberries, blackberries, apples, pears and rhubarb)  and I'm to get my head around veg now (and raspberries).

If you're not careful you can spend a fortune on gardening! Just realised the folly of that last year...

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams,
Busy day & have achieved a fair amount, although not as much as I had hoped because I unexpectedly had to deal with a potentially positive chapter of The Frog.....yes, the one I keep swallowing but keeps popping back up. Aaaaghhhh! Anyway, spoked to trusted person this afternoon & am awaiting a 'yes, I can help' or a 'no, I can't' early next week all being well.
Anyway....achievements (no money spent today so that should be the first one):
Cleaned whole house, though had to sweep the final room (conservatory) because the vacuum carked it. Thankfully I can shop a replacement from home as Mum gave me her Dys*n cylinder a few years ago when it became too heavy for her. It just needs fishing out of the loft by the Loftgoer General (i.e not me!)
Changed all household linens, swapped to summer weight duvet - sharing a bed with Mr F is like sleeping with a central heating boiler - (as in great in winter!) Washed winter duvet in bath, treading it like grapes. I now have a much cleaner duvet & sparklingly pristine feet. It's drying in the garden, draped over dining chairs. I need to buy a new one for the guest room & had intended to bin this one & buy two, but it seems not only wasteful, but environmentally bad too, as it is filled with polyester wadding, which I am sure is basically plastic microfibres. Did a laundry load too, pegged out, drying for free.
Brightened up conservatory for free by having a big tidy & putting on a really bright summery tablecloth which I haven't used for ages. I made it years ago, white fabric with a cheery print of lime green.......limes (well they would be, wouldn't they?) Shifted a few fridge-based leftovers by eating them for lunch, during which time I also finished knitting a blanket square. Did a little bit of admin & a couple more PA surveys, but decided to postpone the sorting out of my credit card statement until Monday & do it at the same time as my mid-month budget check-in.
That, m'dears is as far as I got. I had an early appointment tomorrow to discuss the 'Frog-which-won't-stay-swallowed' situation but he was unexpectedly able to call in this afternoon so I am hoping we might be on the way to sorting it. I feel I need to remain pessimistic though, as every other time has failed. It is such a tedious saga that I haven't gone into details. It's the lengthy kind of story which had a beginning, an extremely long & protracted frustrating middle & as yet, no end. I could record it & sell downloads to insomniacs. It would have them sleeping like Rip Van Winkle before I got to February (the situation started in January) & they would stay awake too, out of sheer worry that they might wake up & have to listen to the rest of it!
Ah well, that's my day so far. Not my cooking night,so I am heading for a lovely bubble bath & hair wash so that the rest of me is as clean as my feet! I have been instructed not to try plugging the vacuum in again......I think I shocked the Beloved with the story of a Russian vacuum I owned years ago. It exploded into flame & as it went 'bang' it shot several feet into my kitchen by itself! This wasn't long after the exploding hair straighteners, so he thinks I am a bit of a nightmare around electrical faults.
Anyway, enjoy your Friday nights all of you, 
F xx

foxgloves

@QueenJess - Yes, you are too right! I used to spend ridiculous amounts of money at garden centres back in the Spendy Years. £40 or £50 each time I wanted to fill a just a couple of seasonal containers was pretty much the norm, & of course these places also have coffee shops, cake, scented candles, nice toiletries, baskets, more baskets, even more baskets, & goodness knows how much more of the stuff I used to fritter my money on back in the day. Sundays were one of my worst days for spendiness.....often a vintage fair in the morning (I like 'shabby chic') followed by coffee/lunch out at a garden centre where I would stay to do a bit of afternoon shopping. And I genuinely, I mean absolutely 100%, thought I couldn't save because I didn't earn enough!
F

Baileys_Babe

Fingers crossed @foxgloves that your froggy saga ends soon 🤞

@QueenJess liking the sound of all that fruit. We currently only grow apples and raspberries and lacklustre rhubarb, no idea why it is so pathetic we had masses of the lovely stuff at our last house.

foxgloves

Is it an older clump of rhubarb, @Baileys_Babe? If so, it might benefit from dividing. I did that with ours a couple of years ago, dug it up & chopped it in half (or rather the Resident Muscle did) & it is growing really strongly now. One clump a bit smaller because it's the one I forced with the crock for some early Spring pickings - I alternate them for this - but even that is putting on really good growth & the non-forced one is going to need harvesting again very soon - I had hoped to do it today to freeze some for winter, but I didn't get round to it with the Froggy Saga developments - I really hope it does end soon, appreciate the crossed fingers.
F x

QueenJess

I can't claim to be a gardening genius. I just threw some stuff into the garden and they seem to love it. Must be the clay soil - full of nutrients. The redcurrant bush I put in goes more mad every year and is now 5" tall and wide. The rhubarb isn't doing so well this year, but it's because it is being heavily bullied by the redcurrant bush. I shall have to move it to somewhere better this year. Weirdly the rhubarb did much better in my mum's garden and her redcurrant Bush was never as big and crazy as mine. Totally different soil though (sandy). It's all a bit of trial and error.

I only have a baby apple and pear tree (my garden isn't very big),  but they seem to fruit well. Just need them to grow a bit quicker. I also have a baby plum tree, but it doesn't seem that happy. It's younger than the other trees, so hoping it'll buck up a bit. The blackberries go totally mental in my garden, are 4m tall and are attacking the nearby trees!

I threw some raspberries in the garden last year, but failed to do anything with them due to pregnancy sickness. I am surprised to see two of them are still there and growing like mad, so am hoping I'll get some raspberries this year. The blueberry is also fruiting prolifically and I'm going to attempt to take cuttings and grow another one. It seems to like being baked to death on the patio in the full sun.

I would love to have more fruit, but just don't have the space! I will always be able to eat more than my garden can provide in fruit! I keep pondering putting more pots on the patio or a very thin border next to the patio for strawberries and herbs. Might be a bit OTT though... and will be losing more grass!

QueenJess

foxgloves said:

@QueenJess - Yes, you are too right! I used to spend ridiculous amounts of money at garden centres back in the Spendy Years. £40 or £50 each time I wanted to fill a just a couple of seasonal containers was pretty much the norm, & of course these places also have coffee shops, cake, scented candles, nice toiletries, baskets, more baskets, even more baskets, & goodness knows how much more of the stuff I used to fritter my money on back in the day. Sundays were one of my worst days for spendiness.....often a vintage fair in the morning (I like 'shabby chic') followed by coffee/lunch out at a garden centre where I would stay to do a bit of afternoon shopping. And I genuinely, I mean absolutely 100%, thought I couldn't save because I didn't earn enough!
F

I've always been good at saving, but I still spent far too much on plants. I am good these days at not buying other things I don't need - I think children just made me not want stuff anymore and even if I try I struggle to find anything I want.

This doesn't extend to plants where I can happily spend. They are all really expensive though and you can spend £50 on three plants so easily! I spent loads last year and now am on a plant detox! I've adopted some free ones from a neighbour, am planting any seeds I have in my seed box and taking cuttings of whatever I have for free gardening. If I spend, it will be thoroughly planned beforehand now.