Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

@Deni_debt-free_dreamer - Sounds like a perfect quick pizza to me! I love mozzarella.

@2Scratters - I honestly think that planning is everything when debt-busting. We've maintained pretty much the same levels of planning because although we now have zero debt, we want to stay that way & be able to save as well. I know where I am with a meal plan. I think we also eat a wider range of tasty food as more effort goes in at the planning stages. And the knock-on effect of that is that take-aways are not so tempting if the planned meals sound inviting & tasty. I'm sure you'll find that regular meal planning saves a decent amount of money.
F

foxgloves

Morning Sunbeams,
A long day by myself today as Mr F is on one of his occasional ridiculously long shifts & he won't be home till bedtime. I have cat company though. Ash is snoozing off his breakfast & Soot is hanging around in the hope of some biscuits. I'm not sure which of them was responsible for the dead baby mouse on the doorstep, but Soot definitely wanted the credit.
Cracking on well with tasks today. So far have done my mid-month budget check-in & (stands back in amazement, hair stands on end, as we used to say sarcastically in about Year 8!), my figures are smack on to the nearest penny where they should be. I've warned Mr F that while we have sufficient grocery budget left to cover the remaining 2 weeks in my budget cycle, getting the red mist over BBQ items could undo us, & I also expect some money leftover to via to our savings pots. He says he's fine with that.....we'll see how his resolve holds up when he's standing in front of BBQ displays at the butcher's!
Have also made bread dough - for rolls & red onion/rosemary topped focaccia. We need a picnic tomorrow to avoid 2 eating-out spends so I will use some for that. Clean laundry sorted followed by a small amount of ironing. 
Garden maintenance this afternoon - mostly veggie garden as I am wanting to maximise food crops. I need to water everything & feed fruiting plants. All 19 tomato plants now have baby tomatoes growing, the 'fuego' chillies are doing well with some pretty big chillies already (I must remember to harvest some to freeze at the green stage as recipes often specify a green chilli) & there are several tiny cucumbers forming. Strawberries still fruiting & will need feeding too. We shared a big bowlful last night & it looks as though they will be ready for another pick on Thursday.
It will be film or find-a-new-box-set time for me & the cats tonight. Whatever I watch, I will be knitting as I still haven't finished the 2nd hiking sock for the presents stash. As they are a present for Mr F, I can only knit them when he isn't here & I don't sit around much in the daytime. 
I can really feel that I have stepped up a gear with the budgeting/money saving behaviour, driven by a combination of the toxic UK economic situation plus hope for our future plans when Mr F retires (which isn't anytime yet, I hasten to add!) I think it is also a reaction to having spent such a lot of money on our home renovations over the past couple of years - all planned, all budgeted for & nothing on credit, but it has been a spendy old time & I'm ready to pull our horns in & to recalibrate. 
Caffiene is calling.......treat yourselves kindly today.
F x

EssexHebridean

Yes - there's no doubt in my mind that any sort of renovation project spending always seems to motivate the kick up the backside mentality to a greater degree - something to do with trying to "offset" the spending at least a bit, perhaps? We're in a similar mode at the moment while we're trying to progress the hallways project forwards - trying to look at where others savings/reductions can be made to feel we're at least trying to balance things out again. of course actually getting the hallway done should in itself gain us a small energy saving next winter as the newly floored hallway will be more energy efficient than what we had through last winter, at least! 

foxgloves

Yes, I think that's what it is, @EH.....trying to offset at least in my head what has been two years of high expenditure. The house badly needed upgrading - we knew it was a long term doer-upper when we bought it nearly 20 years ago & this last big programme of work has finally got it where it needs to be to be a financial asset going forwards.
Also, as I project-managed it all on the financial side of things, I got used to dealing in much larger sums of money & seeing bigger balances on our account. I think having the refurbishment lump sum there to facilitate paying people gave me a bit of a false sense of security tbh. Now it has been spent on the work & the remaining bit put into savings, I don't have the thought of it in our account to fall back on so after 2 years, it's probably contributing to my current revisiting of small good money habits & behaviours.
Hope you get your hallway project up & running. Always worth taking plenty of time to plan & try to design out any little problems & snags.
F 

foxgloves

Heading out later & determined to take our planned picnic to cut costs. It was worth putting in the small effort it took yesterday to bake some rolls & red onion & rosemary cheat's focaccia bread. I've cut that into small squares -easy to wrap & can freeze the rest. Mr F says he's making a flask of coffee too.
Anyway, I must crack on, keep your hands on your pence, m'dears. Pennies saved add up into ££s as we all know.
F x

Suffolk_lass

Would you be willing to share your cheat's Focaccia recipe please? I shall be baking (cakes) tomorrow for Saturday's club hog-roast and we do bake some bread - DH is really the bread man after I sent him on a birthday-gift one day course with the local artisan baker.

