Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Monday Money Savers,
Disappointing start to the day as we got up at 4.30 so as to watch the live-streamed sunrise from Stonehenge. Due to all the people who ignored the ban on visitors due to Covid & trespassed onto the site, we didn't get to see it. Ah well, toast & a bucket of coffee restored my humour a little. 
An uneventful day in terms of activities but useful on the money saving front. Have baked bread, made a batch of hot lemon chilli jam using a bag of our homegrown chillies from the freezer (at least a couple of jars will be given as festive gifts), checked & watered greenhouse veg & added £15 of JL vouchers from my credit card loyalty points to my voucher stash. Also applied myself to rubber chicken duties & have achieved a decent stretch......it did a roast dinner yesterday, will do chicken salad tonight, about 3 portions of Epic Man Stew, fajhitas & a packed lunch. Carcass broken up & frozen ready for when I have a 2nd one & will make stock in the slow cooker.
This afternoon I've done my regular Monday budget updates. Was pleased to see that we had underspent our Week 4 grocery budget sufficiently for me also to charge our city centre food from our Saturday night out to our regular grocery money. have updated our Personal Spends spreadsheet too. No point keeping records if they are not accurate. Received monthly energy statement today, so was able to update my records for that too. £175 in credit. I shall let that build up so as to have a cushion for the winter bills. I am not yet fully used to the cost implications of having changed from mostly electric to almost entirely gas heating so am reluctant to reduce our monthly payment just yet (although I did claim a rebate a while back).
And finally.......that dreaded frog. Well, it was re-swallowed for the umpteenth time last week & has so far stayed down!! After a phone conversation today, I am confident that this tedious unnecessarily dragged-out problem is going to be dealt with during the next 6 weeks (materials in short supply) so I have let the person who has been messing me about for months know that our use of their company has been terminated (it was a Foxgloves Assertiveness Level 4 - I like to save Level 5 in case I ever need to get really scary).
Well m'dears, that has been my very uneventful day, but sometimes it's just nice to get a few things done in peace & quiet, isn't it? Wishing everyone a good week ahead,
F x

foxgloves

Hello Frugal Tuesday Folk,
I've been proper old-style today. No money spent, got all this week's laundry into two big loads at 30° & dried it all outside for free. Busy in vegetable garden. Pulled another 800g rhubarb for compote, weeded the spinach & then weeded, strawed & netted the 🍓 🍓 bed against naughty beaks.
Picking a few things now - 2nd cucumber will be ready in a couple of days. Have cut watercress & rocket today, also a few small red spring onions to thin them out a bit. Also picked first courgette. Garlic ready for lifting too when we have a warm dry day. Starting to leave a few fresh things off our grocery list now as more stuff from our own garden starts to be ready. 
Need to up my productivity with bedspread squares. Am spending quite a lot of time thinking about next knitting projects. A big push & these squares could be finished in the next couple of weeks. Must crack on! 
Best wishes to all, 
F x

Baileys_Babe

I washed the majority of our laundry today and dried nearly 2 and then my neighbour lit a very smokey bonfire, very frustrating as the smoke blew across our garden so we needed to bring it in 😠

