Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Tulips,
Late back from city centre last night but up early & into town for supermarket & local market butcher this morning, then back home to commence Major Decluttering of the Shed. I'm not talking about a few old pots & assorted mouse-chewings going into a bin bag level of decluttering.....this has been Mr F's long planned blitz of several large items which need to be at the tip instead of living in our shed, so we have shifted heaps of stuff & he's already loaded it into the car ready for a tip run first thing, as well as built new shelving units. I reckon I've saved us a few quid by unpacking lots of cleaning products we brought back with us when we cleared Mum's house & moving those that we will definitely use indoors to the utility room - major deep clean of house planned for when builders have finished so this haul will come in useful. (Layer of sandstone dust on everything atm).
So a day of shed action really, but have also watered veggie plant babies & pulled 1.5kg rhubarb. This is now sliced & macerating with sugar, ready for rhubarb & ginger jam making tomorrow. Also fed sourdough culture a half-feed as I haven't used it for over a week & it could do with oooomphing up before its main pre-baking feed tomorrow. 
We're both knackered from our shed clearing endeavours so I reckon we'll be sat on this sofa tonight like a couple of old crocks! I do have a birthday walnut whip leftover, however, & the gin will be coming out so the night, at least, is young.
Fab sunshine this afternoon but it's dropped chilly again now. Icy cars when I looked out of the window at 6 am today.
Wishing everyone a pleasant evening,
F x

Four_Seasons

Evening Foxgloves, its been so hot this afternoon after a very chilly morning, it was so lovely to potter in the greenhouse potting on but hear its going to be cold again next week, lets hope not.  Yesterday I ordered a couple of thermal long sleeve tee shirts and thermal leggings ready for later in the year as prices are going up and I am positive they will come in handy.  I had so many layers on yesterday I could hardly move!  The rhubarb looks delicious, I have planted a small root/bulb of rhubarb but not sure if its survived the slugs we seem to have loads of them and as we are rural and have lots of wild life I am reluctant to use pellets.
Belated birthday wishes, not sure how I missed it.  Have a lovely weekend, oh almost forgot planted my beans in a tall yoghurt pot x

foxgloves

I don't use pellets either, @Four_Seasons. We are in a village close to a rural market town & our garden is visited by lots of birds, squirrels & sometimes hedgehogs. Loads of frogs in our pond too. I just hate the thought of slugs eating pellets then being themselves eaten by hedgehogs or thrushes & the poison going further into the food chain. Someone with a corner plot in our village has planted out a long curve of 🌻🌻 which will look fab when they flower, but he's sprinkled a lot of pellets around each one, which (none of my business, I know) has taken the shine off it for me because I'm very fond of all our regular feathered visitors.
I use circles of crushed eggshells around our french beans. It doesn't entirely stop mollusc chomping but it's free & it's safe.
F

foxgloves

Hello Sunday Savers,
Such a leisurely day today, I don't know how I haven't simply come to a stop. Slept for over an hour later than usual - not like me at all. Decided to have a relaxing day as we have been busy with birthday activity then yesterday when we enacted gotterdammerung of the shed, during which Mr F seems to have 'pulled something' in his hip. So he took a car full of old shed crud to the tip first thing & has listened to music & watched a film for the rest of the day & I have changed the bedlinen ready for laundry day, made the rhubarb I prepped yesterday into rhubarb & ginger jam & have spent the rest of the day on hobbies, reading & having a bath. No spending except for an Observer, as I suddenly felt like reading a newspaper over a couple of leisurely coffees. 
Have I done anything frugal? Not really......oh, except for a tiny thing....I chopped the crystallised ginger for my jam & there was a little bit left. I weighed it to see if there was enough for my Christmas cake recipe & indeed there was, so I have wrapped it well & stored it in a little container in the pantry. It's not the cheapest ingredient when you buy a whole bag for essentially just the 30g required, so I haven't saved any cashola today, but it will be a few quid I shan't need to spend later on at a much spendier time of year. I only make this particular rhubarb & ginger jam now - recipe is from 'L*kel*nd' website. It's the best I've made - not the cheapest because of the 100g crystallised ginger but for anyone else whose rhubarb is having a bit of a moment, the main ingredient, being homegrown is free, so apart from the ginger, the only other purchases are lemons & sugar. I think this is quite a luxurious jam - the sort of thing that is on sale at insane prices in heritage gift shops - & as such, it is very good for gifting. It's also a bit nomnomnommettynom on hot buttered crumpets or a nice fresh flaky croissant. Not a chore to make at all, as I was listening to a new CD I received for my birthday & had coffee on tap. Mr F's cooking night tonight so I have only to put the plant babies to bed before settling down to finish the last couple of chapters of my book. A film, I think, tonight & maybe an episode of a Scandi crime thing we started? Greenhouse tasks planned for tomorrow - will see what the weather looks like, as today's forecast day of drizzle has not materialised.
Spring blessings for Beltane, I don't like the weather to be too hot, but I'd dearly like to see a little more sunshine to go with all the fabulous blossom,
Peace, F xx

foxgloves

Oh, I did do another teensy frugal thing - I mended Mr F's old phone case just until he can find a new one which fits.
F x

Blackcats

Happy belated birthday.  Hope you had a lovely day.  Did you get a few birthday offers from various retailers?   I got a hobby craft £5, Body shop £5 and a free main at our local carvery - oh the glamour of it all.    I've been waiting to do a body shop order so that voucher has already been used.

foxgloves

Hi @Blackcats, Yes I did! £10 from M*ns**n, which I didn't use because I'd already bought a couple of garments from elsewhere & when I do see something from there, I know I already have a loyalty voucher on my points card so don't feel I've lost anything. I also had the £5 from B*dy Sh*p & as I also received a voucher for there as a birthday gift, I put them together & treated myself to a fragrance & matching items. I don't use the hobby chain, as the city centre one nearest to us vanished but I expect it's on a retail park somewhere if I needed it.
F x

foxgloves

Morning Money Savers,
No plans for today other than to shift a few jobs before the return of the builders tomorrow. No spending required other than a pint of milk & possible packet of crumpets because I could fancy eating a couple.
So my tasks today will include 3 loads of laundry (rain forecast tomorrow & I want free drying), baking a sourdough, baking a cake, sowing sweetcorn & sorting out my (unusually) very untidy little HQ room. Will also be synchronising diaries with Mr F to check there's nothing we've forgotten for the coming week & doing birthday wrappings salvage to see what materials can be recycled into my stash. Shall start a bag of library items for return, knit some of the purple sock I cast on at the weekend & that will be about it, I think. Sourdough already proving, first laundry load churning so I'm off to line cake tins.
Enjoy your BH, all.
F x

Humdinger1

'Gotterdamerung of the shed' is now my go-to phrase @foxgloves.  I've always previously associated the first word with the twilight of the gods, grand opera - but it's a darn good all-round description for so many things.  I do also think you've captured the energy tied up in so many abandoned items and the hopes we once invested in them.  It's also sent me scrabbling for my copy of American Gods by Neil Gaiman.  A fascinating book, one in many ways relevant to our journey on here as it looks at what happens to gods when people stop believing in them.  Thank you again; as ever, your diary swings from the existential to the practical.   Love Humdinger xx 

foxgloves

Lol, @Humdinger1 - Yes, a fabulously Wagnerian word, but also strangely appropriate for an evil old shed which has been blitzed to within an inch of its life, reborn & as you say, wreathed in new energy for its new useful future!
Mr F & I are nothing if not drama queens with our choice of language (even concerning sheds!)
F