Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams, 
I'm just drinking the mug of coffee I intended to have at 2.30. Very productive day all round & that pesky 🐸 job booked in for this coming Friday. Feeling quietly confident this time. Hope I'm not effing & blinding like a navvy at the end of the week if my confident gut feeling proves wrong!
Anyway, frugal tasks today = baked bread, stretched leftover gammon as above, did garden pickings (blackberries & pears), made a big batch of pear chutney, at least two of which will be put aside for festive hampers. Laundry line dried for free in the sunshine. Flooring company phoned with quote. Very pleased with it as had thought it might be around £100 higher so have booked the work for next month.

I've borrowed  3 good books from the library recently, which as frugalistas you might like to hear about?
1) The Slow Cook Book by Heather Whinney (2018 edition). Lots of lovely recipes. Have jotted one down in my notebook to make fairly soon & am going to put this book on my Christmas list. I know I will make lots of these meals.
2) The Jam Maker's Garden by Holly Farrell. I already have lots of books on preserving so I have jotted down her sweet chilli dipping sauce recipe, but the fact that this combines growing stuff with preserving means I'm considering it as a present for my sis or my friend who has an allotment. Nice book & I think a good one for someone just getting into both. 
3) Batch (but better) by Lizzie Kamenetzky. I have only flicked through this so far but the idea is right up my alley, as it is 3 meals made from 1 recipe. Already drooling over the lamb karahi, but will review it properly from a money saving point of view when I've read it properly.
Am committed library user anyway, but I think it makes sense to borrow things like cookbooks first to make sure they will defo get the use if I decide to go ahead & buy them.
Well, time to go & fish a few colours out from my yarn stash to progress my charity stall knits. 
Cheers m'dears, 
F xx

BlueJ94

foxgloves said:

Well that's something to think about, @marionmgcars. Exciting. I was the same - too young for retirement but took VR after much soul searching when there was an opportunity amidst all the austerity cuts. 

@Deni_debt-free_dreamer - No, my heated airer isn't that £164 one. Seriously that is a LOT of money. I think mine must be the non-deluxe model which looks v similar. Honestly, I'm sure we paid £80-something but a few years ago, so they have really shot up in price. I wouldn't be without one though.i still peg out in the colder months if I can, after a double spin, then laundry often doesn't need to be on the heated airer as long. When I dried winter laundry on a normal airer in front of a radiator in the spare bedroom, it often smelled frowsty & also created black mould on the walls from the condensation. Worth the outlay on one in my opinion, but I am not sure that price rise is justified.

@jadewest94 - I find meal planning then checking stores for every item required saves money compared with the expensive random shopping we used to do when we had no idea what we were going to eat. I like Pinch of Nom. I think mine is the 2nd one. Do you have a slow cooker? That is useful too, esp as you are working. I bunged the last little gammon joint in on Sunday from the 3 for £10 deal our market butcher did us. It did gammon, roasties, peas, carrots & onion sauce on Sun, will do us some pasta tonight along with a bit of chopped veg & pesto. It will do a chunky ham sandwich for Mr F's packed  lunch tomorrow & I've chopped the rest & frozen it to go on a pizza next time I fancy making one. It can help the grocery budget no end to roll something forward for another meal. 
F x

Ooh sounds super tasty! I don't but I have a pressure cooker. OH is away for the two nights starting tomorrow so I get to eat and cook whatever I fancy as he's sooo fussy! I use the website but I might invest in the books as I like the pictures aha! I try and prep in my head what I need but usually forget, I do plan on buying a notepad or something to meal plan. I started using shopmium and checkout smart for trying out new food items usually they are 50% off, free or £1.50 off which is great. 

foxgloves

@Jellytotts - Yes, that is pretty much how I meal plan. I also roll quite a few supporting ingredients towards future meals. For instance, if I'm making stir-fry & have a large pepper, I'll cut off the top third, chop & freeze it then it will be used as part of a pizza topping or in a savoury rice or couscous. Ham stock from slow cooking a gammon will be added to lentil soup, etc.....it saves money as even if I haven't frozen a whole meal, I don't need to buy much to bring various odds & ends together to make one. 