foxgloves

Hello Frugalistas,
Honestly, I do not know where today has gone. It just seems to have disappeared up its own what-not! I had lots of plans for getting stuff done today but everything has taken that bit longer than expected, Never mind, there is still tomorrow & Friday to have a burst of energy. On the money saving front, I have sorted the laundry & ironed only what really needs it. Noticed a top which needs a little mend - if I get onto that sooner rather than later, I can stop it getting worse & save a top I really like. Have done the meal plans for next week. Apart from buying some steak for the weekend, pretty much everything else is stuff we already have in the freezer, so it shouldn't be too expensive a supermarket trip. I am just about to write the shopping list.
Spent quite a lot of time looking up places that we used to visit quite often before Covid to find out exactly what is open at each site, what cafes are open, what requires booking, whether opening times have changed, etc. I think it was worth doing as Mr F has some days off next week & we really want to venture out at least a couple of times. Am reluctant to set off then find we've wasted petrol & effort as we should have booked or places are closed. And if cafes are closed, then I'd rather take a flask than drive round finding a coffee shop chain.
Only other money saving activity really today has been making tomorrow's packed lunch, using up the last of Sunday's roast chicken in some fajhitas later, slicing & freezing a pepper which isn't going to get used so that it doesn't end up on the compost & cutting some of our home grown lettuce from the garden. But every little helps in the money saving stakes, does it not, so I am not unhappy with that. Have saved quite a physical gardening job till another day as by the time I got round to it, it was too hot here to be squishing myself up into the backs of flower borders & chucking heavy wheelbarrows around.
Off to check pantry now, to see what actually needs to go on that shopping list.
F x

marionmgcars

Two weeks into the pay month and only spent under £10 on food shopping.  Delighted to be shopping from home this month.  

foxgloves

Wow, @marionmgcars, that is a seriously impressive spend! I thought we'd done well this week with our groceries coming in at £40.16! 
F

foxgloves

Big Budget Day today. Oh my life, I am totally numb in the nethers from sitting at my desk for so long! My step count will be pathetic.
Hello m'dears, I suppose one of the good things about the folk on here is that nobody is bored rigid by the details of somebody else's budgeting woes. I've mentioned before that when I do my mid-month budget check-in around the 14th, my figures are always adrift - usually by around £30 to £40. On Big Budget Day, I am very organised, check all my maths, go through each category really systematically, but have never really solved the mystery of this missing money. I kind of put it down to a transaction from that twilight period between pay-day & the 1st of the month, but when I actually looked today, there was no sign of anything like that. I couldn't see any errors in my trusty Money Book either, which means the problem must be structural. Armed with a massive coffee, decided to look at Spreadsheet 1 (regular bills/DDs, etc) in forensic detail. Oh well, stuff my old boots.....not much forensic activity needed there, I found not one but THREE errors in the spreadsheet. Two were payments which had been updated on my 'quick reference' card which I keep in my Money Book but not on the spreadsheet. As I only take the overall monthly bills total off on Budget Day, I hadn't noticed this discrepancy. So that accounted for some of the disappearing money. Then I spotted that one monthly payment - of £19-99 - wasn't on the spreadsheet at all! Well, I added them up & they came to over £32. That's it! Mystery money leakage located. I accept that there are sometimes tiny little amounts like buying a quick thank-you card & forgetting to log the purchase or a bill payment being subject to occasional variables such as mobile phone bill, but these spreadsheet discrepancies undoubtedly account for the bulk of the problem. 
Setting July's budget went fine after that. We underspent June's grocery budget - we need peaches, nuts & steak from the market tomorrow but will still have an underspend. Was really pleased to get to the end & find that I can sweep another £200 into the ISA this month. 
Budgeting & admin has taken me ages today so not much other money saving activity, although I did go online to buy a birthday present for my sister & discovered that it had been reduced by 10% since I last looked two days ago. Oh & I picked 3 cucumbers.......& it's a bit like those brooms in the 'Sorcerer's Apprentice'......there are a load more of them coming!
Defo time to stop looking at screens,
Love to all,
F x

Baileys_Babe

Pleased you have found the leak 

teapot2

Ace leak detection - bet that was so satisfying even if the bahookie was a bit sore

Hazelnutty

Good effort Foxgloves! It can be a complete nightmare tracking down the leaks lol.

I agree about those slippage days. My version happens between cc cut off on 16th and payday on 28th. I've been all focused getting the cc to cut off on target, get there and breathe a sigh of relief... that's when a little trip to town or the middle aisle of L1dl can be ruinous! I'm trying to have an NSD target for the twilight zone this month to see if it makes a difference.