Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Sunday Savers,
Well, I have continued thinking about the renewed frugal headspace I seem to have found myself in & I'm pleased to say that when I had a quick post-Big Budget Day run-though with Mr F on Friday night, he was absolutely all for it, especially regarding grocery shopping. We started just mentally running through the food we currently have in the freezer & almost counted off a whole week of meals on our fingers without even needing to go & look. I explained that it isn't because we are in financial difficulty or because I have turned into a massive tightwad overnight, but because we are not quite where we need to be with the Christmas/winter birthdays pot & that underspending the grocery budget by generally upping the old-style activity & being savvy with planning & current stores is an achievable way to free up some money without hitting savings or other areas of our budget.  
So far this weekend, I have been working towards this aim & giving it more thought. Garden pickings have been good - 6 more aubergines (a smaller variety - will defo grow again), courgettes, tomatoes, a cucumber, windfall apples (made into 3 cartons of apple sauce for the freezer), chillies, a pepper & blackberries. I put in a couple of hours work in the greenhouse yesterday. Got rid of a couple of cukes which have stopped producing & re-sowed their growbag with baby salad leaves. Also sowed more rocket & potted up baby parsley plants to grow them on a bit before they go into the herb bed for our winter parsley snippings. Have also started off more mustard & cress on the kitchen windowsill & had a rummage through my seed box for any other potential winter saladdy bits which could be shopped from home. Found seeds for a romaine-type winter lettuce, radishes & some spicy red oriental leaves. Will sow both of those very soon - I so usually have at least a few winter salad bits in the greenhouse, but they do need to be sown not too much later than the coming week to ensure they get started while there is still sufficient light.
Also baked a cake to save on buying in lots of bank holiday treats & decided not to have a takeaway. Mr F decided he'd like to cook one of his favourite makes - Madhur Jaffrey's whole Indian-spiced chicken with garlic rice, so he has taken some home made courgette curry out of the freezer to serve as a 'side' & is also making a cauliflower/sweetcorn side dish from a low-fat Indian recipe book. Leftover spicy chicken will be used for a further 2 days of meals & rice & veggie sides will be used for a couple of microwaveable packed lunch mugs for the freezer. 
I think I've got Frugalitis, as tomorrow I am planning to see if I can restore an old purple handbag so as to shop a 'new' one from home. ....but for now, I need to sit & get on with my promised charity stall knitting. I am only halfway through where I wanted to be with that. Must admit it is very nice to see my leftover stash yarn being turned into saleable items to help a good cause.....just part of my hating waste, I suppose.
Right, I'm fetching my needles & seeing who I need to snog around here for a cup of tea.
Enjoy your weekends, all.
F xx

Blackcats

Well done on your frugal focus - it's fun to make it a challenge and I think we are both lucky that we can do this from choice rather than necessity.
I'm away for a UK holiday in a self catering cottage in about 3 weeks time so I'm going to try and use food from the freezer and cupboards for a few days in the run up to holiday.  I've got a list of store cupboard items to re-stock from Lidl's.  That should make my monthly spend sufficient to generate the £10 voucher.  There is something very satisfying about seeing how much I can buy with that £10.  I usually get a milk and fresh fruit and veg top up which seems like a free shop.  

I hope you found a suitable person to snog for your cuppa 😻

Sun_Addict

Great reference to Love Actually with the tea quote. I’ve obviously seen it far too many times than is good for me to recognise it 😆

I’m also in the use up freezer/store cupboard items club as both are bursting at the seams. 

crazy_cat_lady

I need some of your motivation with the food and frugality foxgloves. Send it my way please.

Pixiehouse55

@foxgloves. Thanks. I think I have the seaweed solution in the shed. I will try that tomorrow.
Looks like you've had a very productive day Mrs F. Lots of vegetables for you from your garden. How lovely. Wish I lived closer 😁
Well, we had roast beef today it was lush with all the trimmings. Should of been enough for the next 2 days. Our dog Belle saw the chance and helped herself whilst hubby went to the fridge to get the milk, leaving the kitchen door open.  Fat belly Belle now!! And no jeans for tomorrow. Apart from that a good day. I reduced all my Christmas dies and stencils down to a pound today. Sold loads. We exchanged contracts on Friday. Completion 30th September. Our choice for that date as once our people move out we have to sale our furniture etc. Getting really excited now. 
We are all doing really well at not spending arnt we? 
Mrs Foxgloves I've got lots of handbags to go to charity shop. If you lived closer you could have a few, or anyone else.
Take Care and keep safe ladies xx

