Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

@MissRikkiC - Yes, I can sympathise, We are both keen veggie growers but also garden v much for wildlife & the two are sometimes not a good mix! We get around the nibbling (& downright scoffing) by covering the vulnerable stuff with netting or enviromesh.

@Baileys_Babe -You're welcome!

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foxgloves

Morning Monday Frugalistas, Oh & I HAVE been a proper old-style frugalista today. I bet my Nan had Monday mornings like this when she was running her home in the 1930s & 40s! I haven't got a sausage perm to go with it though!
Money saving stuff achieved so far today is:
*Baked a sourdough loaf
*Set about yesterday's leftover roast pork loin & divvied it up for hot pork cobs & apple sauce tonight, sweet & sour stir-fry tomorrow, the next Epic Man Stew (Oh my days, these are nothing to do with me.....) & also froze a container of diced meat to make a chinese-style fried rice next week.
*Two loads of laundry done on lowest appropriate temperatures & line dried outside for free.
*Did my regular Monday morning budget updates including grocery budget, Personal Spends, a few transfers of funds & Home Improvements accounts.
*Opened & checked click & collect order, annotated the delivery notes as to which budget pots to use & salvaged 3 large plastic bags & a big card board box for an occasion where we need them.
*Today's garden pickings - 3 more cucumbers, courgettes, 1.5 lbs strawberries, a lettuce & a bunch of coriander.
*Made double portion at lunchtime so as to do tomorrow's packed lunch salad box as well.
*Labelled the hot chilli sauce I made the other day & packed the jars away in the pantry to mellow.
*Did next week's meal plans early because I need to know I'm prioritising our home grown produce as it comes ready.
*Entered a competition.
*Recycled an elderly bed sheet into a free dust sheet. Mr F is making noises about painting bathroom ceiling & conservatory so that will mean covering stuff up. He is a good painter & quick, but he can't half spread it around!
Well, I think it's time for a cup of tea & then I might make some chunky coleslaw. Wish I'd made some last week, then I wouldn't have had bendy carrots (though they did get prepped & frozen, v little food waste here as it does my head in. I struggle not to throw things at the TV when those programmes are on about people who are always binning perfectly good food!)
Right, that's me done. I need to do some greenhouse jobs but don't fancy getting slarmed in green tomato dye at the moment, so it can wait till tomorrow.
Cheers,
F x

Blackcats

My oh my - you've had a productive Monday! 

foxgloves

Yes, @Blackcats, it did feel nicely productive. I think today's planned efforts are going to be stymied, as I've just seen the weather forecast. I'd like to spend these rainy days getting on with sewing the two new curtains for the landing, but I shan't know exactly where the curtain poles will be until the decorating is done, so it makes sense to wait. I think I will just spend today generally catching up with a few things/projects.
F x

MissRikkiC

What a monday F, i love all those old style things! We often take them for granted i find however they really do help in the long run!

This morning i went out to check the veg and alas there were 2 huge slugs the size of a giants big toe! So i have taken your recommendation on board and transplanted 5 of the lettuces (2 indoors) and will be watching carefully. Ive popped some chip stone around the base of the planters and the other grow bag the cucumbers and tomatoes in and theyre staying well clear of those so maybe i need to add the chip stone to (a light scattering) to the other bag....Hmm

Hazelnutty

oh my goodness foxgloves I need a sit down just reading about your productive day! Love hearing about your old style frugalising

foxgloves

Lol @Hazelnutty - I had most of my old-style skills back in the Spendy Decades, I just didn't use them. Or when I did, they were hugely outweighed by the amount of constant silly frittering that was going on.

@MissRikkiC - Two or three of those huge slugs can put away a serious amount of veg. Can remember years ago when I lived at my old house. We were sitting out one night on our garden bench & I said 'Shhhh, what's that noise?' We listened & coming from somewhere just behind me, we could hear a continuous rasping sound. Mr F said 'I think I know what it is'. He went in & fetched a torch & sure enough, there was a humungous slug scoffing its way through, of all things, a tulip leaf! You'd think they'd be too tough, but no. He wasn't remotely bothered about his antics being illuminated, just carried on. Watch out for those big garden snails too. They are very good at hiding under the rims of exactly the sort of large pots & troughs people like to grow their salad leaves in. Despite this, I'd still have to say that sparrows are the most destructive pest in our current garden. I encourage them in on one hand with all the nuts & seed mix I buy, then get cross with them on the other because of such unacceptable levels of feathered ingratitude!
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foxgloves

Greetings Tuesday Pence Warriors! Not such a productive day for me today. I did start off pretty well, but then my sis-in-law & her husband pinged me to see if they could call over for coffee & I wasn't going to turn down the chance of a good catch-up over some caffeine after 18 months of hardly seeing anybody, was I? It was good to see them, it really was & for morale too, as sissy-in-law hadn't seen my new hairstyle & she said "Ooooh, THAT'S sexy hair!!" Well, I don't know if it is or it isn't, but as I had got up feeling like a bit of a lump this morning, it was good to hear, lol! Before they arrived, I did manage to change the bed linen, launder the old & peg it out but it will have to go back out in a minute as it got showered on midday. I am determined not to pay to dry laundry at this time of year. Also pulled another 1.3kg of rhubarb -I think someone has snuck in one night during Spring & implanted a trffid gene in it as it is still going crazy with no sign of giving up any time yet! I have cooked it down into compote - 3 for the freezer & a bowl for the fridge. It will stretch our fresh fruit supplies a bit longer. I am just about to make tomorrow's packed lunch & start chopping veg for tonight's meal. It will give me a chance to have a look for anything that needs using up. 
I need to have a big push on my bedspread squares this week. I am sooooooo nearly there - just 6 more dark pink ones (which have a textured spiral design) then 4 colour-to-be-decided-but-probably-neutral-or-pale-grey ones for the corners to make it up to the required total of 12 x 12 rows & 144 squares. Sewing it together will be a boring pita but I am looking forward to using it in the colder months as it will look lovely in our newly refurbed bedroom. Then I shall need to get into my stash for all the lovely sock yarn I have put away for knitting presents. I have usually knitted at least a couple of pairs for popping away in the Christmas present stash bag by now. Never mind, socks are a very portable project & I can (& do!) knit them anywhere. 
Right, must crack on m'dears,
F x

LateLearner22

Hi @foxgloves, I've just popped in to say how much i'm enjoying your ramblings, I started at the beginning so I've got a long way to go (just got on to p55), but have picked up so many clever ideas from your diary, and I'm trying to put them into practice as I find them (that's my first new resolution) instead of just saying "that's a clever idea" and doing nothing 🤣🤣

foxgloves

Hello @LateLearner22 & welcome! We positively welcome contributions & discussions on here. If your MSE name refers to coming to budgeting good money sense rather later than you'd have liked, then you're in good company, as I was a silly debt-ridden fritterer from the age of 19 when I arrived at a shiny big city from bumpkin land & discovered the joy of stuff! Actually, I arrived at 18, but I spent the first two terms of uni burning through my savings so holding off the start of the debt for a few months. I was 46 when the past 2 or 3 years of budgeting came together & we were able to get rid of the last bit of our debt. I am quite simply never going that route at all & like so many of us on here, I now very much enjoy a simpler more secure life. Anyway, do chip in whenever you feel like it. I always read comments.
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