Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Baileys_Babe

Thanks for sharing @foxgloves the cake card looks even better than I imagined. I am going to squirrel away the cake card idea and use it at some point for my OH, he will appreciate it much more than a card.

Humdinger1

@foxgloves wonderful cake! Congratulations on your anniversary. 20 years has seen a lot of change, no? Love Humdinger xx 

Whatlifeis

Beautiful cake. Yum!  Would make a wonderful showstopper on Bake Off next year

foxgloves

Thanks all. Yes, he did enjoy receiving a 'card' he could eat! It easily cuts into quarters being a rectangle so it's a useful addition to lunchboxes.

@Pixiehouse55 -Well that all sounds very positive. Hope it all goes well. My Grandad worked for a boatbuilder & he was their sign-writer, so he got to finish off the boats with a fancy painted name. He made me a wooden pencil box when I moved up to the Juniors & he painted my name on the top just as he would have done on a boat. I loved it because nobody else had one.

@Humdinger1 - Yep, lots of changes over that 20 years. In financial terms, we have staged a complete reformation. Mr F could still have the potential to go a bit mad on his anorak muso & film collections, but he never overspends his monthly personal spends budget, so that keeps it nicely in check. Funnily enough, despite getting married a few years before the LBM hit me like a brick, we did not go mad with spending on our wedding. We wanted to do our own thing & didn't want anything overly fancy, frilly or plush - we only had about £2000 to spend on it (& even 20 years ago, this was a fraction of the cost of the 'average wedding') & we came out of it with about £200 leftover!! Now I'm quite sure we'd have frittered that away.....I can't remember what we did with it tbh.

@Whatlifeis - Lol, absolutely zero chance of me applying to go on GBBO. I fully admit that that I sit in my living room telling the contestants how they should be doing it, but I can be a bit of a drama queen under pressure & the bleep-o-meter would probably explode!

F

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers,
Well, as planned, I have spent all day sorting the house out & returning out of place items to where they belong. I've also made good inroads into tackling the dust & have been wielding the dyson like a woman possessed. Have also darned a sock, hemmed & pressed a skirt, re-arranged a big bookcase, put some knitted pumpkins in the window, sorted out some books for selling or for the charity shop, cleared my emails, binned some curtains, done a survey, researched a Christmas present idea, scrubbed the bathroom & changed household linens. Mr F took the grocery list with him this morning so as to call in & do the grocery shopping on his way home. Apart from putting it away & making tomorrow's packed lunch, I have decided I'm done with jobs for today. Virtually no effort required for dinner, as there was plenty left from the anniversary meal I cooked last night - Leftovers, they really are sent by angels, aren't they? I've bumped the meal plans along a day, so less to buy for the coming week.
Tomorrow (as planned as part of 'Operation Foxgloves gets back to normal') will be my Big Budget Day. There are quite a few financials to sort out, so I think I will just ensconce myself at my desk up in my HQ & stay there until it's all finished. I shall of course be 'allowed out' to fetch coffees & other sustenance from downstairs!
Hope everyone reading tonight has managed a decent day today. 
We can only 'keep on keeping on', can't we?
F x

foxgloves

Oh my life......I have only just finished number crunching & I think my brain is now running solely on the thought that Mr F is apparently bringing me a bag of jellybabies! 
Hello m'dears! There is an old Mitchell & Webb comedy sketch involving a maths quiz show in which contestants shout 'Numberwang' at seemingly random moments. I honestly feel as though I have been playing that game all day on a loop! Tbf, I did know that this Budget Day would be a fiddly one, as I intended to close the Home Improvements Budget & integrate it into our everyday budget. It just took me rather a lot longer than I anticipated as I felt it was important to ensure it all went into the correct Savings Pots. I also decided it made sense to run either one system or another instead of a muddly halfway house, so have set up another Savings Pot in which to hold the money set aside for Phase 3 of the building work. I toyed with the idea of bunging this into general savings for a few months interest, but the rates are so pitiful & it will be in there for less than a year, so I concluded that it wasn't worth the hassle. 
In addition to this, there were invoices to pay for the work carried out recently & the sofa transaction to pay off the 'Just for points' credit card now that it has arrived & we know we like it. Of course, I also did the usual monthly stuff - reconciled October's spending, checked off receipts, DDs, etc, then set November's budget. I think it is all looking OK. It's a bit of an odd month for viaments of various bits of funds. I always work everything through on paper first & I think I've got it right, but there are still those little weird oddments which pop up from time to time & unhelpfully choose not to emerge until halfway through the month.
So absolutely NOTHING interesting to tell you today.....just sums, more sums, rubbings out, working the figures a different way, etc, until finally it's done. I've baked a loaf of bread & remembered to take a tamale pie base out of the freezer for a 'free' meal tonight & I've dug out a pile of vouchers ready for our city centre trip this weekend. I'm still hoping to get some piano practice done tonight, but that sofa, tv & knitting are in my sights now & I think that's about all my little grey cells will cope with!
Enjoy your Friday night, all.
Take care,
F xx

foxgloves

Hello m'dears,
Successful city centre trip this morning. Spendy, but everything from correct Savings Pots & quite a few Christmas gifts too. Had coffee & toasted teacakes, but this always comes out of our monthly Personal Spends allowance, so does not affect our overall budget. The best bargain of the day was at that well-known emporium of the heated airers. I had 3 household items on my list I'd been unable to get locally with a voucher for 20% off one of them. We chose 4 Christmas presents too, & with another loyalty voucher of 20% off a total spend, the whole lot came to £50.& a few pence. I was pleased with that & have put the rest of the vouchers away in case they are useful for anything else.
Felt so sad seeing how many people there were sleeping in cold wet doorways - men & women, mostly quite young. It was pouring with rain too. I don't see how those sleeping bags & tents will dry out. I think next time we go (it was the smaller of our two local city centres), I might make a packed lunch so I could at least provide someone with a free meal. The levels of inequality in this country makes me so angry.
Well I had better get moving. Mr F is going to help me with a bit of a techy problem in a minute. 
Bye for now, 
F x

Pixiehouse55

a  it untidy but we are in our new home.  I will take a few more when I can. These are on my tablet. All my pics are on my mobile xx

foxgloves

Wow, @Pixiehouse55, it is going to be so lovely & cosy on your boat! Enjoy getting it all sorted out & everything unpacked. Dogs look settled already!
F x

Four_Seasons

It looks lovely pixiehouse, your furry friends definitely look settled. looking forward to hearing your adventures in your new life x