Four_Seasons

Hi Foxgloves, hope everything is ok with you, missing your posts, FS x

foxgloves

@Blackcats - Yes, I am thankful that I can step up the frugality in order to boost our savings, rather than because I am struggling to feed myself or a family. I am very conscious of the fact that the two growth points over the past few years seem to have been at complete opposite ends of the spectrum - the bank balances (doubtless in tax havens) of the top 1% of the population....... & food banks. It is a disgraceful state of affairs because such extremes are a political choice Even back in the Spendy Era when I 'had no money', it was never because of genuine poverty or low income, always through my own silly overspending behaviour. 
Good idea to get things used up before your break. I am still on my use-it-up mission generally - especially toiletries - & it is very satisfying not to waste things.
F

foxgloves

@Sun_Addict - Well done on the tea-snogging spot! Yes, I am sure I too have watched that film more times than is good for me. It just about manages to stay on the right side of schmaltzy, but it is very funny in places & I'm sure I will be watching it again at some point over the festive season.
F 

foxgloves

@Pixiehouse55 - You are so busy with all your clearing & selling. It's so exciting! What a kind thought about the handbags. I think we are in very different parts of the country. I'm sure somebody will go in that charity shop & be so pleased to find a handbag. It always feels like treasure, doesn't it, when you pop in & there is something perfect waiting.
It is really quite boaty around here, so it will be funny if I am out on a walk & you go sailing by.....although I wouldn't know. I'd have to think, now......does that woman look like a Pixiehouse55, lol?

@FourSeasons - I am fine, thanks. I know lots of people say nice things about my diary & I do think it helps to keep me focussed, but I seem to have spent a lot of time recently wittering on about courgettes, etc, & as I didn't really have anything non-garden/kitchen witchery to share these past few days, I didn't bother. I am ok though, thanks for you concern.
F x

foxgloves

Afternoon Comrades,
Another day of endless greyness. It can't even be bothered to rain to save us the job of watering. 
What have I got to tell you? Well, not a lot, really. I've decided that as my dodgy ankle is a little better, I will aim to get back to a daily walk, so I've started the last 2 days with a brisk trot around the village & that's put me in good heart for cracking on with various tasks afterwards. Garden produce continues to appear. I have been picking plenty of aubergines, courgettes (there they are again!), windfall apples, tomatoes, another cucumber, chillies, lettuces, beans, spring onions, coriander & basil, & now the windfall pears are starting. I have taken down my row of outdoor tomatoes as they were showing the first signs of blight. There were plenty of fruits left on them waiting to ripen, which I didn't want to lose, so I picked them all & will ripen them on a tray in the conservatory. Sulky ones which refuse will be shut away in a brown paper bag until they accept that I am going to win the tomato ripening so they may as well just cut the bother & turn red. The plants have been cut down at soil level for the council garden bin. I'm not composting blighty stuff, domestic bins don't really get hot enough to kill it off. 
The renewed Frugal Vigour is ongoing. I've just written a grocery shopping list for next week's meals & it is quite short - it would be shorter if we didn't need 3 household items & if we hadn't almost finished eating through the pasta stash. I went to open the last packet to put it in my big jar of pasta shapes & found it was actually a big bag of pinto beans! Thinking ahead to this month's aim to have some grocery budget left over to add to the Presents/Christmas Pot, I jotted down additional meals that I know we already have in the freezer or could be made with just a small purchase or two....say a pepper or some bacon. I easily managed a list of 14 further meals & that was without really caning it on the frugality front. I know I have the skills to pull my horns in further should I need to do so. The listing process did show me that we really DO need to be 'eating up' - with the garden produce & batch cooking I'm doing with it, we are now back to freezer tetris on a daily basis.
Mr F flagged up earlier this week that he had a discount for a bookshop chain & did I need anything? I didn't, but then realised that as I had jotted down a book I want to gift to my best friend & sis, I could order those & pop them away in the presents stash. I also found a present each for another friend & a nephew. Will soon be writing my present buying list. I always find I spend less if I put about quadruple the time into thinking & planning than I do wandering around the shops or perusing random websites. 
Also on the agenda for some time next week is sorting out my wardrobe, getting out my autumn/winter clothes & trying on different combinations to see if I can come up with one or two free new outfits. I could do with a new dress. I bought one last year & should have exchanged it for the next size down but couldn't be bothered & was feeling like a fat nacker anyway. Now I'm almost 9kg lighter, it is definitely looing too big on me, so I am intending to gift it to someone who loves it & I will probably need to replace it with something that fits. Apart from that though, all I shall need to buy (I think) are some chunky black tights as the multi-pack I bought last year were quite simply the worst I've ever bought & much as I hate waste, they are on a one-way ticket to the wheelie bin. Haven't got round to restoring that handbag yet, but have found it & intend to do it this weekend. 
Well, I did say nothing exciting was going on. Off to straighten my hair now m'dears,
Hope everyone has managed as decent a week as possible,
F x