@jadewest94 - I've never owned a pressure cooker, though I know they can reduce cooking times a lot. I use my slow cooker quite a lot & like to try out new recipes for it. My meal plans aren't as sophisticated as a notebook. I use  clean-on-one-side A4 paper, cut into thirds & fastened together into a chunky pad with an old bulldog clip. It's not a pretty look, but it does the job, lol. I write the meals in my diary once I've worked them out.
F

BlueJ94

@foxgloves it's really handy! It cooks frozen chicken in about 25 minutes, I cook it extra though just to be safe I used to have a slow cooker until I melted the button on the front so could no longer turn it on haha! ah fair enough, my dog would probably run away with the paper!

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

Hi foxgloves and friends

I used to use the library a lot as it was only up the road from where i worked.  I stopped when i changed my job and then Covid happened; good reminder to start going again.  I resent having to buy books for my 2 book groups as it gets expensive and i don't always want to keep the books.  I will go back to the library!

I've never had a slow cooker but i'm veggie so is it worth it?  Maybe i need to go to the library for a veggie slowcooker recipe book?! 

I looked up heated airers at LL and they do seem expensive...

Deni x

Tescodealqueen

Just checked the Lakel**d site and my airer and cover is 174.99. Pretty sure I paid half of that. I was shocked

foxgloves

@Deni_debt-free_dreamer - I do make some meat-free meals in my slow cooker - For instance there's a chickpea & spinach curry recipe we really like, also the black bean chilli recipe I posted a while back. I also use it for pulse-based soups, but mostly I do tend to use it for the tasty but tougher traditional cuts of meat.

@Tescodealqueen - I think mine is the airer model below that one, although not necessarily, as I didn't biy the cover. You are right that they have all shot up in price. Perhaps there isn't a lot of competition so they have a bit of a monopoly on them, I don't know.
F

foxgloves

Where on earth has today disappeared to? I truly have no idea. I had a good early start but had intended to get more done. I think the last three hours must have been magicked away by day-stealing goblins! 
Ironing, did weekly budget updates, checked refund had appeared on CC account - it has. Picked courgettes, grapes, last of the blackberries & collected up more windfall apples. Made 9 jars of blackberry & apple jam - another good thing to add to Christmas hampers. A few leftover apples so made them into apple sauce for freezing.
Looking forward to new series of GBBO tonight. Promised Mr F I'd bake a little bit of something to enjoy while we watch it. I'm a bit low on butter so I think it will have to be scones but they will be nice with some of the blackberry jam as I had a bit leftover.
Have decided to do a new household energy audit. I did one years ago with various things to action, but we have a different heating system now & are no longer Economy 7 customers, so I think a new one would be useful, esp with the scary price rises.
Ok, time to go & bake a few scones.
Take care, all. 
F x

foxgloves

Morning Campers!
Nice early morning sunshine here. I need to use up more garden produce today so I'm going to listen to my audiobook & do some batch cooking. Also intend to do meal plans for next week, write grocery shopping list, feed sourdough jar ready for baking tomorrow & then I'll see where I am time-wise. The current charity stall knitting project is taking much longer than anticipated so I would quite like to hammer it this afternoon to see if i can't move it on. Conscious I still have two presents to knit, as well as a few bits & pieces for myself and my lockdown bedspread squares to sew together.
Ok, enough yakking. Time to go & assess what fresh produce could usefully go into some batch cooking.
Have a good day all - keep your pence in your purses.
F x

foxgloves

This afternoon, somebody is coming to tackle the longstanding job/problem which turned into that ongoing & persistent 🐸 swallow. I hardly dare hope that it might actually be properly sorted out this time. Fingers crossed. We will have paid for this job twice (bit of a saga) but I don't even care about that now - just want it done. 
Our home improvements project has fallen behind but seems to be resuming again this autumn with both phases of decorator dates agreed & in the diary, plus the flooring for the back of the house. Can book carpet fitting for end of next month now I know when stairwell painting will be finished. Builders delayed on current job but am hoping they might be able to fit in our remedial work between the 2 sets of decorator dates. Then we just require one more quote - I have no idea how much it might be - from the builders to renovate our front drive/courtyard/boundaries, etc, work to be done next year. Ideally would have liked it done this autumn but there has been a complication (connected to the 🐸 problem) so will have to waot a bit longer. Need to sit down & apply latest figures to our Home Improvement Budget. I am really hoping to have a bit of money leftover to put into savings - in fact am starting to feel a bit jittery about this tbh. Ah well, no point working on any projections until I have that final quote, which means sitting down with Mr F to sketch out exactly what we want & make sure we're on the same page of the hymn book.
Naturally I am much more confident about planning the planting aspect rather than the hard landscaping!
Well that's two coffees - I'd better get cracking.
F x