I was thinking I could persuade him to start something today as I have plenty of (ready chomped by rosemary beetle) rosemary and red onions. I'll also be doing a small pot of quick pickled red onions as part of our range of salads, along with potato and hm coleslaw

foxgloves

Hi @Suffolk_lass, There isn't really a recipe as such because it's my cheat's version..I just make up a batch of white bread dough as usual (500g flour) making sure I've put 2 tbsp olive oil into the mixture (or cold-pressed rapeseed on this occasion as that's what I've got). Prove as normal then knead & press into a baking tin (the sort of size you'd use for a tray-bake). Prove again. When risen, jab your fingers into it all over, quite hard to make some hollows & texture. Sprinkle on finely chopped red onion & rosemary (or whatever), drizzle quite generously with oil, sprinkle lightly with seasalt flakes/crystals & bake at Gas 7 . Time depends on oven but takes around 30 mins-ish in ours. Tip out, cool it enough to cut then slice into squares. Freezes well. 
Hope this helps,
F x

foxgloves

Hello Sunny Savers,
Late home last night after a trip to the opera, so as Mr F now has a few days off, we're having quite a relaxing day today. He suggested dividing labours to get our chores done more quickly, so he went off to the supermarket with the list (meal plan finished over breakfast) while I started the cleaning. He also vacuumed when he got back, though the moans about being back to using Mum's ancient Dys*n are back with a vengeance & he apparently has no recollection of agreeing that we'd use that till it blows, THEN buy a new one. Hmmm. Think this might be a battle of wills, but I've said I intend to build up the Appliances Replacement Pot before we raid it for another item.
Fabulous sunshine here but thankfully not too hot - the swifts are swooping & soaring, the tadpoles have their back legs & tiny feet, the allium christophii I bought a few months ago from the plant hospital shelf at a garden centre is fully flowering - I admire nature's perfection every time I walk past it.
Have just spent an hour or so harvesting a few herbs. Is there anything more gloriously witchy than cutting a big basket of herbs & sitting barefoot on the warm grass tying them into bunches for drying? Sage, oregano, winter savoury & thyme now hanging from kitchen beam ready for adding to winter soups, stews & roasts.
If anyone has space for an additional herb & has never grown winter savoury, I can recommend it. It's a perennial so it returns every year (unlike summer savoury which I believe is an annual). It's quite low-growing so it doesn't take up much space & it dries very well. I use it a lot in cooking & particularly like to include it in home made beefburgers. It adds a savoury note which is autumnal but not quite thyme, rosemary or sage. 
It's my cooking night - Thai-spiced seabass on noodles (from PON cookbook) - so Mr F says he'll do tonight's weekly veggie garden feeding. So some time with book - currently reading 'The Six loves of Billy Binns' from the library. Finding it funny & quite sad in equal measures.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams.....or exhausted over-hot heaps, if you are like me & wilt in very hot weather!
A few money saving wins today....had my hair cut - I don't know how my salon in town manage to do such a nice cut for just £10, but they do & it feels nice to have the choppy layers put back into my bob & much tidier. Bought this week's meat & greengrocery from the local market. Picked another big bowl of homegrown strawberries.
The most useful thing on the financial front however was notification that our smart meter problem has been fixed. It is back in communication with the Tentacled Ones & I was told to expect a statement imminently. It did arrive shortly afterwards & although it is a little difficult to compare because it's not a usual 1-month billing period, I can see that our credit balance is increasing & if I don't request a rebate, will probably be £500+ by this time next month. Because of this, our monthly DD has not been increased at all. I'm in a bit of a bind now over what to do for the best. On one hand I think that's our money. We have been over-paying because the change of energy use since swapping from our old electric storage heating to gas central heating in autumn 2020 hasn't properly found its way into the charging algorithm. It's our money. I could find a good use for it in our savings accounts rather than theirs & that's without factoring in the cost of living payment which will be hitting our energy accounts in October. 
On the other hand, once we turn the heating back on in the Autumn & have our stove lit on chillier evenings, heated airer use when it's not drying weather, etc, plus the price cap rises again, I suspect that credit balance will start being chomped into pretty steadily. Then there's talk of another cap rise in January....I really am torn between "Oh come on, you have far too much of our cashola!" & 'Let's just leave it there & see how long we can go without a monthly DD increase". 
I'm very grateful we have a big credit balance, please don't think I'm in any way moaning.....it's just that pull between extracting our money & balancing that with greater winter security re bills. You know, I've yakked on about this at length & I reckon I'll still end up leaving the money there & monitoring it as we head into winter. What would you do, O Wise Ones?
Hope you're all slarming on the sunscreen & staying hydrated.
Take care now,
F xx

Cheery_Daff

Hmm, tricky. I would probably leave it where it is (thinking that sometimes rocking the admin boat isn't worth it...) but also reduce the DD for now so it didn't build TOO far up.

(Actually, in reality, I can be pretty idle so I may well do nothing at all... 😂😂)